A.Word.A.Day --vardy

A.Word.A.Day

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Jan 11, 2021

This week’s theme
Words with variant spellings

This week’s words
vardy
juberous
scrooch
meech
snoot

Previous week’s theme
Usage examples that are food for thought

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

How would you feel if the word though were shortened to tho? Your reaction might range anywhere on the spectrum, from “Blasphemy!” to “Why not?” Based on your response I might predict your age, political persuasion, and maybe even the number of dictionaries in your home.

If that respelling/shortening sounds too far-fetched, how about thru for through? You may still not be convinced that a shortening or alteration of a word is a good idea.

All I can say is that this shortening (or respelling of a word based on its pronunciation) happens more often than you might think. Chances are you already use such words without a second thought. Examples: ornery (from ordinary), raiment (from arrayment), and donut (from doughnut).

Enuf talk. This week we’ve brot you five words that are derived from the respelling of other words.

vardy

PRONUNCIATION:

(VAHR-dee)

MEANING:

noun: Judgment or opinion.

ETYMOLOGY:

A dialect variant of verdit, from verdict, from Anglo-Norman ver (true) + dit (statement, speech), from dicere (to say). Ultimately from the Indo-European root deik- (to show, to pronounce solemnly), which also gave us judge, verdict, vendetta, revenge, indicate, dictate, paradigm, interdict, fatidic, diktat, retrodiction, and interdigitate. Earliest documented use: 1738.

USAGE:

“O! miss, you must give your vardi too!”
Jonathan Swift; A complete collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, According to the Most Polite Mode and Method Now Used at Court, and in the Best Companies of England; B. Motte & C. Bathurst; 1738.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

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 (11 Jan 1842-1910)

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