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What does the board think of suspiration as a synonym for respiration?
This morning, a colleague used suspire in this sense and I have been chewing on it ever since. I am quite unable to put my finger on it, but it seems and feels wrong. I know they mean the same thing but can they be used in the same way? Why do I get a subterranean feel with suspire?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Perhaps, all unaware, you are connecting it with susurration.
I agree that using suspiration for the ordinary action of breathing is unusual to the point of being affected, though it could be done for effect to refocus the attention of an audience. Still, if they were that bored they probably wouldn't notice. Suspiration, to me, is more commonly used for sighing. Not that it's commonly used!
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Pooh-Bah
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Fitzgerald used it in his translation of one of the quatrains in The Rubiayąt - something like:
".. and Jesus from the ground suspires."
I don't have my copy handy, but I'll try to find it later.
(NOTE: must get a cheap, second hand copy to keep by my desk at work!)
EDIT
Now the New Year reviving old Desires
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires
Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.
It's the 4th quatrain of the 1st Edition, if you want to look it up!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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AHD3 lists breathe and sigh as definitions of suspire. It gives breathe as the first, but AHD orders its definitions historically. It uses a Robert Frost quote as the example of the breathe definition.
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YES! YES! Rhuby! That IS it! That quatrain of the Rubaiyat was probably where I was getting my subterranean feel for the word. It was once a big project, to learn the beautiful Rubaiyat by rote, which of course, I never completed, except for a few choice verses.
Here's one that has stayed with me:
AH! My beloved, fill the cup that clears
Today of past regrets and future fears
Tomorrow? Tomorrow I may be
Myself with yesterday's seven thousand years.
Heartfelt thanks Rhuby, for bringing up Khayyam! It took me down many pleasurable alleyways of memory.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In both Spanish and Portuguese, suspiro means "sigh."
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That's fascinating AnnaS. I didn't know that. What is the root of this word? Is it a Latin one? And does the root mean sigh or breathe? dxb brought up sussuration. This surely should have a different root than suspiration.
Also, would any of you use this instead of respire or breathe and if not, why? I might say a whale suspires but not a human.....
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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sub, under + spirare, to breathe. Latin.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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My dictionary says to take a long deep breath. Which suggests
it is an alteration of normal breathing. I wouldn't use it unless I meant to indicate a change in person's breathing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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My dictionary says to take a long deep breath.
Does it also say to take two aspirins and call it in the morning?
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