The Knowing Nose

Surprising links between gnosis, nose, and beginner's mind

To recognise bullshit, nose is better than ear.

〰 Toba Beta 〰

The Cunning* Nose Knows First

Many English words related to know, knowledge, gnosis, cognition, recognise etc. are direct descendants of the Greek gnosis (= knowledge), and the Latin gnarus (= knowledgeable, experienced). The negative form ignarus is well preserved in the familiar term ignorant.

In the Latin gnarus and its English relative gnosis, the first letter is silent ~ just like in all English knowing-words. So the spoken phonemes in this family start with the soundletter /n/. As an added twist, the Latin gnarus also has a twin-form narus.The meanings of the two forms seem to be identical::: acumen, perspicacity (= keen understanding), sharp sense of perception.

From narus it is only a small step to nares ~ the Latin word for nostrils. This Latin term is preserved in medical terminology. Although the ‘perception connection’ of nares hasn’t been explicitly carried over into English and other living European languages (as far as I’m aware) it is clearly reflected in the vernacular.

The implicit link between knowing and nose, however, is preserved in popular sayings of many languages; people just knew that the olfactory organ sniffs out much more than aromas and stench.

In some idioms the nose is trusted as a prognostic tool:

Follow your nose (= to follow one’s intuition or instincts)

Having the nose in front (German die Nase vorn haben = to be one step ahead)

To have a clever nose (Swiss German e gschide nasa hah = to notice things quickly or in advance)

To have a nose (French avoir du nez = to have a talent for something)

In other sayings, the figurative sense of smell has diagnostic functions:

To smell a rat (= to sense trickery, dishonesty or deception)

To smell a fox’s tail (German Lunte riechen = to smell danger)

To smell something burning (Spanish oler a chamusquina = to smell trouble)

To smell like a wet dog (Portuguese cheirar a cachorro molhado = to smell that sth. isn’t quite right)

Confirming the knowledge of the vernacular, the sense of smell is used literally as a diagnostic tool in medical practices around the world. Doctors trained in this skill can accurately detect various illnesses in their patients through a particular body odour, including diabetes, the onset of an epileptic fit, and cancer.

According to neuroscientific research, smell is the primary sensory function in humans during the first seven years of life. This explains why childhood memories can have strong links with specific odours. The smell of an old piece of furniture, an item of clothing, a particular dish from grandma’s kitchen may open the floodgates to a surge of recollections, which carry us straight back into the past.

Neurobiologists may sometimes call this the ‘Proust-phenomenon’, in reference to a passage from Marcel Proust’s novel Swann’s Way, where he describes in some detail the opening of those olfactory floodgates:

“I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin.”

Although Proust’s memory in this scene seems to be triggered by the flavour of the squishy ‘morsel of cake dipped in tea’, neurobiologists make the connection with the olfactory sense, presumably because our senses of smell and taste are so closely connected.

Thanks to contemporary neuroscience, we know that the 'olfactory region in the brain', which sits right above the nose, indeed functions as our organ of memory. In illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, the loss of memory goes hand in hand with the loss of smell.

The exciting news is that the nerve cells in the olfactory region of the brain fully regenerate every six months. What’s more, memory faculties and olfactory functions can be trained in tandem. This means, the onset of dementia could possibly be averted by exercising our ‘sniffing muscles’ 〰 in the literal sense of sniff (= smell, scent).

* Cunning [from Old English cunnen = to know] crafty, deceitful, sly (14 c.) skillful, displaying keen insight, clever, ingenious (original sense); skillful in achieving one’s ends by deceit. Once used as a noun in the sense of knowledge, learning (now obsolete)

The Verboklepsy of Narrative

Another word closely related to knowing, gnosis, and gnarus is the verb narrate [from Latin narrare = to tell, relate explain] used in the sense of to give an account of known events and facts.

The noun narration was adopted into English around the early 15 c. Like in its Roman languages of origin, it basically meant telling a story. Narration is the skill and craft of the storyteller.

The adjective narrative was originally used to describe the quality of an account 〰 to distinguish the art of the storyteller. Not every description or report qualifies as narrative.

In literature, narrative has been associated with works of fiction for a long time ~ mainly with novels, folk and fairy tales, and short stories. But also poetry can be narrative, if the poem is telling a story. That’s the essential meaning of narrative.

In recent decades, a new genre known as narrative non-fiction has emerged. In this case narrative refers to the style of writing. Rather than using academic or scientific styles taught at universities, writers of narrative non-fiction wrap their messages up in stories. The style has given birth to the growing popularity of non-fiction books, essays, and online articles 〰 like the ones you’re reading in this wordcast.

Narrative as a noun was first recorded in the English translation of the work of the French philosopher François Lyotard. The French term ‘méta récit’, was interpreted as ‘grand narrative’ in English and instantly became a buzzword. In that instant, the humble innocent adjective narrative turned into a new weapon for *verboklepsy (from Latin verbum = word + Greek klépsia = thievery).

How did that happen?

The new meaning is all in the context. As a neutral noun narrative can be perfectly innocent, continuing in its lineage of giving an account of what is known. In this case, the word is used more or less synonymous with storyline, or the plot of a novel, movie or play.

Narrative can also be used as a purely formal term to distinguish the narrative parts of a literary work from dialogue.

Since becoming fashionable in (pseudo-)academic, -scientific, and -philosophical conversations, however, the noun narrative is often used to disqualify the accounts of others, to question their convictions, to make their storyline and presentations sound like 'pure fiction' (with a condescending undertone).

This is especially true for discussions around political, social, or environmental topics. Like the word myth, the term narrative has become an expression with pejorative, derogatory, insulting implications. It enables the speaker to kill off their opponent by pulling the proverbial rug from under their argument and view point.

In a German podcast published in February 2022 on the cultural radiostation of Deutschlandfunk lexicographer Michael Solf offers a sample to illustrate the use of narrative with this implicit meaning: “The narrative of the suppression of women.”

Adding the word narrative here is pure sexism dressed up in academic verbiage. It negates the valid position that suppression of women not only exists but is an ongoing social and political problem which needs to be addressed.

Solf points out that “what is presented as narrative today, would have been called ideology in the past.”

We’d like to add here that this so-called narrative might as well be called ‘conspiracy-theory’ 〰 another vogue term with a slightly different meaning but similar implicit functions.

The word narrative has been appropriated on the sly. In the above described sense, it is abused by serving as a ‘scientific/ academic’ justification for discrimination, racism, counter argument against ecoactivism, or anything else the Anthropocene likes to discredit, without being caught out as a toffee-nosed hypocritical verbo-kleptoparasite.

It is not always easy to detect a stolen word, even with a keen nose for intolerance, prejudice, discrimination or symbiophobia. Becoming aware of such identity theft of a verbiont increases our freedom of choice. Awareness of the destructive use of certain words is empowering. It enables us to opt for a boycott of the word in its verbicidal sense ~ or use it deliberately, as the case may be.

The Funny Nose

Like a Jack-in-the-box, an unexpected linguistic relation to the words nose and narrative popped up in our parallel research in different languages. 〰 The English word fool, in most contemporary dictionaries, suggests an ignorant person. While the word ignorant has descended from gnosis ~ and fool is an offshoot of fun ~ the German equivalent Narr is a direct relation of nose.

Narr (= fool) doesn’t only look surprisingly similar to narrative. The word is in fact a contraction of Naserümpfer (= nose wrinkler). To wrinkle one’s nose in English is understood as an expression of disgust. The German Nase rümpfen carries a more general sense of disapproval and mockery.

The German Narr (= nose wrinkler) is a close cousin of the English jester, French bouffon, Hindi vidooshak, Italian pagliacco, Japanese taikomochi, Portuguese bobo, Sioux heyoka, Spanish pícaro etc. In other words, those guys in funny costumes appear all over the world. This means they must have played an important role in all cultures and societies. And they all used words in a specific way. (see the wordcast Wise Fools and Farting Jesters)

Eckhart von Hirschhausen, a German medical doctor, comedian, bestselling author and talkshow host associates the red nose of the clown with freedom and liberation. Hirschhausen has a unique life-hack up his sleeves 〰 recommended for brave fellow humans who get into stressful situations, like being stuck in traffic jams.

"Just slip on a red clown’s nose," he suggests. "Then make sure you continue looking ahead as if nothing happened, and you’ll experience some surprises."

Swiss actor and clown Pierre Byland calls the red nose “the smallest mask in the world.” Unlike other masks, which hide the face, the clown’s nose/ mask does the opposite. It is an unmask. It draws the attention to the middle of the face. It acts like a magnifying glass and exaggerates every expression.

In his book Discovering the Clown Christopher Bayes (teacher of physical comedy and clowning in New York) claims that the world’s smallest mask “softens your brain.” It invites you to connect with your sense of wonder, find curiosity in your feet, enthusiasm in your legs, and “some squirrely-town fun in your bottom.”

From the perspective of the wearer, the red nose “distances you just enough from yourself to help you find this other very playful, very physical, very open, immensely stupid, very childish creature that we call the clown.”

To enter the Symbiocene, we need to connect with this clownish creature, which goes hand in hand with our inner childlike nature. In a more serious, more grownup language we might call it beginner’s mind.

In the wildwordwoods of Symbiopædia, beginner’s mind is represented by Arxi⚘Noia [from Greek arkhein = be first, begin + noia = mind]. This Word⚘Fairy enables us to know, recognise and speak truth without the worries of the grownup mind, which is sometimes confused and entangled in all sorts of cultural knots and social webs.