Habromania
07/14/20 • 4 min
Greetings all of you verbiage affectionados! The word we are examining today is a very pleasant word. Both to hear, and to say, and, by definition to experience for oneself. Or perhaps, it would paradoxically be more correct to say - suffer for oneself. Today we are talking about ‘habromania’, the simple definition of which is “a form of delusional insanity in which the imaginings assume a cheerful or joyous character”.
Now, this is a very old word that is not often used today but, to my knowledge doesn’t have an adequate replacement. So, without further ado let us proceed with the easiest of ‘habromania’s’ two root words to track, ‘mania’.
‘Mania’ can be used to describe a passion in the zeitgeist, what we might now refer to as a fad. Such as in the sentence, “Du Bellay did not actually introduce the sonnet into French poetry, but he acclimatized it; and when the fashion of sonneteering became a mania he was one of the first to ridicule its excesses.”
However, the form we are interested in is the ‘mania’ that has been used since around the 1500s as the second element in compounds expressing particular types of madness; such as ‘nymphomania’, ‘kleptomania’, ‘megalomania’, and our good friend ‘habromania’.
In the modern form the word ‘mania’ means "mental derangement characterized by excitement and delusion,". This stems from the Late Latin ‘mania’ meaning "insanity, madness," itself from the Greek ‘mania’ "madness, frenzy; enthusiasm, inspired frenzy; mad passion, fury,".
And now the more difficult part, ‘habro’. The closest to a meaning of this root I can find is the modern meaning of the word in the field of Zoology; that of ‘graceful’. And that is it. Simply, ‘graceful’.
If we want to get creative we might want to then define ‘habromania’ as being a ‘graceful insanity’, which when compared to things such as ‘megalomania’ might not be as untrue as on first inspection.
Isn’t language wonderful?
Written by Taylor Davidson, Read by Zane C Weber
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Greetings all of you verbiage affectionados! The word we are examining today is a very pleasant word. Both to hear, and to say, and, by definition to experience for oneself. Or perhaps, it would paradoxically be more correct to say - suffer for oneself. Today we are talking about ‘habromania’, the simple definition of which is “a form of delusional insanity in which the imaginings assume a cheerful or joyous character”.
Now, this is a very old word that is not often used today but, to my knowledge doesn’t have an adequate replacement. So, without further ado let us proceed with the easiest of ‘habromania’s’ two root words to track, ‘mania’.
‘Mania’ can be used to describe a passion in the zeitgeist, what we might now refer to as a fad. Such as in the sentence, “Du Bellay did not actually introduce the sonnet into French poetry, but he acclimatized it; and when the fashion of sonneteering became a mania he was one of the first to ridicule its excesses.”
However, the form we are interested in is the ‘mania’ that has been used since around the 1500s as the second element in compounds expressing particular types of madness; such as ‘nymphomania’, ‘kleptomania’, ‘megalomania’, and our good friend ‘habromania’.
In the modern form the word ‘mania’ means "mental derangement characterized by excitement and delusion,". This stems from the Late Latin ‘mania’ meaning "insanity, madness," itself from the Greek ‘mania’ "madness, frenzy; enthusiasm, inspired frenzy; mad passion, fury,".
And now the more difficult part, ‘habro’. The closest to a meaning of this root I can find is the modern meaning of the word in the field of Zoology; that of ‘graceful’. And that is it. Simply, ‘graceful’.
If we want to get creative we might want to then define ‘habromania’ as being a ‘graceful insanity’, which when compared to things such as ‘megalomania’ might not be as untrue as on first inspection.
Isn’t language wonderful?
Written by Taylor Davidson, Read by Zane C Weber
Subscribe to us on ITUNES, STITCHER, SPOTIFY, or your podcatcher of choice.
Find us on FACEBOOK or TWITTER
Become a Patron of That’s Not Canon Productions at Patreon!
Email us at [email protected]
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Previous Episode
Gigil
Greetings word-fiends! Today we tackle one of the famous impossible to translate words! A word famous for having no English counterpart, who’s very essence is beyond the tongue of an Englishman. We are talking about the word ‘gigil’ that originates from the Filipino language in the Philippines.
The Constitution of the Philippines states that the nation has two official languages, both English and Filipino. However Tagalog deserves a mention and this tongue is the basis of the Filipino language.
Most simply ‘gigil’ is used to describe a feeling that is most familiar to perfumed and lipsticked aunts and great-aunts the world over, and indeed, to anyone who frequents those bright corners of the internet where collections of kitten videos are stowed. ‘Gigil’ is the urge to pinch or squeeze something that is irresistibly cute. But, upon closer examination we find that this simple definition has a darker side.
A more thorough definition of this word would be, “A gnashing or gritting of the teeth, along with a trembling or quivering of the body and tight gripping of the hands, in response to suppressing an overwhelming emotion, such as eagerness, pleasure, thrill, anger, or fondness.”
Let us examine this lovely little example of a sentence, “Hindi ko mapigil ang gigil ko sa kanya”. In English this can mean “I cannot resist being angry at him” OR mean the exact opposite, “I cannot resist being fond of him”. In this situation, as with many parts of the Filipino language, the translation depends on the context.
There are some 120 to 187 languages and dialects in the Philippines, depending on the method of classification. Almost all are Malayo-Polynesian languages. A number of Spanish-influenced creole varieties generally called Chavacano are also spoken in certain communities.
There are ways to be more clear though. When a Filipina sees a cute baby, she feels a barely controllable desire to pinch the baby’s cheeks and has a hard time controlling herself. What she’s experiencing is called ‘panggigigil’.
Isn’t language wonderful?
Written by Taylor Davidson, Read by Zane C Weber
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Next Episode
Dodo
Greetings Word-Friends! I have a treat for you today, one of the most famous animals of all time, indeed, so famous that it’s name is synonymous with the concept of death and indeed, total extinction. My friends, I present to you the Dodo.
The dodo’s scientific name is Raphus cucullatus and was a flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius. Now that, my friends is an island east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Taxonomically the dodo is related to the pigeon, and since the 1600’s unfortunately no longer exists on planet earth as anything other than a pleasantly goofy, avian, memory.
The origin of the word ‘dodo’ is a little bit controversial. The name may be related to the Dutch word ‘dodaars’, a water bird known in English as the Little Grebe or Dabchick. Little Grebes resemble the dodo in feathers and in the fact that they are also clumsy walkers. The Dutch are known to have initially called the bird the ‘walgvogel’, literally meaning ‘ghastly bird’, in reference to the way it tasted. But adding to the mystery of where the dodo's name came from is the fact that ‘dodo’ had been part of the English language since at least 1628, and the Dutch are not thought to have reached Mauritius to discover this marvelously awkward bird before 1638.
According to The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, ‘dodo’ comes from Portuguese doudo (or more commonly ‘doido’) meaning ‘fool, simpleton, silly, stupid’, or, as an adjective, meaning ‘crazy.’
Yet another possibility, as author David Quammen noted in his book The Song of the Dodo, is "that 'dodo' was an onomatopoeic approximation of the bird's own call, a two-note pigeony sound like 'doo-doo'."
So while the origin of the word ‘dodo’ is lost in the mists of time it has none-the-less given us a wonderful metaphor for a person or organisation which is very old or has very old-fashioned views or is not willing to change and adapt. And if you want to sound very precocious and wish to use an adjective instead of a noun, you might say that such a person is ‘didine’.
Isn’t language wonderful?
Written by Taylor Davidson, Read by Zane C Weber
Subscribe to us on ITUNES, STITCHER, SPOTIFY, or your podcatcher of choice.
Find us on FACEBOOK or TWITTER
Become a Patron of That’s Not Canon Productions at Patreon!
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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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