Wordsmith.org: the magic of words

Wordsmith Talk

About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us  

Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 1 of 2 1 2
#188020 11/29/09 03:22 AM
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
tsuwm Offline OP
Carpal Tunnel
OP Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
I haven't proffered one of these for a while..

flabuginous: something which is deceptive or fraudulent

from Bird's Grandiloquent Dictionary.
I can find it nowhere else, and the def'n is suspect, presented as a thing, since the form is obviously adjectival. (you'd expect it to be "relating to deception or fraud", or the like.)

-joe (I carry no badge) friday

Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Is this Grandiloquent Dictionary noted for such miscasting of words or otherwise generally suspect?

Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Who would trust a dictionary that puts Grandiloquent up front of itself? Looks like the perfect dictionary for the otherwise entertaining word-pedant Tom Coryate, who brought in the word 'umbrella', but also tried words like : antipriscianisticall.
Early 17th century.

Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
flabuginous: something which is deceptive or fraudulent

The inkhorn terms can be fun sometimes. First off, maybe who wrote the definition replaced of things with something. It doesn't look like any Latin-derived word. flabellum is a 'small fan', flabello 'to fan'. The Greeks borrowed flabellum from the Romans and Hellenized it to φλαβίλλιον (phlabillion).

This is the problem with most of these rare words lists, they give no examples and merely copy from some previous, uncigted competitor. The word only shows up in Google for websites and in no books.

Good luck in your search.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
antipriscianisticall

Not bothering to check my copy of Grandiose Flatigenous Wordhoard, two can play that game, I have to say I like antipriscianistical, but can only guess at its meaning. Perhaps, a 17th century synonym for descriptivist. From Priscian, a Roman grammarian.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
That surely will be it. He was fond of inventing new words, so he may often have had confrontations with prescriptivists.
I wouldn't be surprised if he was responsable for flabuginous as well. He was a rather fanatic Reformed moralist as well, quite obsessed with gallows, which he loved to describe to the tiniest detail as well as pillars and fertile landscapes. A very eccentric character but a good observer.

Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Quote:
I departed from Oppenheim the twelfth day of September being munday about sixe of the clocke in the morning, and came to the city of Mentz about tenne of the clocke in the morning, which was tenne miles beyond it. It was my hap in this journey betwixt Oppenheim and Mentz to have such a notable companion as I never had before in all my life. For he was both learned and unlearned. Learned because being but a wood-cleaver (for he told me that he was the Jesuits wood-cleaver of Mentz) he was able to speake Latine. A matter as rare in one of that sordid facultie as to see a white Crowe or a blacke Swanne. Againe he was unlearned, because the Latin which he did speake was such incongruall and disjoynted stuffe, such antipriscianisticall eloquence, that I thinke were grave Cato alive (who for his constant severity was called αγελαστος [agelastos], because he never or very seldome laughed) he should have more cause to laugh if he should heare this fellow deliver his minde in Latin, then when he saw an Asse eate thistles. (link)


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
tsuwm Offline OP
Carpal Tunnel
OP Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Originally Posted By: Faldage
Is this Grandiloquent Dictionary noted for such miscasting of words or otherwise generally suspect?


I'd have to say an emphatic "yes!" to that. someone did a study of the GD: "946 of these 2700 words do not yield any results in six different dictionaries, hence many of them might be misspellings". and goes on to list some of the misspellings: abcedarian, anaxiphillia, anklyosis, antedeluvian, anthrophobia, arachibutyrophillia, autovoxiphillia, chilihedron, dendrophillia, divigate, dolichprosopic, eleutherophillist, gerontophillia, hisbid, lucelence, misandronist, neophillia, nuciverous, olfactphobia, onamatophobia, orthpraxy, pathenophillia, pathenophobia, pedantrocracy, puellaphillist, schrecklichkreit, shistaceous, sorocide, taphephillia, tonitruphobia, tyrophillia, valedutinarian, vespertillian* link

earlier this year I did a week of wwftds on words taken from GD:
imparlibidinous (Bird had this as inparlibidinous)
schrecklichkeit (misspelled as schrecklichkreit)
percribrate (the misspelling in C. S. Bird was percribate)
mutuatitial (misspelled as mutatitial)
obaceration (Bird actually had this spelled correctly, but dropped it for lack of verification; as of Dec. 2008 it has a definitive headword in the online OED, whereas it was pretty well obscured (under obacerate) in OED2.)

[one of the disclaimers on my site: "You try spell-checking this stuff!"]

I've tried various knock-offs of the word in question here , flabuginous; no joy.

*you might actually recognize some of these; e.g., abecedarian, antediluvian, divagate, schistaceous, valetudinarian, etc.


Last edited by tsuwm; 11/29/09 05:50 PM.
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Lessee abcedarian.

OK, it spots it as a misspelling but doesn't offer the correct abecedarian. Google(R), however, when faced with abcedarian asks "Did you mean: abecedarian.

Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
tsuwm Offline OP
Carpal Tunnel
OP Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Originally Posted By: Faldage
Lessee abcedarian.

OK, it spots it as a misspelling but doesn't offer the correct abecedarian.].


I did. interestingly, OED(online) gives abcdarian as a variant.

Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Google France: looked for 'flabugineux'
This comes from a blog with people playing with language:
link (word flabuginuex in orange part)
C'est parti pour un sixiÞme petit jeu, sur un scÚnario du
flabugineux moutch!

from Dictionaire Godefroi,; ancien français:
flaber , voir fabler

Fabler 2. fablement, s,m., fable, faubeor, fablaor, fableur, flabeeur, flabeur s,m., auteur the fabliaux, des fables souvent avec l' idée de menteur, tromper
Fabler,-eir, faubler, fabler flabler verbe!

link

Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
tsuwm Offline OP
Carpal Tunnel
OP Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
yeahbut, it's all French to me! (I gather it's all about fables.)

zmjezhd #188032 11/30/09 02:25 AM
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
tsuwm Offline OP
Carpal Tunnel
OP Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Coryate describes the woodcutter's mode of speech as 'antipriscianisticall' (after Priscian-us, name of a celebrated Roman grammarian) meaning ungrammatical, an adjective of his own manufacture which has justifiably failed to find a place in the Oxford English Dictionary
- Michael Strachan, The life and adventures of Thomas Coryate

tsuwm #188035 11/30/09 10:26 AM
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Escaping the flagrant evidence? grin

"flabuginous: something which is deceptive or fraudulent"
Compare: "flabugineux"

flabeeur, flabeur s,m., auteur the fabliaux, des fables souvent avec l' idée de menteur, tromper
Fabler,-eir, faubler, fabler flabler verbe!

It's all French to me too, but to stick to the facts, it says:
"with the idea of a liar, to deceive." = deceptive or fraudulent.

Last edited by BranShea; 11/30/09 10:30 AM.
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
C'est parti pour un sixième petit jeu, sur un scénario du
flabugineux moutch!


"One swallow does not a spring make."Old French flaber varying with falber makes sense: simple metathesis. (It is related to Spanish hablar 'to speak' < Latin fabulo 'to tell tales'.) But, *flabugineux does not appear in Godefroy's Dictionnaire. What of the -ugineux? I guess that the -x makes it plural, but what of the -gineu-? Whence that? Could have something to do with genou 'knee', I suppose, or oxygène 'oxygen[/i]. Still, it's closer than anything else I've seen, but for all we know the guy who posted it, he may got it from reading the Graniloquent Dictionary.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
The -x does not make it necessarily plural. It's an adverb or adjectif to start with.
précieux , avantageux , prétentieux.
When nouned it becomes: le précieux-les précieux ( masc.) la précieuse- les précieuses (fem.)
("Les Précieuses Ridicules" by Molière)

Adj. Le docteur pretentieux - les docteur pretentieux. La femme prétentieuse - les femmes prétentieuses.( grin ).
True, those guys are playing with it and it can come from Graniloquent Dictionary as they are juggling with English words too in that thread.

Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
The -x does not make it necessarily plural.

Right you are. Dim in the pre-caffeine morning me.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
Page 1 of 2 1 2

Moderated by  Jackie 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Statistics
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,317
Members9,182
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
Newest Members
Ineffable, ddrinnan, TRIALNERRA, befuddledmind, KILL_YOUR_SUV
9,182 Registered Users
Who's Online Now
1 members (wofahulicodoc), 727 guests, and 1 robot.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Top Posters(30 Days)
Top Posters
wwh 13,858
Faldage 13,803
Jackie 11,613
tsuwm 10,542
wofahulicodoc 10,534
LukeJavan8 9,916
AnnaStrophic 6,511
Wordwind 6,296
of troy 5,400
Disclaimer: Wordsmith.org is not responsible for views expressed on this site. Use of this forum is at your own risk and liability - you agree to hold Wordsmith.org and its associates harmless as a condition of using it.

Home | Today's Word | Yesterday's Word | Subscribe | FAQ | Archives | Search | Feedback
Wordsmith Talk | Wordsmith Chat

© 1994-2024 Wordsmith

Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5