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AWADmail Issue 635

Sponsor's message: It's Officially Free. This week's Email of the Week winner, Alex Landau (see below) -- as well as all AWADers worldwide -- can now make their own terrific fun word-nerd party for nothing. Introducing our best-selling One Up! -- The Wicked/Smart Word Game as a downloadable PDF, absolutely gratis. Hurree y'up.

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

From Marvellous to Awesome: How Spoken British English Has Changed
The Guardian
WebCite

How Dictionary-Makers Decide Which Words to Include
The Economist
WebCite

From: Bruce Reaves (reavesb earthlink.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--recapitulate

I think I've been caught up in an infinite loop of circular definition! You begin your definition of "recapitulate" as "To recap" but "recap" is short for "recapitulation".

So, to recap,
I think I've been caught up in an infinite loop of circular definitions! You begin your definition of "recapitulate" as "To recap" but "recap" is short for "recapitulation".

From: Robert Roten (roten lariat.org)
subject: recapitulate

When I see the word recapitulate, I often recall that it is part of an incredibly compact scientific statement about a now-discredited theory that the fetus, during its development in the womb goes through all the stages of evolution, from single-celled organism to human.

The statement is: "Embryology recapitulates phylogeny." It is also stated by the equally compact formulation: "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny."

From: Janel Christensen (janelchristensen57 gmail.com)
Subject: recapitulate

I first learned this word many years ago in my piano lesson of all places! My teacher was telling me about the three main parts of the sonata form: the exposition, the development, and the recapitulation. I still remember that word all these years later (I'm still playing the piano too!).

From: Evelyn Falkenstein (evfalkenstein yahoo.com)
Subject: degust

The noun in French, dégustation, means a tasting of a large number of small plates of different foods in a special degustatory event. Dégoutant -- disgusting -- may have lost its essence in the Great Circonflex War when it became a word of distaste!

From: Nalini Sankaranarayanan (nalsanka cisco.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--degust

This word was introduced to me by Masterchef Australia where they had a few challenges which were to do with dessert degustation. Here's another.

From: Mary Holbrow (maryholbrow hotmail.com)
Subject: degust

"Degust" immediately brings to mind the popular saying "De gustibus non est disputandum" meaning that matters of taste are not subject to argument.

From: Charles Keddie (ckeddie tbaytel.net)
Subject: Prorogue

I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking "My parliament's been 'pro-rogue' for years."

From: Mike Babb (mbabb troycable.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--repose

My Dad has long since passed, but one of his favorite short poems was:

"She stood on the bridge at midnight,
Disturbing my night's repose.
For she was a lusty mosquito,
And the bridge was the bridge of my nose."

Thanks AWAD for the memory!

From: Jim Scarborough (jimes hiwaay.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--repose

This reminds me of a list of bad translations into English doing the rounds of the Internet back in 1991. An Austrian hotel instructed its mostly-skier guests, "Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension."

The full list, interposed with pictures of similarly disastrous translations, some unintentionally a little racy, is here.

From: Lyz Harvey (lyz.harvey btinternet.com)
Subject: repose

When I was an art student (a lifetime ago) the model for a life class failed to arrive. The tutor asked if anyone would volunteer. Pay was good -- so for several weeks I filled the gap and discovered a talent for holding a pose for up to half an hour without moving a muscle. Sometimes the tutor would re-pose me, which is when I discovered the truth in today's quotation -- the actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts!

This week's words were certainly a tricky lot:

I claimed to know the meaning of "recapitulate", but when I read your email I was forced to give in, as I did over and over this week.

I thought I knew what "degust" meant, but then I had the wind taken out of my sails.

I thought I had conclusively determined the meaning of "reprove", but then I couldn't reconstruct my argument.

I made a bold claim about the meaning of "prorogue", but your email was not supportive of my maverick position.

I pretended to know the meaning of "repose", but once again I was merely posturing.

From: Irving N. Webster-Berlin (awadreviewsongs gmail.com)
Subject: Song based on this week's words

Here are this week's AWAD Review Songs (words and recordings) for your listening and viewing pleasure.