"autocoprophogous baboons!"

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:18 PM -0800 3/4/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Algernon Charles Swinburne is the source of OED's lone
>"autocoprophogous" cite, from 1880.
>
>   But this appears to have been one of Algy's favorite words.
>
>   1871 in A. C. Swinburne _The Yale Edition of the Swinburne Letters
>1869-1875_  (New Haven: Yale U. P., 1959) 161: A Malebolgian
>periodical called the Contemporary Review, conducted by...spiritual
>nightmen of the autocoprophogous persuasion.
>
>   Then in 1874 Swinburne wrote to Emerson to suggest gently that the
>latter was the
>
>   1874 A. C. Swinburne, in F. L. Lucas _Style_  (Rpt. N.Y.: Collier
>Books, 1962) 131 Coryphaus or choragus of his Bulgarian tribe of
>autocoprophogous baboons.
>
>   After that it gets indelicate.
>
>   JL
>
Note, though, that the unprefixed form is generally "coprophagous",
and indeed checking under "autocoprophagous" with an a yields 799
google hits, not all from Swinburne's blogs...

LH

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