pomophobe

[Jonathan Lighter]

By today's standards, Latin had a relatively restricted vocabulary. That's
because many things hadn't been discovered yet! What OED means is "an apple
or anything, esp. a fruit, resembling an apple; but mostly an apple."

JL

On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 10:43 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: pomophobe
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> At 5/3/2011 09:46 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> >
> >On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 4:44 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > > Subject:      Re: pomophobe
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > At 5/3/2011 04:25 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> > >
> > >>At first, thanks to increasing presbyopia, I read the word as
> > >>_pornophobe_, an obvious oxymoron.
> > >>
> > >>But, "hates apples?" I don't get it.
> > >
> > > As in "pome, n.1." =
> > > "1.a. †A fruit of the apple kind, or one shaped
> > > like an apple (obs. except in a technical sense:
> > > see 1b); an apple (now poet. and rare)."
> > > b. Bot. The type of fruit that is characteristic
> > > of the apple ( Malus domestica), the pear ( Pyrus
> > > communis), and related members of the family
> > > Rosaceae, which consists of a fleshy, enlarged
> > > receptacle enclosing a tough central core (the
> > > true fruit), formed from several united carpels and containing the
> seeds."
> > >
> > > (Or perhaps a fear of kings and cabbages.  Or
> > > meatballs.  (See other definitions s.v.)
> > >
> > > Joel
> > >
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> >
> >Thanks. Joel! I got it now.
>
>
> I loved the definition -- "†A fruit of the apple
> kind ..." -- syntax and vocabulary out of the
> 16th or 17th century?  And the connection with "Through the Looking-Glass".
>
> Joel
>
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