anus, anilis; anus; annus

[Mark Spahn]

Subject: Annular (ring-shaped) yoke: (Mechanical, patent for filing)

 

My reflexive translation for "環状" is typically "ring-shaped" or "annular." Unfortunately, both words in English (at least, in my visceral reaction) carry a connotation of being circular.

… - - - - - - - - -

 

 

Synchronicity strikes again.

Today I had occasion to look up the word “anile”.

It is pronounced either ANN-aisle, AIN-aisle, or ANN-ill, and it means “of or like an old woman; infirm; weak”.

Its comes from the Latin word _anus_ (nominative case), _anilis_ (genitive case), which means “old woman”, which in turn comes from the Indo-European base *an-, designation of male or female ancestor, from which derives the German word _Ahn_, grandfather.  The etymology in a dictionary further says “orig. < baby talk”.

 

There is another Latin word _anus_ (plural _ani_), which is English means こう門, the opening at the lower end of the alimentary canal.

 

(Side note:  Hey!  I tried to spell the kanji represented here by こう with the left half of 腔 and the right half of 江, but the kana-to-kanji software on my computer does not list this kanji.  What kind of bowdlerization is this!?)

 

The derivation of the English word “anus” is given as the Latin word _anus_, which means “ring” and derives from the Indo-European root *ano-.

So the word “anus” really means “ring” and therefore a good translation for 環状 would be “anus-shaped”.  And since it has been established that an annular ring/loop/hoop need not be circular, this suggests a new, lucrative field of plastic surgery that goes beyond mere tattooing and nose rings.  It sure would be cool, among the targeted demographic, to produce pooh whose cross-sectional shape is square, triangular, or star-shaped (perhaps with interchangeable fittings).  All we need is to register the patent and to plan a proper advertising campaign.

 

Also, “annular ring” is defined as “any of the concentric rings seen in cross sections of the stems of most trees and shrubs: each ring is a layer of wood that normally is a year’s growth”.  But strangely, the definition of “annular” (from the Latin _annus_, with two n’s) refers only to a yearlong time period, not a shape.

-- Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)

 

P.S.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer  says

Obit anus, abit onus.

·         The old woman dies, the burden is lifted.

·         Statement Schopenhauer wrote in Latin into his account book, after the death of a seamstress to whom he had made court-ordered payments of 15 thalers a quarter for over twenty years, after having injured her arm

 

[Alan Siegrist]

I have to run off and do something, but quickly I was able to type in 肛門 using the proper characters with the standard Windows 10 IME (kana-to-kanji converter). No problem! I wonder why you had the problem.

 

Best,

 

Alan

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[Mark Spahn]

Yeah, I wonder that too.  When writing an email (in a software package called “Outlook”), I am unable to find this koumon-no-kou character.  Lemme try again it now…

肛門

Ah, I finally found 肛:  it was waaay down the list of all the kanji for the reading こう.  I think what happened is that I didn’t realize that the list was much longer than what was originally displayed, and which I thought was the complete list.

Now lemme try again for whole-word kana-to-kanji conversion:  こうもん：now I get three choices 肛門、こう門、校門.  Previously, this first choice never appeared.  Certainly ani outnumber school gates by about 500 to 1, so肛門 should be listed before校門.

-- Mark Sp.

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[Matthew Schlecht]

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 1:08 PM, Mark Spahn <mark...@twc.com> wrote:

 

Synchronicity strikes again.

      Is there a term for the specific type of synchronicity that occurs 31 years later?

 

There is another Latin word _anus_ (plural _ani_), which is English means こう門, the opening at the lower end of the alimentary canal.

     Indeed!

     Tangentially, very tangentially..., chemistry has a group of reactions that create molecular rings.  These reactions, depending on your chemical tribal affinities, are referred to either as "annulations" or "anellations".  I belong to the former group, but there are still some benighted individuals who adhere to the latter, including my undergraduate mentor.  Who even developed an on-the-spot etymological analysis that "anellation" was correct because one "anneals" the new ring onto some existing structure.  He was a veritable cornucopia of quotable quotes!

     I once held forth on the annulation/anellation topic in a Letter to the Editor of Chemical & Engineering News (Chem. Eng. News 1985, April 15, p 4), and the gist was picked up by the authors of a book called "Organic Chemistry: The Name Game: Modern Coined Terms and Their Origins" (1987), to wit:

http://tinyurl.com/zkazged

     The gist of my initial (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) contribution, a general comment on the topic of chemilinguistics, was that since "annulus" is the diminutive of "anus", and "anellus" is the diminutive of "annulus" and the double diminutive of "anus", perhaps (we) chemists could use the term "annulation" to describe making larger rings (5 or more members) and "anellation" to describe making small rings (4 to 3 members).

Matthew Schlecht, PhD
Word Alchemy
Newark, DE, USA
wordalchemytranslation.com

[Mark Spahn]

First, a correction.  I wrote:

The derivation of the English word “anus” is given as the Latin word _anus_, which means “ring” and derives from the Indo-European root *ano-.

 

I read a dictionary etymology of “anus” incorrectly.  I should have written

The derivation of the English word “anus” is given as the Latin word _anus_, which means “ring” or “anus” and derives from the Indo-European root *ano-.

I thought, Well, if the ancient Romans used _anus_ to mean “ring”, how did they say _Arschloch_?  It turns out that _anus_ has two meaning, one for a shape, and the other for a bodily orifice.

 

With annulation/annelation, it is a case of “You say poTAYto, I say poTAHto”.  So avers Herr Doktor Professor Matthew Schlecht in a heretofore obscure but now famous footnote.

 

Let’s note also that the ending -ul in Latin, which occurs just before the grammatical masculine/feminine/neuter ending (and which is echoed in Spanish), is a diminutive ending meaning “little (and therefore cute)”.  So _anus_ means “ring; anus”, and therefore _anulus_ means “little ring; dainty asshole”.

 

Adding to the confusion is the existence of the double-n Latin word _annus_, which simply means “year”, and from which “annular” is derived.  What word did the ancient Romans use for the shape we call an “annular ring”, as seen on lopped-off tree trunks?

But soft!  Maybe there is a connection between _anus_ and _annus_, because the latter refers to a “ring” or cycle of ever-repeating seasonal changes.  It’s all very complex and confusing:  wheels within wheels, rings within rings, ani within ani.

 

Furthermore, in looking up “anile” (old-womanish, from the Latin _anus_ = “old woman”) in a dictionary, the word listed just after it is

aniline [[from anil, the indigo shrub + ending -ine]] = a colorless, poisonous, oily liquid, C6H5NH2, a derivative of benzene used in making dyes, resins, rubber additives, agricultural products, and in organic synthesis.  The word listed just before “anile” is “anil” (= the indigo plant), and the word just before *that* is

ani = [[Port < Guarani]] a tropical American cuckoo bird (genus _Crotophaga_), generally black, with a long tail.

This word “ani” is sometimes used as filler in crossword puzzles and is clued as “South American cuckoo bird”, although it might more succinctly be clued as “assholes” or “nether orifices”.   All this vocabulary is a veritable cloud cuckooland of confusion; more ani within ani.

-- Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)

 

 

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