xkcd presents: Etymology Man! As always, don’t forget to read the mouseover text. (Thanks, Sven!)
While I have your attention, I am puzzled by the term “affectus” in the following sentence from Russia’s Alternative Prose, by Robert Porter (Berg, 1994): “It would be difficult to find a more authentic-sounding amalgam of half-digested official propaganda, perfunctory reading, emotional confusion and popular bigotry than Irina’s outpourings here – she sounds like the Soviet equivalent of an affectus-cum-aficionado of the British gutter press.” The word, if it can be called that in English, isn’t in the OED or any other dictionary I have access to, and I’m afraid Etymology Man isn’t of much help, since the Latin word affectus has too many meanings (as a noun, ‘mental state; strong feeling; physical condition; influence; eagerness; sympathy, affection; purpose; attitude,’ and as an adjective ‘endowed with; disposed; (harmfully) affected, impaired; related (to), connected (with); emotional’) and it’s not clear which if any might be intended. If anyone has any helpful suggestions, I’m all ears. (If it matters, “she” is the protagonist of Viktor Erofeev’s Russian Beauty.)
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