Diabetes.

The occasion of this post is me just being diagnosed with diabetes mellitus.

 

Mellitus, of course, is a reflex of the IE honey word, as in English mellifluous, honey-flowing.

 

Diabetes is a little beyond my skill. I remember that the meaning of the Greek preposition dia depends on case; here, I don't think it means 'through'. The Perseus site gives a number of definitions, most of them relating to 'straddle', including a carpenter's tool (something like a compass or caliper).

 

My most obvious symptom -- the one that sent me running to the doctor, and the symptom the ancient physicians speak of -- is honey-like urine, honey-like in sweetness (yeah, Hippocrates, Galen, or one of those guys says the physician is to taste the urine), and honey-like in consistency. No matter how much you jiggle and dance, a few drops end up in your pants -- and those drops dry to an appalling crust. No, it's not really like honey, but it's thicker than normal urine. Trust me in this. I know.

 

I have a suspicion that 'diabetes' in the sense of 'straddle' is an ancient term for what men do at the urinal. As to why it's a straddle, I don't know. It's lift you himation and do your business. What's being straddled?

 

'Diabetes' is the actual Classical Greek word for what we today also call diabetes.

 

On another forum some time ago, I learned there is apparently a dialectal word in British English (a 'country word', as Dr. Johnson would have called it) that refers to animal wastes: 'mig'. If this is true (I don't have access to OED, Partridge, etc), then this is a reflex of the PIE 'to urinate' word, *mig, as I recall. This word is behind the latinate 'to micturate', 'to urinate'.

 

'Urine', of course, is a reflex of the water-word.

 

Mark.