A.Word.A.Day Archives from https://wordsmith.org/awad -------- Date: Wed Aug 1 00:01:30 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--wiseacre X-Bonus: A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs--jolted by every pebble in the road. -Henry Ward Beecher, preacher and writer (1813-1887) wiseacre (WIZ-ay-kuhr) noun One who obnoxiously pretends to be wise; smart-aleck; wise-guy. [From Middle Dutch wijsseggher, soothsayer, translation of Middle High German wissage, from Old High German wissago, wise person, altered by folk etymology.] "Mr. Mahoney, the wiseacre dad on NBC's `Frasier,' here has the chance to play gruff and sarcastic until late in the play, when a lifetime of artifice crumbles and his guilt and pain are exposed." Joel Henning, Theater: Artifice Unmasked; Chekhov Cluttered, The Wall Street Journal (New York), Jun 5, 2001. This week's theme: words evolved using folk etymologies. -------- Date: Thu Aug 2 00:01:23 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--rakehell X-Bonus: In truth everything and everyone / Is a shadow of the Beloved, / And our seeking is His seeking / And our words are His words... / We search for Him here and there, / while looking right at Him. / Sitting by His side, we ask: / "O Beloved, where is the Beloved?" -Rumi, poet and mystic (1207-1273) rakehell (RAYK-hel) noun A licentious or immoral person. [By folk etymology from Middle English rakel, rash, hasty.] "The instrument had previously been owned - witness the title `ex. Paganini' - by that notorious rakehell and virtuoso, who sold it to Vuillaume." Nicholas Delbanco, The Countess of Stanlein Restored, Harper's Magazine (New York) Jan 2001. This week's theme: words evolved using folk etymologies. -------- Date: Fri Aug 3 00:01:23 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--chaise longue X-Bonus: What is called discretion in men is called cunning in animals. -Jean de la Fontaine, poet and fabulist (1621-1695) chaise longue (shayz LONG) noun, plural chaise longues or chaises longues (shays LONG) A reclining chair with an elongated seat for supporting legs. [From French, literally long chair. The prevalent variant form of this term, chaise lounge, is formed by folk etymology.] "A pair of Air Force pilots recently locked themselves inside a closet-size metal box here for 50 hours, subsisting on cold pizza and instant noodles, amusing themselves with crossword puzzles and paperback books, and taking occasional catnaps on a fold-up chaise longue from Wal-Mart. The box was a B-2 bomber simulator." James Dao, Stealth Bomber, Once Scorned, Gains Fresh Backing, The New York Times, Jun 26, 2001. "In addition to the goldfish pond and fireplace, it sports a chaise lounge covered in hand-painted silk, a modest waterfall and an exercise alcove." Patricia Davis, Home Front -- Bowl, Bath and Beyond, The Wall Street Journal (New York) Jan 8, 1999. This week's theme: words evolved using folk etymologies. -------- Date: Mon Aug 6 00:01:23 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--warren X-Bonus: Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. -Jean-Paul Sartre, writer and philosopher (1905-1980) warren (WOR-ehn) noun 1. A place where rabbits live or are kept. 2. A building or area that is overcrowded or has a complicated layout. [From Middle English warenne, area for breeding game, from Old French, possibly of Germanic origin.] "Both cases decided, Dr. Watson, and both in my favour. I haven't had such a day since I had Sir John Morland for trespass because he shot in his own warren." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put his legendary Sherlock Holmes on the trail of murderers, blackmailers, burglars, and con men in the cleverest guises. Crime was everywhere, according to the master detective. "It is my belief," he told his ever faithful Dr. Watson, "that the lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside." In pursuit of their quarry, Holmes and Watson often came face to face with the dark side of the human character. With brains, pluck, and Watson's trusty service revolver, they conquered all. Last week, Sherlock Holmes devotees flocked to Dartmoor, in south west England, to mark the centenary of publication of the famous Holmes adventure set there, The Hound of the Baskervilles. AWAD pays homage by sampling words from The Hound and other Conan Doyle tales. -Lauren Weiner (lauren_weinerATkyl.senate.gov) (This week's guest wordsmith Lauren Weiner is an editor for Senator Jon Kyl (Republican, Arizona) in Washington, D.C. Her literary reviews and essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New Criterion, the Wilson Quarterly, the Baltimore Sun, and many other publications. -Anu) -------- Date: Tue Aug 7 00:01:28 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--inculpate X-Bonus: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950) inculpate (in-KUHL-payt) verb tr. To accuse; to incriminate. [From Late Latin inculpatus, from Latin in- + culpatus, past participle of culpare to blame, from culpa fault.] "`It had not been there the morning before.' `How do you know?' `Because I tidied out the wardrobe.' `That is final. Then someone came into your room and placed the pistol there in order to inculpate you.'" Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Problem of Thor Bridge. This week's theme: words from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's writings. -------- Date: Wed Aug 8 00:01:27 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--vexatious X-Bonus: If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882) vexatious (vek-SAY-shuhs) adjective 1. Causing vexation or irritation. 2. A legal action instituted on insufficient grounds and brought solely to annoy the defendant. [From Middle English vexacioun, from Latin vexation, from vexatus, past participle of vexare, to vex.] "`When I arrived at Baker Street I found him huddled up in his armchair with updrawn knees, his pipe in his mouth and his brow furrowed with thought. It was clear that he was in the throes of some vexatious problem.'" Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Creeping Man. This week's theme: words from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's writings. -------- Date: Thu Aug 9 00:01:21 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--scud X-Bonus: Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. -Isaac Bashevis Singer, writer, Nobel laureate, (1904-1991) scud (skud) verb intr. 1. To run or move swiftly. 2. In nautical parlance, to run before a gale with little or no sail set. noun 1. The act of scudding. 2. Clouds, rain, mist, etc. driven by the wind. 3. Low clouds beneath another cloud layer. [Uncertain origin, possibly from Middle Low German schudden, to shake.] "It was a fine night, but chilly, and we were glad of our warm overcoats. There was a breeze, and clouds were scudding across the sky, obscuring from time to time the half-moon." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Creeping Man. This week's theme: words from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's writings. -------- Date: Fri Aug 10 00:01:31 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--cormorant X-Bonus: While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784) cormorant (KOR-muhr-uhnt) noun 1. Any of the seabirds of the family Phalacrocoracidae, having a hooked bill with a pouch under it, a long neck and webbed feet. 2. A greedy person. [Middle English cormeraunt, from Middle French cormorant, from Old French cormareng, from corp, raven + marenc, of the sea, from Latin marinus.] "The source of these outrages is known, and if they are repeated I have Mr. Holmes's authority for saying that the whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant will be given to the public." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger. This week's theme: words from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's writings. -------- Date: Mon Aug 13 00:33:31 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--Hobson-Jobson X-Bonus: As freely as the firmament embraces the world, / or the sun pours forth impartially his beams, / so mercy must encircle both friend and foe. -Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, poet and dramatist (1759-1805) Hobson-Jobson (HOB-suhn JOB-suhn) noun Adaptation of a foreign word or phrase to fit the sound and spelling patterns of the borrowing language. [From the title of a book of the same name.] "Rushdie's characters talk like Wodehouse characters playing with Hobson-Jobson: `In this God-fearing Christian house, British still is best, madder-moyselle.... If you have ambitions in our boy's direction, then please to mindofy your mouth.'" James Wood, Salaam Bombay!, The New Republic (Washington), Mar 18, 1996. Every year, followers of the Shia sect of Muslims take part in elaborate processions commemorating sacrifices of Husain, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. They beat their chests with fists and iron chains as a mark of penance while chanting "Ya Hasan! Ya Husain!" To a native English speaker, those cries perhaps sound more like "Hobson-Jobson." So, in 1886 when Henry Yule, a member of the British occupation in India, published a book of anglicized colloquial words from Indian languages, he chose that very expression as the title for his collection: Hobson-Jobson. And ever since we refer that process and the words thus formed by the same name. This process of lexical and phonological assimilation of words from one language to another is not confined to any particular set of languages. We see this mix of pun and folk-etymology whenever speakers of two diverse languages cross paths. You may have heard about "Harry Kerry," the preferred method of suicide by Japanese warriors. Here are other examples: o Juggernaut from Sanskrit Jagannatha. o Plonk (cheap wine) from French [vin] blanc. o Mary Jane/Mary Warner/Mary Jane Warner for Mexican/Spanish marijuana. o Hocus-pocus from Latin hoc est corpus. You can browse the Hobson-Jobson dictionary on the Web at http://bibliomania.com/2/3/260/ . While you are there, don't forget to look up "puggry," a word ending in gry. During the rest of this week, we'll look at a few other words about words. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Aug 14 00:01:23 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--dittography X-Bonus: To feed men and not to love them is to treat them as if they were barnyard cattle. To love them and not respect them is to treat them as if they were household pets. -Mencius, philosopher (c. 380-289 BCE) dittography (di-TOG-ruh-fee) noun The inadvertent repetition of letters, words, or phrases in in writing. [From Greek ditto (double) + -graphy (writing).] "As a calligraphy teacher, I find the word haplography useful. When concentrating on producing good letter forms it is easy to make mistakes such as writing `rember' instead of `remember'. Its opposite is dittography: the writing twice of what should have been written once, such as `critics' becoming `crititics'." Susan Moor, Notes & Queries, The Guardian (London), Apr 23, 1997. This week's theme: words about words. -------- Date: Wed Aug 15 00:01:28 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--eye dialect X-Bonus: If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much. -Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis eye dialect (eye-DY-uh-lekt) noun Unusual or nonstandard spelling to represent an uneducated or youthful speaker or to convey dialectal or colloquial speech. Examples: wuz for was, wimmin (women), enuff (enough), warez (wares), peepul (people), Strine (Australian). [First used in print by George Phillip Krapp (1872-1934) in The English Language in America to denote spellings in which "the convention violated is one of the eyes, not of the ear."] "It's known as eye dialect, 'sur'. "The student celebrating her graduation with the words `Yahoo I'm threw' printed on her mortar-board cap (`Must be joking', May 17) and a critic's strong disdain for the student's fracturing of the King's English (`Graduate should have checked 'dictshunary',' May 20), was a cute cryptic pun cast in a form known as eye dialect. Examples of eye dialect cuz for cousin, sez for says, threw for through. Perhaps, if the word `threw' had been shielded within quotations marks, the student's intent would have been understood more readily. But, this would have robbed it of its spunk." Richard Harris, Readers' Views, The Cincinnati Enquirer, Jun 3, 1998. This week's theme: words about words. -------- Date: Thu Aug 16 00:01:17 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--epenthesis X-Bonus: Written laws are like spider's webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and the poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful. -Anacharsis, philosopher (6th century BCE) epenthesis (uh-PEN-thu-sis) noun Insertion of an extra sound into a word, e.g. fillum for film. [From Late Latin, from Greek epentithenai, to insert : ep-, epi-, (in addition) + en- (in) thesis (to place), stem of tithenia (to put).] "Mosner also asked whether there is a name for `the insertion of a nonexistent syllable or sound in a word? Exhibit 1: the regrettably ubiquitous 'ath-a-lete.' Exhibit 2: 'height-th.' "Yes: It is epenthesis. Another instance of it is el-lum for elm. Alden Wood, Wood Caught in a Snare Andalusian, Communication World (San Francisco), Jun/Jul 1996. This week's theme: words about words. -------- Date: Fri Aug 17 00:01:24 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--idiolect X-Bonus: As against having beautiful workshops, studios, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a rainy day. -Van Wyck Brooks, writer, critic (1886-1963) idiolect (ID-ee-uh-lekt) noun Language usage pattern unique to a person. [From Greek idio- (personal, peculiar) + dialect (language unique to a group of people).] "See the unique way you put words together? That's your idiolect: your personal dialect. That's your language; no one else has it." Chris Redgate, The Red Pencil, The Washington Post, May 17, 2001. This week's theme: words about words. -------- Date: Mon Aug 20 00:01:27 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--misocainea X-Bonus: A handful of sand is an anthology of the universe. -David McCord, poet (1897-1997) misocainea (mis-oh-KY-nee-uh, mi-soh-) noun Hatred of anything new. [Greek miso- (hate) + caino- (new).] "Although I agree with the majority that no appellate court has yet held an insurer liable absent a premium payment, it may be nothing more than appellate judges suffering from a case of misocainea!" Hill v. Chubb Life American Insurance Co., Arizona Business Gazette (Phoenix), Nov 11, 1993. It's a good thing we don't have to act out the literal meaning of words or we'd all be exercising in the nude in gymnasia. The word gymnasium comes to us from the Greek gymnazein, literally to train in the nude. Other words formed using the combining form gymno- (naked or bare) are gymnoplast (protoplasm without surrounding wall) and gymnosophy (a form of philosophy practiced by a sect of ascetics who refuse to wear clothes). As its name indicates, a combining form is a linguistic form that combines with a free word or another combining form to make a word. Sometimes there can be two combining forms joining a third (auto-bio-graphy). Also the same combining form can take different positions at different times (-graph- in graphology and autograph). Then there are instances where the same combining form can join itself to produce a word (logology, the study of words). All this can perhaps be explained very well using humans as the metaphor. But as this newsletter is family-oriented, we'll resist that temptation. Instead, in this week's AWAD we'll see some unusual words formed by other combining forms: miso- (hate), pili- (hair), ichno- (track), stego- (cover), and chiro- (hand). -Anu -------- Date: Tue Aug 21 00:01:25 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--piliform X-Bonus: The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved. -Victor Hugo, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1802-1885) piliform (PIL-i-form) adjective Having the form of a hair. [From Neo-Latin piliformis, from pili- (hair) + -form.] "As movie time approaches, you're satisfied that since the theater is sparsely populated, nobody will occupy the seat in front of you... Just when you're feeling safe, boom: Marge Simpson makes her way down the row and plunks herself right in your line of vision, her retro beehive obscuring all but the very margins of the scream, uh, screen. The solution: Snip a page out of the 'Edward Scissorhands' book. Marge's do would make a fine topiary, with an appropriately topical cinematic theme. Be creative. An exhibition of, say, `The Perfect Storm' would call for a piliform wave; `Me, Myself & Irene' might inspire a bouffant bovine." Bob Ivry, When You Mind Very Much If They Do, Other Moviegoers Got Your Goat? Don't Get Mad Get Even, The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey), Jul 16, 2000. This week's theme: words formed using combining forms. -------- Date: Wed Aug 22 00:01:30 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--ichnology X-Bonus: The unluckiest insolvent in the world is the man whose expenditure of speech is too great for his income of ideas. -Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957) ichnology (ik-NOL-uh-jee) noun A branch of paleontology dealing with the study of fossilized footprints, tracks, traces, etc. [From ichno- (track or footstep) + -logy (study).] "The small rocky exposure that the waters of the Ntumbe River had uncovered may be quite unique to ichnology. In addition to another trackway of six footprints of a slightly larger sub-adult, there are numerous other isolated tracks ..." Theagarten Lingham-Soliar, Walking With Baby Dinosaurs, The Guardian (UK), Sep 28, 2000. This week's theme: words formed using combining forms. -------- Date: Thu Aug 23 00:01:25 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--steganography X-Bonus: If the camel once gets his nose in a tent, his body will soon follow. -Arabian proverb steganography (ste-guh-NOG-ruh-fee) noun Secret communication by hiding the existence of message. A couple of examples of steganography: shrinking the secret text (by repeated use of a photocopy machine) until it's the size of a dot and then putting it in an unsuspected place, such as on top of a letter i in some innocuous letter. Second, shaving the head of a man, writing the secret message on his pate with unwashable ink, and then letting the hair grow back before dispatching him to the destination. To take an example from modern digital techniques, one could put the text of a message in the blank spaces in an image file. [From Greek stego- (cover) + -graphy (writing).] "The history of cryptography crackles with famous names. Shifting the whole alphabet forward or backward by one or more letters, so that, for example, A becomes B, B becomes C, and so on, is known as a `Caesar shift', one of the simplest kinds of cypher or letter-substitution code (see the title of this article). Julius Caesar also used the ruse of writing a Latin message in Greek characters so that it would be unreadable if intercepted by the Gauls. One such missive was delivered to the besieged Cicero fixed to a spear which was hurled into his camp by a messenger. And pin-pricking the letters of an existing document to spell out a secret message, a form of steganography popular in Victorian times when newspapers could be sent by post for free, dates back to Aeneas." Moreover: Tijguz cvtjoftt, The Economist (London) Aug 28, 1999. This week's theme: words formed using combining forms. -------- Date: Fri Aug 24 00:01:31 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--chiromancy X-Bonus: We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for. -Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, writer (1830-1916) chiromancy (KI-ruh-man-see) noun The practice of predicting character and future of a person from the lines on the palms; palmistry. [From Greek chiro- (hand) + -mancy (divination).] "Also called chiromancy, palm reading has a long history, extending back to ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. Palm readers focus on four lines and seven `mounts' on a person's hand to analyze character and predict destiny." Scott Shibuya Brown, A New Age of Aquarius Booming Interest in Astrology, The Los Angeles Times, Aug 28, 1994. This week's theme: words formed using combining forms. -------- Date: Mon Aug 27 00:59:24 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--ultima thule X-Bonus: Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort. -Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870) ultima Thule (UL-tuh-muh THOO-lee) noun 1. The northernmost part of the world believed habitable by the ancients. 2. A distant or remote goal or place. [Latin ultima, farthest, Thule, name of a place.] "Opportunities? In culture's Ultima Thule? Absolutely, both Clink and Egan affirm." Mike Dunham, Growing Talent Pool Figures in 'Requiem', The Daily News (Anchorage, Alaska), Apr 9, 1999. "It is much too early, say the experts, to presume Samurai's exile to ultima Thule wherein rust those firecracker Ford Pintos, runaway Audi 5000s and Ralph Nader's Corvairs that were unsafe at any speed." Paul Dean, Safety and the Samurai: Fans Don't Mind a Few Bumps, The Los Angeles Times, Jun 9, 1988. Known to the ancients as the northern-most region of the habitable world, Thule had been variously identified as one of the Shetland islands, Norway, or Iceland. Today's Thule is in northwest Greenland, within the Arctic Circle. Incidentally, the name Greenland is ironic, as more than four-fifths of the land is ice-capped. The palindromically named village of Qaanaaq, in the district of Thule, has the distinction of being the northern-most naturally inhabited place on earth. At least one linguaphile lives in Greenland (with email address ending in gl, the domain code for Greenland), but we don't know if there's one in Thule. During the rest of this week, we'll look at other words that take their names from faraway places in both fact and fiction. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Aug 28 00:01:24 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--El Dorado X-Bonus: The man who is a pessimist before forty-eight knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little. -Mark Twain, author (1835-1910) El Dorado (el duh-RAH-doh) noun 1. A legendary place in South America sought for its treasures by 16th century explorers. 2. A place offering fabulous wealth or opportunity. [From Spanish, literally, the gilded one.] "Although I felt somewhat excluded the last few years, I did appreciate seeing people parade their wealth as if they were financial conquistadors in a stock market El Dorado." Harvey Lieberman, I Told You So? Well, Not Exactly, The New York Times, Apr 29, 2001. This week's theme: words related to places. -------- Date: Wed Aug 29 00:01:23 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--timbuktu X-Bonus: The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature in her manner of operation. -John Cage, composer (1912-1992) Timbuktu (tim-buk-TOO) noun 1. A town in West Africa in central Mali. Also Tombouctou. 2. Any remote place. "`You can never find a space [at the mall]; you have to park in Timbuktu,' Ms. Dvorak says. `Then you have to walk all over the mall.'" Dean Starkman, The Mall, Without the Haul, The Wall Street Journal (New York), Jul 25, 2001. This week's theme: words related to places. -------- Date: Thu Aug 30 00:01:31 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--stoic X-Bonus: It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778) stoic (STOH-ik) noun One who is or appears to be indifferent to pleasure or pain; unaffected by emotions. adjective Unaffected by pleasure or pain. [After the name of the school of philosophy founded by Greek philosopher Zeno (c. 340-265 BCE) that one should be free of passion and be unaffected by grief or joy. From Middle English, from Latin stoicus, from Greek stoikos from stoa, the porch where Zeno taught.] "Those who stand to lose revenue from electronic-book piracy are being remarkably stoic in the face of the first high-profile incident." Christine McGeever, E-book Piracy Doesn't Frighten Publishers, Computerworld, Apr 10, 2000. This week's theme: words related to places. -------- Date: Fri Aug 31 00:01:21 EDT 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--brigadoon X-Bonus: The willing contemplation of vice is vice. -Arabic proverb brigadoon (BRIG-uh-doon) noun An idyllic place that is out of touch with reality or one that makes its appearance for a brief period in a long time. [From Brigadoon, a village in the musical of the same name, by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, based on the story Germelshausen by Friedrich Gerstacker. Brigadoon is under a spell that makes it invisible to outsiders except on one day every 100 years.] "There is a feel of Brigadoon to Cooperstown, the lush village of baseball and opera tucked into the middle of an idyllic nowhere in upstate New York." Elisabeth Bumiller, Cooperstown, The New York Times, Jul 1, 2001. This week's theme: words related to places.