A.Word.A.Day Archives from https://wordsmith.org/awad -------- Date: Mon Jan 1 01:31:24 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--sipid X-Bonus: That sorrow which is the harbinger of joy is preferable to the joy which is followed by sorrow. -Saadi, poet (c.1213-1291) [Gulistan] sipid (SIP-id) adjective Having a pleasing taste or flavor. [Back formation from insipid, from Late Latin insipidus, from in- (not) + sapidus (savory), from sapere (to taste, to know). Ultimately from Indo-European root sep- (to taste or perceive) that is also the source of sage, savant, savvy, savor, sapid, sapient, and insipid.] "CBS adds two new comedies to the mix this year, moving the insipid `Major Dad' to Friday nights to make room for John Ritter and Markie Post in the slightly more sipid `Hearts Afire'." Ed Siegel, Monday: CBS is the Ticket, Boston Globe, Sep 14, 1992. Why do we have so much negativity around us? Open a newspaper, watch the TV, listen to the radio and you find nothing but negative words. Ever wonder why some words almost always appear in their negative forms? It is completely evitable, as the words for the next five days prove. This week's AWAD presents words that are scrutable and a quick peek in the dictionary shows that these are licit formations. Use these words in your writing for a gainly touch, a couth appearance. I hope you feel gruntled with this week's theme. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Jan 2 00:03:11 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--pervious X-Bonus: No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same. -Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997) pervious (PUR-vee-uhs) adjective 1. Permeable; open to passage or penetration. 2. Open to suggestions, arguments, reason, change, etc. [From Latin pervius, from per- (through) + via (way). Ultimately from Indo-European root wegh (to go, to transport) that is also the source of way, away, wagon, vogue, wiggle, vehicle, voyage, convey, weight, previous, trivial, and vex.] "There is some sense in this: architecture is more pervious to consensual norms than any other area of human endeavour - which is why it is much easier to date a building than a page of prose." Meades, Jonathan, From Po-Mo to so-so, New Statesman, 20 Dec 1996. This week's theme: words better known in their negative forms. -------- Date: Wed Jan 3 00:03:12 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--vincible X-Bonus: One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it. -Martin Luther King Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968) vincible (VIN-suh-buhl) adjective Defeatable; capable of being overcome. [From Latin vincibilis, from vincere (to overcome). Ultimately from Indo-European root weik- (to fight or conquer) which is also the source of victor, vanquish, convince, and evict.] "They had a lead of 21-0 and still the Eagles, who were both pervious and vincible, beat them, 35-30." Steve Jacobson, Boomer Won't Pass the Blame, Newsday, 4 Oct 1993. This week's theme: words better known in their negative forms. -------- Date: Thu Jan 4 00:03:11 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--furl X-Bonus: The most happy marriage I can picture or imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic, and philosopher (1772-1834) furl (furl) verb tr. To roll up something, such as a flag. verb intr. To become rolled up. noun The act of rolling up or something rolled up. [Perhaps from French ferler, from Old French ferlier (to fasten), from fer, ferm (firm) + lier (to tie), from Latin ligare. Ultimately from Indo-European root leig (to bind) that's also the source of oblige, alloy, ally, rely, lien, league, and liable.] "Arriving at last at some sheltered cove, we'd furl the sails and drop anchor." Jeremy Clarke, End of Story, Independent on Sunday, Aug 8, 1999. This week's theme: words better known in their negative forms. -------- Date: Fri Jan 5 00:03:13 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--requite X-Bonus: The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon. -Charles Schulz, cartoonist (1922-2000) requite (ri-KWYT) verb tr. To repay, return for, avenge, or retaliate. [From Middle English requiten, from re- + quiten (to pay), a variant of quit.] "(Charles) Schulz spread himself through an enlarging cast of characters-- Snoopy, the fantasizing dog who dances for sheer joy ... the Little Red-Haired Girl who never requites Charlie Brown's love, never even appears. (One of Schulz's early unrequited loves was a redhead.)" Henry Allen, The Cartoonist Who Drew From Experience, The Washington Post, Feb 14, 2000. This week's theme: words better known in their negative forms. (For more words in this category, please see AWAD archives for Dec 1996 with the theme `Forgotten Positives' https://wordsmith.org/awad/themes.html -Anu) -------- Date: Mon Jan 8 00:03:12 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--dekko X-Bonus: Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you make the whole trip that way. -E.L. Doctorow, writer (1931- ) dekko (DEK-oh) noun A look. [From Hindi dekho (look), imperative of dekhna (to look).] "This week, and for the next three months, if you desire, you can go and take a dekko (or a gander, a butcher's or a shufti) at a pair of trousers I wore 18 years ago, when I was barely out of my teens." Dylan Jones, Men's style: Dylan Jones column, The Independent (London, UK), Oct 16, 2000. "Many restaurants, bars, businesses and shops in downtown Napier are located in historic art deco buildings." Take a dekko at all this art, The Dominion (Wellington, New Zealand), Apr 13, 2000. Rorschach test, named after Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922), aims to discover the personality of a person which can't be found by the usual questions. The subject is shown random inkblot designs and asked to interpret them. The same inkblot may appear as clouds to one person, an elephant to another, while a third person may see a face of a woman. Well, this week's AWAD may seem quite like this test, but it isn't. The words for the next five days may appear to be selected with no design, but they do have a common theme. There is a definite property that a word has to fulfill before making an appearance this week. And your mission is to identify that common trait. The first one to figure it out gets worldwide fame by having his/her name circulated in nearly 200 countries. Send your interpretations to (garg AT wordsmith.org). One answer per person, please. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Jan 9 00:13:13 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--ait X-Bonus: Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does. -Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (1818-1885) ait (ayt) noun A small island, especially one in a river. Also, eyot. [From Middle English eit, from Old English diminutive of ig or ieg (island).] "Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows ...." Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1853. This week's theme: yours to discover. -------- Date: Wed Jan 10 00:06:10 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--bijou X-Bonus: Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer. -Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832) bijou (BEE-zhoo, bee-ZHOO) noun, plural bijoux (-zhoo, -zhooz) A small, delicate jewel or ornamental object of delicate workmanship. [From French, from Breton bizou (jeweled ring), from biz (finger).] "Never mind that most of us couldn't afford a bijou from Bulgari in a hundred years." Amy Dunkin and Thane Peterson, Worlds of Adventure on the Coffee Table, BusinessWeek, Dec 9, 1996. "The bijou capital of Vermont, with its little gold-domed capitol backed by woods, is not opposed to commerce." What's an hour worth? Economist, Jun 28, 1997. This week's theme: yours to discover. -------- Date: Thu Jan 11 00:01:11 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--horst X-Bonus: If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626) horst (horst) noun A part of earth's crust, surrounded by faults, that has risen upwards. [From German, horst, literally "thicket".] "After reviewing the many options available, the Swedish Railway Administration decided to construct two 8.6 km railway tunnels through the horst." Ragnar E.Lofstedt, Off Track in Sweden, Environment, May 1999. This week's theme: yours to discover. -------- Date: Fri Jan 12 00:01:12 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--dotty X-Bonus: One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if it were possible, speak a few reasonable words. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832) dotty (DOT-ee) adjective Eccentric, mentally unbalanced, unconventional. [From Scots dottle (fool), from Middle English doten (to dote).] "Woodward and Holm play Martha and Abbey, the dotty old sisters who serve elderberry wine laced with poison to unsuspecting tea-time visitors, then bury the stiffs in their basement." Robert Osborne, Baldwin serves up his staged readings with taste of `Arsenic', Hollywood Reporter, Nov 1, 2000. This week's theme: yours to discover. -------- Date: Mon Jan 15 00:34:40 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--quartan X-Bonus: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882) quartan (KWORT-n) adjective Occurring every fourth day, counting inclusively, or every 72 hours. Used of a fever. noun A malarial fever recurring every 72 hours. [Middle English quartaine, from Old French, from Latin quartana, from quartanus, of the fourth, from quartus, fourth.] "`From here on we descend such stairs as these. You mount in front and I will take the middle so that the tail may do no harm.' As a man in a shivering-fit of quartan fever, so ill his nails have lost all color, trembles all over at the sight of shade, so was I stricken at his words." Inferno XVII.82-88. "Virgil, Dante's guide, warns him that the descent to lowest hell will be accomplished by the aid of such terrifying creatures as the monster Geryon. In simile, a device that Dante much employs, the poet compares his behavior to that of a man entering the first stages of the quartan fever." Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) wrote his great poem, 14,233 verses in rhymed tercets, between 1307 ca. and 1321. He called it "The Comedy" (the adjective "Divine" was added by a Venetian editor in 1555 and has "stuck"). Its narrative is based on a journey through the afterworld at Easter time in the year 1300 undertaken, at Heaven's prompting, by our narrator himself -- or so he would have us believe. In almost precisely one week he visits hell (the 72 hours recorded in the first part of the poem, "Inferno"), purgatory, where saved souls cleanse themselves of the memory of their former sins (precisely 3.5 days spent on the mountain of Purgatory, situated at what we would call the South Pole), and paradise, visiting the nine "starry spheres" above the earth and culminating in the Empyrean, beyond space and time, where God and all the blessed souls exist in continual bliss (approximately 1.25 days--the time-telling function is much reduced in this part of the poem). This week we are going to look at some words from "Inferno," drawn from a new English verse translation done by my wife, the poet Jean Hollander, and me and published three weeks ago by Doubleday. These words are not "key words" in Dante's text, for these are generally words in common use, for instance, "justice," which I would argue is as important as any other word in the poem, but, like all the words collected by Anu for AWAD in recent years, words that we are less likely to recognize. They all appear in an excerpt from our translation, to give the reader some sense of their context and of Dante's way of writing. -Robert Hollander, bobhATprinceton.edu (This week's guest wordsmiths: Robert is a professor of European Literature at Princeton University, and his wife Jean is director of The Annual Writers' Conferences at The College of New Jersey. They will appear in an online chat on Jan 16, 2001. Details at https://wordsmith.org/chat/hollanders.html -Anu) -------- Date: Tue Jan 16 00:03:14 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--barrator X-Bonus: For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832) barrator, barrater or barretor (BAR-uh-tuhr) noun One who commits barratry, which is 1. Persistently bringing lawsuits regardless of their merit. 2. Buying or selling of positions in church of state. 3. A breach of duty or fraud by a ship's master or crew that results in harm to the ship's owner. [From Vulgar Latin prattare, from Greek prattein (to do).] "Thus in the second circle nest hypocrisy, flatteries, and sorcerers; lies, theft, and simony; panders, barrators, and all such filth." Inferno XI.57-60. "This is Virgil's description of the denizens of Malebolge, the eighth and penultimate circle of hell, in which those who practiced fraud are punished. For Dante, barratry, the buying and selling of civil office, was equally contemptible as the sin of simony, the buying or selling of ecclesiastical office, for which we hear the names of three popes angrily recounted in Inferno XIX." This week's theme: words from Dante's Inferno, a verse translation by Jean Hollander and Robert Hollander. REMINDER: Join this week's guest wordsmiths for a chat later today. See the very end of this meessage. -------- Date: Wed Jan 17 01:03:10 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--wain X-Bonus: A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools. -Spanish proverb wain (wayn) noun The Fishes are flickering at the horizon large farm wagon. [From Old English wegan (to move or to carry).] 2. Big Dipper. [Clipping of Charles's Wain or Carl's wagon, after Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor.] and all the Wain lies over Caurus. And here, a short way off, is the descent." Inferno XI.112-115. "Telling time by the stars visible from the earth above, Virgil here refers to the constellation Pisces (the Fishes), the source of the northwest wind (Caurus), and the Wain (the Big Dipper), which looks also like a wagon, even to us today." This week's theme: words from Dante's Inferno, a verse translation by Jean Hollander and Robert Hollander. -------- Date: Thu Jan 18 01:03:10 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--woof X-Bonus: It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others. -John Andrew Holmes, physician and writer woof (woof) noun 1. The threads that run crosswise (at right angles with the warp) in a woven cloth. Also known as weft. 2. Texture. [From Old English wefan (to weave).] "It had the features of a righteous man, benevolent in countenance, but all the rest of it was serpent. It had forepaws, hairy to the armpits, and back and chest and both its flanks were painted and inscribed with rings and curlicues. So many vivid colors Turk or Tartar never wove in warp and woof or in embroidery on top, nor were such colors patterned on Arachne's loom." Inferno XVII.10-18. "Dante's description of Geryon, the monster representing Fraud. The passage is often admired for its poetic exuberance. The traveler's trip down into the depths of hell on Geryon's back is one of the most extraordinary descriptions in the entire poem, rendering the height of fantasy as though it had actually occurred." This week's theme: words from Dante's Inferno, a verse translation by Jean Hollander and Robert Hollander. -------- Date: Fri Jan 19 01:03:16 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--escarpment X-Bonus: If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. -Dorothy Parker escarpment (i-SKARP-ment) noun A long, steep slope separating two relatively level areas of land at differing elevations. [From French escarpement, from Italian scarpa (slope).] "There is a place in Hell called Malebolge, fashioned entirely of iron-colored rock, as is the escarpment that encircles it." Inferno XVIII.1-3. "This is the precise midpoint of the Inferno. Above are all the sins punished in the two main areas of Incontinence and Violence. Thus fully one half of Dante's hell is populated by those who were fraudulent, hardening their hearts against their fellow creatures and against God. This lower hell is portrayed as a gigantic fortress. However, instead of a castle keep, rising over the landscape, the center of hell is a vast pit in which is fastened the powerless figure of Satan, hell's `king,' punished and punishing as he serves the justice of God." This week's theme: words from Dante's Inferno, a verse translation by Jean Hollander and Robert Hollander. -------- Date: Mon Jan 22 00:03:14 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--zaibatsu X-Bonus: Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf and take an insect view of its plain. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862) zaibatsu (ZAI-ba-tsoo) noun, plural zaibatsu A large family-owned Japanese commercial combine that holds controlling interests in a variety of areas. After WWII, zaibatsu dissolved into keiretsu, a loose coalition of business groups that own stakes in one another. For example, Mitsubishi, which supplies automobiles, electricity, glass, ships, aircraft, satellites, oil products, beer, etc. [From Japanese, zai wealth + batsu clique]. "Mandai, our chairman, was one of Japan's great bankers. He had been the head of Mitsui Bank before the war and was still regarded almost as a deity by the staff. Like many others connected with the old giant financial combines, the zaibatsu, he had been purged by the Occupation authorities." "The challenge is great; success depends only on the strength of our will," is how Akio Morita, co-founder of Sony Corporation, concludes his biographical book, "Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony." Sony truly is a translation of Akio Morita's willpower and vision. Born on Jan 26, 1921 in Nagoya, Japan, in a family of sake brewers, Morita was more interested in brewing of technology. In 1946, he co-founded a radio repair business in a bombed-out department store that was eventually to become Sony, a name synonymous with innovation and quality. He came up with the name Sony after consulting several dictionaries and creating a derivative from sonus, Latin for sound. He first considered the name Sonny but dropped it when he realized that in Japan, "the word `sonny' would be pronounced as `sohn-nee' which means to lose money." This week we remember him by picking words from his aforesaid book. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Jan 23 00:03:10 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--blase X-Bonus: My soul is a broken field, plowed by pain. -Sara Teasdale, poet (1884-1933) blase (blah-ZAY) adjective Indifferent, bored, uninterested, unimpressed, or apathetic, from an excess of pleasure and enjoyment. [From French, past participle of blaser, to cloy, perhaps from Dutch blasen to blow.] "It was a new and exciting experience for me to be with that audience at the biggest show of the season. Adolph was blase about it. As soon as the lights dimmed and the orchestra struck up the overture, Adolph turned to me and said, `Akio, goodnight.'" This week's theme: words from "Made in Japan", by Sony co-founder Akio Morita. -------- Date: Wed Jan 24 00:03:26 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--boondocks X-Bonus: If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882) boondocks (BOON-doks) noun 1. An uninhabited area filled with thick brush. 2. A rural area; backwoods. [From Tagalog bundok, mountain.] "She (Yoshiko) thought my hometown, Nagoya, which is even farther west, was really out in the boondocks." This week's theme: words from "Made in Japan", by Sony co-founder Akio Morita. -------- Date: Thu Jan 25 00:03:12 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--monaural X-Bonus: Live a balanced life - Learn some and think some, and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. -Robert Fulghum, author (1937- ) monaural (mon-OR-uhl) adjective 1. Monophonic: sound recording and reproduction using only one channel. 2. Pertaining to one ear. [From mono-, one + aural, related to ear.] "The Pressman monaural tape recorder was a relatively expensive unit, selling for forty nine thousand yen in Japan, and I said I wanted the first models of our new stereo experiment to retail for no more than thirty thousand yen." (Also, a mural of Mona Lisa. -Anu) This week's theme: words from "Made in Japan", by Sony co-founder Akio Morita. -------- Date: Fri Jan 26 00:03:11 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--litigious X-Bonus: It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page. -Joan Baez litigious (li-TIJ-uhs) adjective 1. Pertaining to litigation. 2. Eager to engage in lawsuits. 3. Inclined to disputes and arguments. [From Middle English, from Latin litigiosus from litigium, dispute.] "My friend John Opel of IBM wrote an article a few year ago titled `Our Litigious Society,' so I knew I was not alone in my view that lawyers and litigation have become severe handicaps to business, and sometimes worse." This week's theme: words from "Made in Japan", by Sony co-founder Akio Morita. -------- Date: Mon Jan 29 00:03:12 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--athenaeum X-Bonus: Anger as soon as fed is dead- / 'Tis starving makes it fat. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886) athenaeum (ath-uh-NEE-um) noun 1. A library or reading room. 2. A literary or scientific club. [From Latin Athenaeum, from Greek Athenaion, a temple of Athena, the goddess of wisdom.] "Whole wings of libraries could be built around the literature of loss ... The Summer After June, Ashley Warlick's second novel, belongs in that vast annex of the athenaeum reserved solely for stories of mourning." Chris Bohjalian, Starting Over, The Washington Post, Apr 2, 2000. We all believe the first to scale Mt. Everest were Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay but the answer may be different. In 1924, a bold mountain climber, George Herbert Leigh Mallory, along with Andrew Irvine, attempted to reach the top of Mt. Everest. They were last sighted near the summit by the expedition's geologist, 2000 feet below them. In 1999, Mallory's body -- still intact after 75 years -- was discovered by a group of climbers. Were Mallory and Irvine on their way up or coming down? We don't know, and perhaps never will, unless other climbers find Irvine's body and his camera which may yield clues. Mallory's grandson George Mallory II reached the summit in 1995. When asked why climb a mountain, Mallory's famous answer was, "Because it's there". This week's words in AWAD should perhaps be used in the same spirit. Why use these words when other similar words exist? Just because they're there in the dictionary. During the rest of this week we'll see more words that are less well-known synonyms of everyday words. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Jan 30 00:03:11 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--tokology X-Bonus: The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. -Groucho Marx tokology (to-KOL-uh-jee) noun, also tocology Midwifery or obstetrics. [From Greek toko, child, childbirth + logy.] "Stockham sent a copy of her own book, Tokology: A Book for Every Woman ... This practical guide to childbearing and health had enjoyed great popular success." Robert Whittaker, Tolstoy's American Preachers: Letters on Religion and Ethics, TriQuarterly, Jan 1, 2000. This week's theme: less well-known synonyms of everyday words. -------- Date: Wed Jan 31 00:03:12 EST 2001 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--debark X-Bonus: Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. -William Strunk, Jr., professor and author (1869-1946) debark (di-BARK) verb tr., intr. To disembark. [From French debarquer, de- from + barque ship.] debark (dee-BARK) verb tr. To remove the bark from a log or a dog. [De- + bark.] "Another stop is scheduled for pad 34, site of the Apollo 1 tragedy that claimed the lives of astronauts Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. Thomas asks tourists to remove their caps when they debark." Billy Cox, Tour space history 'Then and Now', Florida Today, May 28, 2000. TODAY: Don't forget to join us for an online chat with Wendalyn Nichols, Editorial Director of Random House Reference. Details at: https://wordsmith.org/chat This week's theme: less well-known synonyms of everyday words.