Recent Blog Posts
First week of June and the words still flow.
post a comment | posted Jun 6
PORTMANTEAU - 1: a large suitcase 2: a word or morpheme whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more forms.
* In Lewis Carroll's THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, Alice asks Humpty Dumpty to explain words from the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky" and is told that "slithy" is "like a portmanteau-there are two meanings packed up into one word. Although, "slithy" hasn't caught on (it's made up of "slimy" and "lithe," according to Humpty Dumpty), another portmanteau invented by Carroll has in fact found a place in the language: "chortle" (supposedly a blend of "chuckle" and "snort"). English includes other portmanteaus, such as "brunch" ("breakfast" and "lunch") and "dramedy" ("drama" and "comedy"). Following Carroll's lead, English-speakers have come to call these fairly common words by the not-so-common name for a type of traveling bag with two compartments.
Word Histories
post a comment | posted May 23
Language is so rich with history...
One, two, buckle my shoe
Three, four, knock at the door
Five, six, pick up sticks
Seven, eight, lay them straight
Nine, ten, a big fat hen
Eleven, twelve, dig and delve
Thirteen, fourteen, maids a'courting
Fifteen, sixteen, maids in the kitchen
Seventeen, eighteen, maids a'waiting
Nineteen, twenty, my platter's empty ...
Words for the Last Day of Taurus.
post a comment | posted May 20
My favorite for this group:
Umbrage - 1: shade, shadow 2: shady branches ; foliage 3a: an indistinct indication : vague suggestion b: a reason for doubt 4: resentment, offense.
["Deare amber lockes gave umbrage to her face." This line from a poem by William Drummond, published in 1616, uses "umbrage" in its original sense of "shade, shadow," a meaning shared by its Latin source, "umbra." ("Umbella," the diminutive form of "umbra," means "a sunshade or parasol" in Latin and is an ancestor of our word "umbrella.") Beginning in the early 17th century, "umbrage" was also used to mean "a shadowy suggestion or semblance of something," as when Shakespeare, in _Hamlet_, wrote, "His semblable is his mirror, and who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more." In the same century, "umbrage" took on the pejorative senses "a shadow of suspicion cast on someone" and "displeasure, offense"; the latter is commonly used today in the phrases "give umbrage" or "take umbrage."]
Not-So-Recent Blog Posts
May - I present with you some new words!
post a comment | posted May 9
Podunk - a small, unimportant, and isolated town. ("I hear you ask, "Where in the world is Podunk?'" A correspondent asked editors of the Buffalo, New York, Daily National Pilot, in 1846, then answered himself: "It is in the world, sir, and more than that, is a little world of itself." Podunk is not just imaginary. Towns in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Iowa are named Podunk. Origins of this word are uncertain, but it appears that it comes from an Algonquian word, either the name of a tribe that inhabited an area near Hartford, CT, or a more generic term meaning "swampy place." Really a fascinating word. I have heard it and used it, but never knew it's history.)
April Day 30 Words
post a comment | posted Apr 30
Paparazzo - a freelance photographer who aggresively pursues celebrities for the purpose of taking candid photographs. (We are all familiar with the plural paparazzi. What's interesting here is that the word first appeared in Federico Fellini's 1959 film La Dolce Vita. Fellini says the name was taken from an opera liberetto. Paparazzo was also the name of a hotelkeeper in George Gissing's 1901 travel memoir By the Ionian Sea. Some have noted that in the dialect of Ennio Flaiano, who cowrote the script for La Dolve Vita with Fellini, paparazzo refers to a kind of clam that frequently snaps its shell open and shut, which may have reminded Flaiano of the action of a camera shutter.
Mid Month Vocab
post a comment | posted Apr 17
Morass - 1: marsh, swamp 2: something that traps, confuses or impedes
Colligate - 1: to bind, unite, or group together 2: to subsume (isolated facts) under a general concept
Repugn - to contend against : oppose
Fugacious - lasting a short ...
April Showers Bring May Flowers.
1 comment | posted Apr 4
Ongoing vocabulary refresher.
Top of my list:
Bumbershoot - umbrella. (A perfect word for April Showers!)
Vernal Equinox Vocab
post a comment | posted Mar 20
"He had been a macaroni of the eighteenth century, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars." Oscar Wilde, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY