Adoxography

[Dr. Goodword]

• adoxography •

Pronunciation: æ-dahk-sahg-rê-fi • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: Fine prose written about a trivial, insignificant or base subject.

Notes: This word comes with the complete panoply of all the derivational relatives of all words ending in -graphy: adoxographer, adoxographic(al), adoxographically, and adoxograph "an adoxographic work".

In Play: The only reason I see for "fine" being in this definition in most dictionaries is that exalted authors undertook it in the late 19th century as a joke. If we eliminate that one word (for which no linguistic reason exists), it becomes quite topical: "Most of the social media is flooded with adoxography." In other words: "Did you read Godfrey's adoxographical Facebook post today?"

Word History: Today's Good Word was based on Greek adoxos "obscure, ignoble", comprising a(n)- "not, without" + doxa "glory, praise". A(n)- is the Greek version of PIE ne/no "not", which we see in Lithuanian ne "no, not", Russian and other Slavic languages undisturbed as ne "not", Welsh na "no", Breton nann "no", Hindi and Bengali na "not", Marathi naahi "not", German nein "no", and English no. Doxa descended from PIE dek-/dok- "to take, accept, receive", as in Sanskrit dasasyati "is gracious, shows honor", Greek dekhesthai "to accept", Latin docere "to teach", and German Zeche "bill, check". -Graphy comes from Greek graphia "description", based on graphein "to write", which Greek inherited from PIE gerbh- "to scratch", which also turns up in German kerben "to notch", Dutch kerven "to carve", and English carve. (Now a non-adoxographic word of praise to newcomer Vincent Walker, for suggesting today's potentially topical Good Word.)

[George Kovac]

What a great word! I’m OK with the “fine” point in the definition. But must “adoxography” be limited to fine prose? Why not fine poetry, too?

Here is an extreme example of poetic adoxography, “The Beautiful Bowel Movement,” a poem published and anthologized by Updike. This is not some joke poem he dashed off in a letter to a friend. Why waste talent writing about excrement?

Here is a link to the text: https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the ... pdike.html

And here is a link to a dramatic reading of the poem: https://youtu.be/pSGvmtAB8Ss

[David Myer]

I am with you George. The word has little interest for me if its about inane writing. But if the word 'fine' is added, then it becomes most useful. And your Updike poem is a great example. I much enjoyed the links.

[David Myer]

I am no Greek scholar but maybe we could use a new word Kallography to mean beautiful prose - not calligraphy, beautiful script. It doesn't include the nuance of beautiful writing about inconsequentials. Perhaps proper Greek linguists could add that nuance and still create an attractive word?

[George Kovac]

In defense of adoxography…

My reference to John Updike’s execrable poem in a prior post notwithstanding, “adoxography” is not necessarily a pejorative or trivial exercise.

Here’s a recurring example: Dan Neil writes the automobile reviews for the Wall Street Journal that are full of adoxography. As a genre, the car review is pretty much a nuts-and-bolts subject matter, a topic many laymen would find insipid, or at least geek-ish. Neil is deeply knowledgeable about auto mechanics and design.

Nevertheless, Neil writes with panache, and his columns can be mined for potential GoodWords of the day. His vocabulary is bottomless and his writing style is skillfully over-the-top. In the hands of a lesser craftsman, this could come off as pretentious, but Neil is winking as he taps on his keyboard, and he knows his readers are in on the joke.

He once described the rear end of a Cadillac as “callipygian.” In today’s WSJ column, Neil admires the high-tech matte finish on the Genesis G70 AWD 3.3T because “The play of light and shade, the warping gradients of color and lambency, reveal curvatures otherwise lost in the glare of conventional paints.” Wow. I wonder if Lamborghinis come with lambency.

BTW, “lambent” and its noun “lambency” were featured May 25, 2008 as the GoodWord of the day.

[Slava]

Lambent link.