A.Word.A.Day Archives from https://wordsmith.org/awad -------- Date: Wed Apr 1 00:05:06 EST 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--gest X-Bonus: Road to success is always under construction. gest or geste (jest) noun 1. A notable adventure or exploit. 2.a. A verse romance or tale. b. A prose romance. [Middle English geste, tale, from Old French, from Latin gesta, deeds, from neuter pl. past participle of gerere, to perform.] "We have beat him to his camp: run one before, And let the queen know of our gests." Shakespeare, William, Antony and Cleopatra: Act IV, Scene VIII. This week's theme: short words. -------- Date: Thu Apr 2 00:05:31 EST 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--kip X-Bonus: Slight not what's near through aiming at what's far. -Euripides kip (kip) noun A basic unit of currency in Laos. [Thai.] kip (kip) noun 1. The untanned hide of a small or young animal, such as a calf. 2. A set or bundle of such hides. [Middle English, bundle of animal hides, perhaps from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German.] kip (kip) Chiefly British. noun 1. A rooming house. 2. A place to sleep; a bed. 3. Sleep. kip intr.verb To sleep. [Perhaps from Danish kippe, cheap inn. Akin to Old Norse -kippa, as in korn-kippa, seedcorn holder Low German kiffe, hovel.] kip (kip) noun A unit of weight equal to 1,000 pounds (455 kilograms). [ki(lo)- + p(ound).] "Lucky dogs, goin' back for a kip (sleep)." MacGill, Patrick, True Stories Of The Great War: 'The Red Horizon' - Stories Of The London Irish, History of the World, 1 Jan 1992. This week's theme: short words. -------- Date: Fri Apr 3 00:05:05 EST 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--dun X-Bonus: Toe: A part of the foot used to find furniture in the dark. -Rilla May dun (dun) tr.verb 1. To importune (a debtor) for payment. dun noun 1. One that duns. 2. An importunate demand for payment. [Origin unknown.] dun (dun) noun 1. Color. An almost neutral brownish gray to dull grayish brown. 2. A fishing fly having this color. 3. A horse of this color. [Middle English, from Old English dunn, perhaps of Celtic origin.] "While her husband was out of the house, Harriet came upon a dunning letter addressed to her husband..." Fielding, Henry, Works of Henry Fielding: Tom Jones: Books 11 and 12, Monarch Notes, 1 Jan 1963. "Of sapless green, and ivy dun, Round stems that never kiss the sun..." Shelley, Percy Bysshe, Poems Of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Invitation. This week's theme: short words. -------- Date: Sat Apr 4 00:05:25 EST 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--purl X-Bonus: We often borrow from our tomorrows to pay our debts to our yesterdays. -Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) [Sand and Foam] purl (purl) intr.verb 1. To flow or ripple with a murmuring sound. purl noun The sound made by rippling water. [Probably of Scandinavian origin.] purl also pearl tr.verb 1. To knit (yarn) with a purl stitch. 2. To edge or finish (a handkerchief, for example) with lace or embroidery. purl intr.verb 1. To do knitting with a purl stitch. 2. To edge or finish with lace or embroidery. purl noun 1. Inversion of a knit stitch; purl stitch. 2. A decorative edging of lace or embroidery. 3. Gold or silver wire used in embroidery. [Origin unknown.] "The waters purled, the waters swelled,-- They kissed his naked feet; His heart a nameless transport held, As if his love did greet." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Fisher Brooks, Charles Timo, The World's Best Poetry on CD), 20 Mar 1995. This week's theme: short words. -------- Date: Sun Apr 5 03:05:11 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--maw X-Bonus: To gain that worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else. -Bernadette Devlin maw (maw) noun 1. The mouth, stomach, jaws, or gullet of a voracious animal, especially a carnivore. 2. The opening into something felt to be insatiable. [Middle English mawe, from Old English maga.] "Till, weary, he sat down before the maw Of a wide outlet, fathomless and dim To wild uncertainty and shadows grim." Keats, John. Poetical Works, 1884. This week's theme: short words. To see a compilation of feedback on this week's words, please see AWADmail Issue 10 at https://wordsmith.org/awad/awadmail.html or get it by email by sending a blank message to wsmith@wordsmith.org with the Subject line as: awadmail 10 -------- Date: Mon Apr 6 01:18:34 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--dunce X-Bonus: Whenever you fall, pick something up. -Oswald Avery dunce (duns) noun A person regarded as stupid. [After John Duns Scotus., whose writings and philosophy were ridiculed in the 16th century.] "The judges cited an article in The Daily Telegraph in February in which he argued that Chancellor Kohl was `a political genius but an economic dunce'." Telegraph writer's award, The Daily Telegraph, 15 Oct 1997. John Duns Scotus (1265-1308), the scholastic theologian was a learned man, not a dolt. However, once his ideas were attacked few hundred years later, there was no going back and he became eponymous symbol of being dimwitted. This week we take a look at six more words derived from the names of people and places. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Apr 7 03:05:23 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--baedeker X-Bonus: A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery baedeker (BAY-de-kuhr) noun A guidebook to countries or a country. [After Karl Baedeker (1801-1859) German publisher who established a series of guidebooks in 1829.] Robert Lee Hotz, Science File; Navigating the Mind; Los Angeles Times, 3 Oct 1996, pp. B-2. "Such a Baedeker of the brain would be an invaluable research guide for anyone trying to navigate the wilderness of the human mind." This week's theme: people and places that became words. -------- Date: Wed Apr 8 03:05:26 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--casanova X-Bonus: But the fruit that can fall without shaking, / Indeed is too mellow for me. -Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Casanova (kas-uh-NO-vuh, kaz-uh-NOH-vuh) noun 1. A man who is amorously and gallantly attentive to women. 2. A promiscuous man; a philanderer. [After Giovanni Jacopo Casanova de Seingalt, an Italian author of the eighteenth century, whose adventurous life and Memoirs gave him a permanent reputation as a lover.] "And a hefty Marlon Brando can do no wrong as the psychiatrist who treats this distraught, youthful Casanova." Cineman Syndicate, Movie Review, Cineman Syndicate, 10 Apr 1995. This week's theme: people and places that became words. -------- Date: Thu Apr 9 01:45:39 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--caucus X-Bonus: Technology...the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it. -Max Frisch caucus (KAW-kuhs) noun 1. A meeting of the local members of a political party especially to select delegates to a convention or register preferences for candidates running for office. A closed meeting of party members within a legislative body to decide on questions of policy or leadership. A group within a legislative or decision-making body seeking to represent a specific interest or influence a particular area of policy. 2. Chiefly British. A committee within a political party charged with determining policy. caucus intr. verb To assemble in or hold a caucus. caucus tr. verb To assemble or canvass (members of a caucus). [After the Caucus Club of Boston (in the 1760's), possibly from Medieval Latin caucus, drinking vessel.] "He is favoured by 14% of likely Republican caucus-goers in Iowa, putting him in a virtual dead heat with George W. Bush, Lamar Alexander, Jack Kemp and Steve Forbes. Speaking last month to farmers in Des Moines, Mr Quayle railed against government regulation, pointing out (inaccurately) that the Internal Revenue Service has five times as many employees as the FBI." Republican hopefuls: Quayle's trail, The Economist, 31 Jan 1998. This week's theme: people and places that became words. -------- Date: Fri Apr 10 00:05:32 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--aceldama X-Bonus: The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men. -Emile Zola Aceldama (uh-SEL-duh-muh) noun A place with dreadful associations. [After Aceldama1, in the New Testament, a potter's field near Jerusalem purchased by the priests as a burial ground for strangers with the reward that Judas had received for betraying Jesus and had later returned to them.] "The eye of love proved keener than the eye of gratitude, and the Saxon lady even in that Aceldama knew her Harold." Creasy, Sir Edward Shepherd, Norman Conquest Of England, Battle Of Hastings: Part II., History of the World, 1 Jan 1992. This week's theme: people and places that became words. -------- Date: Sat Apr 11 00:07:35 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--babel X-Bonus: Dilbert Principle: The most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management. -Scott Adams babel also Babel (BAB-uhl, BAY-buhl) noun 1. A confusion of sounds or voices. 2. A scene of noise and confusion. [After Babel. In the Old Testament, a city (now thought to be Babylon) in Shinar where construction of a heaven-reaching tower was interrupted when the builders became unable to understand one another's language.] Does Television Belong in the Courtroom?., Weekend Edition - Sunday (NPR), 07-31-1994. "And one of the only constants in the Tower of Babel that has passed for analysis so far is that just about everyone agrees how great it is the public is getting to watch the legal proceedings live." This week's theme: people and places that became words. -------- Date: Sun Apr 12 00:05:18 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--shillelagh X-Bonus: A closed mind is like a closed book: just a block of wood. -Chinese Proverb shillelagh also shillalah (shi-LAY-lee, shi-LAY-luh) noun A cudgel of oak, blackthorn, or other hardwood. [After Shillelagh, a village of east-central Ireland.] "All this dramatic play may have made for entertaining television and great headlines, but a lot of Americans weren't amused--or even entertained. They longed for a shillelagh and a woodshed." Douglas, Susan, It's howdy doody time. (political mud-slinging gets too much news coverage)(Pundit Watch) (Column)., Vol. 58, The Progressive, 10-01-1994, pp 21(1). This week's theme: people and places that became words. -------- Date: Mon Apr 13 02:00:49 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--prude X-Bonus: I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity. -Albert Einstein prude (prood) noun One who is excessively concerned with being or appearing to be proper, modest, or righteous. [French, short for prude femme, virtuous woman : Old French prude, feminine of prud, virtuous; + French femme, woman (from Latin femina).] WORD HISTORY: Being a prude has never been widely considered a good thing, but if we dig further into the history of the word prude, we will find that it had a noble past. The change for the worse took place in French. French prude first had a good sense, "wise woman," but apparently a woman could be too wise or, in the eyes of some, too observant of decorum and propriety, and so prude took on the sense in French that was brought into English along with the word, first recorded in 1704. The French word first meant "wise woman" because prude was a shortened form of prude femme (earlier in Old French prode femme), a word that was modeled on earlier preudomme, "a man of experience and integrity." The second part of this word is, of course, homme, "man." Old French prod, meaning "wise, prudent," is from Vulgar Latin prodis with the same sense. Prodis in turn comes from Late Latin prode, "advantageous," derived from the verb prodesse, "to be good." We can see that the history of prude is filled with usefulness, profit, wisdom, and integrity, but in spite of all this, things did not turn out that well. "Barry Gardiner, MP for Brent North, said: `It is extremely offensive. I am not a prude and I think the Prodigy are a very good group. But they should think about the message they are giving out.'" Rachel Sylvester, Demand for pop band to drop advert, The Daily Telegraph, 10 Dec 1997. When we meet people for the first time, after the superficial introductory chitchat, we want to know about them in more depth -- their home-town, what school they went to, how they ended up in that place, and how their lives were shaped. Well, to me it is the same with the words. When I bump into an unknown word on a page or on the screen, I often wonder how it came into the English language. What mutations it went through to appear in its current form, if it is an antediluvian word or a coinage of ephemeral existence, and myriads of other similar questions come to the mind. This week let's look at some of the words with fascinating histories. Quite likely most of these words are familiar to most of us but their interesting pasts make it worthwhile to give them a second look. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Apr 14 00:04:44 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--debunk X-Bonus: It is man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man. -Albert Schweitzer debunk (di-BUNGK) tr.verb To expose or ridicule the falseness, sham, or exaggerated claims of: WORD HISTORY: One can readily see that debunk is constructed from the prefix de-, meaning "to remove," and the word bunk. But what is the origin of the word bunk, denoting the nonsense that is to be removed? Bunk came from a place where much bunk has originated, the United States Congress. During the 16th Congress (1819-1821) Felix Walker, a representative from western North Carolina whose district included Buncombe County, continued on with a dull speech in the face of protests by his colleagues. Walker replied he had felt obligated "to make a speech for Buncombe." Such a masterful symbol for empty talk could not be ignored by the speakers of the language, and Buncombe, actually spelled Bunkum in its first recorded appearance in 1828 and later shortened to bunk, became synonymous with claptrap. The response to all this bunk seems to have been delayed, for debunk is not recorded until 1923. "But his aim is to portray Dahl as 'a capricious tycoon' rather than a great writer, to debunk the 'myths' that he claims Dahl put about concerning himself in Boy and Going Solo." Christina Hardyment, Book Review / The pink plastic dummy award: 'Roald Dahl', Independent, 12 Mar 1994. This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Wed Apr 15 00:05:38 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--apartheid X-Bonus: Have children while your parents are still young enough to take care of them. -Rita Rudner apartheid (uh-PART-hite, uh-PART-hayt) noun 1. An official policy of racial segregation practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against nonwhites. 2. Any policy or practice of separating or segregating groups. 3. The condition of being separated from others; segregation. [Afrikaans : Dutch apart, separate (from French a part, apart) + -heid, -hood.] WORD HISTORY: Although South Africa has not furnished a great number of words that have achieved general currency in British and American English, one in particular, apartheid, has gained wide circulation. The first recorded use of apartheid as an English term, in the Cape Times on October 24, 1947, is an ironic commentary on much of the word's use since then: "Mr. Hofmeyr said apartheid could not be reconciled with a policy of progress and prosperity for South Africa." According to the March 15, 1961, issue of the London Times, the word self-development was supposed to replace apartheid as the official term used by the South African Broadcasting Corporation for "the Government's race policies." And in Move Your Shadow, published in 1985, Joseph Lelyveld says that the "word is [now] shunned, even resented by the [National Party's] high priests as if it were an epithet fashioned by the country's enemies." But apartheid as a word and as a reality has been slow to disappear. The history of apartheid, however, offers a possible model for change in this policy, for the word is an example of a mixture and combination of resources, in this case linguistic. Apartheid is an English word that came into South African English from Afrikaans, the language of the Dutch settlers of South Africa. They in turn had made up the word from the Dutch word apart, "separate," and the suffix -heid, which corresponds to our suffix -hood. Thus apartheid literally means "separateness." The Dutch had earlier borrowed the word apart, as did we, from the French phrase a part, meaning "to one side." "The soothing of white apprehension has been the hallmark of Mr Mandela's government, the price of achieving a peaceful transition from apartheid. But Mr Mbeki, who treads the same delicate line between black hopes and white fears, navigates a different path. He weighs the acknowledged risk of scaring off whites against a greater need to thwart a black rebellion if, five years hence, nothing much has changed." Who is Thabo Mbeki?, The Economist, 1 Nov 1997. This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Thu Apr 16 00:04:30 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--cabal X-Bonus: The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. -John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006) cabal (kuh-BAL) noun 1. A conspiratorial group of plotters or intriguers: "Espionage is quite precisely it-a cabal of powerful men, working secretly" (Frank Conroy). 2. A secret scheme or plot. cabal intr.verb To form a cabal; conspire. [French cabale, from Medieval Latin cabala.] WORD HISTORY: The history of cabal reveals how a word can be transferred from one sphere of activity to another while retaining only a tenuous connection with its past. Ultimately from Hebrew but transmitted to English probably by way of Medieval Latin and French, cabal is first recorded in English in 1616 in the sense "cabala." Cabala was the name for the Hebrew oral tradition transmitted by Moses and also the name for a Jewish religious philosophy based on an esoteric interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. The notion "esoteric" is central to the development of this word in English, for cabal, probably following the sense development in French, came to mean "a tradition, special interpretation, or secret," "private intrigue" (first recorded in 1646-1647), and "a small body of intriguers" (first recorded in 1660). It is probably not coincidental that cabal is found with these latter meanings during the mid-17th century, that time of plots and counterplots by Royalists and Parliamentarians. The word gained a false etymology when it was noticed that the five most influential ministers of Charles II were named Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. "What you are seeing happen though is rump groups of so-called wise men, former foreign policy advisers to both Democratic and Republican administrations are beginning to meet in little sort of cabals around town..." Congress Getting Its Hands in Foreign Policy, Morning Edition (NPR), 9 May 1994. This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Fri Apr 17 00:04:37 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--dicker X-Bonus: There must be more to life than sitting wondering if there is more to life. dicker (DIK-uhr) intr.verb 1. To bargain; barter. dicker noun The act or process of bargaining. [Probably from dicker, a quantity of ten, ten hides, from Middle English diker, perhaps from Old English *dicor, from Latin decuria, set of ten, from decem, ten.] WORD HISTORY: Perhaps a desire to see history repeat itself has been at work in the case of an etymology suggested for the verb dicker, first recorded in 1802 with reference to horse trading and the haggling that accompanies it. In a work published in 1848 James Fenimore Cooper used the word with reference to frontier trade. This use would support a connection with the noun dicker, which denotes a quantity of ten and was a common unit used in trading hides or furs. If the verb dicker originated in the fur trade, a parallel would exist with the noun dicker. The noun may have come into the Germanic languages and hence to English by way of trade or tribute in furs between the Germanic peoples and the Roman Empire, with the Germanic word coming from the Latin word decuria, "a group of ten men," which in Late Latin was used as a measure of skins. The difficulty with this parallel is that no existing evidence proves conclusively the derivation of the verb dicker from the noun dicker. Sharon Machlis, Bug payment spat sparks debate on Internet altruism, Computerworld, 23 Jun 1997. "Two Danish consultants dickered with Netscape Communications Corp. over payment as a prerequisite to turning over details of a security hole they found two weeks ago in that company's browsers." This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Sat Apr 18 03:03:17 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--midwife X-Bonus: Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand. midwife (MID-wife) noun 1. A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth. Also called Regional: granny. 2. One who assists in or takes a part in bringing about a result: "In the Renaissance, artists and writers start to serve as midwives of fame" (Carlin Romano). midwife tr.verb 1. To assist in the birth of (a baby). 2. To assist in bringing forth or about: "Washington's efforts to midwife a Mideast settlement" (Newsweek). [Middle English midwif : probably mid, with (from Old English) + wif, woman (from Old English wif).] WORD HISTORY: The word midwife is the sort of word whose etymology is perfectly clear until one tries to figure it out. Wife would seem to refer to the woman giving birth, who is usually a wife, but mid? A knowledge of older senses of words helps us with this puzzle. Wife in its earlier history meant "woman," as it still did when the compound midwife was formed in Middle English (first recorded around 1300). Mid is probably a preposition, meaning "together with." Thus a midwife was literally a "with woman" or "a woman who assists other women in childbirth." Even though obstetrics has been rather resistant to midwifery until fairly recently, the etymology of obstetric is rather similar, going back to the Latin word obstetrix, "a midwife," from the verb obstare, "to stand in front of," and the feminine suffix -trix; the obstetrix would thus literally stand in front of the baby. "Ms. O'Dell: Afraid of dying, and afraid of, the worst thing is, afraid of dying alone. And I want to accompany someone to the door. You know, the experience has been many times almost exactly like walking down a long corridor, say in a school, to the principal's office. And he goes through, and it's not my turn. And it's a long, lonely walk. And those hours spent beside someone's bed as you walk down that corridor together, and then he goes through, it is truly a privilege. It's an exquisite experience, and it- I've often thought, this must be what it's like to be a midwife." Josephs's House Provides Home For Men With AIDS, All Things Considered (NPR), 8 Jan 1995. This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Sun Apr 19 03:03:08 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--maroon X-Bonus: Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up. -Robert Frost maroon (muh-ROON) tr.verb 1. To put ashore on a deserted island or coast and intentionally abandon. 2. To abandon or isolate with little hope of ready rescue or escape: The travelers were marooned by the blizzard. maroon noun 1. Often Maroon. a. A fugitive Black slave in the West Indies in the 17th and 18th centuries. b. A descendant of such a slave. 2. A person who is marooned, as on an island. [From French marron, fugitive slave, from American Spanish cimarron, wild, runaway, perhaps from cima, summit, from Latin cyma, sprout.] WORD HISTORY: The history of the word maroon, which we associate with desert islands, takes us back to the days of slavery, when the noun maroon was a term in English for a Black person who lived in the mountains and forests of Dutch Guiana (Suriname) and the West Indies, a term that is still used in parts of the Caribbean. These were plantation slaves who had run away to live free in uncultivated parts. The English word is taken from the French word marron, "runaway Black slave," which in turn was an alteration of American Spanish cimarron, meaning "runaway slave." Cimarron is perhaps from cima, "summit." Having come into English (first recorded in 1666), maroon took on a life of its own and came to be used as a verb meaning "to be lost in the wilds," from which our sense "to put ashore on a deserted island or coast" evolved. maroon noun Color. A dark reddish brown to dark purplish red. [French marron, chestnut, from Italian marrone.] "Marooned on a bucolic island without any other culture, their personal and professional lives become almost indistinguishable." Klein, Jeffrey, Billing us softly. Mother Jones, 11 Jan 1998. This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Mon Apr 20 03:03:12 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--comstockery X-Bonus: How did a fool and his money get together in the first place? Comstockery (KOM-stok-uh-ree, KUM-) noun Censorship of literature and other forms of expression and communication because of perceived immorality or obscenity. [After Anthony COMSTOCK.] WORD HISTORY: Bowdlerism, named after Dr. Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), has been around longer than Comstockery, named for Anthony Comstock (1844-1915). All Bowdler did to enter the world of common nouns was to expurgate Shakespeare, the Bible, and Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. On the other hand, Comstock, the organizer and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, helped destroy 160 tons of literature and pictures that he deemed immoral. Comstockery, the word honoring his achievements, is first recorded in 1905 in a letter by George Bernard Shaw to the New York Times: "Comstockery is the world's standing Joke at the expense of the United States.... It confirms the deep-seated conviction of the Old World that America is a provincial place, a second rate country-town civilization after all." "The best argument for upholding this electronic Comstockery can be summed up in a single world: zoning." Jeffrey Rosen, Can the government stop cyberporn?, The New Republic, 31 Mar 1997. Last week's theme, words with interesting histories, has evoked an unprecedented interest with requests pouring in to extend the theme for another week. So let's take a look at seven more words that give us a glance on curious ways words enter into a language. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Apr 21 00:13:55 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--seersucker X-Bonus: I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. seersucker (SIER-suk-uhr) noun A light, thin fabric, generally cotton or rayon, with a crinkled surface and a usually striped pattern. [Hindi sirsakar, from Persian shiroshakar : shir, milk (from Middle Persian) + o, and, from Middle Persian u, from Old Persian uta + shakar, sugar, from Sanskrit sarkara, from the resemblance of its smooth and rough stripes to the smooth surface of milk and bumpy texture of sugar.] WORD HISTORY: Through its name, seersucker, a lightweight fabric for summer suits and dresses, gives us a glimpse at the history of India. The facts of the word's history are that it came into English from the East Indian language Hindi (sirsakar). The word in Hindi was borrowed from the Persian compound shiroshakar, meaning literally "milk and sugar" but used in a figurative way for a striped linen garment. The Persian word shakar "sugar," in turn came from Sanskrit sarkara. Persian, Indian, English--clearly we are dealing with multiple cultural borrowing here, and the Persians did indeed borrow sugar and the word for sugar from India in the 6th century. During and after Tamerlane's invasion of India in the late 14th century, the opportunity for borrowing Persian things and words such as shir-o-shakar was present, since the Mongol Turk Tamerlane incorporated Persia as well as India into his empire. It then remained for the English during the 18th century, when the East India Company and England were moving toward supremacy in India, to borrow the material and its name seersucker (first recorded in 1722 in the form Sea Sucker) from an Indian language. "For some strange reason, I was wearing my good suit that day -- a seersucker, along with my best shirt and a tie." Chapin, William, Life in the water.(swimming), Mother Earth News, 16 Jun 1995. This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Wed Apr 22 00:04:59 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--rankle X-Bonus: I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. -Diane Ackerman rankle (RANG-kuhl) intr.verb 1. To cause persistent irritation or resentment. 2. To become sore or inflamed; fester. rankle tr.verb To embitter; irritate. [Middle English ranclen, from Old French rancler, alteration of draoncler, from draoncle, festering sore, from Latin dracunculus, diminutive of draco, dracon-, serpent.] WORD HISTORY: A persistent resentment, a festering sore, and a little snake are all coiled together in the history of the word rankle. "A little snake" is the sense of the Latin word dracunculus to which rankle can be traced, dracunculus being a diminutive of draco, "snake." The Latin word passed into Old French, as draoncle, having probably already developed the sense "festering sore," because some of these sores resembled little snakes in their shape or bite. The verb draoncler, "to fester," was then formed in Old French. The noun and verb developed alternate forms without the d-, and both were borrowed into Middle English, the noun rancle being recorded in a work written around 1190, the verb ranclen, in a work probably composed about 1300. Both words had literal senses having to do with festering sores. The noun is not recorded after the 16th century, but the verb went on to develop the figurative senses having to do with resentment and bitterness with which we are all too familiar. "It has a Venome that more or less rankles wherever it bites: And as it reports Fancies for Facts, so it disturbs its own House as often as otherFolks.' Penn, William, More Fruits Of Solitude Relating To The Conduct Of Human Life: Of Jealousy. This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Thu Apr 23 00:04:40 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--trump X-Bonus: Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth. -Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) trump (trump) noun 1. Games. Often trumps. A suit in card games that outranks all other suits for the duration of a hand. A card of such a suit. A trump card. 2. A key resource to be used at an opportune moment. 3. Informal. A reliable or admirable person. trump tr.verb 1. Games. To take (a card or trick) with a trump. 2. To get the better of (an adversary or a competitor, for example) by using a key, often hidden resource. trump intr.verb Games. To play a trump. [Alteration of triumph.] WORD HISTORY: The history of the word trump gives meaning to this seemingly nonsensical word and also relates to the history of the game of bridge. Trump is an alteration of the word triumph used in special senses that are now obsolete. These senses, first recorded in a sermon of 1529 by the English prelate Hugh Latimer, are "a card game" and "trump" as it is used in card games. In the same 1529 text one may find the first instances of trump, used in the same two senses as triumph. From trump and other games came the card game whist, which in turn developed into bridge. The term trump survived even though the game of trump did not. "It was a clumsy and unthinking statement to make public, about any player, let alone a potential trump card like Malcolm, who was struggling for both fitness and confidence." Derek Pringle, Malcolm caught up in character clash, Independent, 16 Jan 1996. This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Fri Apr 24 00:04:45 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--fizzle X-Bonus: Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. -Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) [Sand and Foam] fizzle (FIZ-uhl) intr.verb 1. To make a hissing or sputtering sound. 2. Informal. To fail or end weakly, especially after a hopeful beginning. fizzle noun Informal. A failure; a fiasco. [Probably from obsolete fist, to break wind, from Middle English fisten.] WORD HISTORY: In Philemon Holland's 1601 translation of Pliny's Natural History, we are surprised by the use of the word fizzle in the statement that if asses eat a certain plant, "they will fall a fizling and farting." Fizzle was first used in English to mean, in the decorous parlance of the Oxford English Dictionary, "to break wind without noise." During the 19th century fizzle took on a related but more respectable sense, "to hiss, as does a piece of fireworks," illustrated by a quotation from the November 7, 1881, issue of the London Daily News: "unambitious rockets which fizzle doggedly downwards." In the same century fizzle also took on figurative senses, one of which seems to have been popular at Yale. The Yale Literary Magazine for 1849 helpfully defines the word as follows: "Fizzle, to rise with modest reluctance, to hesitate often, to decline finally; generally, to misunderstand the question." The figurative sense of fizzle that has caught on is the one with which we are most familiar today, "to fail or die out.". "In June of that year, lightning strikes ignited fires in Yellowstone and in nearby forests. Most fizzled out, but others sprang to life." Role of Fire, Earth Explorer, 1 Feb 1995. This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Sat Apr 25 00:04:23 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--sleuth X-Bonus: Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it. -Ralph Waldo Emerson sleuth (slooth) noun 1. A detective. 2. A dog used for tracking or pursuing, such as a bloodhound. sleuth tr.verb To track or follow. sleuth intr.verb To act as a detective. [Short for sleuthhound.] WORD HISTORY: To track down the history of the word sleuth requires a bit of etymological sleuthing in itself. The immediate ancestor of our word is the compound sleuthhound, "a dog, such as a bloodhound, used for tracking or pursuing." This term took on a figurative sense, "tracker, pursuer," which is closely related to the sense "detective." From sleuthhound came the shortened form sleuth, recorded in the sense 'detective' as early as 1872. The first part of the term sleuthhound means "track, path, trail," and is first recorded in a Middle English work written probably around 1200. The Middle English word, which had the form sloth, with eu representing the Scots development of the Middle English, was a borrowing of the Old Norse word slodh, "a track or trail." "The venerable Sherlock Holmes is in fact a dim-witted, drunken actor hired to play the legendary super sleuth. Dr. Watson is really the behind-the-scenes brainy one who solves the cases." Movie Review: Without a Clue, Cineman Syndicate, 1 Jan 1984. This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Sun Apr 26 00:04:15 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--vogue X-Bonus: To stumble twice against the same stone is a proverbial disgrace. -Cicero vogue (vohg) noun 1. The prevailing fashion, practice, or style: Hoop skirts were once the vogue. 2. Popular acceptance or favor; popularity: a party game no longer in vogue. [French, from Old French, probably from voguer, to sail, row.] WORD HISTORY: The history of the word vogue takes us back from the abstract world of fashion to the concrete actions of moving in a vehicle and rowing a boat, demonstrating how sense can change dramatically over time even though it flows, as it were, in the same channel. The history of vogue begins with the Indo-European root wegh-, meaning "to go, transport in a vehicle." Among many other forms derived from this root was the Germanic stem wega-, "water in motion." From this stem came the Old Low German verb wogon, meaning "to sway, rock." This verb passed into Old French as voguer, which meant "to sail, row." The Old French word yielded the noun vogue, which probably literally meant "a rowing," and so "a course," and figuratively "reputation" and then "reputation of fashionable things" or "prevailing fashion," which involve courses, so to speak. The French passed the noun on to us, it being first recorded in English in 1571. Hume, David, Of The Standard Of Taste. "Authority or prejudice may give a temporary vogue to a bad poet or orator; but his reputation will never be durable or general." This week's theme: words with interesting histories. -------- Date: Mon Apr 27 00:06:24 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--jape X-Bonus: It takes only one person to change your life - you. -Ruth Casey jape (jayp) intr.verb To joke or quip. jape tr.verb To make sport of. jape noun A joke or quip. [Middle English japen, probably from Old French japer, to yap, chatter, nag, of imitative origin.] "This helps account for the public-school atmosphere that prevailed on the floor of the Stock Exchange, with constant japes and horseplay: the throwing of sawdust and water-filled balloons, and the hurling of crude epithets." The City of London, vol. 2, Golden Years: 1890-1914.(book reviews), The Economist, 5 Aug 1995. When we hear words we not only understand their meanings, we get a sense of what they mean from the way they are delivered. We hear the tones, volume and rhythm of the speaker's voice. We don't get this when we read. The words "I love you," rather naked by themselves on the page, could be an expression of lust, the heartwarming words of a toddler, spoken for the first time to a parent, or the plaint of a final farewell. A writer needs strong, concise words to let the reader know how to understand the speech of her characters. These words add color and meaning and help us understand motivation, reaction and emotion in what we read. This week's theme is words about the quality of speech. -William D. Frank (wfrankATpacbell.net) (This week's Guest Wordsmith, Will, is a Registered Nurse as well as an attorney. Though for living he prefers to heal rather than bleed. He is "inordinately proud of being published finalist in what was the last International Imitation Hemingway Contest." -Anu) -------- Date: Tue Apr 28 09:15:21 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--badinage X-Bonus: Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice -George Jackson badinage (bad-NAHZH) noun Light, playful banter. [French, from badin, joker, from Provencal badar, to gape, from Latin *batare.] "The black belt in invective was conspicuously won, however, in his exchange with (the Pulitzer Prizewinner) William Kennedy, whose initial letter of rejection is greeted with a promise to `jam a bronze plaque far into your small intestine'. Their splenetic badinage is one of the brightest threads in this book." David Profumo, Books: A good life - if you don't get the piles A selection of correspondence from the pre-gonzo scene leaves David Profumo hungover, The Daily Telegraph, 18 Oct 1997. This week's theme: Words about the quality of speech. -------- Date: Wed Apr 29 00:04:42 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--confabulate X-Bonus: Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. -John G. Diefenbaker confabulate (kuhn-FAB-yuh-layt) intr.verb 1. To talk casually; chat. 2. Psychology. To replace fact with fantasy unconsciously in memory. [Latin confabulari, confabulat- : com-, com- + fabulari, to talk (from fabula, conversation.] "`Memoir in Two Voices'" is as abstract and frequently as lofty as one of Plato's dialogues. It seems to set nowhere; there are no chairs, no gestures, no food or drink or any physical or emotional detail to suggest that two flesh-and-blood figures are in the room. It could be the bust of Wiesel confabulating with the bust of Mitterrand." Richard Eder; Of Monsters, Saints and Rivers, Los Angeles Times, 07-07-1996 This week's theme: Words about the quality of speech. -------- Date: Thu Apr 30 00:05:06 EDT 1998 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--snivel X-Bonus: Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me. -Sigmund Freud snivel (SNIV-uhl) intr. verb 1. To sniffle. 2. To complain or whine tearfully. 3. To run at the nose. snivel noun 1. The act of sniffling or sniveling. 2. Nasal mucus. [Middle English snivelen, from Old English *snyflan.] "Rather than telling him to stop snivelling and get on with his work, the company produced a rather weaselly statement about how it `regrets that Mr Prescott was the target of a personal political protest at Monday's Brit Awards Ceremony.'" City Comment: Prescott's protests just won't wash., The Daily Telegraph, 02-14-1998, pp 30. This week's theme: Words about the quality of speech.