Comments on: Meaning of "eloecea"?

Question: Meaning of "eloecea"?

zharptitsa — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 16:59:48 -0800

Meaning of "eloecea"?

Has anyone ever heard of the word "eloecea"? Google turns up nothing. I'm positive it's not spelled incorrectly. Thanks!

By: grouse

grouse — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:05:48 -0800

Not in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, or the American Heritage Dictionary.

Perhaps some context would help?

By: tellurian

tellurian — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:06:06 -0800

Maybe 'alopecia' - loss of hair. Do you have a context for your positiveness?

By: zharptitsa

zharptitsa — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:12:57 -0800

Here is the context: Someone I know changed her name to "Eloecea." She told someone else I know that it meant such-and-such (she doesn't remember). I know I could just ask her what her name means, but I don't know her very well and rarely see her. But I'm just so curious. (It's possible she made it up... I think it's more likely that it means something in some foreign language.)

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:15:23 -0800

She made it up. Google Advanced Search doesn't find it in any language.

By: tangerine

tangerine — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:24:30 -0800

Are you sure it wasn't Aloysia? That's the name of the verbena family (lemon verbena is Aloysia triphylla) and it's also the feminine version of Aloysius, which is cognate to Louis.

By: oxala

oxala — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:26:18 -0800

Not on google, google books, images, news, groups, froogle, dictionary.com, amazon.com. Did she write it down for you, or is this your written version of it spoken? Could be Aloysia. Did she maybe mean Aloeaceae? "One of many families or subfamilies into which some classification systems subdivide the Liliaceae but not widely accepted?" Great name for a girl.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:37:23 -0800

Sounds like Spanish non-existence El oecea.

By: zharptitsa

zharptitsa — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 17:42:55 -0800

She wrote the name down for my other friend. So she definitely spells it "Eloecea." However, it's possible she changed the spelling for simplicity or to make it...I don't know...more interesting.

By: electric_counterpoint

electric_counterpoint — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 18:02:39 -0800

Wait -- 10,000,000,000 indexed websites don't mention the word but you think one of the couple hundred users who read this thread might have heard of it?

By: musicinmybrain

musicinmybrain — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 18:21:22 -0800

Wait -- 10,000,000,000 indexed websites don't mention the word but you think one of the couple hundred users who read this thread might have heard of it?

One never knows.

If Google is sufficient, what's the point of Ask MeFi?

Seriously, some people around here know really abstruse stuff. I wouldn't have been excessively surprised if someone said "Oh, that's a word in an extinct language formerly spoken on Rarotonga. It means 'angry badger.'"

As far as I can tell, however, she made it up.

By: yeoz

yeoz — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 18:28:51 -0800

Any background on the person herself?
The name itself could have been transliterated from any number of languages that could be using a different alphabet entirely.

By: rob511

rob511 — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 18:53:19 -0800

Perhaps a corruption of Eloise/Heloise (itself of uncertain origin, possibly from Greek helios: sun or Old German Helewidis: sturdy)

By: Marit

Marit — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 19:46:10 -0800

Elysia is the homeland of the dread Elder Gods. (I guess it's unlikely she named herself after that, but I can never pass up an opportunity for a public Cthulhu fhtagn!) A quick google also turned up one of those hokey baby name sites which claims the name means "sweetly blissful."

Elysium is a section of the underworld. Supposedly it's a nice place.

By: unknowncommand

unknowncommand — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 20:44:16 -0800

I like tellurian's suggestion.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 21:47:58 -0800

Thanks unknowncommand, unless you meant my balding suggestion. zharptitsa may not get the answer here but I got something out of it. I'd never heard of Unilingua before and have spent a part of the day reading about it. As a result I'd change my answer to: eloecea = 'nonexistent container of semi-solid food'.

By: grouse

grouse — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 23:30:19 -0800

Are you sure it wasn't Aloysia?

Perhaps irrelevant, but I actually have a friend who goes by the online handle Aloysia for this reason.

By: metaculpa

metaculpa — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 01:24:50 -0800

I would pronounce "eloecea" as Alecia. Perhaps it's one of those not-quite-phonetic not-clear-on-the-concept happenings?

(Like my good friend, Toilette? /apocryphal)

By: rainbaby

rainbaby — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 05:32:44 -0800

I know it. It's the word for babbling that people make that imitates the sounds of speech or sounds, but isn't speech. Like, Nell? I associate it with babies or people with disabilities. Perhaps it is spelled wrong - it must be. How do I know it. It must be archaic and I came across it in my Drama or possibly Psychology studies, or, it's a term of grammar, like synecdoche. I'm serious, I'm confident this is something I've heard.

By: rainbaby

rainbaby — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 05:35:24 -0800

Oh, I'm thinking of Echolalia. Maybe that's what she meant. Maybe she even purposely misspelled it to make it more like echolalia. Now, apparently, I am spelling echolalia wrong, and I've tried three different ways. Sorry.

By: sluggo

sluggo — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 07:35:41 -0800

Seems like it would be pronounced pretty close to "Elisia", which is my sister's name - my dad named her that based on the Elysian Fields, I think.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 09:04:21 -0800

It's a name, not a word, for heaven's sake.

She told someone else I know that it meant such-and-such

She's probably full of shit. There's an amazing amount of nonsense around when it comes to names. I wouldn't worry about it, but if you're that curious, ask her (and report back, because now we're all curious).

By: macinchik

macinchik — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 14:22:28 -0800

reminds me of cloacae, which I always thought was a very pretty word to describe bird butts.

By: metaculpa

metaculpa — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 13:00:56 -0800

Not just butts, my friend. Not just butts.