Pandemonium

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Dr. Goodword
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Pandemonium

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sat Nov 11, 2017 12:22 am

• pandemonium •

Pronunciation: pæn-dê-mon-i-êm • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, mass (no plural)

Meaning: Total and complete chaos, usually caused by a mob of angry, irreconcilable people or animals.

Notes: No, we are not talking about the panda section at the zoo, but complete chaos, what we would expect if demons took control. It comes with at least two adjectives, pandemoniac and pandemonic, and the first of these may be used to refer to a disorderly, raucous person. If you need an extra syllable, this word may be used adjectivally as pandemoniacal. Either may be converted to an adverb, but I prefer pandemonically of the two possibilities here.

In Play: We don't have to look far for an excellent example of pandemonium these days: Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo erupted in total pandemonium as Mubarak supporters attacked thousands of Egyptians who had gathered there to protest President Mubarak's excessively long term in office." Smaller samples of pandemonium may be found nearer home: "Will you pandemoniacs please calm down? A sleep-over isn't supposed to be complete pandemonium."

Word History: Seldom do we know exactly when, why, how a word entered the language, and by whom. Today's Good Word is the exception. Pandemonium (originally Pandæmonium) was coined by John Milton as the name for the "high capital of Satan and all his peers" in Paradise Lost (1667). Milton created his word from Greek pan "all" + daimon "lesser god", a word borrowed by Latin as dæmon and reduced to demon in English. By Milton's time, this word referred to evil spirits and it was this sense that Milton intended. We have already met pan in panacea, pandemic, and my personal favorite, pandiculation. (Let's express a word of gratitude to Rob Towart for helping us out of any mental pandemonium caused by confusion over today's Good Word.)
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George Kovac
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Re: Pandemonium

Postby George Kovac » Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:37 am

Dr. Goodword demonstrates that while English vocabulary is usually the product of slow organic development, sometimes vocabulary can be a deliberate top-down enterprise.

"Pandemonium" is a lush, almost onomatopoetic word that packs a punch. It is a word used broadly and often in a variety of contexts today.

Unaware of its provenance, I was surprised to learn that so popular and useful of a word was invented by the academic and inaccessible John Milton. No one today outside of university English departments reads Milton’s impenetrable and unaffecting poetry. The best critique of Milton's writing was Samuel Johnson's observation that "'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is."

I will put “pandemonium” in the same category as the word “utopia,” another useful and popular noun invented by an early modern English writer to advance the narrative of his didactic fiction. Although in today's pessimistic times, we are more likely to encounter the more recent negative extension of Thomas Moore’s word: “dystopia.”
"Every battle of ideas is fought on the terrain of language." Zia Haider Rahman, New York Times 4/8/2016

Philip Hudson
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Re: Pandemonium

Postby Philip Hudson » Wed Nov 15, 2017 4:08 am

George, I like your remarks. I had planned to write something similar but you saved me the effort.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.


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