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Squirrel German painter Hans Hoffman’s Eichhörnchen (German ‘squirrel’), a watercolor and gouache over traces of graphite on vellum, delights in the red squirrel’s simple being. The abundantly bushy tail of the squirrel bestows its name upon this agile rodent. The word scampered across to England just after the Norman conquest in 1066 CE as Anglo-Norman esquirel < Medieval Latin *scurellius or possibly *scuriolus, putative diminutive forms of Latin scurius/sciurus, from Greek σκίουρος skiouros < σκιά skia ‘shade’ + οὐρά oura ‘tail,’ playfully named from the comic supposition that the squirrel’s tail was so big that it provided portable shade for the lively arboreal nutlover. One zoological genus is Sciurus ‘shadow-tail.’ Skia ‘shadow’ That Greek root for shade, skia, is found in several uncommon English terms like the learned adjective sciurine which means ‘pertaining to squirrels.’ Among the immensely silly modes of foretelling the future is divination by chatting up the shades of the dead or sciomancy < Greek σκιά skia ‘shadow’ + Greek μαντεία manteia ‘prophecy, prediction.’ There are dozens of foolish methods of predicting the future encapsulated in words ending in –mancy. Consider the most familiar word necromancy – predicting the future using the arts of witches and sorcerers and other “dead” knowledge. Nekros is Greek for ‘dead.’ Ancient Roman seers poked through chicken guts and rabbit entrails to guess at future events. Other Europeans practiced the messy art of scatomancy, divining the future by examining excrement and feces. Onychophagomancy foretells what is to come by looking at precisely how people chew their fingernails! Hippomancy involves observing the movement of horses in a corral. Chiromancy is another word for reading one’s palm or palmistry. Anthurium This Greek word gives us the clue to several botanical binomials which some plant lovers will recognize. That familiar greenhouse import from Hawaii and Central America, the anthurium, is a bit of Botanical Latin made from two Greek words: ἄνθος ‘flower’ + οὐρά ‘tail.’ It is a ‘tail-flower’ because the large, showy spadix of the genus looks like an animal’s tail or penis and thrusts up with phallic brio from its flat spathe, a modified bract. In fact, one of the trade names for the plant is Boy Flower. Because so many of the species sold in commerce are pink and red, its most common name is Flamingo Flower. pink anthurium Eremurus Another exquisite garden subject is the foxtail lily with its single densely-flowered raceme of bright florets on a spike. Its moniker is Eremurus, Botanical Latin from Greek ἐρῆμος ‘solitary’ + οὐρά ‘tail.’ Another meaning of eremos ‘uninhabited’ gives us a very familiar English word. One of the Greek words for lonely desert was eremia. A person who chose to live a lonely life alone in the desert was, first, an eremite and, eventually in English, a hermit! It came to us through Medieval Latin heremita and then Old French hermite.   O Gilt Uraeus, Symbol of Divine Power Finally, uraeus, a term ablaze in ancient pomp and Pharoanic spendour. The uraeus is the modern Latin version of an old Greek name for a serpent οὐραῖος ouraios ‘the one with the tail,’ that is, the sacred Egyptian asp, the divine snake of power. The uraeus was the name of the image of the asp worn as a forehead head-dress by Egyptian kings, queens and various Egyptian deities. The uraeus often surmounted and fronted a diadem of burnished gold, a holy snake circlet wrapped round the brow of the gods. The Egyptian asp was and is an extremely venomous cobra, and is usually so shown in uraei.   And now, amidst this slither of uraei, let us depart this den of antiquity.     For readers interested in French, there is a great deal of material on my website about Quebec French. Just click below to begin.   copyright © 2012 William Gordon Casselman     Click above graphic to read 7-page free sample of this book - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Any comments, emendations, additional word lore or book orders? Please email it to me at 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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A Great New Review of My Latest Book!

 

October 26, 2011

Welcome to the Enchanted Forest

By WB Johnston

This review is about Bill Casselman’s latest e-book about words: Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik: A Word Lover’s Guide to the Weirdest, Wackiest, and Wonkiest Lexical Gems (Kindle Edition)

 

“Wade Davis, lately of National Geographic, once described each living language as “an old-growth forest of the human spirit.” Once you decide to enter the kleptomaniacal woods of our mother tongue, what you need is more than a tour guide. This is no Disney-fied ‘keep-your-hands-inside-the-car-at all-times’, point A to point B, clear-cutting mining of language. You, here, are in the hands of Sir William of Cassel, a genuine shaman modestly posing as a simple lover of words.

In the best of the spiritual tradition, Bill is the shape-shifter who constantly leads you to all the places you need to find in your soul. Every page is a new country, an invitation to an excursion into the wonderland of rich connections with the myriad of sources of what so often we unthinkingly wield as a prosaic tool.

Pay absolutely no attention to anyone who tells you that this book is anything but pure gold. It’s simply not true, sadly, that all the world loves a lover. Particularly someone whose love is so boundless.

But Sir William is fearless. You don’t earn your keep as a medicine man if you have a thin skin. While I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could walk away from this book unmoved by its wit, its wisdom and the beautiful transparency by which the author celebrates the glorious romp of our almost unlimited linguistic exuberance, I have to sadly conclude that once in a while, you do meet someone who can’t see the forest for the trees, eh?

Read this book. Leave it on the sofa instead of the $%#!*$% TV remote. Maybe someone you care about will pick it up, even just for a moment, and fall in love with their heritage?

Leave it on your desk at work and trust that someone will riffle through it when you are out at lunch. Shamans are magicians of the highest order. The work of their hands and hearts is game-changing. Or, hey, put it on your Kindle and just feel comforted that you can wander back out into the forest with Bill even in the middle of a boring lecture.

Enjoy.”

 

Casselman replies: Thank you so much, Dr. J., for the kudos.

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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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Sample My Newest Book. Click Below.

Jan. 3, 2011

“Mr Casselman,
I wanted to write to thank you for your thoroughly enjoyable [new] book. By background, I am a technologist practicing the somewhat arcane crafts of Information Security.”  

 

 

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

 

 

Hundreds of links to more word essays; click below.

 

 

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