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Post by David on Sept 22, 2022 15:38:50 GMT
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Mistakes are part of the dues that one pays for a full life.
-Sophia Loren, actor and singer (b. 20 Sep 1934) |
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Post by David on Sept 22, 2022 15:39:57 GMT
allotriophagy PRONUNCIATION: (uh-lah-tree-AH-fuh-jee)
MEANING: noun: An abnormal desire to eat things not usually eaten, such as chalk or clay. Also known as pica.
ETYMOLOGY: From Greek allotrio- (foreign) -phagy (eating). Earliest documented use: 1845.
USAGE: “A taste for blood may very well be a form of allotriophagy.” Tatsuaki Ishiguro; Biogenesis; Kodansha; 2015. |
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Post by David on Sept 22, 2022 15:40:43 GMT
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too.
They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.
-Stephen King, novelist (b. 21 Sep 1947)
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Post by David on Sept 28, 2022 4:13:04 GMT
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
In a few weeks the world population is going to hit eight billion. In some countries they are worried about negative population growth. In others how to grow sustainably. Around here we have a much bigger worry.
What words would one use to call all those people?
Little by little the ocean is filled and a word at a time we fill our wordstock. This week we dipped our pail in the dictionary and brought out five colorful words to describe people.
What words do you use to call people in your life or people in public life? Share below or email us at words@wordsmith.org. Please include your location (city, state). Thank you.
timeserver PRONUNCIATION: (TYM-suhr-vuhr)
MEANING: noun: 1. One who makes little effort at work, such as while waiting to retire or find another job. 2. One who changes views to conform to prevailing circumstances. 3. A computer that transmits precise time information on a network.
ETYMOLOGY: From time, from Old English tima (time) + server, from Latin servire (to serve), from servus (slave). Earliest documented use: 1566.
NOTES: Imagine a time when a human did the job of giving correct time (what a computer does now). In this job, instead of being a conscientious worker, this person was lackadaisical. What would you call them? A timeserver in more ways than one. A timeserver timeserver.
USAGE: “He was a timeserver, awaiting the oncoming pension with all the anticipation of a hitchhiker at a truck stop.” Ian Rankin; A Question of Blood; Orion; 2003.
“You believe in nothing firm or fixed. You are a timeserver.” Alasdair Gray; Poor Things; Bloomsbury; 1992.
See more usage examples of timeserver in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.
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Post by David on Sept 28, 2022 4:13:48 GMT
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.
They don't mean to do harm but the harm does not interest them.
-T.S. Eliot, poet (26 Sep 1888-1965) |
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Post by David on Sept 28, 2022 4:15:03 GMT
sandboy PRONUNCIATION: (SAND-boi)
MEANING: noun: 1. A very happy person. 2. One who deals in sand.
ETYMOLOGY: From Old English sand + boy. Earliest documented use: 1796.
NOTES: The term is typically used in the construction “happy as a sandboy”. Who was this sandboy and why was he so happy? If you have ever seen a child building sandcastles or digging canals on a beach, it would seem obvious.
The reality is more grim. In Dickensian England, a child was more likely to be toiling in a factory or on the streets than playing on the beach: Consider these lines from a 1804 poem “The Rider and Sand-Boy: A Tale”
A poor shoeless urchin, half-starved and sun-tanned, Went by the inn-window crying, “Buy my fine sand!”
Originally, a sandboy was someone, not necessarily a child, who delivered sand to a pub, for example, where it could be used to soak up spilled drinks. Sandboys were paid for their labor in drinks. After a hard day’s labor, finally sitting down with a drink in hand and you can see why they’d be very happy. There’s also the term sand-happy, meaning very drunk.
Did you hear about the sandboy’s career change when he became an adult? He now deals in sleep.
USAGE: “And the carefree Costa Ricans, 12th in the contentment league, are not alone. Arabs and ex-pats in the United Arab Emirates (17th) are happy as sandboys. The UK rates only 18th, below Luxembourg (a made-up country), Belgium (ditto), Israel (all right if you’re not an Arab), the USA (ditto if not black), and Austria (the dull country).” Paul Routledge; Stuff Your “Happy” Nations. GB’s Best; The Daily Mirror (London, UK); Apr 6, 2012.
See more usage examples of sandboy in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. |
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Post by David on Sept 28, 2022 4:15:49 GMT
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
You desire to know the art of living, my friend?
It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.
-Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher and writer (27 Sep 1821-1881)
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Post by David on Sept 28, 2022 4:16:56 GMT
musicaster PRONUNCIATION: (MYOO-zi-kas-tuhr)
MEANING: noun: A mediocre musician.
ETYMOLOGY: From music + -aster (a pejorative suffix). Earliest documented use: 1838.
NOTES: The pejorative suffix -aster (meaning something that is inferior, small, or shallow) gives us some delightful words when it comes to name-calling. A reviewer brands a poet a poetaster (an inferior poet) and the poet might call the reviewer a criticaster. There are also the terms mathematicaster and philosophaster, but let’s remember that a grandmaster is not an inferior grandma.
USAGE: “It was no longer a sanctuary, but a howling place. ... indigent musicasters ... chanted unfortunately.” J.K. Huysmans; En Route; Dutton; 1895.
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Post by David on Sept 28, 2022 4:17:50 GMT
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It is by character and not by intellect the world is won.
-Evelyn Beatrice Hall, biographer (28 Sep 1868-1956)
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Post by David on Nov 1, 2022 23:57:35 GMT
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg
If you had to choose, would you rather be shirty or blousy? I’m not talking about your clothing preferences for your upper body.
Whichever way you go, it’s not looking good. To be shirty is to be bad-tempered or irritable and to be blousy is to be disheveled. Though, to be clear, the word blousy has nothing to do with the blouse (it’s from a dialectal word blowze, meaning wench).
The English language has many idioms involving clothing. To keep one’s shirt on is to refrain from losing one’s temper, while to lose one’s shirt is to lose everything. Language is not always logical.
How about pants? To wear the pants in a relationship is to be the dominant partner. To catch someone with their pants down is to catch them in an embarrassing or unprepared state.
This week we’ll see five terms related to pants and shirts. Whatever you choose to wear (or not wear), keep your mask on.
Fancy-Pants
MEANING:
noun: Someone attractive, silly, or pretentious.
adjective: Snobbish; pretentious; newfangled; overly complicated.
ETYMOLOGY:
From fancy, a contraction of fantasy, from Old French fantasie, from Latin phantasia, from Greek phantasia (imagination, appearance), from phantazein (to make visible) + pants, short for pantaloons, plural of pantaloon. St. Pantaleone/Pantalone was a popular saint in Venice. As a result, it was also a common name among the Venetians. As a result, a comic character in the Italian commedia dell’arte was named Pantalone. The leggings this character wore became known as pantalone (plural pantaloni). And that became pantaloons in English. Earliest documented use: 1870. A related word is smarty-pants.
USAGE:
“Let’s concentrate on the ones that make it, not waste space on some damn fancy-pants New Yorker who wants to make a big splash by dragging her old ideas to a new location.”
Lucy Burdette; Death with All the Trimmings; Obsidian; 2014.
“Well, it’s not as accurate as DNA testing, but hey, it’s what they used to use before all these fancy-pants tests.”
B.J. Daniels; A Woman with a Mystery; Harlequin; 2001.
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Post by David on Nov 1, 2022 23:58:34 GMT
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Good books don't give up all their secrets at once.
-Stephen King, novelist (b. 21 Sep 1947) |
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Post by David on Nov 2, 2022 0:02:38 GMT
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
In Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Portia’s suitors get to pick one of three caskets: gold, silver, and lead. Each casket has a scroll that informs the suitor if he has won her hand. A prince picks a gold casket and when he opens it, a scroll inside it says:
All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold (Many have sold their lives/souls)
But my outside to behold. (To see my shiny surface)
Gilded tombs do worms enfold. (But gilded tombs actually hold worms)
All that glitters is not gold. Shakespeare said it 500 years ago, but many still haven’t learned it. Take elections, for example, when voters sometimes go for a gilded casket, instead of a solid, not-so-flashy candidate.
Of course, writers before and after Shakespeare have been warning us of fool’s gold and even gold:
“Although gold dust is precious, when it gets in your eyes, it obstructs your vision.”
-Hsi-Tang
“How can you sing if your mouth be filled with food? How shall your hand be raised in blessing if it is filled with gold?”
-Kahlil Gibran
“Art is like baby shoes. When you coat them with gold, they can no longer be worn.”
-John Updike
Also see Midas touch, goldbrick, and more.
This week we’ll see five words derived from gold and other metals. Last week we told you how to start a rock band and this week we might even introduce you to heavy metal.
golden calf
PRONUNCIATION:
(GOL-den KAHF)
MEANING:
noun: Someone or something unworthy that is excessively esteemed.
ETYMOLOGY:
In the biblical story Moses came down from Mount Sinai carrying stone tablets with the Ten Commandments only to find Israelites worshiping a calf made of gold. Earliest documented use: 1575.
USAGE “[Conservatives] are about to elect a golden calf as their next leader and, by default, their prime minister.”
George Pitcher; It’s Time for Christians to Speak Out Against Boris Johnson; The Guardian (London, UK); Jun 18, 2019.
See more usage examples of golden calf in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. |
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Post by David on Dec 12, 2022 11:17:41 GMT
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Just as temperatures were dipping below freezing (28° F, -2° C), here in the Seattle area, my furnace quit. I looked in Yelp. Called three HVAC companies with five-star reviews. One had appointments available two weeks later, the second the next month, and the third was not taking new customers.
Well, I figured, the next few weeks I’ll just stay under covers with a bunch of books and catch up on my reading. Will keep the body and the soul warm at the same time.
Then I lowered my standards. Called a company that had only four-star reviews. They sent a technician the same afternoon. The guy knew his stuff. He replaced a capacitor and the furnace cranked up again. Warmth spread everywhere. All was well.
I handed him a credit card, he gave me a receipt and headed out the door. As he was leaving, he looked at the bookshelves and said, “You have a lot of books.”
I smiled. Too many or not enough? I thought to myself. Then I said, “Well, I’m a writer and if you are a writer chances are you are a reader too.”
I wanted to engage him. Ask him the last book he read. His favorite book. Fiction or nonfiction. And more. Then I realized he was on a mission. People were cold and they’re waiting for him. I thanked him for fixing the furnace.
Then I went back on Yelp and gave him a five-star review.
I hope you are staying warm, or cool, depending on what part of the Earth you are on. We recommend books either way, to keep warm or to help cool down. This week we’ll feature five words related to books and those who write them, sell them, and read them (or not read them).
bibliophagist
PRONUNCIATION: (bib-lee-AH-fuh-jist)
MEANING: noun: One who loves to read books; a bookworm.
ETYMOLOGY: From Greek biblio- (book) + -phage (one who eats). Earliest documented use: 1881. Another form of the word is bibliophage.
USAGE: “Birkerts has always been a bibliophagist, from his early days roaming in The Jungle Book and adventuring with the Hardy Boys and James Bond, and he recognizes one of his life’s great fortunes -- to be able to read and write both for pleasure and profit.” Books for the Ages; Kirkus Reviews (Austin, Texas); Nov 15, 2006.
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Post by David on Dec 12, 2022 11:18:49 GMT
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.
-Gustave Flaubert, novelist (12 Dec 1821-1880) |
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