|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 508
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 508 |
"A doctor examining one of his more crapulent patients said to him,
'Your body is a temple and your congregation is too large.'"
Dale Turner; Guarding Our Health Lets Us Better Serve in Role God
Intended; The Seattle Times; Apr 26, 2003.
Maybe it's just me, but I think the writer may have meant corpulent rather than crapulent here. IMO, corpulent better fits the meaning of the statement.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear NK: the word "crapulent" was chosen by the journalist, not the doctor. The "more" with it sounds as though the doctor had many "crapulent" patients. A more common word could have been more effective and understood by more readers.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
In French, a crapulent person (une crapule) is a vile, low-down, dirty character. The name is usually given to those who have done the vilest of things - tortured a child, violent rape of a little girl, that type of thing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 508
addict
|
|
OP
addict
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 508 |
Still seems to me that the sentence, "Your body is a temple and the congregation too large," better describes a corpulent rather than crapulent patient. Just my take on it. 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
The girdle is your temple and the congregation is too large?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
"Wallowing" is what one does in ones own "crapulence". I've heard this a number of times from different sources. It fits nicely and is forever attached.
However isn't "crapulous" more specific to vomiting of food / drink?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
The unfortunate who can properly be described as crapulent is one suffering the effects of imbibing too freely or eating to excess. If such overindulgence is chronic, he can be called crapulous, but, in the confusing ways of our language, that term is also sometimes used as a synonym of crapulent. Crapulent comes from Late Latin crapulentus, based on L. crapula (drunkenness), which was an import from Greece. Crapulous is from LL crapulosus. None of these words has anything to do with the vulgar word that forms the first syllable of each [e.a.] and has an altogether distinct etymology: Middle English crappe, from Dutch krappe (chaff--the husks thrown away in threshing--whence the word came to mean "worthless stuff, refuse"). - Norman W. Schur
-joe d. bunke
This week's theme: words that aren't what they appear to be.
p.s. - I believe one can be crapulent (hung-over) without throwing up!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
This morning I'm living proof of your theorem ...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
I agree with NancyK. A body can be crapulent but this condition isn't necessary visible from the outside. Whereas corpulence is.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
I had associated crapulence with drinking, but thought that perhaps the eating connection was there and it is. Take a look at AHD:
"1. Sickness caused by excessive eating or drinking. 2. Excessive indulgence; intemperance."
OK. The patient is at the doctor's--and the patient is sick. Sick from excessive eating? Or drinking? Well, whatever. Excessive eating would figuratively form too large of a congregation in this man's temple.
So, I must beg to differ with AnnaS and NancyK. I think crapulence works in the passage, although corpulence would have also worked.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,915
Posts229,837
Members9,197
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
596
guests, and
6
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
