February 5th, 2010 07:00am
Barry Wood
When I became old enough to use the phone at home, numbers had five digits, and we had a “party line.” But it wasn’t the fun kind of party.
It meant that there was more than one household (or “party”) on the circuit. And that meant that you might not be able to make a call when you wanted to because one of the other parties was already on the line. And it was always such a fascinating conversation. …
Nowadays, “party line” is chiefly a political term. Webster’s definition for this has an interesting twist: “the line of policy followed by a political party, especially a communist party.” That can’t be what “red state” really means, can it?
Actually, Democrats and Republicans both tend to vote along party lines, which is to be expected, up to a point.
And that’s OK, as long as it doesn’t interfere with true “representative government,” which is supposed to be about representing the people, not political parties.
Then maybe more of us could be in a party mood.
February 4th, 2010 07:00am
Barry Wood
Theodore Roosevelt was one of our more colorful presidents. He even managed to be a Republican and a Progressive.
We have T.R. to thank for inspiring the verb “muckrake,” from an implement wielded by a character in John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
Roosevelt used it in a speech in 1906, and it became popular for a certain type of journalism: “to search for and publicize, as in newspapers, any real or alleged corruption by public officials, business executives and other important persons.”
“Muck,” which refers to certain types of, shall we say, fertilizer, also can convey “anything unclean or degrading; dirt; filth.”
This is not the “muck” that appears in “high muck-a-muck” and its several variations, including “muckety-muck.” Those terms mean “a person in a position of importance and authority; especially, one who is overbearing.” Some of Roosevelt’s contemporaries probably considered him a “muckety-muck.”
According to “American Slang,” it comes from “hiu muck-amuck,” which was Chinook jargon for “plenty to eat.” It was transferred to people in high positions who never had to worry about their next meal.
That’s probably enough food for thought for now.
February 3rd, 2010 07:00am
Barry Wood
My previous entry referred to material in documents that’s deemed “privileged, impertinent or objectionable.” That use of “impertinent” means simply “not pertinent,” which is its first definition.
“Irrelevant” probably works better in most cases, however, because “impertinent” has a second meaning that’s associated with people rather than inanimate objects:
“Not showing the proper respect or manners; saucy; insolent; impudent.”
As further explanation, Webster’s says the word “implies a forwardness of speech or action that is disrespectful and oversteps the bounds of propriety or courtesy.”
I would say that “impertinent” applies to an ever-increasing portion of what passes for public discourse in this country today.
If politicians could be less impertinent, their work might become more pertinent to the people’s needs.
February 2nd, 2010 07:00am
Barry Wood
As any crossword puzzle fan knows, “redact” is a synonym for “edit.”
Because of its use in the legal world, “redact” is usually associated with a heavy-handed form of editing. As Bryan A. Garner says in “Garner’s Modern American Usage,” this often means the deletion or masking of “privileged, impertinent or objectionable matter in a document.”
The Nixon White House transcripts of the Watergate-era tapes were significantly redacted, for example, with all those expletives deleted. And when “sensitive” documents are finally made public, they often seem to have more stuff marked out than not.
“Redact” comes from the past participle of the Latin verb “redigere” — “to bring to a certain condition, reduce to order.”
The first definition of “redact” is “to write out or draw up”; its second is “to arrange in proper form for publication” — or “edit.”
Unfortunately, redacting now seems to be more about preventing things from being seen.
A less loaded verb is “revise.”
January 22nd, 2010 07:00am
Barry Wood
One thing word sleuths discover early on is that English is drawn from many sources. One of the rarer ones is Malay, the official language of Malaysia and Indonesia, which is where the word “amok” comes from.
Its preferred pronunciation is “a-MUK,” which is why some choose to spell it “amuck” — as in the classic Daffy Duck cartoon “Duck Amuck,” for instance.
“Amok” means “in a frenzy; in a violent rage.” It often appears in the phrase “run amok” (or the variation “go amok”), which can be applied broadly for “to become wild or undisciplined.”
Its other definitions are more violent or downright murderous, which are more in keeping with its origin. That, according to “The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories,” was “a noun for a Malay in a homicidal frenzy after taking opium.”
Most instances of things running amok are not quite in that class.
January 21st, 2010 07:00am
Barry Wood
“Snakebit” is an adjective meaning “having or characterized by bad luck.” Webster’s adds a note that it is also occasionally written “snakebitten.”
This preference is another bit of bad luck, because it can add to the confusion over how to use the verb “bite.” The past tense is “bit,” but the preferred past participle is “bitten”:
“Does your dog bite?”
“It bit my husband yesterday, but it has never bitten me.”
So, we feel “snakebit,” but we get “dog-bitten.”
The difference appears to hinge on whether the biting is literal or figurative. Bryan A. Garner says in “Garner’s Modern American Usage” that “bit” is preferred when a past participle is needed with certain “set phrases”: “bite one’s lip,” “bite one’s tongue” and “bite the dust.” I assume “bite the bullet” and “bite the hand that feeds you” would be included.
So, it would be, “We were shocked to learn they had all bit (not ‘bitten’) the dust.”
In each of these phrases, the meaning is conveyed without actual biting. But when teeth are involved, use “bitten.”
January 20th, 2010 07:00am
Barry Wood
The word “service” has many meanings, but it’s generally considered a positive thing.
Its roots, however, are in the Latin “servus,” meaning “slave.”
This heritage is best preserved in the adjective “servile” and the noun “servitude.” The latter has two general applications, neither of them desirable:
“The condition of a slave, serf and the like; subjection to a master; slavery or bondage.”
“Work imposed as punishment for a crime.”
“Servitude” should not be thought of as a fancier-sounding substitute for “service.”
January 19th, 2010 07:00am
Barry Wood
When we say “wit” (singular), we generally mean a certain sense of humor: “the ability to make lively, clever remarks in a sharp, amusing way” or “the ability to perceive incongruous relationships and express them in a surprising or epigrammatic manner.”
Whew! In other words, it’s more than just telling jokes.
As might be expected, the plural, “wits,” is much broader: “powers of thinking and reasoning; intellectual and perceptive powers; mental faculties with respect to their state of balance.”
So, the idiomatic phrases “live by one’s wits” and “at one’s wits’ end” both use the plural, the one that refers to general mental faculties.
Otherwise, their meanings would be altered.
We could say that a comedian “lives by his wit,” but most of us couldn’t make a living that way.
Also, if you were to find yourself “at your wit’s end,” you would have lost your sense of humor but you could still find a solution to your problem.
However, “witless” does NOT mean “humorless,” it means “lacking intelligence.” In such a case, a person may need to join a witless protection program.
January 12th, 2010 07:00am
Barry Wood
“Ridden” is the past participle of the verb “ride”:
“He still rides a bus to work. He has ridden one for 30 years.”
As an adjective, “ridden” means “dominated or obsessed (by the thing specified).” It’s used in combinations, such as “guilt-ridden,” “fear-ridden,” “debt-ridden.”
Similarly, the combining word “laden” (”flower-laden,” “doom-laden”) is used to convey “filled, covered, permeated or burdened with.” One might say, for example, that U.S. policy since Sept. 11, 2001, has been Osama bin Laden-laden. And no, it’s not funny.
In contrast, the verb “riddle” means “to make many holes in,” “to find and show flaws in” or “to affect every part of.”
Buildings in a war zone are bullet-riddled. Reports are sometimes riddled with errors.
Notice that something that’s “ridden” is essentially intact but has taken on an additional burden. However, something that’s “riddled” is usually full of holes, literally or figuratively.
January 6th, 2010 07:00am
Barry Wood
There was recent confusion on this, when a football team was referred to as a ship that had hit an iceberg and “floundered.”
The noun “flounder” is a fish. The verb “flounder” means “to struggle awkwardly to move, as in deep mud or snow; plunge about in a stumbling manner.”
This could certainly describe a struggling football team’s woeful efforts, but not when it’s being compared to a ship. A ship in trouble can “founder” — “to fill with water, as during a storm, and sink.”
Applied to things other than ships and boats, to founder is “to break down; collapse; fail.”
Something that’s floundering is still making some effort, even if inelegantly. Something that’s foundered has stopped moving altogether.
How to keep them straight? Once again, I bow to the great Daffy Duck, who says of a foe temporarily knocked unconscious:
“He’s colder than a foundered flounder.”
For now, th-th-that’s all, folks!
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