Posts filed under 'definitions'
November 18th, 2009
One of the issues that may never be settled in this country is how to define a “couple” — at least as far as marriage is concerned, or any adult relationship, for that matter.
A safer word is “pair.” A pair is either two of something or “a single thing made up of corresponding parts that are used together,” such as a pair of pants or a pair of scissors.
It is also about two things when used as a verb, so it’s redundant to say “paired off in twos.” You can’t pair off in any other number.
And it can mean “to join,” so it’s also redundant to say “paired together.” Two things can’t be paired separately.
September 11th, 2009
Here’s a group of words just begging to be mixed up.
The verb “censure” means “to express strong disapproval of,” while “censor” takes disapproval to another level by restricting or actually prohibiting the use of something.
As nouns, a “censure” is a condemnation, formal or otherwise, and a “censor” is a person in charge of limiting or shutting off access to information.
Both can be traced to the Latin verb “censere” for “to tax, value, judge.”
In ancient Rome, a “censor” was a magistrate in charge of taking the census and, later, overseeing public morals.
Also in this mix are “censer,” “an ornamented container in which incense is burned,” and “sensor,” a general term applied to various kinds of devices that detect, measure, record, transmit, etc.
Three of them are homonyms; only “censure” is pronounced differently, with a “sh” sound in the middle.
“Censure” is sort of a slap on the wrist for someone who has behaved badly. “Censorship” is generally an affront to all.
September 10th, 2009
There is a difference between being “bereaved” and being “bereft.” Both are listed as the past tense and past participle of the verb “bereave,” which is seldom used anymore in any other form.
It’s rooted in the Old English “bereafian,” meaning “to deprive, rob,” and this sense of “dispossess” is still the first definition of “bereave.” This is the case that calls for “bereft,” as in, “The war has left them bereft of hope,”
The second definition of “bereave” is “to leave in a sad or lonely state, as by loss or death.” This is the one we use for people who are in mourning — they are “the bereaved.”
As Bryan A. Garner points out in “Garner’s Modern American Usage,” “bereaved” applies to losses of people, and “bereft” applies to losses of “immaterial possessions or qualities.”
Either way, it’s a very sad situation.
September 4th, 2009
“Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
In this famous passage from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” the word “cauldron” is spelled the traditional way, with a “u” in it.
Webster’s considers this the variant and prefers “caldron.” This is more in line with its Latin root “calderia,” which also gave rise to “caldarium” (”a room for taking hot baths” in ancient Rome) and “caldera” (”a broad, craterlike basin of a volcano”).
However, it just plain looks wrong without the “u.” And ever since it began evolving from Latin, it’s had one — first the Old French “cauderon,” then the Anglo-French and Middle English “caudron.” The “l” was reinserted during the Renaissance — not its only accomplishment, by the way.
Plus, according to “Garner’s Modern American Usage,” “cauldron” is the clear winner by 4-to-1 in American print sources.
So I vote against Webster’s and for “cauldron.”
September 3rd, 2009
People who are lactose-intolerant have enough problems, so it’s a good thing that living in the Milky Way isn’t one of them.
But there is a connection. The prefix “lacto-” comes from the Latin “lac” for “milk.”
The Milky Way, the spiral galaxy that contains our sun and our dear planet, is a literal translation of the Latin “via lactea.”
But wait, there’s more. The words “galaxy” and “galactic” come from the Greek “gala,” meaning, you guessed it, “milk.”
In fact, Webster’s lists “lactic” as the first definition of “galactic,” with the astronomical application second.
However, the English “gala,” meaning “a festive occasion” or “a public entertainment,” is not from the Greek one. According to “The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories,” it came by way of Italian and Spanish from the Old French “gale,” or “rejoicing.” Webster’s speculates its origin may stretch back even further to the Arabic “khila,” which was “a royal presentation robe.”
And now I’ve probably milked this topic enough.
September 2nd, 2009
The verb “galvanize” has two specific meanings when applied to electricity: “to supply an electric current to” and “to plate metal with zinc.”Â
Generically, it can mean “to stimulate as if by electric shock,” so “galvanizing” is a cut above most motivation techniques. It should be confined to truly rousing or stirring situations.
Similarly, the adjective “galvanic” is equated with “startling or convulsive.”
The terms were inspired by 18th-century Italian physician and scientist Luigi Galvani, whose experiments with frogs and electricity were instrumental in the development of producing direct current by a chemical reaction — as with the storage battery.
Galvani was able to make dead frogs dance — now that’s galvanizing.
August 29th, 2009
The Franks were a group of related Germanic peoples that set up the Frankish Empire, which in the ninth century extended over what is now France, Germany and Italy.
The language was called Frankish, which I mentioned when I wrote about “guerrilla.”
The name “Frank” has been traced back to the Late Latin “Francus,” which also designated someone as a “free man.”
The original meaning of the adjective “frank,” now archaic, was “free in giving; generous.”
Nowadays, to be frank is to be “straightforward; candid” or “free from reserve, disguise or guile,” as in showing frank disgust.
“Frank” is also the term applied to certain kinds of free postal privileges.
And it’s short for “frankfurter,” also known as a “wiener” or “hot dog.” Whatever you call it, it’s seldom free.
August 28th, 2009
Webster’s considers “pompom” the correct spelling for “an ornamental ball or tuft of silk, wool, feathers, etc., as used on clothing or draperies or waved in pairs by cheerleaders.”
It’s an altered form of the French “pompon,” which is now reserved for references to flowers, such as chrysanthemums and dahlias, with heads that resemble pompoms.
In between is”pom-pom,” with a hyphen, an echoic term for certain types of rapid-firing automatic weapons. It also can be written without the hyphen. But for me the hyphen underscores its origin, representing the sound made by such guns — and distinguishes it from the ornamental kind.
If all of this seems a bit pompous, maybe it’s because that’s where “pompon” comes from — the Old French “pomper,” “to exhibit pomp.”
August 27th, 2009
As a verb, “ape” means “to imitate or mimic” — along the lines of “monkey see, monkey do.”
The word, for “any gibbon or great ape” or “loosely, any Old or New World monkey,” comes from the Old English “apa,” which is of Germanic origin.
As applied to people, “ape” the noun also can be someone “who is uncouth, gross, clumsy, etc.”
To “go ape” is slang for “to become mad” or “to become wildly enthusiastic.”
And “apish,” in addition to “like an ape,” can mean “imitative in an unreasoning way” or “silly, affected, mischievous, etc.”
However, an “apiary” is not a monkey house, it’s a beehive. That “api-” comes from the Latin for bee, “apis.”
If you go monkeying with an apiary, you’re likely to get stung.
August 26th, 2009
“Gorilla” is pronounced the same as “guerrilla,” which I wrote about the day before. They have been known to be mistaken for each other in print, but they are two entirely different animals.
The gorilla is the largest of the great apes and, says Webster’s, “is generally shy, intelligent and vegetarian.”
Slang use of the word for “a person regarded as like a gorilla in appearance, strength, etc.” is generally an insult to the person and the ape. Even more so its use as slang for “a gangster; thug.”
The word comes from the Greek “gorillai,” a term concocted in translating the reports of a Carthaginian navigator traveling along the coast of Africa in the fifth century B.C. That voyager, named Hanno, thought the creatures he was seeing were members of “a tribe of hairy women,” which was the literal meaning for the Greek word.
Roy Blount Jr., in “Alphabet Juice,” suggests the translators’ task was made more challenging by the Phoenician alphabet, which lacked vowels, and that another factor may have been that Hanno “had been at sea for a long time.”
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