This week's theme: There is a word for it. tarantism (TAR-uhn-tiz-uhm) noun
An uncontrollable urge to dance. [After Taranto, a town in southern Italy where this phenomenon was experienced during the 15-17th centuries. It's not clear whether tarantism was the symptom of a spider's bite or its cure, or it may have been just a pretext to dodge a prohibition against dancing. The names of the dance tarantella and the spider tarantula are both derived from the same place.] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=tarantism -Anu Garg (garg AT wordsmith.org) "The director is in a wild delirium, spinning in circles as though stricken with tarantism, his whirring camera held at arm's length, panning, tilting, arcing and oscillating and making other moves that have no name." Caelum Vatnsdal; Kino Delirium: The Films of Guy Maddin; Arbeiter Ring Publishing; 2000. Next week: Summer Contributing Membership Drive. Sponsors' messages: Monthly French, German, Italian and Spanish cultural audio magazines for intermediate-to-advanced learners. http://web.champs-elysees.com/wsmith1 Get down to brass tacks, put in your two cents. Try Derivation, a fascinating game about word and phrase origins. A great gift! http://entspire.com ............................................................................ We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don't. -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- ) Looking for word/quotation archives: http://wordsmith.org/awad/archives.html Unsubscribe, change address, etc: http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscriber.html Pronunciation: http://wordsmith.org/words/tarantism.wav http://wordsmith.org/words/tarantism.ram Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/tarantism.html This message was sent to "[email protected]".
