some disgusting terminology

[howsmyenglish]

It's not easy to fight even a mildly bad mood writing about excrement and corpses. Something I thought would be a "smallish chapter" (as I wrote to thanatos_kalos just a few days ago) turns out to be a serious chapter called "imagery of disgust" and OMG, you wouldn't believe the amount and variety of it I have to deal with.

Anyhow, I'm actually only writing this to have some distraction and also to ask - and I am sorry about this - is there a word you would use to describe hm... animals eating human corpses? Sorry-sorry-sorry! I did warn you, right? Yeah... so, if you're still here... I can write "eating dead bodies" but any meat is a dead body... or "eating corpses"... but in Russian, say, there is a special word for that - for eating flesh from corpses that were found dead, as opposed to the ones that were killed to become food. Is there anything in English? Human flesh? From corpses???




For the really strong ones, here comes the context: There was cholera, many people had died, the living ones were afraid of cholera, so they buried the dead ones in shallow graves, so jackals came, dug out the corpses and ate them. Phew. Sorry. Do you understand now, what I meant with the first sentence?

Comments

[smallhobbit]

You could say the jackals scavenged the dead bodies, which would show they hadn't killed for food.

[howsmyenglish]

Oh no. It's the same word as for the people who remove dirt from latrines. And they're part of the chapter as well :/
Still, they don't appear in the same instances! Thank you! I had no idea.

[draculard]

There's the word "anthropophagy," which is used for any living creature that eats human flesh, but it's definitely an academic term and not one most people would use. Plus, it's a noun, and I don't think there's any way to turn it into an effective verb.

Wicked creepy story idea, by the way! We had a major cholera epidemic in my hometown back in the 19th Century that wiped out over half the town, so we had to study it in high school and I've found it super interesting ever since. Are you writing a horror book or a historical novel or...?

[howsmyenglish]

PhD in a region-specific literature. Details available in private messages ;)
The place I live in and the things I do make me far too easily googlable and I do try to stay anonymous on DW, so no details in open posts.
I can say this much: it's not a horrible fantasy, it's all true. *scary smile*

Anyhow, thank you for the academic term, I need those, too!

I keep confusing things I know about you. Is you hometown in the US or the UK?

[draculard]

Ooh, that's much more impressive! I won't press you for details; I try to stay anonymous here too, not very successfully XD

I'm in the US; it's a tiny and very peculiar area with tons of dark history (cannibalism, mass murders) and tons of easily-Googleable creepy names XD This isn't the exact name, but the town was originally named something similar to "Witch's Broom" and the general area is named something similar to "Devil's Swamp," both of which are super odd names for the U.S.

We have both cholera and bubonic plague graveyards, and I think both diseases were kind of rare here, though cholera was more common back then.

[howsmyenglish]

Wow, this sounds fascinating. When I finally go to the US one day, I might ask you to tell me how to get there ;D
But even just for reading your posts - it's nice to have a context. Makes everything more vivid and creepy)))

[grayswandir]

Heh, my whole dissertation is about death (though not in quite such an immediate way as your chapter), so I wasn't too worried about clicking on this. ;)

You could say that the jackals began "feeding on" the corpses. Or something like, "Jackals later dug up these shallow graves and began ravaging the corpses." (To "ravage" is simply to violently destroy, but in this context, I think it would be clear that the manner in which a jackal would destroy a corpse would obviously be by eating it.) The best phrasing sort of depends on what sort of sentence(s) you're trying to write, though. The term "human flesh" could also work, depending on context.

[howsmyenglish]

my whole dissertation is about death
I feel like we should compare notes. :D
How is it going, by the way?

Thank you for the suggestions, they're all going to be used!

[grayswandir]

Well, compared to what I'm writing, it sounds like your chapter is definitely much more about the disturbing and "disgusting" aspects of death. My thesis is more about how poets seek to transcend death through the enduring vitality of their works. So -- less literal stuff about actual corpses, more metaphorical stuff about textual "relics" and the epitaphic/memorial qualities of poetry in general. My equivalent of "jackals" are just the nitpicking literary critics who go around pulling apart the corpus of each "immortal" ancient author they encounter. ;)

I'd been in the midst of taking a break from writing in order to prepare for my trip to Hong Kong, but, uh. I guess I'm going to have to just get back to writing again, now. *sigh*

[howsmyenglish]

My chapter is not about death at all, it's about the usage of imagery of disgust to achieve certain objectives, death is only one example. Still, your project sounds fascinating!

I'd been in the midst of taking a break from writing in order to prepare for my trip to Hong Kong, but
Yeah, I'm sorry about that :/

It's all greek to me

[frith]

Try necrophagy for the action of eating dead flesh and necrophagous to indicate a propensity for eating dead flesh. Necro for death, phagous for ingestion.

Re: It's all greek to me

[howsmyenglish]

Ooooh, sounds nice. Thank you!

[thanatos_kalos]

In context, 'scavenging' is the best term, but pretty much all of the suggestions here will work when talking of eating the dead/dead humans. :) There's not really a special word for animals (as opposed to humans) eating-- there's no 'isst/frisst,' like in German-- though grazing (wandering over large areas and eating what is found, usually plants) is more commonly used of animals than humans. :)

[howsmyenglish]

I did not know you knew German :D

[thanatos_kalos]

Ich lerne Deutsch mit Duolingo :)

[howsmyenglish]

:D there's something i could be helpful with!
let me know if you need help, will you?
i like feeling useful 😉

[thanatos_kalos]

Ich werde das tun! I really need to improve a number of languages (German, Russian, Ukrainian, Mandarin, etc) for some of the projects I'm trying to do. :P

[howsmyenglish]

Nice! I can help with the second, too! :D

[thanatos_kalos]

\o/

[moth2fic]

Agree that 'scavenge' is the best term. Not sure you've got the right one for the latrine cleaners - scavenging definitely implies feeding.

[howsmyenglish]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual_scavenging
Oh, I'm sure. That's a subject I know a lot about.