Ostrobogulous (pronounced os-truh-bog-yuh-luhs or os-truh-bawg-yuh-luhs)
(1)
Something (slightly or tending towards) the risqué or indecent.
(2)
Something bizarre, interesting, or unusual.
Circa
1910s: The word was coined by the writer Victor Neuburg (1883–1940), a model of
English eccentricity who was Jewish, bisexual and an occasionally intimate
associate of the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) with whom he
shared several interests and proclivities.
Neuburg & Crowley travelled near and far to collaborate on many
things but the best remembered (and still much celebrated in the cult which to
this day surrounds the memory of Crowley) was the blending of occult rituals and
certain sexual practices which was systematized as “Sex Magick”, a combination
which has been a notable part of many sects and cults since. Arthur Calder-Marshall (1908–1992) was an
author (one with a remarkable eclectic oeuvre) acquainted with both and in one
of his memoirs (Magic my Youth (1951) he recalled “Ostrobogulous was Vickybird’s (Victor Neuburg) favourite word. It stood
for anything from the bawdy to the slightly off-colour. Any double entendre
that might otherwise have escaped his audience was prefaced by, ‘if you will
pardon the ostrobogulosity’”. Ostrobogulous
is an adjective, ostrobogulation & ostrobogulosity are nous and ostrobogulously
is an adverb; the noun plural is ostrobogulations.
Neuburg claimed ostrobogulous was a most
irregular formation, the construct being the Ancient Greek ostro (something rich) + the English bog (in the sense of “dirt”
from the schoolboy slang sense of “the toilet”) + the Latin suffix ulus (full of), the literal translation
thus “full of rich dirt”. The Latin
suffix -ulus was from the
Proto-Italic -elos, from the
primitive Indo-European -elós,
thematized from -lós; it was cognate
with the Proto-Germanic -ilaz & -ulaz and used to form (1) a diminutive
of a noun, indicating small size or youth, (2) a diminutive of an adjective
with diminished effect (denoting “somewhat” or “-ish”) and (3) an adjective
from a verb. The Oxford English
Dictionary (OED) rejected that, claiming the first element was from the Greek adjective
oestrous (oyster), from the Latin ostrea, from Ancient Greek ὄστρεον
(óstreon) (all related to the Modern
English oyster). Neuburg however ignored
the professional lexicographers and decided he was as qualified to determine
Classical etymology as he was to coin novel Modern English forms and noted the
Greek word ostreon which was a type
of mollusc was harvested to obtain a rare and expensive purple dye, hence he
decided that figuratively, it meant “something rich”. In that he was on sound historic ground; what
was known as Tyrian purple (also shellfish purple) was for long periods the
most expensive substance in Antiquity, often (by weight) three times the value
of gold, the exchange rate set by a Roman edict issued in 301 AD.
Upon release, I Know Who Killed Me (2007) received generally bad reviews (it was at one point a popular inclusion on “worst movie ever” lists) but there’s since been a reappraisal by some and the film now has a cult following and appears with some frequency in “midnight screenings”. Those searching for an adjective to describe I Know Who Killed Me might find ostrobogulous suitable because it leave the viewer free to decide which of its two meanings they prefer.
However
tangled might be the etymology, there’s no doubt Newburg coined ostrobogulous
to mean “something (slightly or tending towards) the risqué or indecent” yet by
the 1960s it was recorded being used by respectable middle-class folk to mean “something
weird, strange, bizarre unusual’ without any hint of indecency; the sense
rather of the “harmlessly mischievous”. Quite
how that happened isn’t known but it is an example of the meaning shifts and
re-purposing common in English. Now, it’s
only artificially common in that it’s one of those curiosities which are a fixture
of lists of strange and obscure words, a lexicographical fetish which has
flourished since the advent of the internet.
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