Subject: RE: only Dr Scholl knows for sure
From: Micaela (mbombard@middlebury.edu)
Date: Tue May 07 2002 - 16:27:51 EDT
Maybe you missed my post or maybe you wanted to talk about the genitive
cases of Latin and Greek. Either way, it's like I said (more or less)
chiropodist=podiatrist.
-micaela
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bananafish@roughdraft.org
[mailto:owner-bananafish@roughdraft.org]On Behalf Of L. Manning Vines
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 4:08 PM
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
Subject: Re: only Dr Scholl knows for sure
Jim said:
<< I think a podiatrist is a foot doctor, but wouldn't be surprised if
chiropodist was a word Buddy coined that related to feet somehow
(PODiatrist. chiroPODist)...if not indeed a real profession. >>
The Greek "pous" means "foot" (as in octopus and Oedipus, which mean "eight
foot" and "swollen foot" respectively) and is doubtless involved in the
etymology of "chiropodist" (the genitive form of "pous" -- the genitive form
often being the one making it into etymologies -- is "podos"). The Greek
"cheir" means "hand" (the genitive is "cheiros") So I would suppose
chiropodist to designate some kind of hand-foot person.
But interesting also -- coincidence or not, I do not know -- is Cheiron.
The word itself, when not used as a name, means "worse" or "inferior," but
as a name it designates one of the Centaurs. This particular Centaur was a
tutor to many notable individuals, included Hercules and Achilles. But most
notable in this case, he was tutor to Asclepius, son of Apollo and god of
medicine. Cheiron was also famously a cheirourgos: a "chirurgeon," or
surgeon.
Whatever the precise etymology, the OED online (access to which being one of
the great benefits of association with establishments of higher learning)
provides the following:
"'One who treats diseases of the hands and feet; now usually restricted to
one who treats corns and bunions' (Syd. Soc. Lex.).
"So chiropodical a., pertaining to chiropody; chiropodism, chiropodistry
= chiropody; chiropodology, 'a treatise on corns, warts, bunions, and their
causes' (Syd. Soc. Lex.); chiropody, the art of treating corns, warts,
defective nails, etc., on feet or hands, esp. corn-cutting. "
So there we have it.
-robbie
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