Agathokakological (pronounced ag-uh-thuh-kak-loj-uh-kuhl)
Composed
of both good and evil.
1834: The construct was the Greek ἀγαθός (agathós) (good) + κακός (kakós) (bad) + logical. Agathós was from the Proto-Hellenic əgathós, possibly from the primitive Indo-European m̥ǵhdhós (made great; whose deeds are great), the construct being méǵhs (great) + dheh- (do) + -ós (the Latin magnificus was from the same roots) although there are etymologists who discount and Indo-European connection and suggest it was a borrowing from some Pre-Greek source. The source of kakka- & kaka- is unknown but there may be some connection with the primitive Indo-European root kakka- & kaka- (to defecate) and it may be compared with the Phrygian κακον (kakon) (harm) and Albanian keq (bad). Again, there are etymologists who prefer a Pre-Greek origin. In English slang, to be “cack handed” (cackhandedly & cackhandedness the related forms) describes someone clumsy, someone prone to dropping or breaking things. The association was with the Old English cack (excrement; dung) and in Old English a cachus was a privy (toilet), both from the Latin cacare (to defecate). Apparently, the ultimate origin or cack-handed was from the ancient practice (developed among people who were of course mostly right-handed), that the left hand should be reserved for cleaning oneself after defecation, the right used for all other purposes (something related to the significance of shaking hands with the right). It’s from kakka- & kaka- that poppycock, kakistocracy, cacophony, cacology and cacography are derived.
Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.
The suffix -logical was used to form adjectival forms of nouns ending in –logy although few terms are directly derived using this suffix. Terms ending in logical are often derived from words formed in other languages or by suffixing -ical to a word ending in logy (biological = biology + -ical; genealogical = genealogy + -ical). The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) + -logy. The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century. French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía). Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story). In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie). Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)). In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al). The -al suffix was from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, ((the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al. It was use to denote the sense "of or pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns) originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action. The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete).
As far as is known, “agathokakological” was coined by the English Romantic poet Robert Southey (1774–1843), noted for his introduction into English of many novel forms, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) listing him as the earliest known author of some 400 words. Few have survived except as linguistic curiosities in the many lists of such things the internet has encouraged many to compile. In The Doctor (1834), Southey included the passage: “For indeed upon the agathokakological globe there are opposite qualities always to be found.” but it suffers from being as unwieldy a way of saying “composed of both good and evil” as his epistolization was of “letter writing” and batrachophagous of frog-eating. Although the latter usefully existed to distinguish between those who enjoyed the delicacy cuisses de grenouilles (frog legs) and those who digested the whole unfortunate amphibian, it never caught on. He is though credited for being the first writer in English to use the word “zombie” (he use the Haitian French speeling zombi) when it appeared in his essay History of Brazil (1819) and one sadly neglected creation remains futilitarian (a person devoted to futility) which would seem to be crying out for wider use.
Agathokakological is an adjective, the comparative being “more agathokakological” and the superlative “most agathokakological”. To be “most agathokakological” presumably implies something like “most polarized” in that one’s qualities of good and bad are especially exaggerated. That presumably would be the understanding of psychiatrists who would regard agathokakological as a synopsis of the human condition and a spectrum condition, some individuals containing more good than others, others more bad. Engineers would also be familiar with the concept, few machines being either perfect or so flawed as to be useless, most a mix of virtues and vices, the Triumph Stag a classic example and one which probably moved some owners to recall Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s (1807–1882) poem There was a little girl:
No comments:
Post a Comment