|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
in the name of all that's george, what the heck is an abydocomist?? (it looks like someone's nonce word, but what are its roots?)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Scott & Liddel has 'Abydokomes=sykophantes acc. to Dindorf for 'Abydenokomes. There is also, FWIW, Abydos, a city in Asia Minor on the Hellespont, now Avido.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
The Wiktionary needs someone to write the blurb on this word. Perhaps it will be tsuwn what does it. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Abydocomist
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385 |
From Wikipedia: abydocomist "A liar who boasts of their falsehood."Perhaps the most memorable example of this is Anthony's eulogy to Caesar in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar": "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar." Liars who lie to tell a greater truth are sometimes called poets, Father Steve. :) We see something similar in GBS' play "Major Barbara" where a lead character says of Undershaft, the owner of the munitions factory, something like this [alas, I can't quote exactly]: "We can praise him for preaching good and practising evil, but we can't have him preaching evil and doing good." EDIT*: Just found actual quote at the Library. I have reproduced it below in case anyone has an interest. Here is a review which bears on this Shavian "paradox": The relativity of morality is illustrated with the paradox of the Salvation Army being described as an ugly nest of hypocrisy, and the armament-factory of “the Prince of Darkness” being described as a happy and prosperous place. That is Shavian paradox at work: what everybody expects to be Hell is as beautiful as Paradise. Undershaft’s welfare town is a small-scale attempt at socialism, and the direct improvement in the life of the employees satiates them, which suits Undershaft.http://snipurl.com/ddy8* Speaker was Lady Britomart, Andrew Undershaft's estranged wife, speaking of Undershaft: "Just as one doesn't mind men practising immorality so long as they own that they are in the wrong by preaching morality; so I couldn't forgive Andrew for preaching immorality while he practised morality." [Act I]
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
I can't agree with the examples given above for abydocomistry(?), as I understand it. these would rather seem to be examples of practicing NOT what you preach.
the only definition I had found prior to seeing the one buried in the Wikistub was this: "One who boast of his conning ability". this is so poorly constructed, and not borne out by my usual sources, that I posed the question here. I would recast that definition, in light of the Wikistub, as "one who boasts of his ability to deceive (con)." I don't see any "greater good" coming from this; nor do I see any boasting of deceit in those citations.
then we have Faldage's root discovery, which leads one to believe that an abydocomist is akin to a sycophant. this would appear to have little relation to anything else proposed here.
ah, but there is something in the etymology of sycophant which is telling.
per the OED: The origin of the Gr. word, lit. = ‘fig-shower’, has not been satisfactorily accounted for. The explanation, long current, that it orig. meant an informer against the unlawful exportation of figs cannot be substantiated. It is possible that the term referred orig. to the gesture of ‘making a fig’ or had an obscene implication
1. Gr. Hist. One of a class of informers in ancient Athens: see quots. and etymology above.
2. transf. and fig. An informer, tale-bearer, malicious accuser; a calumniator, traducer, slanderer. Obs.
3. A mean, servile, cringing, or abject flatterer; a parasite, toady, lickspittle.
4. Vaguely used for: Impostor, deceiver. Obs.
1606 CHAPMAN Gentl. Usher v. I 4b, Presumptuous Sicophant, I will have thy life. 1651 WITTIE tr. Primrose's Pop. Err. 163 The good man Daniel Sennertus,..being deceived by a Germane sycophant. 1653 GATAKER Vind. Annot. Jer. 13 It is not any spurious or seditious doctrine in their Teachers, by this foul-mouthed Sycophant, so falsely fathered upon Calvin. 1728 CHAMBERS Cycl., Sycophant,..the term became used..at last, for a Lyer, Imposter, &c.
5. Comb., as sycophant-like adj.
so here we have a connection to "deceiver"; and lo, "I know this sycophant who boasts of his deeds -- how shall I refer to him?
the Wiki Falstaff quote is a good one; let's see if we can come up with some others, for my Wiktionary entry. : )
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385 |
I would recast that definition ... as "one who boasts of his ability to deceive (con)."
Hey, tsuwm. I can't imagine why anyone would want to boast he is a cunning liar.
Who would believe him? :)
More likely his 'falsehoods' are a ruse for the unwary.
Remember Shakespeare's Prince Hal:
So, when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
Henry IV, Part 1, Act I, Scene II
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>I can't imagine why anyone would want to boast he is a cunning [conner].
sometimes they just can't help themselves. it's a fairly standard Holywood plot line. Paul Newman as The Hustler boasts about the way he has just hustled some local pool shark and ends up with broken hands as his reward. In David Mamet's House of Games a con artist sets up an elaborate game to con a famous psychologist, and then later boasts about the outcome with his cohorts (which she of course overhears).
so now we have a sesquipedalian word for these characters.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
on a somewhat related note..
Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive!
Shakespeare, or not?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
Iago also boasts of his cunning, no? Though whether to us or to himself is, I suppose, a question. And Richard?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385 |
so now we have a sesquipedalian word for these characters.
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
A guy who boasts he's a liar
Is an abydocomist in dire
Trouble you see
'Cause naturally
No-one'll believe him when his pants are on fire.
I think[?] this is the moral of the nursery rhyme, tsuwm, but I can't find it online.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,317
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
596
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
