BORBORYGM

[Dr. Goodword]

• borborygm •

Pronunciation: bor-bê-rig-êm • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: Grumbling of the bowels, the rumbling of the stomach after eating.

Notes: If you wish to speak medically, you can call this embarrassing sound a borgorymus, too. If you do, you have to remember that the plural is borborygmi. If you use our short form, you may simply say borborygms The adjective is borborygmic and borborology is the scientific study of the problem; however, up to the 17th century it meant "profanity". If you don't want your borborygms to go to waste, you might try a little after dinner gastromancy.

In Play: Today's word is the perfect word for the sound it names, a fact that has attracted writers for ages. Aldous Huxley complained about "the stertorous borborygms of the dyspeptic Carlyle" and Nabokov noted that "all the toilets and waterpipes in the house had been suddenly seized with borborygmic convulsions." Elizabeth Fenwick wrote in Long Way Down (1959), "The room was very quiet, except for its borborygmic old radiator."

Word History: This Good if funny Word came to us from Greek borborygmos via Latin to French borborygme, where English picked it up. It is clearly onomatopoetic, the imitation of a real sound in the sound of the word that names it. It is odd the French and English did not simplify this word to borborism, as the Greeks themselves ultimately did. (We hope Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira, who suggested today's word, happily digests his meals today without borborygmic accompaniment.)

[Flaminius]

If you wish to speak medically, you can call this embarrassing sound a borgorymus, too. If you do, you have to remember that the plural is borborygmi. If you use our short form, you may simply say borborygms. . . .

My brain is getting borborygmous trying to dig in to the anomalous plural.

[Brazilian dude]

(We hope Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira, who suggested today's word, happily digests his meals today without borborygmic accompaniment.)

Some seven years ago, when I started going to chatrooms, my nickname was Magenschleimhautentzündung (German for gastritis). Maybe Freud explains.

My brain is getting borborygmous trying to dig in to the anomalous plural.

So is mine.

Brazilian dude

[tcward]

Magenschleimhautentzündung (German for gastritis)

Dude!! How does that translate (literally) into English? I'd love to know...

-Tim

[Brazilian dude]

der Magen, Mägen/Magen - stomach
der Schleim, Schleime - mucus
die Haut, Häute - skin
die Entzündung, Entzündungen - inflammation

Brazilian dude

[tcward]

Wow, German efficiency at its finest.

-Tim

[Brazilian dude]

Jawohl!

Brasilianer ohne Magenschleimhautentzündung

[M. Henri Day]

...
der Schleim, Schleime - mucus
die Haut, Häute - skin...

«Schleimhaut» is, of course, mucous membrane - easy, Greasy, you ain't got far to slide, as named Freud might have put it....

Henri

[Stargzer]

Wow, German efficiency at its finest.

-Tim

Perhaps Meticulousnous would be more Germane . . .

[Stargzer]

...
der Schleim, Schleime - mucus
die Haut, Häute - skin...

«Schleimhaut» is, of course, mucous membrane - easy, Greasy, you ain't got far to slide, as named Freud might have put it....

Henri

Aha!

der Schleim --> mucus --> mucous -->slime (Definition 2).

I know of no one on this board who meets Definition 6. Then again, I'm not looking in a mirror at the moment, either.

[gailr]

checking for der Schleim...
-gailr

[Stargzer]

Took me a few seconds to recognize who was in the picture.

Speaking of Green Slime Syndrome . . .

Other Rēs Viridēs Lēvēs:

Wiki Slime

You Can't Do That On Television (Oh, Canada!)

Wiki YCDTOTV

ECE - Green Slime (for ferret fanciers)

The Green Slime (Memorable quote: [examining a charred corpse from which smoke is still rising] "He's dead.")

GREEN GLOW: NOT ONLY FOR HALLOWEEN

[M. Henri Day]

...

Pronunciation: bor-bê-rig-êm • Hear it!

Dr G, when I clicked on the link above, I heard zilch - neither a grumbling of bowels nor a rumbling of stomach - but was rather greeted by a silent notice 404 : Document Not Found. What's up ?...

Henri

[Perry Lassiter]

German loves what I call the boxcar effect. Whenever they need a new word, they don't coin it or remodel a couple of old words, they just cram two or three or six words together like a train adding boxcars. Sometimes makes it easy to figure out, and at other times impenetrable.

[LukeJavan8]

true, that.