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AWADmail Issue 579

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the net

The Grammar Rules Behind Three Commonly Disparaged Dialects
The Week

Words and Actions: What Is the Connection Between Linguistic and Motor Functions?
ScienceDaily

From: Charles Carpenter (carpnews aol.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--auspices

Re: changing clothes. At my 20th high school reunion of the Class of 1961, I sat at a table with eight or ten people. After the dinner about 15 of us went to a classmate's home for more small talk. I asked one of the ladies there, "Who are you?" When she told me I realized that she had been one of the people at my table and we'd conversed all through the meal. The problem? She had changed clothes and looked 100% different.

From: Stephen Smith (auster3 gmail.com)
Subject: auspices

I have known this word auspices for a long time but a few years ago I noticed that the local civil service wanted to make a verb of it. Applications were sought in a newspaper ad for NGOs to "auspice" various government community service projects. I could see what was wrong with "oversee" or "supervise" but the contact officer would have none of it.

From: Jeffrey Turner (jturner alum.rpi.edu)
Subject: auspices

The singular of auspices was one of my mother's favorite words, but she used it to refer to bad beer. I guess it's all in the pronunciation.

From: Eric Grosshans (uhclem frii.com)
Subject: Paparazzi

Some of my Catholic friends used this word as a nickname for Pope Benedict XVI. Papa=Pope and Ratzi was a diminutive of his last name, Ratzinger.

From: Lois Sorkin (lrs50 juno.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--paparazzi

My husband and I were at the park with the grandkids, and he pulled out his iPhone and took some pictures. I remarked to a bystander, "Grandpa (pronounced grampa) is clearly one of the grampaparazzi."

From: Gretchen Copeland (gretchen.copeland email.edcc.edu)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--cognoscenti

A clearly inept interview by Fox News anchor Lauren Green of biblical scholar Reza Aslan about his new biography of Jesus has boosted sales of the book after the interview went viral on the Internet.

Let's call Mr. Aslan the cognoscenti and Ms. Green the acognoscenti (the prefix "a" meaning without).

From: Andrew Pressburger (andpress sympatico.ca)
Subject: Mores

Cicero's rhetorical exclamation in one of his Cataline orations, O tempora O mores, could be best rendered either as "Such times, such morals!" or, a little more freely, "It ain't like it used to be!" in both cases decrying the good old days when men were men, standing on guard for the Republic instead of conspiring to overthrow it. Maybe he was thinking of the Consul Marius and his defence of Rome against the Proconsul Sulla early in the first century BCE.

Cicero was an ardent opponent of both the First and the Second Triumvirate. Against the latter he harangued the Senate in his famous Philippics. Though Julius Caesar had pardoned him, he was caught in the lethal web of Mark Antony and Octavius's "black sentence and proscription".

Any assessment of Cicero's politics involves modern implications Was he a guardian of traditional republican virtues or a reactionary opponent of Rome's globalization of peace and prosperity?

From: Colleen Weisz (colleenweisz aol.com)
Subject: mores

I have fond memories of my mother, half a century ago, exclaiming, "O tempora, o mores!" whenever some unacceptable new fad or style -- like shorter skirts -- would come up.

From: Robert Maxwell (rmax304823 yahoo.com)
Subject: Mores

It's probably not important but few had heard of this word before it was popularized in the work of William Graham Sumner, a sociologist at Yale. He drew a distinction between "mores", that govern ideas about right and wrong, and "folkways", the less important customs that tell us what's rude and what's polite. Kidnapping is a violation of the mores. Refusing to shake someone's hand violates the society's folkways.

Since reading Maphead by Ken Jennings and learning about the scarcity of true antipodes, it has become one of my life's goals to visit two antipodal points. My favorite options are Kergeulen Island and a spot on the US/Canadian border. Ideally, I would find a friend to visit the opposite point at the same time, and we could make an Earth sandwich.

From: Bill Tew (ah2Haah aol.com)
Subject: antipodes

Regarding:

From: John Ewen (john_ewen clear.net.nz)
Subject: Antipodes

UK people have difficulty in distinguishing Australian and New Zealand accents. Their usual diplomatic comment when first hearing us is, "You're from the Antipodes, I think."

From: Oliver Joyce (oliver quintessentially.com)
Subject: Antipodes

In the UK, antipodes can often be used to refer to Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa and antipodean to the people of those three countries.

Clearly whoever began this broadened definition was neither an etymologist nor a geographer!

From: Vinni Marie Dambrosio (vinnimarie aol.com)
Subject: plurals

Have you forgotten spaghetti and cannoli? I do often insist on saying un cannolo in a restaurant (!), and my grandmother always said spaghetto when testing a strand for done-ness.

From: Robert Copeland (rmc geneva.edu)
Subject: Words in Plural Form

My pet peeve in this department: biscotti. This is plural. But when I ask for one biscotto, the baristas always say, "Oh, one biscotti?"

From: Harvey A. Leve (harveyaleve aol.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--cognoscenti

Wonderful theme this week. I would send you a kudo if I could find one.

From: Dr. Andrea H. Jaber (andrea.jaber hccs.edu)
Subject: Words more commonly known in the plural

One of my late father's favorite jokes fits this week's subject perfectly! A very proper gentleman went into a local bar and said, "Bartender, if you please, I would like a martinus." The bartender of course replied, "Sir, don't you mean a martini?" "No, sir, if I had wanted more than one, I would have asked for them."

From: Elena Montesinos (parsifal simauria.net)
Subject: A thought for today

About the thought for today, Friday, "How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward. -Spanish proverb", I happen to be a Spaniard but I've just heard it in Mexico. Nevertheless, Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish teacher, philosopher, and writer, wrote: "El hombre es un animal esencial, fundamental, constitucional y radicalmente haragán" (Man is an essentially, basically, constitutionally and radically, a loafer).

From: Ted Polk (theodorpolk gmail.com)
Subject: Thought for the Day, 8/2/2013

Your thought for the day may be Spanish as well, but I remember my German-speaking mother often saying, "O wie schö'n ist's nichts zu tun, und nach dem Nichtstun auszuruhen!"