What was up with "Alicorn" in the 1920's and 30's
Upvote:1
In 1930, Odell Shepard, English professor at Trinity College (Hartford, Connecticut), published a book called The Lore of the Unicorn, an attempt at an exhaustive history of the unicorn in literature and historical writings from the fourth century BCE to the nineteenth century CE. This book, which has been reissued in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, contains the word alicorn/alicorns over 150 times. On page 101, Shepard explains the origin of the word:
In order to avoid repeated cacophany [sic] I shall use the word "alicorn" to mean "unicorn's horn" wherever it seems convenient to do so in the following chapters. This is not quite a neologism; it is an adoption of the Italian word alicorno.
It's possible that Shepard's work may have (re-)kindled interest in unicorns and popularized the word "alicorn." Three years after Shepard's book came out, Alexander Laing published a novel called The Sea Witch about the experiences of the captain of a clipper ship in the mid-nineteenth century. This novel uses the term alicorn/alicorns about 25 times. It has a chapter called "The Narwhal's Tusk" in which Laing compares the narwhal's single horn to "alicorns — horns of the four-footed monoceros."
Upvote:6
This has never been a common term, so few uses can make a large spike in the graph. Google Books (and therefore, Google NGrams) knows about three works from 1930 that apparently use it. Their concentration in time was not immediately obvious because above, you did not turn off the curve smoothing. Here are the text fragments:
... superstitions about the virtue of the alicorn (Unicorn's horn).
... many sources of the unicorn's horn — the " alicorn," as he terms it.
James Alicorn. Accountants
More post
- 📝 Why was Hitler friendly toward Arabs given that they are Semitic too?
- 📝 When was the most amount of commercial trade carried by sail powered ships?
- 📝 How did slavery become permissible in the French West Indies when it was forbidden in France?
- 📝 Why has Iran's GDP shrunk over the last three decades?
- 📝 Why is Jewish God so Popular?
- 📝 What were the relative contributions of oral & literary education in 5th century BCE Athens?
- 📝 What organization/agency/unit wore this uniform?
- 📝 Were women in 17th century France as cloistered as suggested here?
- 📝 Was there any genuine debate in the pre-1860 United States regarding Native American sovereignty?
- 📝 Was the term connoisseur used during the 1400s?
- 📝 When were the different stories of Hindu gods written?
- 📝 Did a unit of 40 men hold off Rommel's "ghost division" for 18 days?
- 📝 Did Yuri Gagarin really mention Anna Magnani in his flight in space?
- 📝 Did ancient peoples apply starch to clothing?
- 📝 Do medieval historic references to "Semites" refer to Jews or to speakers of Semitic in general?
- 📝 State changing its name within the United States
- 📝 Six bulls for ship's provisions
- 📝 Why was it necessary to maintain a balance of power between the Slave and Free states?
- 📝 Are the Windsors English?
- 📝 Is the killing between communists and Muslims in Indonesia during 1965 mutual?
- 📝 Why did army in Napoleon era never use hand-grenades to temporarily disrupt the square formation?
- 📝 Why is King Henry V regarded as such a great King?
- 📝 When was glass first used to protect art?
- 📝 When did Europeans make their first well-attested visit to mainland Alaska?
- 📝 How did ancient Nomadic communities conduct trade?
- 📝 Switzerland's political isolation after World War II
- 📝 What is the 'rank switching' done by Roman Legionnaires in HBO's 'Rome' called, and did it actually happen?
- 📝 Are there any images from ancient times in which Heracles is shown with a cornucopia?
- 📝 Why did Emperor Xian's flight from Chang'an take one year?
- 📝 Who is this statue of?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 When was the term "Dravida" first used and what is the context with which it was presented?
- 📝 What was up with "Alicorn" in the 1920's and 30's
- 📝 What is the evidence to claim that political order in ancient Rome was sufficiently different under "kingdom", "republic" and "empire"?
- 📝 What was the average height of Roman men and women?
- 📝 What was the shortest time between a historical event occuring and a museum opening dedicated to said event?
- 📝 What was the most recent country to be conquered and disappear?
- 📝 What was the Mantineian form of government and what praise did it receive?
- 📝 What was used instead of toilet paper in the US and the UK prior to 1900?
- 📝 What is the silver object on the desk and what is 'Elizabeth I' doing with it?
- 📝 What is the name and meaning of a World War 2 CCC Medal with both the Polish Eagle and British Statant Gardant Lion?
- 📝 What was the life expectancy of an ancient Roman child and adult?
- 📝 What was the role of Indian princes and aristocratic landowners under British colonial rule?
- 📝 What goods did Germany trade during the Weimar Republic, and with whom?
- 📝 What did European people of the 5th century AD eat during spring and what was the availability?
- 📝 What was El Greco's relationship with the Spanish Inquisition?
- 📝 Was the Iraqi Mukhabarat modelled on the German Reichssicherheitshauptamt, and in what ways?
- 📝 In the British empire, what was the difference between a Governor General and a Viceroy?
- 📝 What did the Baltic Fleet do in Reval in 1904 and when was it there?
- 📝 How did the US "Greek" fraternity system at universities arise and what is its relationship with ancient Greece?
- 📝 When and what was the maximum extent of Nationalist China?
- 📝 Why was Bulgaria at war with both the Allied and the Axis at the end of WWII?
- 📝 Who was 'Viscount Yi' and what did he do to survive in the court of a madman?
- 📝 What was the error in 1790, if any, of the lat. and long. of Greenwich Observatory of 1783?
- 📝 What was the border regime between Poland and Czechoslovakia like during the 1970s and 1980s?
- 📝 What was the role of a 'Tidy Man' and what might their duties have been?
- 📝 What was the social and cultural role of a "country squire" in Victorian/Edwardian England?
- 📝 What was the relationship between Indian caste system and martial skills?
- 📝 Considering what was known about Hitler in 1933, why would German bishops declare that Catholics could cooperate with the new State?
- 📝 What was the first instance of native Americans using gunpowder weapons in battle and did they ever make their own powder?
- 📝 What was Ghulam Ahmad's relationship with the British authorities in India?