SINUS

sinus Latin= a curve, anything hollowed out, the fold of a garment, a bay or gulf of water

1. In anatomy, the paranasal sinuses are cavities inside the bones near the nose (para Greek preposition ‘beside, near’). Also called the accessory nasal sinuses, they are lined with epithelial mucosa and act to moisten, warm, and filter air and perhaps they act as resonators for the human voice. Compare music critics who rave about a singer’s “head tones.” Some head tones depend on exquisitely placed and bounteously spaced sinuses.

2. A sinus is also a channel for venous blood, for example, the aortic sinus is a widened part of the aorta or pulmonary artery opposite a semilunar valve.

3. A draining sinus is a pathological passageway formed to permit the escape of pus from an abscess.

Sinusitis

sinus +-itis a common suffix of disease names from Greek now signifying “inflammation of [the organ named in the front of the word].” Compare appendicitis, neuritis and otitis media (inflammation of the middle ear from medius Latin ‘middle, inner, inside’).

Without proper drainage, a paranasal sinus may become blocked, due to viral or bacterial infection or allergies. In acute suppurative sinusitis (sub>sup Latin ‘under’ + pus, puris Latin ‘pus’), pus, pain, fever, chills, and headache must be relieved by bed rest, possible antibiotics, extra fluid intake, and hot packs. In chronic hyperplastic sinusitis, polyps crowd the lumen of a sinus and surgical remedy may be necessary.

Lumen is a medical word from Latin denoting the hollow portion of any tubular structure, e.g. the lumen of a vein, the lumen of the intestine, the bore of a hollow needle, the lumen of a catheter. Illustrated below is the lumen of an artery.

 

Sinus Node or Sinoatrial Node

This small mass of nerve fibers and cells is the natural pacemaker of the human heart. Lodged in the muscles of the heart’s right auricle it transmits ‘contraction commands’ through a remarkable network of Purkinje’s fibers. It was named by early anatomists who did not fully understand the structure of the mammalian heart, and thought it was like the sinus venosus of lower animals, like the first chamber in the heart of fish and reptiles, a chamber which receives blood from the veins and contracts to pump the blood into a second atrial chamber.

 Sinus Rhythm in the Heart

Sinus rhythm describes the normal beating of the heart impelled by electric impulses of the sinus node, detected by ECG or electrocardiogram.

 

 Sinus in Latin

A toga fashion parade from the Roman forum

Perhaps the commonest use of the noun sinus in Latin referred to the loose hanging fold in the front part of that formal Roman attire called the toga. A small purse was sometimes carried in the fold of the toga and loose coins were kept within the sinus also. Columella, a Roman writer on animal husbandry, wrote aere sinus plenos urbe reportare ‘to carry back to the city toga-folds filled with coins,’ that is, to return home very rich.

 

The umbo is the knob-like protrusion at the front of the toga where one fold is tucked into the crossband. The Latin word also means the boss of a shield and is used in scientific vocabulary as the name of certain structures in botany and zoology. Umbo is related to the Latin and Greek words for belly button, namely umbilicus and omphalos. Consider the umbilical cord and the fancy term omphaloskepsis ‘meditation while gazing at the navel,’ a practice common in Washington and Ottawa.

Other Related English Words

Insinuate

In Latin sinus frequently meant ‘the bosom’ or the innermost part of a thing, the part folded in. The Latin verb sinuare ‘to wind, to bend, to curve’ has a compound form that gives our English verb to insinuate. I may insinuate in a sly, underhanded way the idea that our teacher is stupid so that I am not punished. Were I some government hack, I might also insinuate myself into the good graces of an Ottawa nuclear-power lobbyist, for I too would appreciate a bribery-financed summer place in the Gatineau Hills where I could overlook scenic hills and nuclear safety failures. Just making up an exemplary sentence, folks.

Sinuous

A related adjective is sinuosus ‘full of curves’ from which descends our modern English sinuous. A sinuous rill is a little stream with bends and curves. A sinuous nymph may dance around you in a foreign café displaying her bodily curves and bends.

Derivatives in other languages

Most of the western languages use the Latin term as well: Spanish: seno, Turkish sinüs, Italian seno, French and German sinus.

Russian medical vocabulary uses the Latin word merely transliterated as синус.

Sine as a Term in Trigonometry

A sine is a function in trigonometry whose precise definition I shall not attempt. Look it up in an online mathematical dictionary, if you care. Here I’m interested to point out that Latin sinus which became English sine was used as a translation of a similar metaphor in the Arabic original where the trigonometric function was compared using the Arabic noun jaib ‘inner fold of a garment,’ (Arabic jaib equalling Latin sinus in meaning) all this when some of the original tenets of trigonometry were being introduced to European mathematics from original trig treatises in Arabic. I do recall from my high-school trig class that ‘the sine of an obtuse angle is numerically equal to that of its supplement.’

Sine Wave

In a sine wave or sinusoid, a signal rises and falls in a repeating pattern, which is wave-like. It's a sine from Latin sinus because the waves bend and fold rhythmically.

 

The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that a sine wave is “a periodic oscillation of pure and simple form in which the displacement at any point is proportional to the sine of the phase angle at that point.” A sine wave is a wave or curve resembling a segment of this in form.

That's it, folks. Sine-ing off for now. I think a wave is appropriate.

 

© 2012 William Gordon Casselman

 

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Reviews of my Book

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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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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

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