Archive for August, 2008
August 30th, 2008
About a week ago I celebrated my 60th birthday, which makes me a “sexagenarian,” a term that will apply until I turn 70. Then I’ll be a “septuagenarian,” a word sometimes used to describe Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
After that come “octogenarian,” “nonagenarian” and “centenarian.”
If there are similar terms for the decade of the 50s or earlier ones, I haven’t encountered them. ”Sexagenarian” marks the beginning of a new age, so to speak.
There was a time when I thought anything with “sex” in it had to be good, but now I’m not so sure.
Maybe the word should be “hexagenarian,” using the Greek for “six” rather than the Latin. Even though the word “hex,” as in “curse,” comes from a different source, it might seem more appropriate.
August 28th, 2008
Beware of adopted French phrases: They probably aren’t spelled the way they sound.
Two have come up recently, each involving the French preposition “en,” which is pronounced more like “on” than “in,” but can mean either.
The first, and much more common, is “en route.” It means “on the way” or “along the way.” Substituting “in route” is not an exact translation or acceptable idiom. In fact, “en route” is now an English term, too.
The second is the fencing term “en garde” (note the spelling of “garde”). Now this one actually means “on guard” and is essentially pronounced the same (I don’t really want to get into how the French say their n’s).
However, this is swordplay, not wordplay, so use the French spelling.
August 27th, 2008
Hyphens are much more common in adjectives than in nouns. Typical examples can be found in the “no” words: “no-cal” beverage, “no-fault” divorce, “no-frills” vacation, “no-nonsense” attitude, “no-win” situation and so on.
However, there is a small group of hyphenated “no” nouns, five of which are fairly common: “no-brainer,” “no-hitter” and “no-show,” the informal “no-account,” and “no-no,” still considered slang by the most recent Webster’s.
A less common one is “no-see-um,” called a pseudo-American Indian term, altered from “no see them.” It should be obvious why the term “biting midge” is considered more acceptable for this family of tiny, bothersome insects. (Some species actually attack humans and animals in swarms.)
“The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories” says “midge” is of Germanic origin and from an Indo-European root shared by the Latin “musca” and the Greek “muia,” both meaning “fly.”
As you might suspect, “midge” is where the word “midget” comes from.
You just never know where a word journey will take you.
August 26th, 2008
The Associated Press Stylebook doesn’t like the term “user friendly.” It urges journalists to avoid it and rephrase, for example:
Instead of “The system is user friendly,” make it “The system is easy to use.”
I don’t agree with this. Webster’s finds “user-friendly” (yes, it hyphenates it) acceptable for meaning “easy to use, operate or understand: said especially of computer hardware programs, etc.”
It also says “-friendly” can be added to a word to mean “helpful to or safe for” as in “child-friendly” or “not harmful to” as in “environment-friendly.”
These all seem to be perfectly logical uses. I would much rather see a campaign to replace the term “friendly fire,” which is much too sanitized for what it means.
August 21st, 2008
When referring to degrees of “far,” the preferred usage — by far — is “farther” (or “farthest”) for physical distances and “further” (or “furthest”) for extensions of time or degree. So, we walk “farther” into the woods, but we look “further” into how we got lost.
As noted by Mark Davidson in “Right, Wrong, and Risky,” only “further” will work as an adjective meaning “additional,” as in “for further reading,” and as a verb for “to advance,” as in, “She decided to further her education.”
There’s also “furthermore” for “in addition; besides; moreover.” There is no “farthermore.” And “furthermost” is the same as “farthest,” but the former is fairly uncommon.
Theodore M. Bernstein, writing in 1978 in “The Careful Writer,” speculated that the use of “farther” would vanish within 50 years. But so far, it’s hanging in there.
August 20th, 2008
The word “dilemma” is rooted in Greek, and the prefix “di-” means “two.” Ever since it entered English, perhaps as early as the 16th century, “dilemma” has retained this binary sense: a situation that requires a choice between two equally unpleasant options. It’s a very specific word: There are two ways to go, and they’re both distasteful.
Most authorities prefer this strict application, but it’s under constant assault by people who want to use “dilemma” merely as a synonym for “problem.” This robs it of its special character.
There are plenty of sufficient synonyms available: “problem,” “plight,” “predicament,” “quandary,” “difficulty,” “question,” even more colorful ones like “fix” and “pickle.”
So the next time you’re thinking about using “dilemma,” make sure it’s the right situation. Maybe what you really want is a pickle.
August 19th, 2008
There are two kinds of lumbering, and both usually involve a lot of noise.
The origin of the “lumber” associated with wood products is a bit murky, but apparently it used to be a term for a pawnbroker’s shop or storeroom. Webster’s then uses three “hences,” which may be a record:
“Hence pawned articles in storage, hence stored articles, hence lumber.”
The first definition of “lumber” is still “miscellaneous discarded household articles, furniture, etc., stored away or taking up room.” (In my house, it’s called “the stuff in the basement.”)
The second defintion, the one most of us are familiar with, is “timber sawed into beams, planks, boards, etc., of convenient sizes.” It’s also the one that has given us “lumberjack,” “lumberman” and “lumberyard.”
The other “lumber,” also of hazy origin, is a verb for “to move heavily, clumsily and, often, noisily” or “to rumble.” Military tanks often are said to lumber.
The legendary Paul Bunyan would have lumbered in both senses of the word.
August 15th, 2008
If you can’t trust the movie industry, what can you trust? Surely the most successful movie about golf ever made was “Caddyshack,” released in 1980. It’s also one of the most quoted films ever, at least among certain demographic groups.
Unfortunately, the preferred spelling for “a person who attends a golfer, carrying the clubs, finding the balls, etc.” is “caddie.” It comes from the Scottish form of the French “cadet,” and you have to bow to the Scots when it comes to the origins of golf.
The spelling “caddy” is the correct one for “a small container used for tea” (not tees) or storage devices for phonograph records and the like. It comes from the Malay word “kati,” a measure of weight slightly more than a pound.
When it comes to the plurals, however, they’re both spelled “caddies,” so we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.
August 14th, 2008
Here’s another example of easily confused near homonyms: “detour” and “deter.”
The former means “to go around” or “to bypass,” and the latter means “to keep or discourage from doing something.”
We’ve all seen detour signs, especially this time of year at the height of road construction season. This connection with traffic makes “detour” an enticing choice when referring to trying to “deter” someone from hazardous driving pratices, but “deter” is the correct choice.
Noun forms are “deterrent” and “deterrence,” the latter also having a specific use as “the policy or practice of stockpiling nuclear weapons to deter another nation from making a nuclear attack.”
So “detour” is to alter the route and “deter” is to head off the journey.
August 13th, 2008
Everyone seems to want to weigh in on former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm’s comments about how Americans are a bunch of whiners, so I guess it’s my turn.
The verb “whine” is from an Old English word for “whistle through the air.” Whining traditionally is associated with a specific type of sound, “a peevish, high-pitched, somewhat nasal sound,” uttered “as in complaint, distress or fear.” Young children whine. So do some engines and electronic devices.
The definition Gramm was using is “to complain or beg in a childishly undignified way, as with a whine.” Now there’s a loaded word, which I imagine is why he chose it.
What most people are doing is not whining but complaining: expressing discomfort or dissatisfaction, finding fault or making accusations. The freedom of speech includes the freedom to complain. Yes, it can get tiresome, but the people who complain the most about other people’s complaining are usually the ones whose lives are the most trouble-free.
Retailers recognize that part of customer service is dealing with unhappy people. That’s why they have complaint departments. Sometimes people who have spent a long time in government forget that they are supposed to be serving the people, too.
So, whine on, America. Not everyone thinks all is well.
Previous Posts
