Word of the Day: Longanimity & Longanimous

Longanimity (n) - good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence; calmness in the face of suffering and adversity; forbearance.

longanimous (adj.) - showing patient and unruffled self-control and restraint under adversity; slow to retaliate or express resentment

How many of these other long- prefix words do you know?

long-wooled, longanberry, longar palm, Longbeak, longbeard, Longbenton, longboat, longbow, long-tongued, long-waisted, long-staple, longcloth, longe, longeron, longheaded, longhorn, longhouse, longicorn, longilateral, longiloquence,longimetry, longinquity, longipalp, longipennate, longipennes, longiroster, longirostral, longirostres, longueuil, longueur, longulite, longus

Word of the Day: Skylarking

Today's "word of the day" is a fanciful nautical term from Moby Dick:

Skylarking: 1. Originally described the antics of young Navymen who climbed and slid down the backstays for fun. Since the ancient word "lac" means "to play" and the games started high in the masts, the term was originally "skylacing." Later, corruption of the word changed it to "skylarking"; 2. Navy-speak for goofing off.

Other nautical terms used in Moby Dick:

aft: towards the stern (rear) of the vessel

ballast: any dense heavy material, such as lead or iron pigs, used to stabilize a vessel, esp one that is not carrying cargo

boom: a spar attached to the foot of a fore-and-aft sail

bulkhead: an upright wall within the hull of a ship. Particularly a watertight, load-bearing wall

bulwarks: the extension of the ship's side above the level of the weather deck.

cleat: a stationary device used to secure a rope aboard a vessel

gaff: a hook on a long pole to haul fish in

gunwale: upper edge of the hull

halyard: a line or rope used to raise the head of any sail

hawser: large rope used for mooring or towing a vessel

helmsman: a person who steers a ship

hull: the shell and framework of the basic flotation-oriented part of a ship

jib: a triangular staysail at the front of a ship

league: unit of length, normally equal to three nautical miles

luff: the forward edge of a sail

reef: to temporarily reduce the area of a sail exposed to the wind, usually to guard against adverse effects of strong wind or to slow the vessel

scuttle: a small opening, or lid thereof, in a ship's deck or hull

spar: A wooden or iron pole used to support various pieces of rigging and sails

stern: the rear part of a ship, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost

tiller: a lever used for steering, attached to the top of the rudder post. Used mainly on smaller vessels, such as dinghies and rowing boats

yaw: A vessel's rotational motion about the vertical axis, causing the fore and aft ends to swing from side to side repetitively

Word of the Day: Dun

I noticed that half the class not only missed #37 on the vocabulary test, but those who missed it insisted that the answer was not in the list of choices from which to choose. The word is "dun" and is used in "Bartleby the Scrivener" in the following sentence, when the narrator is commenting upon the mysterious gents who pay visits to Nippers:

I have good reason to believe, however, that one individual who called upon him at my chambers, and who, with a grand air, he insisted was his client, was no other than a dun, and the alleged title-deed, a bill.

Many of you wrote in the little space for the answer: "dullish brown." Now, I ask you: Does "dullish brown" fit in for "dun" in the above sentence? Did Nippers have mysterious dull-brown men stalking him? Uh, no.

So what is "dun"?

Dun: (v) to importune a debtor for payment; to make repeated and insistent demands, especially concerning an overdue payment; (n) one who duns.

So, in the above statement about Nippers, the reader should understand that the man who visited the office was a creditor coming to collect a payment for a debt.

Yes, dun does has another meaning. It is a kind of horse of a dullish brown color. But again, Nippers was visited by a creditor, not a horse.

Word of the day: Puddinghead

Pudding head (puddenhead, pudd'nhead): a person who is not very bright; dolt, dullard, pillock, poor fish, stupe, berk, blockhead, bonehead, dunce, dunderhead, hammerhead, knucklehead, loggerhead, lunkhead, muttonhead, numskull, nitwit

Many historians believe that the term “pudding head” came from the American colonial belief that if children learning to walk fell frequently and hit their heads, they could scramble their brains, making them like the consistency of pudding, thereby becoming “pudding heads.” In Colonial Williamsburg’s Children’s glossary, it adds that toddlers were often and lovingly referred to as “little pudding heads."

Some children, in fact wore pudding caps to prevent them from becoming pudding heads!

pudding cap in Australia

A pudding cap is a stuffed roll placed on a toddler’s head and tied in the back. It was worn for the same reason children today wear helmets — to protect the brain from damage in a fall.

In several Flemish and Dutch paintings of the early 17th century toddlers of the 1620-30’s are depicted wearing their pudding caps. A drawing by Pieter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) shows a toddler wearing one that is a sausage shaped padded roll of fabric, tied at the back of the head. There is one narrow ribbon stretched across the top of the head (from side to side, not front to back) and continues as ties under the chin. There is a linen cap under the pudding cap.

There's even a movement in Australia to require all children in day care to wear a pudding cap. Don't believe it? Read here.

You may have noted the irony in Pudd'nhead Wilson: though our eponymous character is given the nickname of a dunce because of his initial "half-dog" comment (and his subsequent obsession with collecting fingerprints), he turns out to be among the smarter folk of his day, at least when it comes time to defending the innocent.

Word of the Year: Unfriend

Unfriend - the act of removing someone as a friend from social networking site Facebook - has been named word of the year. It topped a list heavy with tech-related terms in the New Oxford American Dictionary's Word of the Year list.

The verb, used across several social networking sites, has been defined by the dictionary as: "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook."

Christine Lindberg, a language researcher for Oxford's US dictionary, said: "In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year."

There had been some debate across blogs and Twitter, about whether 'defriend' was the more commonly used term, especially on Facebook. However, Oxford spokesman Christian Purdy said researchers found 'unfriend' was more common.

Other tech-related words which made the short list were: 'hashtag', the way Twitter users tag their material; and 'intexticated', being distracted by texting while driving.

Word of the Day: Slubberdegullion

Gargantua

Slubberdegullion: A filthy, slobbering person

We all hope, I'm sure, that we'll never need to use such an infelicitous epithet as this in real life. But for those of you who might continue on with creative works, you may find that it comes in handy, like Sir Thomas Urquhart who used slubberdegullion and its many invective synonyms in his translation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel (1653):

The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to their request; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously, called them prattling gabblers, lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy rascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, drowsy loiterers, slapsauce fellows, slabberdegullion druggels, lubberly louts, cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets, drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes, ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, and other suchlike defamatory epithets; saying further, that it was not for them to eat of these dainty cakes, but might very well content themselves with the coarse unranged bread, or to eat of the great brown household loaf.

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Word of the Day: Somnambulism

Somnambulism: a condition that is characterized by walking while asleep or in a hypnotic trance; also known as: hypnobatia, noctambulism

If you're looking for an interesting and curious story to read in preparation for All Hallow's Eve, you might want to read "Somnambulism: A Fragment" by Charles Brockton Brown (1771-1810), a pioneer of the American novel.

Here's an excerpt from a review (explication) of the story:

Benjamin Franklin Made Me Do It!
In "Somnambulism: A Fragment" Charles Brockden Brown uses the gothic style to convey an unharnessed terror in a single vision: Young Althorpe, while sleepwalking in a forest, murders the woman he desires. But the story is more than a ludicrous curiosity, to read it thus would miss its elegantly stated manifesto against the dangers of Benjamin Franklin's megalomaniacal ideals of industry and pragmatism. The story exploits Franklin's example of the studious, dutiful, useful young man and turns him into a monster. Browns' mode of style is strategic, subversive, infiltrating the reader and earnest student of the eighteenth century by mixing the ordinary with the grotesque, the intelligent with the very wrong.

"Somnambulism scares because it is surrounded with the normal, because its central character, its killer, is not the usual deviant monster, but a sharp, educated young man, not very far removed from the ideals of Franklin himself. As a cue of his hunger to learn, his desire for accurate information, Althorpe uses an elevated language (example: "The family retired to sleep. My mind had been too powerfully excited to permit me to imitate their example.")...

read entire article...

Book Review: The Wonder of Wiffling

Did you know that one who makes umbrellas is called a mushfaker? If not, read on. Here's a review from the Irish Independent of The Wonder of Wiffling:

...a new book offers rich pastures for even those with the gift of the gab. In its pages, office underlings can find fresh terms of abuse for their overlords, disgruntled husbands will discover new words to describe the mother-in-law and the wag in the pub need never be silenced again.

There are gems such as a seagull used to describe the kind of manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything and then leaves, or a shubie, one of those sorry souls who buys all the latest surfing gear but doesn't surf.

The Wonder of Whiffling, which is published today, takes readers on a delightful tour of the extraordinary words in the English language, from ancient and now disused words to trailer park slang. Its chapters include rarely used terms such crambazzled -- to be aged prematurely through drink -- to words we have sadly lost from everyday use such as mushfaker -- someone who repairs umbrellas -- and stadge -- the date of issue stamped on a coin....

The book helps to keep wordsmiths up-to-date with the latest editions to the language, such as ham, used to describe legitimate email, as opposed to spam and popular textonyms, the name given to predictive text software coming up with the wrong word, such as 'book for cool', 'carnage for barmaid' and 'poisoned for Smirnoff'.

Read on...

Pertinacious Pedagogue's Capacious Vocabulary Gambol

Yes, this is a vocabulary challenge!

The prize: Five extra-credit points on Tuesday's vocabulary test.

The object: To use as many of this week's Washington Irving vocabulary words in a single sentence. Semicolons not allowed!

The rules:
1. You may use any words in the English language in order to compose your sentence, but only the Irving vocabulary words are counted for the purpose of the competition.

2. The sentence, however silly it may be, must be grammatically sound.

3. The sentence has to make some sense: It cannot be complete nonsense. Silly and likely never to be used in the normal course of human conversation is okay. Here is an example of an "unlikely" and "silly" (and grammatically correct) sentence that avoids being classified as complete nonsense:

"Hold the bilious termagant's arms akimbo, urchin, or the shad virago will addle my galligaskins."

That sentence counts for 8 vocabulary words. I'm sure you can beat that.

4. Sentences should be written here in the comments box for this post!

5. Contest entries should be posted BEFORE Monday, September 28, at 9:00 p.m. Enter as many sentences as you like.

Word of the Day: Hardscrabble

Hardscrabble: (adj.) Earning a bare subsistence, as on the land; yielding little by great labor, marginal: the sharecropper's hardscrabble life; meager, meagerly, meagre, scrimpy, stingy

Hardscrabble is formed from hard (from Old English heard) + scrabble (from Dutch schrabbelen, "to scratch").

I remember it being green and humid, nothing like this hardscrabble land.

-- Elmore Leonard, Cuba Libre

Most inhabitants scratched out a living from hardscrabble farming, yet these newcomers were hopeful and enterprising.

-- Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

A scenic town fed by rich snowbirds who reside a few months a year in gated communities, High Balsam also is home to the hardscrabble residents who frequent Margaret's food-pantry giveaways.

-- Deirdre Donahue, "A sweet 'Evensong", USA Today, December 2, 1999

Related adjectives: amain, elaborate, energetic, epitonic, faffle, hard at work, hardscrabble, industrious, insudate, laboriferous, laboring, laborious, laboristic, moliminous, on the stretch, operose, painstaking, palestric, panurgic, strained, strenuous, toilsome, trusatile, uphill, wearisome, womanfully

Word of the Day: Agitprop

Soviet agitprop poster circa World War II

agitprop [AH-jit-prop] n. -- a political message, particularly one that is declared in drama, literature, music or other art forms. The creator may intend the agitprop to educate and inform, but the audience may feel an attempt is being made to indoctrinate them. As a result, this word typically has a negative connotation.

The word agitprop is Russian, an abbreviation of the conjunction of agitatsiya (agitation) and propaganda. These strategies for revolution were first twinned by Marxist Georgy Plekhanov. His ideas were later elaborated upon by Lenin in the 1902 pamphlet "What is to be Done?" These ideas prompted Communist leadership in the early 1920's to form an Agitation and Propaganda Section of the Central Committee. The shorthand term for this department was the agitprop bureau. Even today, every unit of a Communist party will have an agitprop section.

Word of the Day: hoi polloi

hoi polloi [ HOY puh-LOY] -- n. pl -- commoners, great unwashed, minions, multitude, mob, plebeians, proletariat, rabble, rank and file, riffraff, the common people, the herd, the many, the masses, the plebs, the peons, the working class

The expression is most often used as a term of contempt describing the common people, the rabble. Example: "The rich ate caviar and drank champagne, but it was bread and water for us hoi polloi."

Word of the Day: Facetious

facetious: (adj.) not meant to be taken seriously or literally; lacking serious intent; concerned with something nonessential, amusing, or frivolous; tongue-in-cheek, blithe, capering, droll, flippant, frivolous, indecorous, ironic, irreverent, jesting, jocose, jocular, pulling one's leg, punning, putting one on, salty, sarcastic, satirical, smart, sportive, sprightly, waggish, whimsical, wisecracking, witty, wry

Origin: 1592, from the French facétieux, from facétie "a joke," from Latin facetia, from "witty, elegant," of unknown origin, perhaps related to facetusfacis "torch." It implies a desire to be amusing, often intrusive or ill-timed.

Jacky was being facetious when she said, "Yes, let's all go to Iraq for my birthday party!"

Tidbit: Along with abstemious, facetious is one of two words in the English language containing all five vowels in alphabetical order.

Word of the Day: Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist [ ZYTE-gaist] -- (n) the popular outlook -- intellectually, morally, and culturally - in a particular period or generation. Scholars maintain that each era has a unique spirit distinguishing it from other periods. The pervasive cultural climate is described as the Zeitgeist. It is most often reflected in the music, movies, literature, and philosophy of the time.

First introduced in the English language in the late 19th century, Zeitgeist is another loaner from German. Literally translated Zeitgeist means "spirit of the times" since zeit is time and geist is spirit.

Word of the Day: Schadenfreude

schadenfreude [ SHAW-den-froy-duh] -- (n.) taking malicious satisfaction in another person's troubles or suffering; epikhairekakia

The Book of Proverbs mentions an emotion similar to that now described by the word schadenfreude: "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him" (Proverbs 24:17-18).

Sometimes capitalized, schadenfreude is a compound of two German words: schaden (damage) and freude (joy). Although this word was in use in the German language early in the 19th century, its first appearance in English is thought to be 1895.

As I noted today, German words can get to be very long, since many of them are compound nouns. We see this, for example, in "The Spectre Bride" with Starkenfaust (strong fist) and Katzenellenbogen (cat elbow). Ah, but these are just puny words, compared to some German compound nouns, such as:

Parkzeitüberschreitung:
expired parking meter

Berufungsgerichtsverfahren:
court of appeal procedure

Lehrgangsteilnahmebestaetigung:
training course participation confirmation

Supermarkteinkaufstütenbeschriftung:
Supermarket purchase bag inscription

Word of the Day: Salmagundi

You'll note on the background information you were given about Washington Irving that he and his brother wrote an anthology of stories called Salmagundi. So, I imagine everyone is wondering about this word. Doubtless, many of you have already looked up the word on your own, but for those who have not:

Salmagundi: (n) -- A mixture or miscellany; potpourri, smorgasbord, witch's brew, farrago, gallimaufry, hodgepodge, hotchpotch, melange, mingle-mangle, mishmash, oddments, odds and ends, omnium-gatherum, ragbag

According to World Wide Word's Michael Quinion: Though this is now used mainly in a figurative sense, it was first attached in English to a dish of chopped meat, anchovies and eggs, garnished with onions, lemon juice, oil and other condiments. A right dog’s breakfast, in fact.

N.B. Consider the reasons that Washington Irving may have written under the pseudonyms "Jonathan Oldstyle" and "Geoffrey Crayon."

Word of the Day: Twitterpated

Today's "word of the day" comes courtesy of Soulofdiscretion:

Twitterpated: (adj.) -- characterized by feelings of excitement, anticipation, high hopes, recent memories of interludes, giddiness, and physical overstimulation which occur simultaneously when experiencing a new love. These feelings take over without warning, usually at odd times (such as at a check-out line), with or without the partner present, and make it difficult to concentrate on anything but romance. They interfere with work and safe driving, but should be experienced at least once in every person's lifetime.

By the way, seeing the handle "soulofdiscretion" reminds me to remind you that there's a difference between the two homophones discrete and discreet:

"Discrete" means separate, distinct, or individual.

Example: They worked as discrete individuals with their own agendas rather than as a team.

"Discreet," on the other hand, means to be prudent or show good judgment, to have, well, discretion.

Example: I’m too discreet to mention which of my colleagues got these two words mixed up.

Nine times out of ten, students and adults will misspell discreet, when used in the sense of "discretion." Don't let this happen to you!

Word of the Day: jiggery-pokery

jiggery-pokery: (n.) -- deceitful or dishonest manipulation; underhand scheming or behavior; hocus-pocus, humbug, subterfuge, hanky panky, skullduggery, slickness, trickery.

Interesting tidbit: jiggery-pokery is a classic example of what’s called a double dactyl, a dactyl being a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables; it’s named after the Greek word for finger, whose joints represent the three syllables. Other examples of double dactyls are higgledy-piggledy and idiosyncrasy.

Word of the Day: Ripsnorter

Speaking of American folklore, here's a word-of-the-day attributed to folk hero Davy Crockett:

Ripsnorter: (n.) -- a person or thing that is strikingly active, forceful, exciting, wild, rambunctious, or a striking example of its kind.

“Of all the ripsnorters I ever tutched upon, thar never war one that could pull her boat alongside of Grace Peabody.” -- attributed to Davy Crockett, Farmer's Almanac, 1840

Davy was also credited with coining nonsense phrases and words supposedly used by "mountain men" -- e.g., circumflustercated and scentoriferous.

N.B. Anyone who can sing The Ballad of Davy Crockett in full -- in front of the class -- will be granted 50 extra credit points for the quarter. "Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee..."

Words of the Day: Clichés vs. Euphemisms

Someone recently asked me if cliché is just another word for euphemism. The simple answer is no. They both involve words, but it is there that their similarities stop.

Cliché is a saying, expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect. More simply put, a cliché is something that is trite or hackneyed -- lacking power to evoke interest due to overuse or repetition. Cliché is something you want to avoid in your writing. If someone says he thinks your writing is cliché, it's not a compliment.

Examples of phrases or sayings that are clichés:

a face only a mother could love
a frog in my throat
a picture's worth a thousand words
a rose is a rose is a rose
like a bat out of hell
black as coal
black as night
black as pitch
black as sin
black as soot
black as tar
dead as a doorknob
dead as a doornail
don't push your luck
don't put all your eggs in one basket
don't put the horse before the cart
don't rock the boat

If you would like to read 1600 more of the most common clichés, see Steve's list.

Now, euphemism is entirely different. A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt. Some examples:

"ethnic cleansing" for "genocide
"termination of pregnancy" for "abortion"
"kick the bucket" for "die"
"senior citizen" for "old person"

Someone was nice enough to put together the top 1500 euphemisms for "being stupid."

Doublespeak (or doubletalk) is similar to a euphemism. a phrase in doublespeak is, like a euphemism, a roundabout way of saying something, but usually with the intent to confuse or deceive. Examples?

"I reminded [the soldiers] and their families that the war in Iraq is really about peace." -- George W. Bush, April 2003

The term "black-bag operations" was used by the FBI to describe illegal break-ins in the 1970s.