Walk Softly – 14 Words You Will Never Say

by Geoffrey Carpentier

As I wait for spring, my mind sometimes wanders, and I think about strange words I’ve encountered over the years. Some of those I periodically share in these columns. Wouldn’t it be fun to see how many of these you’ve encountered in your literary journeys??

#1 and #2: Haptotropism or thigmotropism have to do with the ability of an organism to move in response to local tactile stimuli. Perhaps the easiest way to envision this is, by observing how some plants grow, grasp and coil around an animate or inanimate object. Many plants, such as vines, respond to the touch of a nearby obstacle, by turning towards it, then latching on and growing in a spiral to embrace the object.

#3: Gnathostomate: Scientists love to apply strange names to body parts and doctors seem even more adept than most to come up with unusual words for things which affect the human body. Simply stated, a gnathostomate is a vertebrate with jaws!

#4 & 5: Ba humbug. According to a BBC publication, Ba is a genus of land snails, named after the Ba District in Fiji. The American malacologist (someone who studies molluscs) obviously had a sense of humour, since he then named a species of snail, within the mollusc family, as Ba humbugi, a nod to fictional miser Ebenezer Scrooge’s famous catchphrase.

#6: Kwashiorkor is a severe disease, manifested by visible swelling under the skin and extremities, which makes the person appear bloated. It is most common in children in developing countries, perhaps, simply because more children suffer from malnutrition there than in Western societies.

#7: Zoosemiotics is a term used for the study of animal communication. Animals do have complicated mechanisms to ‘talk’ to each other, from audio signals, olfactory scents, recognition of colour patterns and much more, so it’s reasonable there would be a dedicated term to describe this complex behaviour.

#8 and #9: Obdormition is that feeling of tingling and numbness when an arm or leg has ‘gone to sleep’. Oh, and in case you wondered, the ‘pins and needles’ you feel, when the limb comes back to life, are correctly referred to as paresthesia.

#10 and 11: Horripilation or piloerection: Sticking with the theme of strange things our body does, horripilation is what we call goosebumps. In reality, it is a reaction whereby your hairs stand on end in response to the cold, a scary story or a fright. This response is an involuntary action, called piloerection, brought on by the contraction of tiny muscles at the base of the hair follicles. Those might also be manifested by changes in the temperature of the skin surface, as we commonly experience when entering or leaving cold water. Animals, such as porcupines, utilize piloerection to raise or lower their quills, but in their case, the action is voluntary.

#12: Poikilothermic – mammals and birds must use energy to control their core body temperatures and to regulate different temperature regimes in their extremities. This requires the expenditure of a lot of calories. Other animals, such as reptiles, fish and many insects, adopt a simpler strategy, as they try to keep their body temperature similar to that of their surroundings, hence they are considered poikilothermic of course!

#13; Borborygmus – we’ve all experienced it, sometimes at very embarrassing moments – that tummy rumble, where gurgling, sloshing and growling noises seem to permeate an entire room. In the future, if this happens to you, simply state, “Sorry, I’m a bit borborygmus today”. Everyone will understand.

#14: Apoptosis: The ability of an organism to develop into a complex entity when it starts as a single cell is mind-boggling. The human hand, for example, in the embryonic state, begins as a flat paddle, which slowly is changed by deft slices of selective ‘death’, where cells are trimmed away, until the cells, comprising the fingers or toes, stand out in stark relief to the spaces between them. The doomed cells respond to some signal, perhaps generated by the neighbouring cells, and quietly wither away. The formal name for this is apoptosis or programmed cell death.

Boy, I hope spring arrives soon so my mind can stop wandering!

Geoff Carpentier is a published author, expedition guide and environmental consultant. Visit Geoff on-line on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.