Let’s continue to mine Titus Groan for new words. I’m just moving down the list as I created it and I’ve noticed that I started making notes of words that seemed like I didn’t know them. I did. But they were used in such a manner as to seem inexplicably and fantastically descriptive. So three new words and a word with parts-of-speech makeovers that made me turn my head.
The first of the new is rissole:
The sawdust that was spread neatly over the floor each morning was by now kicked inot heaps and soaked in the splashing of wine. And where scattered about the floor little blobs of fat had been rolled or trodden in, the sawdust studck to them giving them the appearance of rissoles.
I had no idea what this was. But it looked like wine and fat mashed and ground into sawdust. Urgh. A rissole is a small pastry filled with meat or fish, usually deep fried. It’s French, variants back through Middle French, to Vulgate Latin where russeola meant “reddish.” Little reddish fried meat pies.
I kept thinking that that actually sounded not untasty, so why had I never heard the word before? I think, in the U.S., we call them croquettes. Although the recipe would be different, as a croquette has eggs or sauce binding the parts together. Regardless, fried food!
Then, there was stenching, which seemed so new:
‘Now tell me thish, my stenching cherubs. Tell me thish and tell me exshtra quickly, who am I? Now tell me exshtra quickly.’
It’s Swelter, the chef, speaking. And he is drunk, obviously. But I read that and wondered if stenching was just synonymous with “stinking” or if it was some new, amazing word I’d never heard of. Turns out not. “Stench” comes from the Old English word stenc meaning “odor.” Peake’s just sticking suffixes to things. Which is fun!
I thought then, that crapulous might follow the same path. But it doesn’t:
By the time Swelter’s monologue was dragging to its crapulous close, Mr Flay was pacing onwards, every step taking him another five feet further from the reek and horror of the Great Kitchen.
I was thinking “crap” as in slang for excrement, right? Wrong. Crapulous is the adjective form of crapulence, which is to be sick from excessive consumption of food and drink, or excessive indulgence or intemperance. Its etymology is interesting. From the Late Latin crapulentus meaning drunk. Before that, the Latin crapula meaning intoxication, which came from the Greek kraipale, a word for drunken headache and nausea. The etymology of crap, on the other hand, goes back to words in Middle and Old English and Middle French referring to things that are cut off or discarded, especially meaning “chaff,” the part of wheat that’s not used. It’s curious to me that there shouldn’t be a connection between the two, but I will concentrate on remembering it. And not using “crapulous” in conversation because really, that’s just asking for trouble.
Lastly, for today, I again thought familiarity had me mostly understanding what was going on with pullulation:
When they had stood in the darkness, and before Mr Flay had removed the bunch of keys from his pocket, Steerpike had imagined he had heard a heavy, deep throbbing, a monotonous sea-like drumming of sound, and he now knew that it must have been the pullulation of the tribe.
I thought that the talk of sound meant that “pullulation” was a variant of “ululation” (a Poptart word!) which means to howl like a wolf, or hoot like an owl, or generally make loud lamenting noises with your throat. And again, I was wrong.
To pullulate is to germinate or sprout rapidly, or to breed rapidly, or swarm or teem. The “tribe” referenced above are The Countess Gertrude’s legion of white cats. So the backformation here is what got me. Yes, it’s a sound, but that sound is create by a fast swarm of many, many cats.
In Latin, pullulare means “to sprout” and is derived from the noun pullulus meaning “sprout” or “young animal.” It’s the same place we get the word “pullet” for young hen, which leads to words like “poultry.”
The etymology of “ululation” though, is yet more interesting. It has a Latin path, but ultimately, in nearly all languages it’s moved through, it’s imitative. And reduplicative! Which is to say, it’s a word made of repeated noises based simply on what people hear. The Online Etymology dictionary gives a list of different languages and their spellings of the imitative word for to wail, cry, or lament. Greek is ololyzeinululih; Lithuanian: uluti; Gaelic: uileliugh. I think that that’s pretty amazing.
And that’s lexpionage, back on Friday. Now with fried foods, too much food and drink, ripe smells, and tons and tons of cats. Woo! And if you missed it, read Gormenghastocabulary I.
