Word: Quiddity
Jan. 21st, 2026 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonepicnicking_okapiWednesday's word is...
...quiddity.
1. whatever makes something the type that it is: essence
2. a: trifling point, quibble
2. b: crotchet, eccentricity
---
I remember this word from Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers. This is such an excellent speech by Lord Peter. The audiobook version of this resides in my head.
“Well, I’m glad the little man has so much of an alibi,” said Lord Peter, “though if you’re only glueing your faith to cadaveric lividity, rigidity, and all the other quiddities, you must be prepared to have some sceptical beast of a prosecuting counsel walk slap-bang through the medical evidence. Remember Impey Biggs defending in that Chelsea tea-shop affair? Six bloomin’ medicos contradictin’ each other in the box, an’ old Impey elocutin’ abnormal cases from Glaister and Dixon Mann till the eyes of the jury reeled in their heads! ‘Are you prepared to swear, Dr. Thingumtight, that the onset of rigor mortis indicates the hour of death without the possibility of error?’ ‘So far as my experience goes, in the majority of cases,’ says the doctor, all stiff. ‘Ah!’ says Biggs, ‘but this is a Court of Justice, Doctor, not a Parliamentary election. We can’t get on without a minority report. The law, Dr. Thingumtight, respects the rights of the minority, alive or dead.’ Some ass laughs, and old Biggs sticks his chest out and gets impressive. ‘Gentlemen, this is no laughing matter. My client—an upright and honourable gentleman—is being tried for his life—for his life, gentlemen—and it is the business of the prosecution to show his guilt—if they can—without a shadow of doubt. Now, Dr. Thingumtight, I ask you again, can you solemnly swear, without the least shadow of doubt,—probable, possible shadow of doubt—that this unhappy woman met her death neither sooner nor later than Thursday evening? A probable opinion? Gentlemen, we are not Jesuits, we are straightforward Englishmen. You cannot ask a British-born jury to convict any man on the authority of a probable opinion.’ Hum of applause.”
“Biggs’s man was guilty all the same,” said Parker.
“Of course he was. But he was acquitted all the same, an’ what you’ve just said is libel.”
[of course what Parker has just said is slander not libel]
...quiddity.
1. whatever makes something the type that it is: essence
2. a: trifling point, quibble
2. b: crotchet, eccentricity
---
I remember this word from Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers. This is such an excellent speech by Lord Peter. The audiobook version of this resides in my head.
“Well, I’m glad the little man has so much of an alibi,” said Lord Peter, “though if you’re only glueing your faith to cadaveric lividity, rigidity, and all the other quiddities, you must be prepared to have some sceptical beast of a prosecuting counsel walk slap-bang through the medical evidence. Remember Impey Biggs defending in that Chelsea tea-shop affair? Six bloomin’ medicos contradictin’ each other in the box, an’ old Impey elocutin’ abnormal cases from Glaister and Dixon Mann till the eyes of the jury reeled in their heads! ‘Are you prepared to swear, Dr. Thingumtight, that the onset of rigor mortis indicates the hour of death without the possibility of error?’ ‘So far as my experience goes, in the majority of cases,’ says the doctor, all stiff. ‘Ah!’ says Biggs, ‘but this is a Court of Justice, Doctor, not a Parliamentary election. We can’t get on without a minority report. The law, Dr. Thingumtight, respects the rights of the minority, alive or dead.’ Some ass laughs, and old Biggs sticks his chest out and gets impressive. ‘Gentlemen, this is no laughing matter. My client—an upright and honourable gentleman—is being tried for his life—for his life, gentlemen—and it is the business of the prosecution to show his guilt—if they can—without a shadow of doubt. Now, Dr. Thingumtight, I ask you again, can you solemnly swear, without the least shadow of doubt,—probable, possible shadow of doubt—that this unhappy woman met her death neither sooner nor later than Thursday evening? A probable opinion? Gentlemen, we are not Jesuits, we are straightforward Englishmen. You cannot ask a British-born jury to convict any man on the authority of a probable opinion.’ Hum of applause.”
“Biggs’s man was guilty all the same,” said Parker.
“Of course he was. But he was acquitted all the same, an’ what you’ve just said is libel.”
[of course what Parker has just said is slander not libel]