Description

"Abalastow Compendium" is a competition as one of the Dan Grigsby's projects in his UMN class. The students are competing against one another to get the highest result for this searched terms:

abalastow compendium

Links

Obviously this is the best web site where to talk about abalastow compendium.
Don't forget this page can be accessed from two urls:abalastow compendium for .com and abalastow compendium for .org.
A simple definition of a compendium can be found here.

Additional informations

Some etymology: The word compendium comes from the Latin word compendere, meaning "to weigh together". In french official definition (from l'Académie Française), it is said that the Latin word compendium means, « money we raise », then « profit », « time savior », « shortcut », and finally « abstract ».
An older definition, but still fascinating, because it disappeared from every dictionaries:
The compendium is a small furniture glazed, that we found in classrooms in the beginning of the 20th century. We used this to show the measures of weight and volume (balance, weight, chain surveyor, compass, thermometer, etc.).. It was designed to enable children to learn the metric system, and it was part of the material classes of yesteryear. The goal was to unify knowledge at a time when people used measurement systems differ from one region to another. (source is the French Larousse dictionary from 1933)
Regarding abalastow, it might be considered as a Portmanteau word formed by aba and lastow:
Orest Lastow is a famous (at least, his name came first in search results), patent writer in the pharmaceutical industry. And ABA can stand for "American Bar Association", "American Bankers Association", and "American Basketball Association", choose your favorite one (surely not the bankers association after the recent economical events).

Examples

There are numerous examples of compendium in various areas of knowledge. In the arts, with the Bach Compendium an exhaustive compilation of Johann Sebastian Bach by musicologist Hans-Joachim Schulze and Christoph Wolff (published in the second part of the eighties).
In the theology: the Compendium théologiæ, a brief abstract on christian faith by Thomas d'Aquin (written in 1260 - 1272). It's a sum up of the more famous Summa Theologica.
Compendium spritualis doctrinae from Bartholomy of the Martyrs.
In the french bizarre-literature group "Oulipo", an "Oulipo Compendium" can also be found.
In chemistry exists a "Compendium of Chemical Terminology". etc. etc.