Sunday, November 3, 2024

Anonymuncule

Anonymuncule (pronounced uh-non-uh-monk-u-elle)

An insignificant, anonymous writer

1859: A portmanueau word, the construct being anony(mous) + (ho)muncule.  Homnuncle was from the Latin homunculus (a little man), a diminutive of homō (man).  Anonymous entered English circa 1600 and was from the Late Latin anonymus, from the Ancient Greek ᾰ̓νώνῠμος (annumos) (without name), the construct being ᾰ̓ν- (an-) (“not; without; lacking” in the sense of the negating “un-”) + ὄνῠμᾰ (ónuma), an Aeolic & Doric dialectal form of ὄνομᾰ (ónoma) (name).  The construct of the English form was an- +‎ -onym +‎ -ous.  The an- prefix was an alternative form of on-, from the Middle English an-, from the Old English an- & on- (on-), from the Proto-Germanic ana- (on).   It was used to create words having the sense opposite to the word (or stem) to which the prefix is attached; it was used with stems beginning either with vowels or "h".  The element -onym (word; name) came from the international scientific vocabulary, reflecting a New Latin combining form, from Ancient Greek ὄνυμα (ónuma).  The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns to denote (1) possession of (2) presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance or (3) relation or pertinence to.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ic.  For example, sulphuric acid (H2SO4) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H2SO3).  The Latin homunculus (plural homunculi) enjoyed an interesting history.  In medieval medicine, it was used in the sense of “a miniature man”, a creature once claimed by the spermists (once a genuine medical speciality) to be present in human sperm while in modern medicine the word was resurrected for the cortical homunculus, an image of a person with the size of the body parts distorted to represent how much area of the cerebral cortex of the brain is devoted to it (ie a “nerve map” of the human body that exists on the parietal lobe of the human brain).  Anonymuncule is a noun; the noun plural is anonymuncules.

Preformationism: Homunculi in sperm (1695) illustrated by Nicolaas Hartsoeker who is remembered also as the inventor in 1694 of the screw-barrel simple microscope.

Like astrology, alchemy once enjoyed a position of orthodoxy among scientists and it was the alchemists who first popularized homunculus, the miniature, fully formed human, a concept with roots in both folklore and preformationism (in biology. the theory that all organisms start their existence already in a predetermined form upon conception and this form does not change in the course of their lifetime (as opposed to epigenesis (the theory that an organism develops by differentiation from an unstructured egg rather than by simple enlarging of something preformed)).  It was Paracelsus (the Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance Theophrastus von Hohenheim (circa 1493-1541)) who seems to have been the first to use the word in a scientific paper, it appearing in his De homunculis (circa 1529–1532), and De natura rerum (1537).  As the alchemists explained, a homunculus (an artificial humanlike being) could be created through alchemy and in De natura rerum Paracelsus detailed his method.

A writer disparaged as an anonymuncule differs from one who publishes their work anonymously or under a pseudonym, the Chicago Tribune in 1871 explaining the true anonymuncule was a “little creature who must not be confounded with the anonymous writers, who supply narratives or current events, and discuss public measures with freedom, but deal largely in generalities, and very little in personalities.  That was harsh but captures the place the species enjoy in the literary hierarchy (and it’s a most hierarchal place). Anonymuncules historically those writers who publish anonymously or under pseudonyms, without achieving renown or even recognition and there’s often the implication they are “mean & shifty types” who “hide behind their anonymity”.

Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics (1996), before and after the lifting of the veil.

Some however have good and even honourable reasons for hiding behind their anonymity although there is also sometime mere commercial opportunism.  When former Time columnist Joe Klein (born 1946) published Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics (1996), the author was listed as “anonymous”, a choice made to avoid the political and professional risks associated with openly critiquing a sitting president and his administration.  Primary Colors was a (very) thinly veiled satire of Bill Clinton’s (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) 1992 presidential campaign and offered an insider's view of campaign life, showing both the allure and moral compromises involved.  By remaining anonymous, Klein felt more able candidly to discuss the ethical dilemmas and personal shortcomings of his characters, something that would have been difficult has his identity been disclosed, the conflicts of interest as a working political journalist obvious.  Critically and commercially, the approach seems greatly to have helped the roman à clef (a work of fiction based on real people and events) gain immediate notoriety, the speculation about the author’s identity lying at the core of the book’s mystique.  Others have valued anonymity because their conflicts of interest are insoluble.  Remarkably, Alfred Deakin (1856-1919; prime minister of Australia 1903-1904, 1905-1908 & 1909-1910) even while serving as prime-minister, wrote political commentaries for London newspapers including the National Review & Morning Post and, more remarkably still, some of his pieces were not uncritical of both his administration and his own performance in office.  Modern politicians should be encouraged to pursue this side-gig; it might teach them truthfulness and encourage them more widely to practice it.

For others, it can be a form of pre-emptive self defense.  The French philosopher Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778) wrote under a nom de plume because he held (and expressed) views which often didn’t please kings, bishops and others in power and this at a time when such conduct was likely to attract persecution worse than censorship or disapprobation.  Mary Ann Evans (1819–1880) adopted the pseudonym George Eliot in an attempt to ensure her works would be taken seriously, avoiding the stigma associated with female authorship at the time.  George Eliot’s style of writing was however that of a certain sort of novelist and those women who wrote in a different manner were an accepted part of the literary scene and although Jane Austen’s name never appeared on her published works, when Sense and Sensibility (1811) appeared its author was listed as “A Lady”.  Although a success, all her subsequent novels were billed as: “By the author of Sense and Sensibility”, Austen's name never appearing on her books during her lifetime.  Ted Kaczynski (1942-2023), the terrorist and author of the Unabomber Manifesto (1995) had his own reasons (wholly logical but evil) for wanting his test to be read but his identity as the writer to remain secret.

Nazi poetry circle at the Berghof: Left to right, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), Martin Bormann (1900–1945), Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945), and Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945)), Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany, 1936.  Of much, all were guilty as sin but von Schirach would survive to die in his bed at 67.

The poet manqué is a somewhat related term.  A poet manqué is an aspiring poet who never produced a single book of verse (although it’s used also of an oeuvre so awful it should never have been published and the poetry of someone Baldur von Schirach comes to mind.  The adjective manqué entered English in the 1770s and was used originally in the sense of “unfulfilled due to the vagary of circumstance, some inherent flaw or a constitutional lack”.  Because it’s so often a literary device, in English, the adjective does often retain many grammatical features from French, used postpositively and taking the forms manquée when modifying a feminine noun, manqués for a plural noun, and manquées for a feminine plural noun.  That’s because when used in a literary context (“poet manqué”, “novelist manqué” et all) users like it to remain inherently and obviously “French” and thus it’s spelled often with its diacritic (the accent aigu (acute accent): “é”) although when used casually (to suggest “having failed, missed, or fallen short, especially because of circumstances or a defect of character”) as “fly-half manqué”, “racing driver manqué” etc), the spelling manque” is sometimes used.

Manqué (that might have been but is not) was from the French manqué, past participle form of the sixteenth century manquer (to lack, to be lacking in; to miss), from the Italian mancare, from manco, from the Latin mancus (maimed, defective), from the primitive Indo-European man-ko- (maimed in the hand), from the root man- (hand).  Although it’s not certain, the modern slang adjective “manky” (bad, inferior, defective (the comparative mankier, the superlative mankiest)), in use since the late 1950s, may be related.  Since the 1950s, the use in the English-speaking world (outside of North America) has extended to “unpleasantly dirty and disgusting” with a specific use by those stationed in Antarctica where it means “being or having bad weather”.  The related forms are the noun mankiness and the adverb mankily.  Although it’s not an official part of avian taxonomy, bird-watchers (birders) in the UK decided “manky mallard” was perfect to describe a mallard bred from wild mallards and domestic ducks (they are distinguished by variable and uneven plumage patterns).  However, it’s more likely manky is from the UK slang mank which was originally from Polari mank and used to mean “disgusting, repulsive”.

No poet manqué:  In January 2017, Lindsay Lohan posted to Instagram a poem for her 5.2 million followers, the verse a lament of the excesses of IS (the Islamic State), whetting the appetite for the memoir which might one day appear (hopefully "naming names").  The critical reaction to the poem was mixed but the iambic pentameter in the second stanza attracted favorable comment:

sometimes i hear the voice of the one i loved the most
but in this world we live in of terror
who i am to be the girl who is scared and hurt
when most things that happen i cannot explain
i try to understand
when i'm sitting in bed alone at 3am
so i can't sleep, i roll over
i can't think and my body becomes cold
i immediately feel older.....
 
than i realise, at least i am in a bed,
i am still alive,
so what can really be said?
just go to bed and close the blinds,
still and so on, i cannot help but want to fix all of these idle isis
minds
because,
there has to be something i can figure out
rather than living in a world of fear and doubt
they now shoot, we used to shout.
 
if only i can keep trying to fix it all
i would keep the world living loving and small
i would share my smiles
and give too Many kisses

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