[lit-ideas] Is this word really necessary?
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:51:54 EDT
I was reading Peter Bowler's "Weird and wondrous words" (1992) and he
writes about 'jumentous':
"Is this word really necessary".
It was first used in 1801, and is usually explained as meaning a smell like
that of the urine of a horse.
From the British Journal of Homoeopathy, 1801:
"No motion of the bowels; urine very scanty, red with a jumentous and
lateritious sediment".
The word is deemed unfamiliar enough to merit a footnote: in "relating to
a working horse". Actually it comes from the Latin "jumentum", which the
Oxford English Dictionary explains means a yoke-beast, from "jugum", a yoke.
Though this might reasonably include oxen, the Oxford Latin Dictionary
helpfully notes - somewhat surprisingly in view of its origin - that in Roman
times it usually meant horses or mules, not
cattle.
Similarly, the obsolete English word "jument", from the same source, could
mean any beast of burden, but was most often applied to a horse or donkey.
"Is this word really necessary?", asks Peter Bowler.
Perhaps not as necessary as the word "God", but still...
Speranza
for the Grice Club, etc.
Bordighera
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