Dr. Metablog

Dr. Metablog is the nom de blague of Vivian de St. Vrain, the pen name of a resident of the mountain west who writes about language, books, politics, or whatever else comes to mind. Under the name Otto Onions (Oh NIGH uns), Vivian de St. Vrain is the author of “The Big Book of False Etymologies” (Oxford, 1978) and, writing as Amber Feldhammer, is editor of the classic anthology of confessional poetry, “My Underwear” (Virago, 1997).

A Few Words New to Me

An "ongon," frequently depicted, it turns out, in Ice Age Mongolian art, is a type of shamanistic spirit. When a shaman dies, he becomes an ongon. My dictionary says that the plural of ongon is ongod, but the prehistoric art book in which I found this word prefers ongones. I doubt I'll have regular occasion to use the plural form, but if I did I would prefer the more familiar English-sounding version, ongones. The adjective entopic is the opposite of ectopic. Ectopic refers to something in its usual place and entopic means that it is its regular place, as, for example, your tongue is in your mouth. If it were elsewhere, it would be ectopic. In an entopic pregnancy, the embryo is in the womb, where, by golly, is just where it ought to be. A "psychopomp" (from Greek ψυχοπομπός, meaning a 'guide of souls') is an entity who carries the soul of a dead person to the underworld or to heaven, or wherever. I suppose that the familiar cartoon figure of a hooded, faceless man with a scythe is a kind of psychopomp, though I don't remember anyone ever calling it so. A "geoglyph" is a design in the earth created by removing soil and exposing the underlying rock. Here's a most famous geoglyph: 

The English Geoglyphs - The Ancient Connection
A "spall" is a large flake of rock. "Pecking" is a process of removing material by hammering or bashing. A "cupule" is a small circular hollow pecked into a rock. A 
"plaquette" is a small flat stone bearing an engraved design.
 
All these beautiful words were encountered in Paul G. Bahm's comprehensive Prehistoric Art (Cambridge, 1998).

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