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AWADmail Issue 702

Sponsor’s Message: Congratulations to this week’s Email of the Week Winner, Larry Dittberner. Merry Oneupmanship Christmas to all AWADers, near and far.

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

Correction of the Year
Language Log
Permalink

Teach Yourself Italian -- for a Writer, a Foreign Language is a New Kind of Adventure
The New Yorker
Permalink

Elegy for Lost Verbiage
The Economist

Study Confirms That Ending Your Texts With a Period is Terrible
The Washington Post
Permalink

Is There Still Any Point Collecting Books? (see bibliotaph)
BBC
Permalink

When I was a kid, growing up in my Catholic world -- the 1950s -- an “ejaculation” was a kind of prayer, an outburst of piety, like “Jesus, Mary & Joseph, pray for me.” Where has that gone to? Not a mantra. And just try saying that in any polite society, heck, any group. It was a different time, eh? It’s a fun word to say, all those sounds bursting out of the mouth.

From: Barbara Merrifield (bmerr icloud.com)
Subject: Quotation

I like today’s quotation. I made a needlepoint of it in 1976. It has been hanging in my home ever since. Your email is always the best of the day.

From: Jeremy Robinson (hmgbird cfw.com)
Subject: suage

A homonym for suage is swage. This is a metal-forming technique used to make one end of a tube large enough in diameter to accept another tube end so the two can be brazed or soldered into one longer pipe. (video, 2 min.)

It is a very useful technique in metalworking, particularly plumbing. I once used it to connect a new copper pipe to an old lead pipe in a Victorian house I owned. It was a delicate operation, as the temperature at which the solder melted was just a few degrees below that at which the lead would have melted. But it was successful, and so far as I know, the joint thus formed is still in use.

From: Julie Johnson (via website comments)
Subject: Where’s the rest of my word?

I like this week’s theme. I heard a report that we have been shortening a lot of our words when we speak. We say “legit” instead of “legitimate”, “cred” instead of “credibility”, etc. Some people think it’s a problem, but I say, “Whatev.”

From: James Hutchinson (james hutch.org.uk)
Subject: Where’s the rest of my word?

The ‘missing’ letters from this week’s words (e-, re-, com-, as-, con-) can be combined to make the words censor cameo, which happens to be the name of a font in which letters are struck through:

From: Robert Carleton (enchanted128 outlook.com)
Subject: Shortened words

Shortened words? How about shortened letters? Back in my working days one of my duties was to track the response of operating managers to client issues. One manager in particular resisted updating corporate on his response. Once, in frustration, I wrote a formal letter, with all the headings/bells and whistles and the only content was ‘?’. Self-satisfied with my brief inquiry, I was bested by his immediate supervisor who endorsed my letter with a single ‘!’.

From: Dharam Khalsa (dharamkk2 windstream.net)
Subject: Anagrams of this week’s words

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Limericks

Mr. Trump, I daresay, doesn’t vacillate
From his mouth he will frequently jaculate
A thought for the day
That we word lovers pray
Isn’t chosen by Anu to propagate.

Although she was dressed in disguise,
His own wife he sure did cognize.
When she teased and flirted,
“I’m married!” He blurted.
That husband, he was very wise.

When expressing your grief as a plaint
you might think yourself clever and quaint,
but some could be confused
and some might be amused,
ah, but modern locution it ain’t.

He’d had no success with barrage
of attempts his alone-ness to suage.
But when he caught sight
of two ladies one night,
there arose quite a cozy ménage.

At death and destruction we gratulate
In ISIS the new global caliphate
Come join, it’s amazing!
And after your hazing
With virgins in heaven you’ll copulate.

From: Phil Graham (pgraham1946 cox.net)
Subject: A WAD of puns

When little JFK burst into class at 8:17 the teacher said, “Jaculate!”

As they ascended Mt. Washington by train she said, “Isn’t this cognize?” (hint)

“Honey, do ya promise not ta holler if’n I plaint one on ya?”

“You were going to say something hurtful. What suage your thinking?” (Swayge, not ‘swaz.’)

Hearing him effervesce about his diploma, his mom said, “I thought you’d never gratulate!”