Archive for December, 2008
December 12th, 2008
Do you know someone who suffers from the “screaming meemies”? This colorful term is slang for “extreme nervous tension.”
As might be expected, it has a rather unpleasant origin. It referred to the noisy artillery shells fired by the Germans during World War II. Hearing them screaming as they flew nearby must have been a horrifying experience.
I recently encountered the term miswritten as “screaming meanies.” I think it may have been a generational thing.
The villains in “Yellow Submarine,” the 1968 movie featuring animated versions of the Beatles, were called “Blue Meanies.” They weren’t easy on the eyes or the ears, and they also used a disturbing arsenal of weapons. Of course, it was all imaginary.
I’m guessing the fanciful and the fearsome merged to produce the mistaken phrase.
December 11th, 2008
I recently ran across a description of someone as “a tough-nosed prosecutor.” This turns a compliment into a strange image.
It was probably a mix of two phrases: “tough-minded” and “hard-nosed.” They convey similar ideas.
The former, “tough-minded,” means “shrewd and unsentimental; practical; realistic.” The informal “hard-nosed” is defined as “indomitable; tough; stubborn” or “shrewd and practical.”
Either one works as a desirable quality in a prosecutor.
I can only imagine that “tough-nosed” would mean “able to take a punch,” also desirable, but (I hope) not needed much in that line of work.
The lesson: Don’t tamper with set phrases. Accept no substitutes.
December 10th, 2008
The correct verb is “pore,” not “pour,” for to pore over a book, records, statistics and the like.
Its formal definitions are “to read or study carefully” and “to think deeply and thoroughly; ponder.” In each case, it takes the preposition “over.”
As a noun, a pore is an opening, as the pores in our skin or in rock or other substances. The adjective is “porous.”
This “pore” probably is the cause for confusion with the homonym “pour,” which is also about flowing fluids. We pour liquids into containers; a heavy rain is a downpour.
Figuratively, it can be used for any such rush or gush, like a crowd pouring into an arena or emotions pouring out when we’re upset or excited.
The slang “pour it on” can mean “to flatter profusely,” “to increase one’s efforts greatly, work very hard, etc.” or “to go very fast.”
The word “poor” doesn’t sound quite the same, but it’s close — sort of a poor man’s homonym.
December 9th, 2008
A “flounder” is a type of flatfish. In fact, there are two families of flounder.
As a verb, like a fish out of water, to flounder is “to struggle awkwardly to move; plunge about in a stumbling manner,” or “to speak or act in an awkward, confused manner, with hesitation and frequent mistakes.”
Delete the “l” and you have the verb “founder,” which is “to become stuck; bog down” or “collapse; fail.” As an extreme example, a ship founders when it takes on water and sinks.
As long as the struggle continues, it’s floundering. When all is lost, it’s foundered.
As a noun, a founder can be “a person who founds, or casts, metals, glass, etc.” — think “foundry worker.”
The other type of “founder” is a person who establishes something, like one of the Founding Fathers.
Adding to the mix, “found” is the past tense and part participle of the verb “find.” Columbus might claim he found America. The writers of the Constitution founded America.
December 5th, 2008
From a story about a design competition: “All but two of the entries were lead by Americans.”
This one involves more than one layer of confusion. The correct word is “led.”
The homonym “lead” is one of the elements of the periodic table and a heavy metal. This “lead” and “led” rhyme with “head.”
“Led” is the past tense and past participle of the verb “lead,” which rhymes with “need.” Whoever invented this word could have saved us all a bunch of trouble by spelling it “leed.”
As it is, it’s far too easy to be misled.
December 4th, 2008
A reference to stories about “rights of passage” used the wrong “rights.” It should have been “rites.”
A “rite” is a ritual (note the similarity) or ceremony, as in the marriage rite and the Scottish rite of Freemasonry. “Rite of passage,” in addition to being a specific, often religious term, also can mean any “event, achievement, etc., in a person’s life regarded as having great significance.”
Another well-known “rite” is the Igor Stravinsky composition “The Rite of Spring.” Part of the score was popularized when it was included in “Fantasia,” the 1940 Disney film combining classical music and animation. The “Rite of Spring” sequence is the one with all the volcanoes and dinosaurs.
There’s also the homonym “write,” as in “I’ll write you a letter.”
“Right” is about what is correct, lawful, appropriate and so on. It’s the right choice for many things, but not for “rite of passage.”
December 3rd, 2008
This one is an example of a more common homonym mix-up: “weeds occupied by hoards of mosquitoes.”
The correct word is “hordes.” A horde is “a large, moving crowd or throng; swarm.”
As a noun, “hoard” is “a supply stored up and hidden or kept in reserve.” I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hoard mosquitoes.
A pirate hoard would be buried treasure; a pirate horde would be a bunch of pirates. Aargh!
Here’s a memory aid: To “hoard,” the one with an “a” in it, is to acquire and accumulate, both of which begin with “a.”
In the interests of thoroughness, there is a third homonym, “whored,” but that’s all I’m going to say about it.
December 2nd, 2008
Time to explore homonyms again. This week’s entries were inspired by things encountered in the current issue of a nationally distributed bimonthly magazine.
In one article there was a reference to “canons fired along the canal.”
A “canon” is something that sets standards, like a law, rule or criterion. It’s also used as a term for “the books of the Bible officially accepted by a church or religious body as divinely inspired,” or any other type of official body of work.
A canon also can be a kind of clergyman.
What it can’t be is a gun, which is what the story was referring to. That’s spelled “cannon.”
Both can be traced back to the Greek “kanna,” for “cane,” the kind associated with plants.
None of this is meant to suggest that a “canon” can’t be destructive. In fact, cynics might even say that the victims of holy wars could be considered “canon fodder.”
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