When Saying What You Mean Sounds Like It, Too

For a long time (i.e. since college) I have disliked one of the main rules of linguistics. Out of my dislike, I forgot what it’s called, but the rule states that words have no necessary connection to the things they describe. So the word for ‘tree’ needn’t be what it is in any language for that language’s grammar to function.

The reason why I dislike this rule is that it discourages us from taking pride and enjoyment in words that do seem to aurally convey the essence of the things they name. It’s hard to be scientific about it, but surely we all recognize some such words when we hear, or even see, them. Among my favorites: spindly, ichor, flabbergasted, bleak, crenellated, mellifluous. Among my least favorites: indulge, caress, plump, borscht, head cheese, Mariah Carey.

Discussing these words always seemed so indulgent that the prospect of doing so remained utterly bleak. Until, that is, Joseph Bottom came along and did exactly that at The Weekly Standard. Zounds! What, he asks,

about jab or fluffy or sneer, each of them true in a way that goes beyond logic? Verbose has always struck me as a strangely verbose word. Peppy has that perky, energetic, spry sound it needs. And was there ever a more supercilious word than supercilious? Or one more lethargic than lethargic?

Let’s coin a term for this kind of poetic, extralogical accuracy. Let’s call it agenbite. That’s a word Michael of Northgate cobbled up for his 1340 Remorse of Conscience–or Agenbite of Inwit, as he actually titled the book. English would later settle on the French-born word “remorse” to carry the sense of the Latin re-mordere, “to bite again.” But Michael didn’t know that at the time, and so he simply translated the word’s parts: again-bite or (in the muddle of early English spelling) agenbite.

Anyway, these words that sound true need some kind of name. And since they do bite back on themselves, like a snake swallowing its tail, Michael’s term will do as well as any other. Ethereal is an agenbite, isn’t it? All ethereal and airy. Rapier, swashbuckler, erstwhile, obfuscate, spume–agenbites, every one. Reverberation reverberates, and jingle jingles. A friend insists that machination is a word that tells you all about its Machiavellian self, and surely sporadic is a clean agenbite, with something patchy and intermittent in the taste as you say it.

Consider this open season, and an open thread, on agenbites.

(Photo of ur-agenbite The Jabberwocky courtesy of Flickr user Moochy.)