{"id":83,"date":"2002-09-16T21:27:15","date_gmt":"2002-09-17T05:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=83"},"modified":"2005-08-12T06:54:55","modified_gmt":"2005-08-12T14:54:55","slug":"eloquently-speaking-from-the-stomach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/?p=83","title":{"rendered":"Eloquently Speaking from the Stomach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every now and then, I thumb through John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins<\/a> and surprise myself. Tonight I looked up the word eloquent<\/i> and was surprised to read:<\/p>\n

eloquent<\/b> see VENTRILOQUIST<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hm. I would never have guessed that eloquence had anything to do with ventriloquism<\/a>. First of all, I find ventriloquists<\/a> and their wooden friends just a tad bit disturbing, thanks to shows like The Twilight Zone<\/a> and Tales from the Crypt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I mean, it’s bad enough that ventriloquists like to stick their hand up a wooden doll’s butt and talk without moving their lips; let’s not make them science-fiction scary as well! Face it, there’s an eerie air about them. Hollywood makes them out to be evil, and we easily accept that. Why?<\/p>\n

Well… I did as the entry for eloquent<\/i> bid me. I looked up ventriloquist<\/i>:<\/p>\n

ventriloquist<\/b> [17] A ventriloquist<\/i> is etymologically a ‘stomach-speaker.’ The word is an anglicization of late Latin ventriloquus<\/i>, a compound formed from Latin venter<\/i> ‘stomach’ (source also of English ventral<\/i> [18] and ventricle<\/i> [14]) and loqui<\/i> ‘speak’ (source of English colloquial<\/i> [18], elocution<\/i> [15], eloquent<\/i> [14], loquacious<\/i> [17], etc). The ultimate model for this was Greek eggastrímuthos<\/i> ‘speaking in the stomach.’ The term was originally a literal one; it referred to the supposed phenomenon of speaking from the stomach or abdomen, particularly as a sign of possession by an evil spirit. It was not used for the trick of throwing one’s voice until the end of the 18th century.
»<\/b> colloquial, elocution, eloquent, locution, loquatious, ventral, ventricle<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Most notable in this entry is the following set of words: a sign of possession by an evil spirit.<\/i><\/p>\n

Aha. So there we have it. I will, of course, have nightmares tonight.<\/p>\nShare this post:

\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"tumblr\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"tumblr\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every now and then, I thumb through John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins and surprise myself. Tonight I looked up the word eloquent and was surprised to read: eloquent see VENTRILOQUIST Hm. I would never have guessed that eloquence had anything to do with ventriloquism. First of all, I find ventriloquists and their wooden friends just a tad bit disturbing, thanks to shows like The Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt. I mean, it’s bad enough that ventriloquists like…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}