Commemoration
Statuomania: A Mania for the Erection of Statues
Apparently, France has the world’s worst(?) case of this affliction.
Each day as I peruse the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in search of interesting words, I generally pass by many truly notable, interesting words. Often, they just seem too obvious, however forgotten they may be. This morning, for example, I passed right over starbeam (which is essentially the same as a sunbeam, only the light happens at night, from a star). Why didn’t I devote an entire article to it? I have no idea.
Statuomania seems in that same class. Of course it means exactly what it should — a mania for erecting statues. I’m frankly unsure whether there’s anything more special about it than there might’ve been for starbeam. Yet, here we are, already two paragraphs deep. I suppose it’s just a weird word, and I wanted to remember it.
The OED’s only usage example dates to 1882 from The Contemporary Review (vol. 42) in an essay entitled Contemporary Life and Thought in France, which appears to have been written by notable French historian Gabriel Monod. Here’s a snapshot of it from Google Books:
