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Post by marysgurl on Sept 14, 2005 7:45:43 GMT -5
i'm embarrassed to say i had to look up lexicography(the editing or making of a dictionary) i like the way it sounds.
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Post by marysgurl on Sept 14, 2005 7:50:36 GMT -5
gams....have you ever referred to your beloved dictionaries as lexicons?? it sounds so much more reverent than the "d" word....
i can't believe i have ignored that word for all these years...pfft!
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Post by gams on Sept 15, 2005 0:00:23 GMT -5
Nope, I have never referred to my dictionaries as lexicons, thinking lexicons were conventions for avid Lexus owners.
The only lexicon I've ever read that was specifically called a lexicon, was Jung's Lexicon. And "Argh" to that. Beware the Dwarves. Or Dwarfs. Since this is a thread about language, either is correct, though I prefer Dwarves - the word. Rolls off the tongue better, I think.
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Post by marysgurl on Sept 16, 2005 5:59:00 GMT -5
Topic: Pet peeves
September is Be Kind to Editors and Writers Month. In researching ways one might demonstrate such kindness, we came across list after list of pet peeves. What topped those offenses? Misusing apostrophes and misplacing modifiers, verbing nouns and adding extraneous syllables, and turning to jargon rather than searching out a more apt word choice.
So it would seem a kindness to avoid these actions which make language lovers so very peevish. But one person’s peeve is another’s provocation. Since we so frequently find ourselves checking out the history of popular language peeves, we thought it would be a kindness to suggest others do the same. In short, rather than adopt another’s list of language Do’s and Don’ts, why not investigate what lies beneath?
For instance, what, if anything, differentiates utilize from use? When did grow become a transitive verb? When did spelling become regularized? How about punctuation? Is it truly incorrect to use hopefully as a sentence adverb? And, perhaps to put these questions in the most broad category yet: just who made up these rules, anyway?
How is all this questioning a kindness? Because we truly believe that a better educated writer becomes a better, more thoughtful writer. And putting more thought into the world can’t help but be a kindness.
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Post by marysgurl on Sept 16, 2005 6:44:55 GMT -5
new word....
anachronistic[/i]-adj.-chronologically out of place
nice roll to it!
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Post by marysgurl on Sept 18, 2005 11:32:25 GMT -5
Topic: Swang, stunk and sunk
A woman who credited—or blamed—her linguistic persnicketiness on her upbringing asked about the series sink, sank, sunk and stink, stank, stunk…then followed up with a question on swang. She was hoping we could reassure her that the inflected form of swing is, in fact, swung, not swang.
We’ll tackle the second question first. Yes, if someone moved vigorously through a wide arc or circle, he or she swung, not swang. It’s true that the occasional swang appears, but such usage is considered dialectal. That is to say, swang is not in widespread, formal use, nor does it appear in carefully edited prose.
The news on sunk and stunk is not as definitive. Although the usual past tense of sink is sank, and that of stink is stank, sunk and stunk are neither rare nor dialectal. Stank stands alone in one regard: when that verb is followed by of, the past tense almost always takes the form stank. Stunk, meanwhile, serves as the past participle of stink, and sunk, when it is found, usually serves as a past participle.
Need a reminder of just what a past participle is? A participle has the characteristics of both verb and adjective; a past participle typically expresses completed action, as when a ship has sunk.
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Post by marysgurl on Sept 20, 2005 23:06:21 GMT -5
Topic: Porcine and epicene
The Equal Rights Party was founded on this date in 1884; eighty-nine years later, on September 20, 1973, Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in a tennis match billed as the Battle of the Sexes.
The net effect of King’s trouncing of the man who proudly proclaimed himself a Male Chauvinist Pig concerned women’s sports more than language; we observe the anniversary of those famous three sets with a serving of language porcine and epicene.
Porcine, of course, is the adjective meaning “of, relating to, or suggesting swine.” It has its origin in the Latin porcus, meaning "pig." The adjective epicene comes from the Greek word for "common" plus the prefix epi- meaning "attached to." And what does epicene mean? When it describes a noun, epicene means “having but one form to indicate either sex.” An epicene pronoun, as you would expect, is a gender-neutral singular pronoun used in reference to such indefinite pronouns as anyone, everyone, and someone. Having trouble coming up with an epicene pronoun in English? That’s because none have—as yet—caught on, although plenty have been proposed, ranging from the mid-19th-century’s ne, nis, nim, and hiser to the late-20th-century’s han, hey, ze, and zon.
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Post by marysgurl on Sept 21, 2005 1:03:14 GMT -5
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Post by gams on Sept 21, 2005 7:32:10 GMT -5
Again - loving this stuff! I'll have to check out the Dictionary Play when I have more time.
Two words that always confuse me; I know the difference, but as a reminder, I usually have to look them up when writing; are conscience and conscious. They are not interchangeable, though I often see them used improperly.
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Post by marysgurl on Sept 22, 2005 6:39:21 GMT -5
Alas, we should all make a conscious effort to avoid harmful indiscretions that tend to pray on our conscience.
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Post by marysgurl on Sept 22, 2005 6:41:00 GMT -5
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grrlpower
Mounted Samurai
Courage is not the absence of fear... but the strength to conquer it
Posts: 128
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Post by grrlpower on Sept 22, 2005 23:48:58 GMT -5
Thank goodness I don't have to use those words at work. I would be DRT (dead right there)Like herb is anyone I would iverous... haha
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Post by marysgurl on Sept 26, 2005 6:45:28 GMT -5
Topic: Apple of discord
Christian missionary and ecologist John Chapman was born on this date in 1774. Today’s birthday honoree is better remembered as Johnny Appleseed, the wandering nurseryman whose mission was to sow apple seeds in the western territory of the young United States.
According to legend, Johnny’s apples were a source of happiness, but today we tell the tale of how another long-ago apple yielded the bitter fruit of great strife. No, we’re not talking about the Garden of Eden; our tale comes from Greek mythology.
Eris, Greek goddess of discord, was a notorious troublemaker. Angry that she wasn’t invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the goddess tossed into the party a golden apple inscribed Kallisti—literally, “for the most beautiful one.” The goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite fought over who should possess the apple before appealing to Paris, prince of Troy, for adjudication. Aphrodite tempted Paris with the beautiful Helen (who was inconveniently enough already married); Paris took the bait (or should we say bit?), and the Trojan War was on.
The rest is history, with a place in linguistic history reserved for the apple that started things off. The phrase apple of discord lives on as a metaphor meaning “a subject of contention and envy.”
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Post by marysgurl on Sept 27, 2005 7:57:17 GMT -5
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Post by marysgurl on Sept 30, 2005 16:29:40 GMT -5
Topic: Tea time
We had nothing but sympathy to offer our friend who contacted us about the term spelled chai that refers to a beverage made of spiced black tea, sweetener, and milk. She asked about the word’s origin and its pronunciation before confessing “It seems that whichever [pronunciation] I use [chah or ky], the restaurant or other person is always using the other [one].”
Don’t assume trouble’s brewing because we’re not getting right to the pronunciation question; let’s look at where tea comes from first. Tea is a very old beverage that dates back to prehistoric China. The Chinese character naming tea was pronounced cha in Mandarin Chinese. Word- and food-borrowing being the unregulated domains that they are, variations of cha—the drink and the name—traveled long ago into cultures where Hindi, Swahili, and numerous Asian tongues were spoken.
The popular version of tea on the Indian subcontinent is masala chai, or “spiced tea.” (The spices, by the way, commonly include cardamom, ginger, and cinnamon).
The chai part simply means tea in Hindi. So how should English-speakers pronounce chai? It’s usually pronounced /chy/, but since tea itself was pronounced /ty/ for hundreds of years, we wouldn’t be quick to correct anyone.
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Post by marysgurl on Oct 3, 2005 9:09:13 GMT -5
Topic: Moot court
With a newly configured Supreme Court scheduled to begin its new term today, we approach the bench to plead the case of the word moot.
Law students know the moot court as the mock court where hypothetical cases are argued for practice. Language watchers know the modern sense of moot—the one meaning “deprived of practical significance; made abstract or purely academic”—is disapproved by certain prescriptivists. They have this to say about the disputed usage: that it is a technical sense that should be limited to its legal application. They also say that the adjective moot properly has but one meaning: “open to question; debatable.”
While moot did originally mean “debatable; unsettled”; we wouldn’t want to make the case that the meaning of that adjective is immutable. In fact, the arguments proffered at moot court are both discussable (and the original meaning of the noun moot, way back in the days of Old English, named a meeting for discussion or deliberation) and of no practical significance, since they are hypothetical.
Over the last half century, the disputed sense of moot—the one meaning “made abstract or purely academic; deprived of practical significance”—has become well-enough established among English-speakers lacking law degrees that we would label any concern about its propriety purely academic.
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Post by marysgurl on Oct 10, 2005 0:39:21 GMT -5
Topic: Columbus Day
This Columbus Day we look at an issue raised by a student at Western International University. He wrote, “I have been trying to find out why in the US we refer to ourselves as Americans. The rest of North America… not to mention all of South America… has adopted names stemming from the name of their country, so why not us?” then went on to theorize that the term American may have been bequeathed to us by peoples of another nation. In a sense that’s true: American honors (and comes from) the name of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci.
When the word American first appeared, way back in the 1500s, it referred to an American Indian of North or South America. By the late 1600s, Cotton Mather was using American to refer to his fellow colonists; by the middle of the next century, Englishmen had begun dubbing colonial troops Americans (rather than provincials). And although American did—and still does—enjoy a sense referring to a native or inhabitant of either North or South America, the birth of the United States of America in 1776 gave one sense—the one that got us started today—a boost of popularity.
In fact, in George Washington’s Farewell Address, our first president reminded his countrymen “the name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism.”
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Post by marysgurl on Oct 11, 2005 7:57:44 GMT -5
Topic: Horrific and terrific
A listener asked how it happened that terror became terrific and gained a positive connotation while the word horror became horrific and retained its negative meaning.
Oddly—but not awfully—enough, both horrific and terrific can mean extreme. But our correspondent asked not about their similar senses, but about how the meaning of those terms came to diverge. Here’s what we know. Horrific—a mid-17th-century description born of the horror that names “painful or intense fear, dread, or dismay, or intense aversion or repugnance”—has maintained its original meaning: “having the power to cause to feel painful or intense fear, dread, or dismay.”
In contrast, terrific first came on the scene in the middle of the 17th century, born of the terror that names “a state of intense fear.” Back then, terrific meant “frightful; exciting or fit to excite fear or awe,” as in a “terrific thunderstorm.” That sense is still around, but by the 19th century, terrific also had developed (or evolved) an additional sense, meaning “extraordinary” (as in terrific speed). It wasn’t until the middle of the last century that the “extraordinary” sense of terrific developed into the positive one that set our correspondent wondering: nowadays, terrific is generally employed to mean “unusually fine; magnificent.”
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Post by marysgurl on Oct 16, 2005 9:07:22 GMT -5
The Word of the Day for October 16 is:
lexicographer • \lek-suh-KAH-gruh-fer\ • noun : an author or editor of a dictionary
Example sentence: The great lexicographer Noah Webster, who wrote the first authoritative dictionary of American English, was born on October 16, 1758.
Did you know? Happy Dictionary Day! We're celebrating with a look at a word that is dear to our hearts: "lexicographer." The ancient Greeks were some of the earliest makers of dictionaries; they used them mainly to catalog obsolete terms from their rich literary past. To create a word for writers of dictionaries, the Greeks sensibly attached the suffix "-graphos," meaning "writer," to "lexikon," meaning "dictionary," to form "lexikographos," the direct ancestor of the English "lexicographer." "Lexikon," which itself descends from the Greek "lexis" (meaning "word" or "speech"), also gave us "lexicon," which can mean either "dictionary" or "the vocabulary of a language, speaker, or subject."
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Post by marysgurl on Oct 19, 2005 10:51:43 GMT -5
The Word of the Day for October 19 is:
Argus • \AHR-gus\ • noun 1 : a hundred-eyed monster of Greek mythology *2 : a watchful guardian
Example sentence: The students moved nervously through the hallway under the watchful eyes of Principal Burns, an all-seeing Argus who seemed to be able to spot horseplay even with his back turned.
Did you know? If you've ever seen a peacock display his magnificent spotted tail, then you've seen the eyes of Argus the All-Seeing, a mythological creature reputed to have one hundred eyes on his head and body. Argus was chosen by the Greek goddess queen Hera to keep an eye on Io, a priestess turned heifer who had caught the eye of Hera's dallying husband Zeus. Argus proved to be a vigilant watchman, but all of his eyes were eventually lulled to sleep by Hermes, who then killed him. After his death, Hera transferred the eyes of Argus to the tail of the peacock. Despite his fate, "Argus" survives in English today as a word for someone who vigilantly oversees everything around him or her.
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