A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1204

A.Word.A.Day

Home

AWADmail Issue 1204

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

Sponsor’s Message: “I had a love-hate relationship with the Army. We both loved it before I joined. And we both hated it when I was in.” Johnny Mustard, Yuk, Retired is a highly-fictionalized account of our hero’s ignominious and thankfully brief time as a West Point cadet. Buy Now.

From: Brent Krueger (kruegerb hope.edu)
Subject: lase

I’ve done laser research for several decades and have used lase as a verb throughout that time. Interestingly, always with the second, intransitive definition, never ever with the transitive one. I think your two examples are both of the transitive variety.

Here are two intransitive sentences. When the laser is down it will not lase. In that situation one works to try to get it to lase.

Brent Krueger, Holland, Michigan

From: Brett Hillyer (bluecollardj me.com)
Subject: Lase

I am in construction, and regularly use a self-leveling laser to do layouts for my work. I have, for years, referred to such devices as my lazy beam, in deference to the trusty spirit level I used for many years. Thank you (lasers) for the years of work saved!

Brett Hillyer, Charlotte, North Carolina

Email of the Week -- Brought to you buy Johnny Mustard, Yuk, Retired. The Corps Has!

From: Jerry Leichter (leichter lrw.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--lase

There’s just a bit more history here: Eight to ten years before the laser (1952), there was the maser, Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. So the laser acronym was formed by analogy. Before the new acronym caught on, you’d see references to optical masers!

Masers are used to this day in devices like atomic clocks. Interestingly, there are naturally occurring masers out in the heavens, observed by radio telescopes -- which used to use masers but newer devices have mainly supplanted them. (There are naturally occurring lasers as well.)

Jerry Leichter, Stamford, Connecticut

From: Mike Carpenter (mccarp46 gmail.com)
Subject: The New Colossus

People regrettably quote only the last few lines of Emma Lazarus’s beautiful poem. Here is the whole thing:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

It’s a Petrarchan sonnet, abbaabbacdcdcd.

Mike Carpenter, Tucson, Arizona

From: Richard Ball (richball comcast.net)
Subject: Incent

I was a cameraman and shot countless corporate films. In the 1980s I shot interviews with the president and several vice presidents of Illinois Bell Telephone in Chicago. By a court judgement it had recently lost its status as a “regulated monopoly” and was being forced to become a competitive corporation. Up until that time it had been able to provide a generous level of customer service, phone installations, repairs and hardware in a manner that would not be sustainable in a competitive environment. The film was supposed to explain their problem. That is, as one officer said, “We know how our workers have to adapt, but we don’t know how to incent them.” In subsequent interviews with other officers and the president I heard incent from each of them.

I had never heard it before and suspected they had been “brainwashed” at an industry-wide seminar by a management consultant guru who invented a new corporate-speak just for them. The next time I heard the word was a full year later working in Kansas City. I heard it from a Missouri phone company executive. That usage convinced me “incent” was coined for use by phone companies.

However, use of the word seems to have grown. I have never learned to like it and am disappointed it has roots in the 19th century.

Richard Ball, Oak Park, Illinois

From: Alex McCrae (ajmccrae277 gmail.com)
Subject: lase and tase

Here, teenager Clark Kent, the future Superman, is trying to fine-tune his recently discovered superpower of X-ray vision. He finds that at a certain focal length it can manifest as a powerful laser beam and cause potential harm. But he’s solely looking for the ability to see through objects. His parents, Jonathan and Martha, have come to realize that their son is extraordinarily gifted, yet they’re still convinced that their Clark is just your typical, maybe a tad quirky, teenager.

Quite clever of Jack Cover, inventor of the taser, to coin the acronym for “Tom A. Swift’s Electric Gun” as the name for his stun gun, now widely used by law enforcement across the globe. Swift’s electric rifle, looking much like a conventional rifle, could fire blasts of electricity at different levels of range, intensity, and lethality, whereas Cover’s taser is meant to be fired at close range, and instances of death from a taser zap are quite rare. I daresay the conventional taser should not be used to down, say, a charging rhino, or a rogue moose.

Alex McCrae, Van Nuys, California

Anagrams


	This week’s theme: Back-formations Lase Ablute Insurrect Incent Tase	=	Set coherent beam Wash face Rebel, riot Stimulate Snake in stun-stick
			-Shyamal Mukherji, Mumbai, India (mukherjis hotmail.com)
=	Beam it; cut Wash the self Rebel, make intense noise A carrot & stick Stun	=	Use lasers I bathe in water Foment, rebel, attack Incites Stun, shock me
	-Dharam Khalsa, Burlington, North Carolina (dharamkk2 gmail.com)		-Julian Lofts, Auckland, New Zealand (jalofts xtra.co.nz)

Make your own anagrams and animations.

Limericks

lase

How awesome is Superman’s gaze!
The bad guys he knows how to lase.
If it’s true looks can kill,
Then his certainly will --
His stare is what sets them ablaze.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

It seems to be true nowadays,
When you go for a cataract lase --
Your vision is better.
Now clear is each letter.
You no longer see through a haze.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“About Jews, we must wake from our daze,
Or from space, all us Christians they’ll lase!”
Said Marjorie. “Search
High and low in a church;
To Lord Jesus no Rothschild prays!”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

ablute

“Excuse me, I have to ablute.”
And off to the bathroom I scoot.
Do I euphemize? Yes,
But I think you can guess
What’s happening if you’re astute.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

Come, kiddies, we’re gonna ablute!
To the bathroom! A real short commute!
It’s time for.a scrub
We’ll go rubbity-dub!
Gotta clean up that ol’ birthday suit!
-Bindy Bitterman, Chicago, Illinois (bindy eurekaevanston.com)

The grime on his neck was acute.
His mother said, “Fred, go ablute.
And while you’re in there,
You must wash your hair.
Don’t daddle, young man, I said scoot!”
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

By far the best place to ablute
Is a beach where you need no swimsuit.
Private parts, free at last,
Feel the water flow past;
You should try it sometime! It’s a hoot!
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

insurrect

How could anyone ever suspect,
That those Proud Boys would dare insurrect?
And for that they were praised
By a guy who was crazed.
And our good ship of state is now wrecked.
-Rudy Landesman, New York, New York (ydur36 hotmail.com)

His supporters who once insurrected
Were forgiven by Trump as expected.
The commander-in-chief
Thus provided relief,
And his henchmen he thereby protected.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

He called out Barack for sedition,
In typical Trumpy tradition.
A fact he’d neglect,
Only he’d insurrect,
And so to deflect was his mission.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“Joe Biden they didn’t elect;
The Capitol go insurrect!”
Shouted Donald. “Jan 6
And my friend Epstein’s chicks
Are so thrilling I’m finally erect!”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

incent

With Donald I’m most discontented;
His actions I’ve daily lamented.
I can’t stand this guy
And that explains why
To get out and vote I’m incented.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

“You sinners had better repent,”
Said the Lord, “or to hell you’ll be sent.
But have faith, avoid vice,
And attain paradise!
Good behavior I like to incent.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

tase

The protestor found himself tased.
“How shocking!” he said, quite amazed.
“They are setting their sights
On American rights --
Such crackdowns are making me crazed.”
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

The officer, set in his ways,
With high-tech had to learn a new phrase.
If a felon does run,
And you draw your gun,
You say to him, “Stop or I’ll tase!”
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“Anu Garg once ok’d lase and tase,”
Said James Kirk, “so with phasers I phase!
It’s illogical, Spock,
To my word choices mock
When I’m holding a gun that shoots rays.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

Puns

“You’re killing the goose that lase the golden eggs!” the stock market warned Donald when he announced his tariffs.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“Betcha can’t eat just one,” said the Lase potato chip pitchman.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“Can you play the Carpenters’ song Lase-y days and Sundays?” she asked the DJ.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“That’s not Moby, it has ablute-ail,” said a disappointed Captain Ahab.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

There was ablute-o fan club started by lovers of Popeye’s old nemesis.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“We insurrect-ors, curates, vicars, deacons, even bishops,” said the State Farm agent at the Anglican clergy convention.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“Why don’t we measure distances incent-imeters and kilometers like the rest of the world?” asked the American schoolchild.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

Incent-er field playing for the Yankees for 18 seasons was the great Mickey Mantle.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“I’m the real Anas-tase-ia,” claimed one pretender after another.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“What happens in Mar-a-Lago s-tase in Mar-a-Lago,” Donald assured Jeff Epstein.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

It was my shame, and now it is my boast, That I have loved you rather more than most. -Hilaire Belloc, writer and poet (27 Jul 1870-1953)

We need your help

Help us continue to spread the magic of words to readers everywhere

Donate

Subscriber Services
Awards | Stats | Links | Privacy Policy
Contribute | Advertise