Mimsisms

Shay’s Lounge

What do you call this silly piece of furniture? 

Most of you probably answered “chaise lounge” (I call it a Jabba the Hutt sofa). But it turns out, the actual name for this is “chaise longue” (roughly pronounced “long”) which is French for “long chair.”  It turns out that we Americans have been mispronouncing the second french word for so long(ue) that “chaise lounge” is now totally acceptable and one might even say the correct way to say and write it. 

Melancholia and Hypochondria

“Melancholia” and “Hypochondria” are two words for mental ailments with roots in a bygone era of medicine called “humorism.”  The four humors are bodily fluids, blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile, that were once thought to influence the health and behaviours of people. For example, having an excess of blood was associated with impulsive behaviour and certain diseases.  This of course is the logic behind the practice of “blood-letting.”  The word “melancholia,” a feeling of deep sadness and malaise, literally means “Black Bile” as negative feelings were thought to be associated with the stuff. 

From Wikipedia: Ancient Greek μέλας (melas), “dark, black”, + χολή (kholé), “bile”.

So to say that one is melancholic is to say they’re feeling “black-biley.” 

Hypochondria, a feeling of anxiety that one may be sick with a serious illness is related:

Wikipedia: The word derives from the Greek term ὑποχονδρος hupochondros, meaning abdomen, or literally under cartilage.

The abdomen was the region of the body thought to be the source of the black bile. Thus, the abdomen represents the dark thoughts that lead us to assume every mole or freckle is actually skin cancer. “Cholera”, a gastrointestinal illness, is similarly related being attributed to an excess of yellow bile (“kholé”).  Also, the word “influenza” (the flu) is the Italian word for “influence,” as in “the influence of the astrological signs.”

I wonder if in a few hundred years we will look back at anachronistic names of diseases from our current era and be reminded of how primitive medicine once was. I suspect for example that the concept of “mental illness” being distinctly different from other illnesses will seem silly. Until then, the next time your feeling sad, try reducing the amount of black bile in your body.