{"id":28901,"date":"2013-04-10T22:28:32","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T22:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2013\/04\/10\/pullulus-n\/"},"modified":"2013-04-10T22:28:32","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T22:28:32","slug":"pullulus-n","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2013\/04\/10\/pullulus-n\/","title":{"rendered":"Pullulus (n.)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/dduane.tumblr.com\/post\/47646464324\/pullulus-n\">dduane<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Re the discussion going on in the #youngwizards tag about this at the moment:<\/p>\n<p>The word\u2019s a back-formation deriving from Latin <em>pullulare<\/em>, \u201cto sprout out, spring forth, spread, grow, increase\u201d. Hence, something that spreads, grows, increases \u2014 and (borrowing from the OED\u2019s entry for \u201cpullulate\u201d, \u201cnow usually with the connotation of rapid increase\u201d. I pronounce it PULL-you-lus, though that\u2019s a casual\/Anglicized pronunciation, and properly it really ought to be PULL-oo-lus.<\/p>\n<p>I decided the \u201corigin noun\u201d would be masculine because I didn\u2019t want possible confusion arising from a form <em>pullula<\/em> that might have been mistaken for a Latin diminutive of the usual sort: and also because the \u201c-us\u201d ending sounded (to me) a little more unnervingly disease-y and\/or organic. If that makes any sense.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026As it happens, BTW, the word (to my surprise) does occur in the classical literature, but only <em>really<\/em> rarely. See the entries in the Lewis &amp; Short Latin lexicon at Tufts <a href=\"http:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/morph?l=pullulus&amp;la=la&amp;can=pullulus0#lexicon\">here<\/a> (for the version that means a chick, <em>pullus<\/em> [chicken] + the masculine diminutive suffix <em>-lus<\/em>) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/morph?l=pullulus&amp;la=la&amp;can=pullulus0#lexicon\">here <\/a>(for the usage that derives from the adjective version of <em>pullus<\/em> that has to do with color).<\/p>\n<p>A general note: where coined words are in play in the YW universe, always check the Latin and Greek end of things first. As languages of science, they take pride of place. I do coin from other languages, but not a lot and only in special circumstances. Also, watch out for medical terminology that creeps in through the back door (<em>cf<\/em>., for example, the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youngwizards.com\/ErrantryWiki\/index.php\/Claudication\">claudication<\/a>\u201d part of \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youngwizards.com\/ErrantryWiki\/index.php\/Temporospatial_claudication\">temporospatial claudication<\/a>\u201d; it\u2019s derived from an old word that can mean \u201cto limp\u201d but later came to mean the vascular narrowings \/ blockages that cause the limping).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Ladies and gentlemen, a how-to: author engagement with fandom. You may now applaud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>dduane: Re the discussion going on in the #youngwizards tag about this at the moment: The word\u2019s a back-formation deriving from Latin pullulare, \u201cto sprout out, spring forth, spread, grow, increase\u201d. Hence, something that spreads, grows, increases \u2014 and (borrowing from the OED\u2019s entry for \u201cpullulate\u201d, \u201cnow usually with the connotation of rapid increase\u201d. I &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2013\/04\/10\/pullulus-n\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Pullulus (n.)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3425,3424,3426],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28901"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}