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HELLUO LIBRORUM
&
BOOKWORM WORDS
(I have illustrated the column with bookplates found on the internet.)
In the book plate or ex libris of our title graphic, note that the scholar has held the candle up to better see what he is reading. At the same time he has ignited his tricorne hat and will no doubt pay for his reading by being set ablaze and fatally incinerated in flames fed by his own burning body fat. A fit fate indeed for a creep who reads all the time, instead of indulging manly behaviours like drinking, doping, inseminating bimbos and nude bowling.
 Nowadays in English, bookworm is always a put-down, suffused by the clammy mist of disdain or drenched in the acid rain of scorn, a label of universal opprobrium applied by unlettered hoi polloi to anyone displaying too avid a joy in reading. Perhaps it is only human nature for the illiterate to scoff at and be fearful of anyone who reads constantly? Natural it is then, given the numberless yahoos and no-forehead anthropoids who infest modern life, their days and nights spent stoned and saucer-eyed in front of 70-inch TV sets watching “America Idle.”
I myself am looking for investors in a new, sure-fire reality TV show I have conceived, to be called “Shitting for Bucks.” During this fecal fiesta, lard-ass fatties are winched high above the home-base set in crossed leather holding straps first designed for sea rescue helicopters. The contestant must perform defecatory target hits. Whosoever can shit on the bull’s eye of the target far below on the studio floor wins two weeks free vacation camping near an oil pipeline guaranteed not to burst.
Okay, okay, I’m just a bitter, twisted egghead. So let us return to  wordlore. Given then the decline of reading, it is noteworthy but not surprising that there exist so few English synonyms for bookworm. Indeed, there are almost no English synonyms for bookworm.
Helluo Librorum
Let us treat the rarest English synonym for bookworm first. It is helluo librorum, borrowed from post-classical Latin where its literal meaning is ‘glutton of books.’ Helluari is the verb ‘to devour as an animal eats.’ The Latin noun helluo means ‘glutton, one who gobs and swills from the hog trough of glut.’
Not an exact or very good synonym is the word bibliophile from ancient Greek βιβλίον biblion ‘book’ + Greek ϕίλος philos ‘loving, dear’ as an adjective or ‘friend’ as a noun. Bibliophile’s prime and sensuous meaning is booklover. I’ve known several wealthy collectors of first editions worth tens of thousands of dollars who loved books, if they could show off expensive and rare editions to envious friends, but who never read a page of their rare books. Some could not spell Milton, even under threat of losing paradise. The grosser word bibliomaniac is even less synonymous with bookworm.
 As for the word bookworm in other languages, German employs a loan-translation from English and renders the bookworm as Bücherwurm and so does Dutch with boekenworm. French for bookworm is le rat de bibliothèque ‘library rat.’ Charming! Italian likes il topo di biblioteca (library mouse). Bookworm in modern Greek is βιβλιοφάγος bibliophagos ‘book-eater.’ English has a rare borrowing as bibliophage ‘avid reader.’
книжный червь kn’eezhnay cherv’ is formal Russian for bookworm. Червь cherv’ means ‘worm’ or ‘applegrub.’ Книжный kn’eezhnay is an adjective meaning ‘bookish’ or  ‘of books.’ But Russian colloquial speech has the more usual and friendlier word книгочий kn’eegó-chi. This began as student slang and was the equivalent of ‘booker,’ an American term used when I was at school: “He hits the library by noon? Guy’s a real booker.”
Bibliotaph?
A rare relative is bibliotaphy, keeping books just for yourself by locking them up in book cabinets with only one key. The root is Greek taphos ‘tomb.’ The person who indulges in this mean-spirited hoarding is a bibliotaph or bibliotaphist.
Closing The Book on This
In this era of the image as fascist chief of communicative modes, of the picture as ineluctable sole conveyor of meaning, of the jpeg as semantic Il Duce, it is perhaps necessary to coin a new word. So I give you librovermifuge – any agent, chemical or otherwise, that drives away bookworms.
copyright © 2012 William Gordon Casselman
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Any comments, emendations, additional word lore or requests for Latin mottoes?
wordguy@shaw.ca
Reviews of my New Book
Click bookcover for preview
Jenni French of San Fancisco, California writes on her blog "My Corner of the Universe" for March 19, 2011:
Casselman, Bill. Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik: A World Lover's Guide to the Weirdest, Wackiest, and Wonkiest Lexical Gems. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2010.
"I admit it: I'm a word nerd. I love words: weird words, long words, obscure words, funny words. This book is right up my alley. With chapters like "Nautical Words," "Creepy Words," and "Edible Words," I have enjoyed every page of this book.
And the author has quite a way with words, so I have found myself rereading many sentences in this book and slowing my progress through it.
My current favorite sentence is found in a discussion of dog hybrid breed names: "What a revolting concatenation of cutesiness and smarmy nomenclatorial treacle parading under the name of canine hybrid breed names" (19).
I'm sure I'll have another favorite sentence in a day or two.
This book is just that good and just that entertaining."
Author Bill Casselman replies: "Thanks, Jenni!"
Just a reminder that this book contains my ALL-NEW word esssays, none of which are available anywhere else in print or online.
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Cindy Lapeña on her blog "Creativity Unlimited" of July 19 ,2011, writes:
Posted by mimrlith in 365 Things to Look Forward to.
Tags: 365 things to look forward to, books, reading
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19. Starting a book
To a certified bibliophile like me, a.k.a. bookworm, one of the most exciting things to look forward to is to start reading a new book. In fact, sometimes the prospect of starting to read a new book is so exciting that I have to hurry to finish the book I am currently reading, just so I can start a new one.
If there’s one thing I can’t resist, it’s a book, especially if it promises to be a good one. Of course there are certain books I just won’t touch or be seen with, but at the risk of being hung by my thumbs by fans of such literature, I will not mention any genres in particular. . .
Seeing a book with a title that totally captivates me, like Where a Dobdob meets a Dikdik (yes, that is a book title!) has me so worked up, I just can’t wait to dive in. I imagine all sorts of deliciously fancifully outrageous words with a title like that. Is it obvious? I just love books on words. You won’t believe how many dictionaries I own. Or books on lexical oddities and other lexical explorations. Yes, I am a logophile of sorts. I love the new words I pick up from new books. I relish finding out the meanings of all manner of words and phrases and expressions. What could be more fun?"
(Replies author Bill Casselman: Please scroll to bottom of page or click here to link to a free seven-page preview of my new book, Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik.
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Testimonial Email
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Dear Mr. Casselman,
A search for the origins of an improbable-looking word, paraprosdokian, led me to the first piece of your prose I have had the pleasure of reading, "The Bogus Word Paraprosdokian & Lazy Con Artists of Academe." I have just placed an order for Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik, Canadian Words & Sayings, and As The Canoe Tips, and will add more of your titles as I finish these.
I have just retired from a 40-plus year career in book publishing, the last thirty years spent as director/editor of a number of university presses, attempting to sort the genuine writers from the "Lazy Con Artists of Academe." Sad to say, the latter have so over-bred the former that I could no longer see the rare gem in the avalanches of offal that daily swamped my office and desk. I visited your website and spent far too long there; it was a pleasure to meet a real writer through his work.
. . . I revisited the paraprosdokian page, and have finally quit laughing again at “Casselman's Conclusion.” You were not unkind to the "profligate prof-lets." During my years as an acquisitions editor, in rejection letters I often quoted Prof. Moses Hadas, classicist at Columbia University, who wrote a young scholar in response to having been sent the prof-let's first book, "Thank you for sending me your book. I will waste no time reading it."
I know I will enjoy your books. Keep up the good work.
Thank you,
Luther Wilson
Director (Retired)
University of New Mexico Press, among others
Nov. 15, 2010: On Twitter, Doug O'Neill, a happy buyer of my new Dobdob book, writes, "Even funnier flipping through it a second time around."
Thanks, Doug!
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Learn Some Quebec French Sayings, Click Linl Box Below
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