Thursday 25 March 2010

life is learning

Once upon a time I reviewed Richard Mabey's lovely Nature Cure. Ever since, I have periodically tried to remember some of the excellent new words it taught me. The only one I thought I had succeeded in nailing down was 'ideolect', meaning the distinctive language and verbal tics a sub-societal group develops and sometimes uses in order to enhance its own cohesiveness. As it transpires, the word is 'ecolect'.*

The one I am always maddened to forget is 'isophene'. This is a line (like an isobar, etc.) linking the dates of first flowerings of a particular plant.

Other good ones included tarpans and koniks, which are types of wild horses.


*Coined by Hugh Sykes Davies

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