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Can anyone offer me a term describing the mutation of an entity from a transmogrified state back to its origin? It would be perhaps something akin to regression or retrogression, but without the implied evolutionary 'step down'. Politically or socially it might be used to describe the ideals held by what would be termed luddites or reactionaries, along the lines of "getting back to the good old days".
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Carpal Tunnel
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Transubstantiation ?
Mercy! How often to I get a chance to "name drop" that word!
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old hand
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Hmmm.... Sounds as if you're describing political speeches. WOW, I've only heard transubstantiation used eucharistically. I live next door to a Catholic church, and every Sunday several Vietnamese guys named Tran show up. 
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i am hung up on the concept! aside from actors -- who might play a part, and then go back to being themselves.. I can image a case were somthing goes back to being what it was... (changes from one state, to an other, and then back to the first...)
who was the philosopher (Roman i think?) who pointed out you could not enter the same river twice.. because the water flowed, and while the banks of the river might seem the same, it was different water
as i typed, i realized atoms can go from one state to another and mercury, can go from quicksilver to cinnabar, and back to quicksilver.. ( a favorite of alchemist) but living things can't. as we move through cycles of time, we can't go back.. but if we were phoenixes.. this is similar to cycle.. but not a retrograde progression, a cycle..
in terms of social mores.. this is sometimes likened to a swing of pendulum.. moving from one extreme to the other, and slowly progressing to a middle point.
oh i am all a muddle...maybe you can find something... or everyone will have fun, pulliing my ideas like taffy, trying to make something of them..
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Carpal Tunnel
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If Cinderella failed to get home before midnight, her marvelous carriage was to be turned back into a pumpkin. So perhaps "pumpkinification" could describe reverse transmutation.
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"The Apocolocyntosis" roughly translated as the "pumpkinification"
So if you prefer a Latin derivative, there it is. Bill
Dear Ants: I am enjoying myself enough to be experiencing pleasant formication. Crudely called "antsy".
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Anonymous
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i atomicized "revert" and came up with "recrudesce", which Roget's defines thusly: "To come back to a former condition: recur, reoccur, return, revert".
This would seem to fit the bill nicely, but the AHD asserts that recrudescence is "break[ing] out anew or com[ing] into renewed activity, as after a period of quiescence."
These two definitions don't seem to be quite the same; i can see that they are similar, but the AHD doesn't seem to specify that recrudescence necessarily implies returning to a *former state, does it?
also, if i'm understanding the question correctly, i think the word we are seeking would describe a progressive, or forward-moving motion with a goal of attaining a state of being similar to a past state, much like what jackie, wordwind and others are attempting to do on this board by redirecting "unsavory" threads towards those related to words and the love of language. in this case, "reverting" is impossible, because we cannot literally move backward in time, but rather focus future efforts on recreating a previous state.
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who was the philosopher who pointed out you could not enter the same river twice? That'd be Heraclitus (Greek). There is a very funny routine by Severn Darden of the old Second City improve group about it in which his wife points out that he can step in the same river twice if he goes downstream as fast as the river is flowing. Lemme see can I... http://www.comedystars.net/Darden_Severn/severn_darden.htm#stageup
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up until now, the only use for pumpkinification has been in the sense of 'making a pumpkin of', extravagant or absurdly uncritical glorification, suggested by the travesty (ascribed to Seneca) of the apotheosis of the Roman emperor Claudius Cæsar under the title of ‘apocolocyntosis’.
recrudescence originally referred to the renewal of a quality or state of things (usually one regarded as bad), a disease, epidemic, etc. through transferral [oh no, not that again!] it has come to also mean revival or rediscovery (of something regarded as good or valuable).
retrograde - To turn back, reverse, revert; to make, or cause to become, retrograde. Now rare.
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Pooh-Bah
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- - which his wife points out that he can step in the same river twice if he goes downstream as fast as the river is flowing.
But, if we follow Helen's post, above, the banks of the river were regarded as an essential part of the river - and they would be different, furhter downstream.
(I agree that one could argue that the bank is not part of the river - but no-one did when it appeared above, so I take that as a justification to take it as given.)
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>(I agree that one could argue that the bank is not part of the river - but no-one did when it appeared above, so I take that as a justification to take it as given.)
I guess, but. we probably can't *know what Heraclitus thought of this point, since all we know of him is from Plato and Aristotle. "You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever pouring upon you." "The sun is new every day." his basic doctrine was that everything is in a state of flux; "nothing ever is, everything is becoming" (Plato), "nothing steadfastly is" (Aristotle).
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a river http://www.bartleby.com/61/13/R0261300.html RIVER
SYLLABICATION:
riv·er
PRONUNCIATION:
rvr
NOUN:
1. abbr. R. A large natural stream of water emptying
into an ocean, lake, or other body of water and usually
fed along its course by converging tributaries.
2. A stream or abundant flow: a river of tears.
IDIOM:
up the river Slang In or into prison.
ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English rivere, from Anglo-Norman, from Vulgar
Latin *rpria, from Latin, feminine of rprius,
of a bank, from rpa, bank. How could a river not include its banks?
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addict
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ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English rivere, from Anglo-Norman, from Vulgar Latin *rpria, from Latin, feminine of rprius, of a bank, from rpa, bank.
This puts me in mind of the interesting adjective form of "river" -- "riparian" (pron. ripARian). Someone whose land allows access to a river is said to have "riparian rights."
And back to Ants' origianl question, while I *feel like there is a "real" word for what you're thinking of, I'd like to propose the following coinage for those who'd like to be able to get back in that same old river: "homoriparian."
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Oh, sure, Rhuby. Ruin a good comedy routine with logic. Another outside joke?
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Thanks Flatlander-- i never made the connection.. (d'oh!)
but getting back to Ant-- and Ant question.. ant mentions Political and social returns.. and for this i would go back to the idion about a pendulums swing.. what is decent changes.. from ankle lenght skirts for women ot hot pants.. from low cut, bosum exposing blouses, to high necked ones.. in the 50's, premarital sex was a social No No, in the 60's we had a sexual revolutions.. in many way now, we are back to much more conservative sexual mores.. the change in behaviour is driven by disease. but it doesn't matter.
what matters is casual "sleeping around" somthing that was ok, in late 60's and early 70's is not ok now.
in the 50's you might have been labeled a slut, especially if you were a woman and now you are a health hazzard.. but no matter the reasons, chasity is on the rise.. the pendulum swings.
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and tsuwm: retrograde - To turn back, reverse, revert; to make, or cause to become, retrograde. Now rare.
it is? really? the term is used in astronomy all the time -- planets orbits go retrograde.. yes, it is only how it appears from earth, they don't really go backwards.. but the word is used.
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Hi, Ants; a belated welcome aBoard. What about simply 'reconversion', or 'reversal'? Hmm- just realized I was confused by your word entity: I'd been thinking in terms of "a being". Now that I've taken in your last sentence, that changes matters. Though I have no problem with, for ex., "Society has undergone a reversal of outlook". I do think "Society has reverted to..." carries that step-down implication you didn't want. Hope this helps.
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Have I read too quickly, or has the simple word "return" not yet been suggest4ed?
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Geoff said: Hmmm.... Sounds as if you're describing political speeches.
WOW, I've only heard transubstantiation used eucharistically. I live next door to a Catholic church, and every Sunday several Vietnamese guys named Tran show up.And the two that help the priest with his robes would doubtless be the trans vestite? And when they walk into church together, that would, of course, be the trans formation. And the place where they keep the boat they use to smuggle cocaine into the country would, naturally, be the trans port. Stop, STOP! Down boy. Good dog. 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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enthusiast
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May I propose retrovert, retroversion for this. It doesn't seem to be burdened with the degraded connotation of 'regression' or the complex legal senses of 'reversion'.
In checking whether such a word existed I found retromingency: urinating backwards.
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WOW, I've only heard transubstantiation
used eucharistically.
------------------------------------------
OED has several definitions.
Only one refers (secondarily) to eucharist.
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it's a characteristic of certain animals (big ones like lions & elephants, and most females), a zoological term; also used fig. and disparagingly.
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