{"id":7026,"date":"2025-06-28T21:09:35","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T21:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=7026"},"modified":"2025-06-28T21:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T21:11:10","slug":"word-of-the-day-holus-bolus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2025\/06\/28\/word-of-the-day-holus-bolus\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Holus-bolus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary<\/a>), is holus-bolus<\/em>. A hyphenated compound word, holus-bolus<\/em>, pronounced \/ \u02c8ho\u028a l\u0259s\u02c8bo\u028a l\u0259s \/, is an adverb that means \u201call at once; altogether\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/holus-bolus<\/a>). Dictionary.com goes on to explain that it was \u201cFirst recorded in 1840\u201350; mock-Latin rhyming compound based on the phrase whole bolus, or possibly a Latinization of Greek h\u00f3los b\u00f4los<\/em> \u2018whole lump, clod of earth, nugget\u2019\u201d (ibid.). A bolus is either \u201ca round mass of medicinal material, larger than an ordinary pill\u201d or \u201ca soft, roundish mass or lump, especially of chewed food\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/bolus<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merriam-Webster goes further: \u201cThe story of holus-bolus<\/em> is not a hard one to swallow. Holus-bolus<\/em> originated in English dialect in the mid-19th century and is believed to be a waggish reduplication of the word bolus<\/em>. Bolus<\/em> is from the Greek word b\u014dlos<\/em>, meaning \u2018lump,\u2019 and has retained that Greek meaning. In English, bolus<\/em><\/a> has additionally come to mean \u2018a large pill,\u2019 \u2018a mass of chewed food,\u2019 or \u2018a dose of a drug given intravenously.\u2019 Considering this \u2018lumpish\u2019 history, it’s not hard to see how holus-bolus<\/em>, a word meaning \u2018all at once\u2019 or \u2018all in a lump,\u2019 came about\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/holus-bolus<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that it didn\u2019t appear in English until 1840-50, we shouldn\u2019t be surprised that it is not in Johnson\u2019s 1755 Dictionary. But it is a bit surprising that Etymonline.com not only lacks an entry for holus-bolus<\/em> but also has no entry for bolus<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, reduplication<\/em> in linguistics \u201cis a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Reduplication<\/a>). There are lots of different types of reduplication in languages around the world, and there are many different reasons for such reduplication\u2014morphological, semantic, grammatical. The uses of reduplication in English are less, and the types of reduplication are somewhat limited. They include rhyming (itsy-bitsy<\/em>, teenie-weenie<\/em>), exact (papa<\/em>, poo-poo<\/em>, yoyo<\/em>), ablaut, where the first vowel is a high or front vowel and the second a low or back vowel (hip hop<\/em>, zig zag<\/em>), and a special American class in English that derived from Yiddish called shm reduplication (fancy-shmancy<\/em>), among others (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reduplication is also familiar to the parents of toddlers. \u201cAt 25\u201350 weeks after birth, typically developing infants go through a stage of reduplicated or canonical babbling (Stark 198, Oller, 1980). Canonical babbling is characterized by repetition of identical or nearly identical consonant-vowel combinations, such as nanana<\/em> or idididi<\/em>. It appears as a progression of language development as infants experiment with their vocal apparatus and home in on the sounds used in their native language. Canonical\/reduplicated babbling also appears at a time when general rhythmic behavior, such as rhythmic hand movements and rhythmic kicking, appear. Canonical babbling is distinguished from earlier syllabic and vocal play, which has less structure (ibid.). I didn\u2019t become interested in linguistics and language development until well after my own children were grown, but I have enjoyed noticing the development of language in my grandchildren, and it was fun to listen to this canonical babbling when they were very small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1770, Anthony Benezet opened a school in Philadelphia, PA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthony Benezet (1713-1784) was born in France to parents who were French Huguenots, a group of Protestants who were actively persecuted by the French church and state. Eventually, his family moved out of France In 1731, they finally settled in Philadelphia. When he was in London, he joined the Society of Friends, also known as Quakers (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Anthony_Benezet<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1739, Benezet began teaching at a school in Germantown, which was then outside of Philadelphia but is now part of the city (my mother grew up in Germantown). \u201cIn 1742, he moved to the Friends’ English School of Philadelphia (now the William Penn Charter School). In 1750 he added night classes for black slaves to his schedule. In 1755, Benezet left the Friends’ English School to set up his own school, the first public girls’ school on the American continent. His students included daughters from prominent families\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then in 1770 Benezet opened a school for African-Americans. The community of African-Americans in Philadelphia had been growing, especially after the state banned the importation of slaves in 1767. Benezet, like all the Quakers, was an abolitionist, and he was quite influential. He had been teaching African-American children and adults in night school for some years in his home. \u201cIn 1773, Jacob Lehre, a schoolteacher working for Benezet, took over the education of approximately 50 Black children. By 1775, only nine remained. The school\u2019s Board of Overseers decided to visit all the parents to encourage better attendance. They also set out a call to admit poor white children to fill up the classroom. Lehre began teaching both 40 Black and six white students\u2013boys and girls\u2013in his classroom, perhaps the first integrated (and co-ed) urban school in America (though a charity school, not a public one)\u201d (https:\/\/katebahlkehornstein.com\/2022\/08\/18\/anthony-benezets-revolutionary-academy-for-children\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1775, Benezet \u201chelped found the first anti-slavery society, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Eight years later in 1783, Benezet wrote a letter to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz discussing \u2018the cruelty of slavery and his opposition to the slave trade.\u2019 After Benezet’s death, Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Benjamin Rush reconstituted this association as the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Anthony_Benezet<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthony Benezet is not a familiar name, not a name that one comes across often in one\u2019s study of American history. But he was, apparently, a person who lived out his faith and his values, and encouraged others to do the same. And one of the things he believed in was that the holus-bolus of society needs and deserves an education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is of Benezet\u2019s home: \u201cBenezet set up a school for free Black children in his home on Chestnut Street between 3rd and 4th Streets\u201d (https:\/\/katebahlkehornstein.com\/2022\/08\/18\/anthony-benezets-revolutionary-academy-for-children\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary), is holus-bolus. A hyphenated compound word, holus-bolus, pronounced \/ \u02c8ho\u028a l\u0259s\u02c8bo\u028a l\u0259s \/, is an adverb that means \u201call at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7028,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026\/revisions\/7028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}