Today’s Zippy strip shows us Bill Griffth’s superhero character Z-Man, the Pinhead Superman. Like Zippy, Z-Man is an onomatomane, luxuriating in a constant warm shower of remarkable words. Like Superman, Z-Man has magic eyes: Superman has X-ray vision, Z-Man can beam information though his eyes. If you have abiblia, or fear that you will contract it — if you’re abibliophobic — Z-Man ‘s gaze can send you all the words you need.
From axolotl to doo-hickey, Z-Man has a word for you
(As a Z-person, I am of course partial to a Z-Man superhero. He flies for me.)
Some of the words he celebrates — axolotl, cattywampus, verklempt, doo-hickey — have gotten some attention on this blog, but two were in fact new to me. Some notes on them.
borborgym ‘stomach rumble’. From Wikipedia:
A stomach rumble, also known as a bowel sound, peristaltic sound, abdominal sound, bubble gut or borborygmus, is a rumbling, growling or gurgling noise produced by movement of the contents of the gastrointestinal tract as they are propelled through the small intestine by a series of muscle contractions called peristalsis. A trained healthcare provider can listen to these intestinal noises with a stethoscope, but they may be audible enough to be heard with the naked ear as the fluid and gas move forward in the intestines (in the vicinity of, but not actually within the stomach). The lack of bowel sounds is indicative of ileus, intestinal obstruction, or some other serious pathology.
Etymology: The scientific name borborygmus [borborygm for short] is related to the 16th-century French word borborygme, itself from Latin, ultimately from Ancient Greek βορβορυγμός (borborygmós). The Greek term is probably onomatopoetic in origin.
abibliophobia ‘fear of running out of words’. This phobia word presupposes a condition abiblia ‘loss of/for words’ as a neurological pathology (not attested, so far as I can tell, though is composition would be clear to word-slingers — a condition parallel to the pathologies aphasia ‘ loss of ability to understand or express speech’, aphonia ‘loss of ability to physically produce speech’, and apraxia ‘loss of ability to perform particular purposive actions’.
December 7, 2025 at 12:15 pm |
Horse owners are very familiar with borborygmus, if not by name; if the horse is showing certain signs of a bellyache, the first thing one does is clap an ear to the horse’s side. A healthy horse generates a lot of gaseous mush in the process of digesting all the cellulose in hay or grass within one long intestine, and it should always be audible within seconds. Its absence indicates some sort of colic, a common and dangerous malady in a horse.
December 7, 2025 at 12:51 pm |
M.D.s do something similar for people. A stethoscope on the belly should detect the low-level gurgling and rumbling of ordinary background digestive action; its absence suggests an intestinal blockage. Rumbling audible to the unaided ear is associated with hunger or with the formation of intestinal gas in digestion.