"Chambers's Cyclopaedia in turn was the inspiration for the landmark Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot."
Wondering why Chamber's used Cyclopaedia sans en- and Diderot used it, I dug around a bit. (I think I love Wiktionary even more than Wikipedia (particularly since I don't have an OED sub.).)
From Renaissance Ancient Greek ἐγκυκλοπαιδεία (enkuklopaideía, “education in the circle of arts and sciences”), a mistaken univerbated form of ἐγκύκλιος παιδείᾱ (enkúklios paideíā, “education in the circle of arts and sciences”), from ἐγκύκλιος (enkúklios, “circular”) + παιδείᾱ (paideíā, “child-rearing, education”). This spelling seems to have been first used by Paul Skalich in 1559, although the spelling encyclopedia goes back to at least 1517, with a work by Johannes Aventinus. "
"The word encyclopedia (encyclo|pedia) comes from the Koine Greek ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, transliterated enkyklios paideia, meaning 'general education' from enkyklios (ἐγκύκλιος), meaning 'circular, recurrent, required regularly, general' and paideia (παιδεία), meaning 'education, rearing of a child'; together, the phrase literally translates as 'complete instruction' or 'complete knowledge'. However, the two separate words were reduced to a single word due to a scribal error by copyists of a Latin manuscript edition of Quintillian in 1470. The copyists took this phrase to be a single Greek word, enkyklopaedia, with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek word became the New Latin word encyclopaedia, which in turn came into English. Because of this compounded word, fifteenth-century readers and since have often, and incorrectly, thought that the Roman authors Quintillian and Pliny described an ancient genre."
So... 'Encyclopédie' is the 'right' form of the wrong (univerbated) form of the two Greek words and Chambers just decided to drop the En- for Reasons. (I could see rationalisation that might make sense: if enkúklios is the Greek word but cyclus (-> cyclo-) is the 'right' form of the original ancient Latin borrowing of enkúklios then re-doing the mistaken univerbation might seem like the right thing to do, since the intended meaning of the portmanteau is the same as the mistaken univerbation. But I don't know if that's actually what he was doing.)
I've read the Carl Gutierrez-Jones paragraph quoted above five or six times now and I can't make any sense of it. It's the strangest thing. There are six sentences in the excerpt. I know what all the individual words mean (although I did have to look up "cooptation") but I just don't get anything else. It's like reading Jabberwocky, but Jones clearly has some serious point to make and Kathleen, who is always precise, intentionally selected the paragraph. It's an odd sense, discomfiting even.
On a lighter note, I'd like to add that Pynchon is literature's greatest living book title writer. Gravity's Rainbow certainly has a place in the book title Hall of Fame, but my all time favorite is "The Crying of Lot 49." Even now, decades after I first unpeeled the magnificent dual meaning of those words they still burst like a grenade in my mind when I read them. Pynchon packed a poem into five words. It's amazing.
Regarding Encylopedias, it's odd from a modern perspective to consider a world where such a thing could even be considered possible or useful. This is true even though most people older than 40 (?) might have grown up in a home where an Encyclopedia lined a bookshelf. It's interesting to know that there is a Metadata Research Center where historical systems of organization, classification and their associated ontologies are studied. On the surface the existence of powerful, dynamic search technologies have changed has changed a lot of this, and AI promises to push yet another axis into the domain. Even so, consciousness itself has an organizing, classifying, ontology constructing nature. We each live in a kind of encyclopedia of our own making.
"Chambers's Cyclopaedia in turn was the inspiration for the landmark Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot."
Wondering why Chamber's used Cyclopaedia sans en- and Diderot used it, I dug around a bit. (I think I love Wiktionary even more than Wikipedia (particularly since I don't have an OED sub.).)
Which eventually coughs up (for the antique spelling): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/encyclopaedia#Latin
"Latin - Etymology
From Renaissance Ancient Greek ἐγκυκλοπαιδεία (enkuklopaideía, “education in the circle of arts and sciences”), a mistaken univerbated form of ἐγκύκλιος παιδείᾱ (enkúklios paideíā, “education in the circle of arts and sciences”), from ἐγκύκλιος (enkúklios, “circular”) + παιδείᾱ (paideíā, “child-rearing, education”). This spelling seems to have been first used by Paul Skalich in 1559, although the spelling encyclopedia goes back to at least 1517, with a work by Johannes Aventinus. "
Wikipedia proper is a little more thorough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia
"The word encyclopedia (encyclo|pedia) comes from the Koine Greek ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, transliterated enkyklios paideia, meaning 'general education' from enkyklios (ἐγκύκλιος), meaning 'circular, recurrent, required regularly, general' and paideia (παιδεία), meaning 'education, rearing of a child'; together, the phrase literally translates as 'complete instruction' or 'complete knowledge'. However, the two separate words were reduced to a single word due to a scribal error by copyists of a Latin manuscript edition of Quintillian in 1470. The copyists took this phrase to be a single Greek word, enkyklopaedia, with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek word became the New Latin word encyclopaedia, which in turn came into English. Because of this compounded word, fifteenth-century readers and since have often, and incorrectly, thought that the Roman authors Quintillian and Pliny described an ancient genre."
So... 'Encyclopédie' is the 'right' form of the wrong (univerbated) form of the two Greek words and Chambers just decided to drop the En- for Reasons. (I could see rationalisation that might make sense: if enkúklios is the Greek word but cyclus (-> cyclo-) is the 'right' form of the original ancient Latin borrowing of enkúklios then re-doing the mistaken univerbation might seem like the right thing to do, since the intended meaning of the portmanteau is the same as the mistaken univerbation. But I don't know if that's actually what he was doing.)
elm
learn something new everyday
I've read the Carl Gutierrez-Jones paragraph quoted above five or six times now and I can't make any sense of it. It's the strangest thing. There are six sentences in the excerpt. I know what all the individual words mean (although I did have to look up "cooptation") but I just don't get anything else. It's like reading Jabberwocky, but Jones clearly has some serious point to make and Kathleen, who is always precise, intentionally selected the paragraph. It's an odd sense, discomfiting even.
On a lighter note, I'd like to add that Pynchon is literature's greatest living book title writer. Gravity's Rainbow certainly has a place in the book title Hall of Fame, but my all time favorite is "The Crying of Lot 49." Even now, decades after I first unpeeled the magnificent dual meaning of those words they still burst like a grenade in my mind when I read them. Pynchon packed a poem into five words. It's amazing.
Regarding Encylopedias, it's odd from a modern perspective to consider a world where such a thing could even be considered possible or useful. This is true even though most people older than 40 (?) might have grown up in a home where an Encyclopedia lined a bookshelf. It's interesting to know that there is a Metadata Research Center where historical systems of organization, classification and their associated ontologies are studied. On the surface the existence of powerful, dynamic search technologies have changed has changed a lot of this, and AI promises to push yet another axis into the domain. Even so, consciousness itself has an organizing, classifying, ontology constructing nature. We each live in a kind of encyclopedia of our own making.