A.Word.A.Day Archives from https://wordsmith.org/awad -------- Date: Mon Nov 3 00:01:07 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--pace X-Bonus: Wealth has never yet sacrificed itself on the altar of patriotism. -Bob LaFollette, congressman, senator, governor (1855-1925) Prepositions don't get much respect. Nouns, verbs, adjectives... those are the words we usually pay attention to. Who has ever looked up in a thesaurus to find a better preposition? Who has complimented an author on his choice of prepositions? They might as well be invisible. Yet prepositions are some of the most important parts of the sentence. They work to connect various parts. And if you have any doubt about the role or importance of these hard-working nuts and bolts of a language, ask anyone who has tried to learn a new language. Prepositions are among the hardest to master. Literally speaking, a preposition is something that is positioned before a noun. These are little words, such as in, to, of, up, for, etc., though they are not always a single syllable. There are some pretty long ones: amongst, concerning, notwithstanding. And there are some fancy prepositions (contra, cum, a la, and so on). This week we'll see some of the uncommon prepositions, words that tell the nouns: "Me first!" [A note about ending a sentence with a preposition. Some believe there's something wrong with that. It's a myth. One can find sentences ending with preps in the lines of some of the finest writers in history: Chaucer, Swift, Kipling, Shakespeare and so on. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on" -- Try rephrasing that line from The Tempest. See what inelegant glob results. This canard about no-prepositions-at-the-end belongs in the same dustbin as "Thou shalt not split an infinitive." So the next time people fault you for ending a sentence with a preposition, ask them: "What are you talking about?"] pace (PAH-chay, PAY-see, PAH-kay) preposition With due respect to. (used to express polite disagreement) [From Latin pace (in peace), from pax (peace). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pag-/pak- (to fasten) that is also the source of peace, pacify, pact, travel, compact, pagan, and peasant.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "The movie Scoop (pace my friend and occasional critical contributor to this page who reviewed it favorably) is merely another mark of Woody Allen's descent into insubstantiality." Steffen Silvis; Plenty Up His Sleeve; The Prague Post (Czech Republic); Jan 10, 2007. -------- Date: Tue Nov 4 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--maugre X-Bonus: The only gift is giving to the poor; / All else is exchange. -Thiruvalluvar, poet (c. 30 BCE) This week's theme: Prepositions. maugre or mauger (MAW-guhr) preposition In spite of. [From Old French malgre (ill will), from mal- (bad) + gre (pleasure, grace), from Latin gratum (pleasing).] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me." Ralph Waldo Emerson; Nature; Addresses and Lectures; 1849. -------- Date: Wed Nov 5 00:01:05 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--ere X-Bonus: Life is a jest, and all things show it, / I thought so once, and now I know it. -John Gay, poet and dramatist (1685-1732) This week's theme: Prepositions. ere (air) preposition, conjunction Before (earlier in time). [From Old English aer (earlier). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ayer- (day, morning) that is also the source of early and erst (as in erstwhile).] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "I travel back in deepest thought To realms ere Time began." A.O. Wilkinson; Soon There Will Be Elephants!; Nottingham Evening Post (UK); Dec 30, 2006. -------- Date: Thu Nov 6 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--circa X-Bonus: When you battle with your conscience and lose, you win. -Henny Youngman, comedian and violinist (1906-1998) This week's theme: Prepositions. circa (SUHR-kuh) preposition Approximately. [From Latin circa (around, about), from circus (circle), from Greek kirkos. Ultimately from the Indo-European root sker- (to turn or bend) which is also the source of other words such as ranch, rank, shrink, circle, crisp, search, ring, curb, ridge, and curve.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "This translates into an annual average loss of circa 167 hectares (0.5 per cent of all farmland)." Alan Deidun; Keeping up the Momentum; The Times of Malta; Oct 19, 2008. -------- Date: Fri Nov 7 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--chez X-Bonus: The man who is always waving the flag usually waives what it stands for. -Laurence J. Peter, educator and author (1919-1990) This week's theme: Prepositions. chez (shay) preposition At the place of. (for example, at the home of, business of, etc.) [From French chez, from Latin casa (cottage). The word is often used in the names of restaurants, for example, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "Then there was a debauched evening in Richmond chez Nicky Haslam, of which the less said the better." Jessica Brinton; People Like Them; The Sunday Times (London, UK); Oct 26, 2008. -------- Date: Mon Nov 10 00:01:07 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--advertorial X-Bonus: I wasn't disturbing the peace, I was disturbing the war. -Ammon Hennacy, activist (1893-1970) A portmanteau is a blend -- a word formed by combining two (or more) words. Lewis Carroll gave this name to such a word in "Through the Looking-Glass". As Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice, "You see it's like a portmanteau -- there are two meanings packed up into one word." A portmanteau is a travel bag that opens into two hinged compartments. Carroll himself coined some fine portmanteaux such as chortle (chuckle + snort), and slithy (slimy + lithe). We have been using this fusion technique to coin names for countries: Tanzania (Tanganyika + Zanzibar), celebrities: Brangelina (Brad Pitt + Angelina Jolie), products: camcorder (camera + recorder), and beyond. This week we'll see five words, each of which is an amalgam of two other words. advertorial (ad-vuhr-TOR-ee-uhl) noun A newspaper or magazine ad resembling editorial content in style and layout. [A blend of advertisement + editorial. The radio/television equivalent of an advertorial is another blend word, infomercial: information + commercial.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "PETA accused the Ministry of Defence of having one of its advertorials 'pulled' from Defence Director, the trade bible of the defence industry with strong links to the MoD. The advertorial -- which barracked against use of bearskin in the hats worn by the Queen's Guards -- was mysteriously removed at the 11th hour, leading to PETA's claims that they'd been leaned on by a higher power, a charge the MoD denies." Henry Deedes; Has Mandelson Annoyed the Neighbours?; The Independent (London, UK); Oct 14, 2008. -------- Date: Tue Nov 11 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--cultivar X-Bonus: I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose. We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us. -Mario Cuomo, 52nd Governor of New York (b. 1932) This week's theme: Blend words. cultivar (KUHL-tuh-var) noun A variety of plant that has been produced by selective breeding. A cultivar is developed for specific attributes and retains those attributes in further propagation. [A blend of cultivation + variety.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "For many competitors, growing record-setting vegetables is more business than gardening. Seeds from a consistent winning cultivar can fetch as much as $500 each." Joe Lamp'l; Giant Pumpkins the Result of Extreme Gardening; Scripps Howard News Service; Oct 27, 2008. -------- Date: Wed Nov 12 00:01:05 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--exurb X-Bonus: This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in. -Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919) This week's theme: Blends. exurb (EK-suhrb) noun A residential area outside a city and beyond its suburbs, typically inhabited by well-to-do families. [A blend of ex- + suburb.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "Housing tracts in farm fields aren't the only odd sights showing up in spreading exurbs like this one north of Columbus." Dems Send Aid Into Traditionally GOP Exurbs; The Associated Press; Jun 11, 2008. -------- Date: Thu Nov 13 00:01:05 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--spokesmodel X-Bonus: The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one. The more active and swift the latter is, the further he will go astray. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626) This week's theme: Blends. spokesmodel (SPOKS-modl) noun A model who acts as a spokesperson for a product or organization. [A blend of spokesman + model.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "It's just too fabulous that the former deputy prime minister of Canada, Sheila Copps, is the new spokesmodel for Herbal Magic diet products." Deirdre McMurdy; My BFF Says; Ottawa Citizen (Canada); Sep 15, 2007. -------- Date: Fri Nov 14 00:01:05 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--rollick X-Bonus: I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for his reputation if he didn't. -Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910) This week's theme: Blends. rollick (ROL-ik) verb intr. To move or act in a playful, carefree manner. [Probably a blend of romp + frolic.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "When Olivia Newton-John attends, she'll be joining the hundreds of others who rollick in the audience to the tuneful songs that have become part of the American ethos." John Soltes; For Ashley Spencer, 'Grease' is the Word; The Leader (Lyndhurst, New Jersey); Oct 17, 2008. -------- Date: Mon Nov 17 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--logy X-Bonus: Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is. -William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910) I love words. It's something I gave up my career in software for. Every morning when I wake up I can't wait to begin exploring words and writing about them. I've been doing that for 14 years and wouldn't want to be doing anything else. Having said that, there are times when I feel I have to be ready to feed this beast -- A.Word.A.Day -- week after week after week. It opens its hungry maw every Monday and I had better be ready with another serving of juicy, delicious words. I do my best to come up with new recipes, new arrangements, new flavors. There are times, however, when I just have to reach into my grab-bag of loose words and offer them while I think of a new topic. It's one of those weeks. Enjoy this medley of words while I get back to the word lab putting finishing touches to next week's material. logy (LO-gee) adjective Lethargic, groggy. [Perhaps from Dutch log (heavy).] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "[The doctors] gave her drugs that made her feel logy and sleep a lot." Atul Gawande; The Itch; New Yorker; Jun 30, 2008. -------- Date: Tue Nov 18 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--prolix X-Bonus: Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief. -Arthur Schnitzler, writer and doctor (1862-1931) This week's theme: Miscellaneous words. prolix (pro-LIKS, PRO-liks) adjective Tediously wordy. [From Latin prolixus (extended, poured), from liquere (to flow), which is also the source of words such as liquid, liquor, licorice. Now you see the connection -- why consuming liquor makes people prolix.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "No one has ever called him prolix. At a future-war seminar that he sponsored, Mr. Andrew Marshall mumbled a few introductory words and then sat in silence, eyebrows arched, arms folded, for the remaining two days." James Der Derian; The Illusion of a Grand Strategy; The New York Times; May 25, 2001. -------- Date: Wed Nov 19 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--cadastral X-Bonus: The doctrine of the material efficacy of prayer reduces the Creator to a cosmic bellhop of a not very bright or reliable kind. -Herbert J. Muller, educator, historian, and author (1905-1980) This week's theme: Miscellaneous words. cadastral (kuh-DAS-truhl) adjective Of or relating to a map or survey showing property lines, boundaries, etc. [From French cadastre (an official register of the details of real estate in an area, used in determining taxes), from Italian catasto, from Greek katastikhon (list, register), from kata stikhon (line by line).] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "Pete McDonald was only able to follow some sections of the Long Beach to Heyward Point route by using cadastral printouts and a GPS receiver." Excellent Guide Improved Upon; Otago Daily Times (Dunedin,, New Zealand); Nov 8, 2008. -------- Date: Thu Nov 20 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--corpulent X-Bonus: The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873) This week's theme: Miscellaneous words. corpulent (KOR-pyuh-luhnt) adjective Large, bulky, fat. [From Latin corpus (body). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kwrep- (body, form) that is also the source of corps, corpse, corporation, corset, corsage, and leprechaun.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "Mr. Barbecue-Smith was a short and corpulent man, with a very large head and no neck." Aldous Huxley; Crome Yellow; 1921. -------- Date: Fri Nov 21 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--mythologem X-Bonus: The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. -Wilhelm Stekel, physician and psychologist (1868-1940) This week's theme: Miscellaneous words. mythologem (mi-THOL-uh-jem) noun A basic theme of a myth, for example, revenge, honor, betrayal, etc. [From Greek mythologema (mythical narrative), from mythologein (to tell mythical tales), from mythos (myth) + -logos (word or speech).] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "Another way to see the whole picture is through the symbol and mythologem of land and its specific manifestation in place." Christa Walck; Healing the Divided Mind; Organization & Environment (Thousand Oaks, California); Jun 2004. -------- Date: Mon Nov 24 00:11:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--argal X-Bonus: There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham. -Anna Sewell, writer (1820-1878) Most of the words we feature here in AWAD are nouns, adjectives, and verbs. We have also discussed many adverbs. We have even featured a whole week of prepositions -- but not a single conjunction. It's as if we had unknowingly been committing asyndeton, the fancy word for for omission of conjunctions, as in "I came, I saw, I conquered." The word is from Greek an- (not) + syndetos (bound together). On the other hand, if one is extravagant with conjunctions, as in "Uncle Charlie gobbled cookies and bagels and pizza and pasta," it's called polysyndeton. It's time to redress the years of injustice and neglect of conjunctions in AWAD. We'll bring this overlooked part of speech into the limelight. This week let's look at five not-so-common conjunctions. argal (AHR-guhl) conjunction, adverb Therefore. [By alteration of the Latin ergo (therefore). The word argal is usually used to indicate that the reasoning presented is ludicrous.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "Mr. Barbecue-Smith was a short and corpulent man, with a very large head and no neck. In his earlier middle age he had been distressed by this absence of neck, but was comforted by reading in Balzac's 'Louis Lambert' that all the world's great men have been marked by the same peculiarity, and for a simple and obvious reason: Greatness is nothing more nor less than the harmonious functioning of the faculties of the head and heart; the shorter the neck, the more closely these two organs approach one another; argal...It was convincing." Aldous Huxley; Crome Yellow; 1921. -------- Date: Tue Nov 25 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--sobeit X-Bonus: Civilization is the encouragement of differences. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) This week's theme: Unusual conjunctions. sobeit (so-BEE-it) conjunction Provided that. [From so + be + it.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "Not by rough tongues and ready fists Can you hope to tilt in the modern lists. The armies of a littler folk Shall pass you under the victor's yoke, Sobeit a nation that trains her sons To ride their horses and point their guns." Alan Seeger; A Message to America; 1900. -------- Date: Wed Nov 26 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--whencesoever X-Bonus: The race of men, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity. -Carl Van Doren, professor, writer, and critic (1885-1950) This week's theme: Unusual conjunctions. whencesoever (hwens-so-EV-uhr) conjunction, adverb From whatever place. [From whence (from what place) + soever (at all, of any kind).] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "[Lizbeth, the dog] loves human attention and like Browning's duchess she is pleased indiscriminately whencesoever it comes." Jonathan Raban; The View From a Literary Dumpster; The New York Times; Oct 10, 1993. -------- Date: Thu Nov 27 00:01:07 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--albeit X-Bonus: If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. -Moshe Dayan, military leader and politician (1915-1981) This week's theme: Unusual conjunctions. albeit (al-BEE-it) conjunction Even though; although. [From Middle English al be it (all though it be).] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "Demonstrations, albeit more peaceful ones, continued yesterday, with a few hundred students staging a sit-down protest." Ho Ai Li; A Step Forward; The Straits Times (Singapore); Nov 8, 2008 -------- Date: Fri Nov 28 00:01:06 EST 2008 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--forwhy X-Bonus: Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time. -Stephen Swid, executive (b. 1941) This week's theme: Unusual conjunctions. forwhy (for-HWY) conjunction: Because. adverb: Why. [From for + why.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "She is the weeping welkin, I the earth: Then must my sea be moved with her sighs; Then must my earth with her continual tears Become a deluge, overflow'd and drown'd; Forwhy my bowels cannot hide her woes." William Shakespeare; Titus Andronicus; c. 1590.