Sunday, October 15, 2017

What's in a name like Borborygmi?

I was wondering about naming theory - that is proper names.  However, the field is Descriptivist theory and is way too complicated for a Sunday morning.

O
nomastics sounds more interesting - it is the study of the origin, history and use of proper names.  The article I retrieved from  mentalfloss.com  is about the proper names for common bodily functions.  

Who would have guessed these words exist?

1. BORBORYGMI

Derived originally from an onomatopoeic Greek word, a borborygmus is a rumbling in the stomach or bowels. Borborygmi are produced as the contents of the intestines are pushed along by waves of muscle contractions called peristalsis, although trapped gas from digested food or swallowed air can also cause your borborygmi to become noisier than normal. Bonus fact: Queasy stomach rumbles were called wambles in Tudor English, and you’d be wamble-cropped if you weren’t feeling well.

2. CACHINNATION

A study in 2013 found that when people laugh, it's only because they've found something funny about 20 percent of the time. The rest of the time, we use laughter as a means of signaling things like agreement, affection, ease, and nostalgia that we evolved long before communication through language was possible. And a fit of spontaneous, uproarious, unrestrained laughter is called cachinnation.

3. CICATRIZATION

Cicatrization is the formation of a cicatrix, or a scar. More generally, it refers to any of the healing and sealing processes that help a wound to mend, including the formation of a scab.

The article has seventeen expressions. I realized that there is a lot of medical terminology to be learned when training to be a medical doctor.  There are a lot of expressions to learn - no wonder medical training takes so long.

There are related searches at the bottom of a search.  I enjoyed this one:  'another name for hiccups' as I'd seen it in the Mentalfloss article.


Here's my Halloween version of our Fusion Lily.

No comments:

Post a Comment