When the weather is unusually cold, there’s flooding, or possibly an invasion of annoyed ferrets looms, humicubation is not advisable, particularly for extended periods. “Humicubation,” as you probably haven’t guessed, means “lying on the ground.”
The word first appeared in the 1650s in a religious tract written by the Bishop of Derry in Ireland. He was arguing obscure fine points of something or other against Thomas Hobbes of England when he wrote:
“He [Hobbes] is afraid, that ‘this doctrine’ of fasting, and mourning, and tears, and humicubation, and sackcloth, and ashes, ‘pertaineth to the establishment of Romish penance.’”
“Humicubation” doesn’t have anything etymologically to do with penance, though; it comes from two Latin words: “humi” (on the ground) and “cubare” (to lie down). It’s never been a common word, which is puzzling, because after all, even today when we want to say “lying on the ground” we have to resort to four words. Just having the single one would obviously be more convenient. But maybe too many people live in fear of being accused of lucubration and limit their vocabularies on purpose as a result.
“Lucubration” refers to any pedantic or overly complex route to trying to make a point — for example, by using as many long and obscure words as you have available. It’s generally been used (when it’s been used at all, which has never been often) derisively, as in this criticism of Samuel Coleridge by A. C. Grayling as recently as 2006:
“But Coleridge was an unselfdisciplined monologist addict who left a few brilliant poems and poetic fragments behind him, along with a blather of sometimes suggestive but mainly inane lucubration.”
“Lucubration” comes from the Latin word for light, “lux,” and appeared in English about a century after “humicubation.” It probably took that long to appear because its literal meaning is “to work by lamplight,” and as everybody knows the steady upward progress of civilization has been marked by the increase in the availability of artificial light. The meaning, and the generally derisive usage, is probably based on one thing: if you wind up struggling to write something late at night before it’s due in the morning, it’s probably not going to be your best work. Unless of course you’re a misomusist, in which case no improvement is desired.
What is a “misomusist”, you might ask? It’s someone who doesn’t just ignore higher culture, but is positively against it! It comes from two Greek roots: “miso” (hatred) and “mousa” (learning), and was apparently first used in 1642 by Sir Edward Dering, who said (in his “Collection of Speeches in Matters of Religion):
“Our better cause hath gained by this light: which doth convince our Miso-musists.”
Notice that he’s talking there about light, by which he must mean the illumination produced by natural lighting — I mean, surely no recumbent humicubator would dare to suggest that Dering’s volume could be the product of lucubration!
