The Victorian Era, at least when it’s depicted in fiction, boasts any number of charming eccentrics; generally upper-class British gentlemen enjoying, shall we say, “interesting” hobbies. Besides current steampunk-genre characters, Philias Fogg (who traveled around the word in 80 days) and Caractacus Potts (who built Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, the magic car) are a couple of good examples.
But fictional eccentrics didn’t come from nowhere; in the latter half of the 1800s unusual hobbies and amateur scientists really did exist. There are still some reminders hanging around in English, including galanthophile. The “-phile” reveals that we’re talking about some sort of enthusiast, of course, and the “galantho-” derives from the Greek words “gala” (milk) and “anthos” (flower). By the way, “gala” is also the root word of “galaxy” — don’t forget that our galaxy is called the milky way. A “galanthophile” is an aficionado and possibly a collector of a particular kind of flower: snowdrops. The word first appeared in the 1890s in a periodical called The Garden. It was referring to James Allen of Somerset, who was indeed a galanthophile, and had developed new techniques for cultivating hybrid varieties of snowdrops.
I imagine galanthophiles and their friends as fairly quiet, reserved individuals tending to their gardens and flower collections. In other words, they’re not generally given to callithumpian revelry. “Callithumpian” is another relic from the 1800s; it refers to a noisy parade, particularly featuring a band playing loudly and not quite in tune. It originated in the US, and is probably related to the English “gallithumpian,” a word in several dialects that refers to hecklers, especially those trying to cause disturbances during Parliamentary elections. Or it might be a combination of “calliope” (a steam-driven musical instrument) and “thump.” Nobody is quite sure, of course, but “callithumpian” is still in use today, slightly. The town of Biwabik, Minnesota, hosts a Callithumpian Parade every July fourth, and there have been two bands with the name: the Callithumpian Consort and Jack Maheu’s Fire in the Pet Shop Callithumpian Jazz Band.
Callithumpian is still in use in Australia and New Zealand, but with a different meaning; it refers to any sort of nonconformist religious sect. Possibly galanthophiles who’ve taken their obsession a bit too far?
