[Ads-l] Venus Callipyga (and a colleague)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Not to be confused with Gale Storm.

JL

On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 8:02 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> In the same day’s paper (at least calculating from the printed version
> dropped off on our doorstep this morning), we have the semantically not
> unrelated “ecdysiastical” from an obit for Tempest Storm (not her real
> name, but apparently a happily chosen one):
>
> "Routinely named in the same ardent breath as the great 20th-century
> ecdysiasts Lili St. Cyr, Blaze Starr and Gypsy Rose Lee, Ms. Storm was
> every inch as ecdysiastical as they, and for far longer.”
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/arts/tempest-storm-dead.html
>
> Sticking to the adjective and adverb (without stripping down to the
> nominal “ecdysiast”), a search of the Times archives turns up (at least)
> two instances of “ecdysiastic” and one of “ecdysiastically” but none of
> “ecdysiastical”. This may be a “Times first”:
> https://www.reddit.com/r/NYTFirsts/comments/mvkxnc/ecdysiastical/.
>
> OED has no entry for “ecdysiastical”, but helpful suggests I must have
> meant “ecclesiastical”.  Close enough for…well, you decide what sort of
> work. The OED does confirm (correctly?) that the nominal “ecdysiast” tracks
> back to a 1940 coinage by Mencken:
>
> "It might be a good idea to relate strip-teasing in some way..to the
> associated zoölogical phenomenon of molting... A resort to the scientific
> name for molting, which is _ecdysis_, produces both _ecdysist_ and
> _ecdysiast_.”
>
> LH
>
> > On Apr 22, 2021, at 4:44 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU> wrote:
> >
> > NY Times, Ap. 21, “What happened to Vikki Dougan? The Model Once Known
> as ‘The Back’…” reported she inspired a 1961 song that mentioned her
> “callipygian cleft.”
> > OED callipygian, adj. (with examples from 1831ff) etymology adds
> “Compare the following earlier attestations of the plural noun callipygae (
> < post-classical Latin callipygae , feminine plural (1556 or earlier)):
> > 1624   T. Heywood Γυναικεῖον vi. 297   From which time, euer after, the
> two young marryed wiues were called Callipygae.
> > 1646   Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica iv. vi. 195   Callipygæ and
> women largely composed behinde.
> > With the form calipygean<
> https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/26445?redirectedFrom=callipygian#eid1173603050>
> compare -ean suffix<https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/58948#eid5896753>.
> >
> > N.E.D. (1888) indicates that the phrase ‘Callipygian Venus’ was in use
> before 1800, but evidence is lacking.”
> > Maybe so, though close is John Breval, Remarks on several parts of
> Europe:
> > relating chiefly to their antiquities and history. Collected upon the
> spot in several tours since the year 1723… (London, 1738) p. 27
> [GoogleBooks]:
> > One Temple there [in Sicily] was among the rest that deserves particular
> Notice, not so much upon the Account of its Dedication to Venus , by the
> very singular Epithet of Callipyga , (Pulchris natibus ornata ) as from the
> ( b ) Contest between two handsome Syracusian Sisters, to which it owed its
> Rise.
> > [footnote b includes:…]
> > It was upon this Occasion the young Man built the said Temple to Venus
> Callipyga. Athen. Lib. Xii.
> > Stephen
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org