Biloxi update

Alan H. Hartley ahartley at d.umn.edu
Tue Oct 12 13:44:32 UTC 2004


Koontz John E wrote:

> On Sun, 10 Oct 2004, David Kaufman wrote:
>
>>I would imagine documenting an "extinct" language has its own problems,
>>since there are no longer native speakers left with which to confirm
>>data.
>
>
> The operative phrase is hapax legomenon.

Well, by a stretch, maybe. A hapax legomenon is a word or phrase that
appears only once in the record (i.e., 'once' meaning 'one time only,'
not 'at some time in the past').

For example:

APNEUMATIC  Of or pertaining to the non-existence of soul or spirit;
non-spiritual, e.g., "The apneumatic theory of Dr. Rogers."

Many words, of course, deserve their hapax status.

Alan



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