isopaleoscaticity

We have reached a point of isopaleoscaticity.

The crisis hasn’t passed, but – for most of us – it’s gotten pretty damn boring. Bad news, stress, et cetera, and it’s all potentially life threatening, but all we can think much of the time is “This again?”

And we get up in the morning and we go to another part of our residence and remain there for a while doing a thing and then to another and do another thing, and it’s basically the same as it was yesterday and the same as it will be tomorrow. And nothing is right and nothing is normal and the world is upside down and yet it’s so. f—ing. boring.

Well, at least we can talk about it. At length. Isn’t it great that we have the great Lego set of classical Greek we can use to assemble words to describe this? They may be the same old bits, but they’re still useful.

As witness today’s word. Let me show you how it’s put together, and then you’ll also know how to say it.

Iso- is from ἴσος, which means ‘equal’, and generally signifies ‘the same’ when it’s used as a prefix.

Paleo-, or palaeo- if you use British-style spelling, is (via Latin) from παλαιός, which means ‘old’ – you will recognize it from paleontology.

Scat- is (via Latin) from σκᾰ́τος, which means – yes, you probably guessed it already – ‘shit’. (The polite dictionaries define it as ‘dung’ or ‘feces’ or or or, but the grand old English word for it is definitely shit.)

And -icity is a common English suffix (well, two suffixes put together, -ic and -ity) meaning, among other things, ‘the state or condition of’. It’s ultimately traceable through French and Latin to Greek, but whatever. This isn’t really a Greek word. It’s an English word made with Greek parts. It’s made from old stuff, but it’s new stuff.

Yet it’s still the same old shit.

That’s what it means, obviously. Iso ‘same’ paleo ‘old’ scat ‘shit’ icity. Isopaleoscaticity, /ˌaɪ.soʊ.ˌpeɪ.li.oʊ.skæ.ˈtɪ.sɪ.ti/, is the condition or degree of being the same old shit.

Yes, this is a new old word.

You’re welcome.