A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 822

A.Word.A.Day

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AWADmail Issue 822

A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day and Other Tidbits about Words and Language

Sponsor's Message: Realing in the years? One of our favorite bands of all time is Steely Dan -- always loved their cool, ludic, laid-back vibe. Their glib, erudite and clever lyrics and the origin of the name always resonated too, since we're also a huge fan of William S. Burroughs. Anyway, we met our buddy Ray at Tusk & Cup a while back, and ended up playing One Up! with his friend Jon -- we all three going at it, hammer and tongs. Ray just squeaked by with the win. Long story, short -- Jon is the guitarist for the band, and he'll make sure the Scrabble they usually play gathers dust from now on. Ha. Anyway, congrats to Email of the Week winner Eugene Claburn (see below) and all the other sarcastic wordy jazzers out there -- you never know when you might become a (sidebar) hero to your hero. Get your own "Stealy Dan" now >

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the Net

Rebuilding Mosul, Book by Book
The New York Review of Books
Permalink

Can Spanish Avoid America’s Language Graveyard?
The Economist
Permalink

Why So Many Public Libraries Are Now Giving Out Seeds
Atlus Obscura
Permalink

From: Gigi Gottwald (gottwalds axxess.co.za)
Subject: Listerize

Today’s word “listerize” has particular relevance for us here in South Africa. We are battling an outbreak of Listeriosis which is described by the World Health Organization as the world’s worst! At least 1,185 people have contracted the disease, which is caused by low standards of hygiene exacerbated by the scarcity of water in many parts of the country. So far, 183 people have died. Three factories manufacturing cold meats, sausages, and the like have been implicated in the distribution of listeria-contaminated meat products. If only they had been listerized!

Gigi Gottwald, Polokwane, South Africa

From: Daniel Miller (milldaniel gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--adulatory

Here’s another example of adulatory.

Daniel Miller, Laredo, Texas

Email of the Week -- Hey, Nineteen -- Buy The Wicked/Smart Word Game here >
From: Eugene Claburn (nowgene gmail.com)
Subject: My brief review of the work cited in today’s “Thought for Today”

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
History is a novel whose author is the people. -Alfred de Vigny, poet, playwright, and novelist (27 Mar 1797-1863)

Absurd plot; sloppy style, unconvincing characters; foolish dialogue; unmotivated violence; excessive fixation on sex, and frequently confusing -- with a terrible ending.

Eugene Claburn, West Windsor, New Jersey

From: Pallavi Bharadwaj (pallavibhar gmail.com)
Subject: Babble

That’s what I thought it meant when I saw the ad on TV for a new language learning app. Didn’t think it was the most intelligent name for an app, which teaches a new language to someone.

Pallavi Bharadwaj, Brooklyn, New York

From: Edith Lowe (lowe.edith gmail.com)
Subject: Babble

I have a friend who rejoices in the name Lalage -- which I had always mispronounced “Lah-lahjz” until I met her. Her father was a noted classics scholar who named his daughter after the Greek for “babble” because, she used to say, he thought that she would be his little babbling brook. She does have a tremendous giggle but, as it turned out, Lalage is actually on the quiet side. So much for name fate.

Edith Lowe, Bath, UK

From: Carl Guerci (carl.guerci verizon.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--metathesis

Many years ago a coworker would say, “Aks me a question.” It was explained to him, on several occasions, that the word was ASK and you might try “Answer a question.” One day he said, “Aks me a question.” So I did. “What time is it?” He told me, then said, “Aks me a question.” “Another,” I replied? He walked away. He never aksed me another question.

Another word suffering from metathesis is etcetera or etc. This is heard with growing regularity. Recently, someone used the abbreviation of this as ect. I suppose most people never saw “The King and I” and heard Yul Brynner say “Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera” with heavy emphasis on the first syllable.

Carl Guerci, Severna Park, Maryland

From: Bruce Floyd (brucefloyd bellsouth.net)
Subject: Metathesis

For some mysterious reason, I have for all my life sometimes -- more when I speak than when I write -- lapsed into a peculiar metathesis. I say “everwhere” and “everwhat” instead of “wherever” and “whatever”. I sometimes say “everwho”. My wife finds it amusing, though she always admonishes me gently when I utter such a solecism.

Bruce Floyd, Florence, South Carolina

From: Nelson (nelsonmybalo gmail.com)
Subject: Anagrams

Some contend that those who spend their hard-earned money on Evian are naive.

Nelson, Ha Noi, Viet Nam

From: Heather Johnson (woj9 cdc.gov)
Subject: Elvis lives

I always found it amusing that “Elvis lives” uses the same letters, given that some diehard fans aren’t convinced he died and that the proliferation of Elvis impersonators keeps his memory alive.

Heather Johnson, Atlanta, Georgia

From: Scott Baltic (sbaltic rcn.com)
Subject: Anagrams

You probably know this already, but parental, paternal, and prenatal are all anagrams of each other.

Scott Baltic, Chicago, Illinois

From: Ruth Merriam (psiamiam gmail.com)
Subject: fun with anagrams, indeed

Using your handy Internet Anagram Server, I came up with this one:
Constellation = Ancient Sol Lot
I think that one’s fitting.

Ruth Merriam, Louisville, Kentucky

From: Margie Duncan (mmduncan princeton.edu)
Subject: anagram

The simplest is the best: dog = god.

Margie Duncan, Princeton, New Jersey

From: Josef Beautrais (jbeautrais gmail.com)
Subject: Words described using their anagrams

Instead of using the equality operator to give the definition of a word, I’ll use another relational operator to give a property of the word: words > sword

Josef Beautrais, Wellington, New Zealand

From: Michael Gatzkiewicz (gatzcape comcast.net)
Subject: Words that mean the same as their anagrams

Some people might say marital and martial might fit in this category.

Michael Gatzkiewicz, Eastham, Massachusetts

From: Allan Wood (awood1905 msn.com)
Subject: His hotel = shithole

Check out this cartoon.

Allan Wood, Portland, Oregon

From: Mayank Prakash (mayankprak gmail.com)
Subject: Antonagrams

Related are words which can be anagrammed into their antonyms. For example, untie(d) => unite(d)

Mayank Prakash, Newton, Massachusetts

From: Joe Danowsky (danowsky2196 gmail.com)
Subject: Word curiosity of possible interest

Your anagram-synonym idea prompts me to share a curiosity I noticed some years ago. I whiled away a plane trip trying to think of words that included more than a few consecutive letters of the alphabet (in any order). The longest sequences I could think of were the six consecutive letters in CONFABULATED and FABRICATED. Those two words happen to be roughly synonymous (in one sense of “fabricated”).

Joe Danowsky, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

From: Alex McCrae (ajmccrae277 gmail.com)
Subject: laudatory and blate

Donald J. Trump, having embarked on his second year as president, appears to be acting more like a petulant, thin-skinned despotic king than a well-intentioned, stable US president/commander-in-chief. Here, I’ve pictured Trump as a reigning, self-absorbed monarch, bestowing knighthood* upon one of his sycophantic, adulatory underlings who has blindly pledged his fealty to a president sadly run amok.
*Legendary King Arthur had his storied “knights of the round-table”. Trump, his sycophants of the Oval Office.

Admittedly, I’ve taken a bleating “sheep-shot” here, presenting a face-off with two arguable freaks of nature ... the first-ever cloned sheep, Dolly, and hardly a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing, my signature cartoony frog character sheepishly (groan) assuming the guise of a woolly ovine. Note Dolly’s blating Scottish burrrrrrrr. Ha!

Alex McCrae, Van Nuys, California

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Anagrams of this week’s words

1. listerize 2. adulatory 3. babble 4. metathesis 5. blate	=	1. treat 2. saluted 3. i.e., blab 4. mobilize letters 5. shy baa
		-Dharam Khalsa, Burlington, North Carolina (dharamkk2 gmail.com)

1. listerize 2/4. adulatory/metathesis 3. babble 5. blate	=	1. elutriate 2/4. idle-ize, most say 3. blether; BS 5. blat; baa
		-Robert Jordan, Lampang, Thailand (alfiesdad ymail.com)

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Limericks

He said, “Call me doctor not mister,”
Cooed wooing, Dr. Joseph Lister.
“From my lips you’ll surmise,
You I will listerize,”
And just then, Joseph Lister kissed her.
Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

If Pasteur gave rise to ‘pasteurise’
And Lister gave birth to ‘listerize’,
Can it be said,
And taken as ‘read’,
That shortening your skirts is ‘mini - mise’?
-Monica Broom, Morogoro, Tanzania (monicabroom2015 gmail.com)

Simple remedies do not despise.
Joseph Lister we now eulogize.
Absent antibiotic
wounds won’t go necrotic
if carefully we do listerize.
-Zelda Dvoretzky, Haifa, Israel (zeldahaifa gmail.com)

“This infection at court I must listerize,”
Said Hamlet. “Ophelia will sympathize.
Oh, no! She has drowned?
My whole plan’s run aground;
Guess I’ll stand on the stage and soliloquize.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

Driven by forces he cannot resist,
He wreaks havoc with his enemies list,
While voices adulatory
Feed his ego the glory
Required by a malignant narcissist.
-Joel Holtz, Rancho Palos Verdes, California (planetholtz cox.net)

The whole world is adulatory to this Parkland teen,
Emma should be president, or maybe just crowned queen.
Her inspiring words brought cheers,
Her silence moved the crowd to tears.
Trump must be having tantrums as she steals every scene.
-Judy Distler, Teaneck, New Jersey (jam1026 aol.com)

When the channels broke the news of his win,
the adulatory tweets kept pouring in.
He’d become the real McCoy!
Happily he jumped for joy
and...paused. Was it fake news again?
-Shyamal Mukherji, Mumbai, India (mukherjis hotmail.com)

The judges were adulatory
Of Miss Russia in each category.
Then Trump eyed the winner,
And asked her to dinner...
(The rest is no Galahad story.)
-Janice Power, Cleveland, Ohio (janicepower25 gmail.com)

Those who listen to sermons in pews
Praise the Lord, with nothing to lose;
If they direct praise right,
They’ll not listen at night
To the adulatory nature of Fox News.
-Marcia Sinclair, Newmarket, Canada (marciasinclair rogers.com)

“Though Melania tries to ignore me,
My cabinet’s adulatory,”
Says Donald. “One meeting,
And poof! Grief is fleeting
That gone are my spankings from Stormy.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

The trouble with Trump is his babble.
We hear it all day to the rabble.
His name means “break wind”,
Which could happen whenever we sinned.
So we’d all better start to play Scrabble.
-Mike Young, Sedgefield, South Africa (youmike mweb.co.za)

The legendary author M. Drabble
Fell out with her sis over Scrabble;
A.S. Byatt declared:
You’re just running scared,
(Plus there’s no triple word score with “babble”.)
-Edith Lowe, Bath, UK (lowe.edith gmail.com)

At politics Trump did dabble,
Amusing crowds with his babble.
He won somehow,
And I wish now
Instead he’d taken up Scrabble.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

I need a noun, Anu, and quick
Or else there’s no limerick.
“Ambulatory”, “babble”
Will let me play Scrabble
But a noun/subject will do the trick.
-Sara Hutchinson, New Castle, Delaware (sarahutch2003 yahoo.com)

I pray every Sunday in chapel
For a miracle when I play Scrabble.
There are only two ‘B’s,
So like parting the seas
It would be if I made the word “babble”.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“Oom!” says the cow. “What a laugh it is
each time we elicit that wrath of his!”
“Aab!” sheep replies.
“Old farmer’s not wise
to the fact that we practice metathesis!”
-Anne Thomas, Sedona, Arizona (antom earthlink.net)

However did you decide to pick
Metathesis for a limerick?
I know I will never
Be quite so clever
To compose something witty this quick.
-Lois Mowat, Orinda, California (lmowat1810 gmail.com)

While defending her linguistic thesis,
the scholar was plagued by paresis.
With her tongue in a knot,
and metathesis her lot,
she might as well have been a rhesus!
-Brenda J. Gannam, Brooklyn, New York (gannamconsulting earthlink.net)

If you listerize thoroughly, mate
You’ll attract adulatory prate.
For muh-TATH-uh-sis, blabbed’ll
do nicely for babble(d?)
(which is not that much different from ‘blate’).
-Brian Bocking, Ireland (bockingbrian gmail.com)

When typing too quickly, one’s carelessness
Can often result in metathesis.
Such errors are easy,
But then there’s “covfefe”,
Induced by the drugs which treat hairlessness.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

He’s thrilled with his own physique
And won’t listen to any critique.
I’m fit as a fiddle,
Just look at my middle,
As he blates out contrived doublespeak.
-Gayle Tremblay, Saint John, Canada (gayletremblay hotmail.com)

Donald Trump and his Stormy young date
Have caused several problems of late.
Ms. D claims that some nights
Don indulged in delights
She provided in ways not so blate.
-Judith Marks-White, Westport, Connecticut (joodthmw gmail.com)

Be still, sages say, as our brains they dilate
Treating effects of politics of hate.
Our country’s in a fix,
Slo mo down the Styx,
With yon complicit ovine we blate.
-Charles Harp, Victoria, Canada (texzenpro yahoo.com)

The president never gets tired
Of blating on Twitter, “You’re fired!”
While Shulkin’s still sulkin’
He’s trackin’ on Jackson --
His next victim’s already been hired.
-Phyllis Morrow, Fairbanks, Alaska (phyllismorrow1 gmail.com)

When IKEA delivers your crate,
The instructions are never so great.
As your spine obtains curvature
Making your furniture,
“Why did I go there?” You’ll blate.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

From: Phil Graham (pgraham1946 cox.net)
Subject: Synonagram or sin by a graham?

When naming my wife’s best facial features I listerize.

Trump applied for membership and Theresa May said, “If we adulatory party will never be the same.”

Pride in his Hanging Gardens made Nebuchadnezzar babble on.

Aramis told D’Artagnan, “I’ve metathesis and Porthos’ brother.”

Trying to pun on some AWADs keeps me up blate.

Phil Graham, Tulsa, Oklahoma

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be. -Abraham Maslow, psychologist (1 Apr 1908-1970)

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