hypercranialoquy

[Dr. Goodword]

• hypercranialoquy •

Pronunciation: hai-pêr-krayn-i-ah-lê-kwi • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, mass (no plural)

Meaning: Talking over the heads of others.

Notes: Puzzled expression on the faces of an audience is a true reflection of hypercranialoquy. Eyes looking upwards as the words fly past is another reliable indicator. Today's more or less Good Word is a distant cousin of dorsaloquy "talking behind someone's back", a word made up by Perry Dror in the Alpha Agora way back in 2010. It is in the same family as circumaloquy "talking in circles", a word I just made up to show how easy it is.

In Play: Talking is fast becoming a lost art in the US. We often talk past each other, over each other's heads, or behind each other's backs: "The inability of Congress to get the message suggests that the US electorate may be engaged in a kind of hypercranialoquy at the polls." Speeches are more likely than normal conversations to go over our heads: "I go to the lectures of Maude Lynn Dresser more to see her outfits than to listen to her hypercranialoquial lectures."

Word History: Today's Good Word is a triple compound made up of Greek hyper "super, over" + Latin cranium "cranium" + Latin loqui "to talk". It all makes sense, doesn't it? Hyper emerged in Latin as super and, since they were spelled differently, English borrowed both. We didn't need either, though, since both mean "over", yet another word coming from the same source. Of course, today, hyper "overwrought, excited" and super "great" are discrete words in English, so we did take advantage of the redundancy. Latin cranium "head" came from the same source as cornus "horn", whose root is found in the one-horned mythical unicorn as well as the cornucopia "horn of plenty". (Today we thank Gail Rallen for suggesting today's mythological Good Word and our old friend April Phule, for suggesting the concept. April 1 is a day of practical jokes and as a reward for reading this far, you are awarded a confession that today's Good Word is just a well-constructed hoax.)

[damoge]

When looking at the word before reading the definition, I took the first two syllables as meaning
"hyper "overwrought, excited" "
so, I thought the word very applicable to the overwrought dialogs taking place in my cranium.

Seems the longer I sit by myself, the louder and more agitated the colloquy.
May I suggest this as a second definition?
(perhaps it would have needed a double "l"?)

[Philip Hudson]

For years I have monitored the hypercranialoquy of Christian sermons. I have called out many a pastor for practicing it. One pastor I monitor is my brother. I get his sermons in written forms each week. When he uses an unusual word incorrectly, I also call him out. He actually said that there were feral fawns frolicking on his front lawn. He lives in the country and deer do frolic on his front lawn, however there is no such thing as a feral fawn. His defense was that he was aiming for alliteration and not accuracy and that his parishioners wouldn't know the difference. My pastor is also wont to use strange words. Once he noted that he was segueing to another topic. I sent him an e-mail saying that singers, skaters, dancers and even public speakers in general are allowed to segue but it was forbidden to do it in a homily.

[David Myer]

Bravo Phillip! You tell 'em.

[Slava]

Why is there no such thing as a feral fawn? Wild, as opposed to domesticated, no? Isn't that their natural state?

[Philip Hudson]

Slava: Perhaps I have narrowed the definition to: "having escaped from domestication and become wild." This is the only definition I have previously known. In Jack London's "Call of the Wild" a dog became feral and joined a wolf pack.

Webster does allow the definition to extend to wild animals and plants who have no domestic ancestors. Since "feral" so well denotes the plants and animals that need very much to be exterminated, I think the Webster definition is too broad. One of the greatest dangers to our ecology is the abundance of gone-wild hogs, dogs, cats, kudzu plants, water hyacinth, Johnson grass etc. in our environment. Many wild species that have been purposely or accidentally introduced into our environment have played havoc with it.

Travel the roads south of San Antonio, Texas, and look at the margins. They have been taken over by the King Ranch bluestem grass. In places this grass has covered what used to beautiful carpets of wildflowers.

The small Chinese clams that have infested Texas waterways are examples of the destructive force of unfriendly immigration. My Chinese friends say [tongue in cheek] that we can eliminate them by inviting thousands of Chinese people to visit Lake Texoma, provide them with soy sauce and bid them to the feast.

However, I welcome foreign people to the USA. Some of my best friends are my Chinese ESL students.

[Slava]

Perhaps I have narrowed the definition to: "having escaped from domestication and become wild." This is the only definition I have previously known.

I guess I've always known the native state definition instead. Now I also find out that it can mean fatal. So, if those fawns carry a dread disease, they could be ferally feral, no?