Thomas Watson, in 1847, published a book with at least one important lesson. The book was titled “Lectures on the Principles and Practice of Physic” — note that it doesn’t say “physics;” in 1847 “physic” meant what we’d call the practice of medicine. Watson’s lesson was quite simple: “Shut a healthy pig up in a small sty, and give him as much food as he is willing to eat, and you ensure his rapid pinguescence.”
“Pinguiescence” sounds like it might mean the process of becoming a pig, and it sort of does, but only figuratively. “Pinguescence” is the process of becoming fat. It comes from the Latin word for fat: “pinquis.” Not only that, but “pinguescence” isn’t the only English word based on “pinguis” — there’s also “pinqedinise” (to make fat), “pinguidinous” (fatty), “pinguefy” (to saturate with oil), and “pinguifying” (greasy).
You won’t find any of these very often, but the London Times in 1991 published this description of a bread-buttering machine: “The machine was positioned at the forefront of the production line and, as the pieces of bread passed beneath, furiously rotating rollers served by a hopper-full of softened pinguescence went to work, distributing butter thinly and evenly across each slice; one a second was considered par for the course.”
The most surprising thing about all this is not really the new words — it’s that somebody (not as a joke) designed and built a whole machine designed just to apply butter to bread. I mean, without even that little bit of bread-buttering exercise, all of us are liable to experience rapid pinguescence.
