Today’s WORD is nearly a phantonym, illustrating one of those playful qualities of language that led me to creating these dispatches in the first place.
WORK
Most have trouble with “it’s” and “its,” so I proposed a mnemonic device: “When is it its? When it’s not it is. When is it it’s? When it is it is.”
—Jessica Mitford
—from Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking
WORD(S)
aprosexia /a-proh-SEX-ee-ə/. noun. Not what it sounds or looks like, aprosexia is the abnormally severe inability to focus one’s attention. We’re talking here about a state well beyond that of the classic absent-minded professor and into the realm of a medical condition sometimes thought to be caused by “adenoid vegetations” (eww). From Greek a (negative) + prosexein (turn attention to) from pros (toward) + echein (to hold).
“In 1887, Guye, of Amsterdam, published a paper on defective nasal respiration, in which be coined the term ‘aprosexia,’ defining it as a lack of power of concentrating the mind, or inability to fix and hold the attention.” (Derrick Vail, from The Cincinatti Lancet-clnic)
“The word aprosexia is not connected with sex; via Greek a (negative) + prosexein (turn, the attention) it is applied to an abnormal inability to concentrate. Fixing persistently on one idea is hyperprosexia; turning constantly to side issues is paraprosexia. Man’s major drives are for security and power; sex is a side issue, to keep him going.” (Joseph Shipley, from The Origins of English Words)
“Aprosexia is the inability to concentrate on anything…some of us call that the Internet.” (from AsapSCIENCE)
WEB
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Using 3-D printing, the Prado has created the first fine art exhibition for the blind. See also, the New York Times story. Pairs well with “Blind Painter Uses Touch And Texture To Create Incredibly Colorful Paintings”.
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A provocatively titled (and written) essay along with a dozen high-profile responses → “Against Empathy”
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Pulp Drunk: Mexican Pulp Art book covers.
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Today in 1858, Hymen Lipman patents the first combination pencil and eraser, noting that his invention is “particularly valuable for removing or erasing lines, figures, &c., and not subject to be soiled or rnislaid on the table or desk.” Four years later, Hymen sold his patent for $100,000 (more than 2.5 million in today’s dollars)…and a good thing too: a few years later the purchaser tried to sue the Faber company for infringement and ended up with an invalidated patent when the US Supreme Court ruled that Lipman’s invention was “actually a combination of two already known things with no new use” and that letting such a patent stand would be “as if a patent should be granted for an article … consisting of a stick twelve inches long, on one end of which is an ordinary hammer, and on the other end is a screw-driver … The instruments placed upon the same rod might be more convenient for use than when used separately. Each, however, continues to perform its own duty, and nothing else. No effect is produced, no result follows, from the joint use of the two.”
WATCH/WITNESS
Continuing the theme of decollation…
“David with the Head of Goliath” (Caravaggio) is both a depiction of the myth and a doubled self-portrait in which a young Caravaggio holds the head of the (then current) older Caravaggio. Click the image for larger views.
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
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Many thanks to the many Readers who had my back when I asked about words which can also mean their opposites (such as ravel), pointing me to contranym and auto-antonym. I think I like the less prosaic antagonym or Janus word even better.
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Reader C. writes in with two great links: “…do you follow Bobulate? Liz Danzico describes the etymology behind her blog’s name: ¶ ‘Bobulate’ comes from an email exchange Liz had with a friend which tracked lists of words that sounded better without their prefixes and/or suffixes. The original list didn’t live on, but the name did. Standing for ‘intentional organization;’ to be thrown into order, as if against one’s will, if it were a real word, it would mean the opposite of ‘discombobulated.’ ¶ Danzico links to this gem.”
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Reader K. creates a litmus test: “I forwarded the quote by Richard Feynman to a friend of mine. He replied ‘That makes my head hurt.’ I’m now reevaluating our friendship. ¶ And I would like to forward the Viagra story to a number of friends of mine, but don’t want anyone to take it personally.”
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