What's the Word? Odor:Cense as Warmth:??

Factual Questions
1

See subject. Americans, do not succumb to the terror of flashbacks of high school in the notation. Non-Americans, it is a semantic question notated as a ratio: “odor” is to “cense” as “warmth” is to “???.”

As may be apparent to those who have followed the recent editions of The Collected OPs of Leo Bloom, I have started smoking cigars recently and am often plunged into deep analytical thought.

When enjoying the hell out of a cigar, and thinking about the smell separate from the taste, body, all the other stuff, I sometimes enjoy wafting the cigar (when lit) under my nose. Moreover, to refresh the ability to smell and to get different whiffs I’ll circle it briefly sort of in a circle defined by nose to eyebrows (got it?).

So the other evening I was sitting outside, my usual custom of an evening (gotta dig that usage of “of” :cool: ), and I noticed the warmth of the tip as a pleasant addition in the unseasonably cool air. So I played with that, paid attention to it, and brought the cigar slightly forward and back as I circumnavigated my face, enjoying both the scent and the slightly greater and lesser warmth I added as I dipped into 3-D (still with me?).

All of this I paid attention to, and then, as in all serious pleasurable experiences, I paid attention to what it was that made it pleasurable, and how to put some distinctive way to define it, to “name” it. (Which, BTW, I learned to my benefit after years and years of cognitive therapy, in which it–the naming, not cigar smoking–is a fundamental skill. Finding le mot juste also is fun in itself and helps communication, in SD and elsewhere.)

Anyway, in finding slightly humorous my seriousness in all this, I thought of how serious some people take the act of smelling that they have ritualized it. I flashed on censing, particularly how the swinging presents the odor to a greater or lesser degree as a matter of its change of position (captivating in itself, of course).

Ecce OP.

2

What, indeed, are you smoking?

3

Cense?

4

Dude are you sure that’s a cigar?

5

incalescence?

6

Warmth:Cozy-wozy!

Or high.

7

What a load of noncense.

8

I think an Ashton VSG.

9

Great! I found it (Google did) only in Samuel Johnson as part of English vocabulary.

Rather than a fancy word for “warmth,” or re-tensed to “having been warm,” can any Latin scholar to some sort of form for “actively performing” said state? If such a grammar exists. My face “having been warmed” is a start, but as I say I’m wondering about a transitive verb different than simply “warm.”

But I’ll settle for Latin fanciness, so in German, or in English for that matter, something like “encalesce” could be cooked up. Or is “incalesce” exactly that?
ETA: I hope that guy with the online OED will show up.

10

I found this in Wiktionary:
Latin
verb / incalēscent
1.third-person plural future active indicative of incalēscō

11

Wiktionary gives the (obsolete) meaning of “cense” = “to perfume with incense”.

As “odor” in AE has a decidedly negative connotation, I would suggest “cool” or “chill” as an answer to OP:s question.

BTW, this “x:y =a:b”- thing, is it some sort of common american game?

12

It’s not exactly a game. When I was a child it was taught in school and used in standardized tests, usually as part of the reading comprehension section.

13

Right, and it’s usually more of an a:x = b:y relationship. Like, lemons are to sour as apples are to ???.

14

The notation I was taught was x:y::a:b, to mean “X is to Y as A is to B”. It’s used to form analogies, like Dog:Pet::chicken:Food, and it’s used in school in various contexts.

15

Thank you for clarifying this matter!

So, do you all agree that “cool” is the answer?

16

The derived “censer” is in more common use, especially to those who were once Catholic schoolchildren in a somewhat old-fashioned diocese.

17

So that’s what the priest was doing, with altar boys in tow, parading up and down the aisles swinging and opening the incense burner at the holiday church services I attended as a kid before I quit going altogether—censing. The smell of the incense wasn’t all that great but the sound of the brass-gold?-burner and its chains as he manipulated them was very pleasing.

Permeate and pervade aren’t strictly for warmth. You may have to coin your own term.

18

Yes, this is the notation in its full glory. Actually to me that was the only part of the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test, for the ferners, without which you’re not going to college) I liked; I was going to write the hed only as “Odor:Cense::warmth:??” but I wanted more people to stop by.

Ignotus [sorry no citeback], I was debating “odor” or “smell”; “odor” is actually pretty neutral, but for some reason seems to show up in negative contexts (I’ve thought about that before, and may bring it up in another forum). “An intoxicating odor emanated from…” seems to me a plausible phrase. But so is the overpowering “odor of mendacity,” the sensation thundering through Big Daddy’s peculiar sensory acuity.

“Scent” would’ve been best, I think, but people might misread the hed as a question about etymology, that “cense” and “scent” share the same root, “and so what about ‘warmth’” they’d think I was asking, and refuse to read the OP proper where I would have made it clear in any event what I meant, or read the posts where obviously people did understand it wasn’t etymology but semantic relationship I was looking for, and to justify their misreading would reply-theadshit their way attempting to “clear up” or pointing out how the OP is so poorly written, inchoate practically, and incoherent. Pains in the ass they are, with no grace or manners in discourse with real people worth a damn. Fuck 'em.

  • relaxes from spasmodic contortions, wipes spittle from chin, resumes post *

Just came back from a smoke (Davidoff Nicaragua), thought about it. Incalesce it is. Thanks.

19

You’re welcome. For your next cigar, I present this one:

Reflect:_::Ruminate:

In chasing down the root meanings of the words (rūmen throat, gullet; flectō bend), I came across this article:

Do you “self-reflect” or “self-ruminate”?

Not trying to hijack here but Leo:cigar :: Kat:water, and I was watching the wind ripple the lake’s surface this morning <grin>.

20

I’d suggest “blow”, “fan” or some derivation of ‘convection’. Most devices that move heated air are called blowers. Of course, this assumes you’re using “cense” as “to move or manipulate to enhance it’s effect”.