Expert Ease

The adjective expert means experienced or skilled. It is heavily grounded in trying something for yourself, in hands-on learning, in personally putting something to the test. It comes from the Latin verb experiri, to try, to undergo thorough evaluation. This implies that the greatest experts have been trained in a heuristic way rather than merely being passive receptacles.

From time to time, I like to review exotic terminology for fields of expertise. Here are today’s offerings, with the field of expertise first, followed by the title of the expert*.

• almonds: amygdalogist
• breeding domesticated animals/plants: thremmatologist
• cork: phellologist
• dolls: planganologist
• elections: psephologist
• finger rings: dactyliologist
• gestures: pasimologist
• hotels: xenodocheionologist
• keys: cagologist
• lighthouses: pharologist
• minerals: oryctologist
• nonsense: morologist
• peace: irenologist
• quicksand: syrtologist
• relics: lipsanologist
• senility: nostologist
• thunder: brontologist
• ulcers: helcologist
• values: axiologist
• walnuts: juglandologist
  
  *Taken from my Word Parts Dictionary, 2nd Edition, pp. 249 – 260.
  Published by McFarland & Company, 2008.
  
  

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