Note: These appear as a regular column in the Denver publication Community News.
Apocryphal Bistro Enormity Epicenter Eponymous Feckless Folk Etymology Frock Goldbrick Henpecked |
Implode Inflammable Nicety Nitpicking Patrimony Restive Reticent Sanction, Cleave Toe the Line Vilify |
In ordinary use, this word means false, spurious, or doubtful, especially when referring to stories about the past that almost certainly never happened - for example, George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and then refusing to lie about it to his father. It comes from a Greek word meaning something that is hidden away. Originally, around 500 years ago, it referred to books of magic or other special, supposedly sacred knowledge that was to be kept hidden away from ordinary people. During the 16th century, European scholars were trying to decide which books belonged in the Bible - i.e., were to be considered canon - and which ones didn't. A lot of very strange books were proposed and rejected, especially books filled with magical stories - apocryphal books. During this process, apocryphal took on its modern meaning. The word also has a non-negative meaning, however. Certain books were felt to be religiously important but not truly canonical; collectively, these were called the Apocrypha. (Precisely what books those are has varied over time and varies from one religious group to another.)
Appeared in the July 2008 Community News
A type of restaurant, typically small and with a fairly simple menu and reasonable prices. My Russian teacher in college told us that the word comes from the Russian word bistro, meaning quickly, because Russian soldiers occupying Paris after the defeat of Napoleon used to yell that at the French waiters, who weren't as easily intimidated as Russian serfs. Bistros evolved to serve the Russians but then became popular with the French, who decided that this Russian idea of fast service and low prices wasn't such a bad one, after all. I've since read that linguists dispute this origin of the word, but it does make a nifty story.
Appeared in the April 2007 Community News
This is commonly misused to mean "really, really big." "He was amazed by the enormity of the mountains." That is incorrect. Enormity does come from the same Latin root as enormous, but the two words drifted apart long ago. Enormity came to mean something extraordinarily evil or immoral or shocking. So you can speak of the enormity of a crime (meaning its awfulness, not its magnitude). Or you could refer to a major social transgression, such as behaving very badly at a very formal event, as a social enormity, although that meaning is somewhat old fashioned. If you simply want to say that something is really, really big, then talk about its hugeness or its immensity or its enormousness, but not its enormity.
Appeared in the July 2007 Community News
Earthquakes don't happen at the surface of the Earth. They originate inside the Earth, often at very great depths, for instance where two of the immense slabs of rock called tectonic plates suddenly slide against each other, or one slips a bit further under another. The place on the Earth's surface directly above the deep point where an earthquake originates is called its epicenter, from the Greek word epi, which means upon. It's not necessarily the point on the surface where the effects of the earthquake are most strongly felt; it's just the point vertically above the real center of the quake. You'll often hear epicenter misused to mean a more intense sort of center. Years ago, I heard a preacher refer to Boulder as the epicenter of various kinds of behavior he disapproved of. That would have been clever if he'd been implying that the behavior was demonic and its real center was somewhere inside the Earth, but I'm sure he was just misusing the word and trying to impress upon us that Boulder was, like, you know, really, really the center of that bad stuff, man.
Appeared in the October 2008 Community News
An eponymous person is the person something is named after. For example, Hamlet is the eponymous protagonist of Shakespeare's play of the same name. Queen Victoria is the eponymous monarch who reigned during the Victorian age. Andrew Jackson is the eponymous American president whose political philosophy is known as Jacksonian Democracy. The practice of using a famous name to refer to something is ancient, but the word eponymous only dates to the middle of the 19th century. What's curious is that in recent times, the word has begun to be used to refer to the thing being named, instead of to the person. If opera singer John Hugevoice puts out a CD named John Hugevoice, you might hear the CD referred to as eponymous. But that's hugely wrong. It's the man who's eponymous, not the CD.
Appeared in the September 2008 Community News
An action is feckless if it is ineffective or worthless. An incompetent person could also be called feckless. It’s an old word in some Scottish and English dialects, and it comes from the word feck, which is a variant of the English word effect. So something is feckless if it has no effect. Those dialects also had the word feckful, which is the opposite of feckless, but feckful never caught on in mainstream English.
Appeared in the January 2008 Community News
Etymology is the history of the evolution of words over time. Look up a word in a dictionary, and, in addition to its definition, you'll find a brief version of its etymology - how it changed from a Latin or French or German or other word into the English word we now use. Folk etymology is a popular but mistaken idea about a word's etymology. It often seems to make sense - for example, the origin I gave for bistro a couple of months ago. Or it may be amusing - for example, the story that the sirloin steak got that name when an English king was so delighted with his steak that he knighted it, saying, "I dub thee Sir Loin." (Actually, sirloin comes from the French "sur," above, and "longe," loin, and used to be spelled surloin in English.) In some cases, the folk etymology catches on and the spelling or meaning of a word changes as a result. An example is shamefaced, which didn't start out referring to shame in one's face but rather as shamefast or shamfast, meaning "held fast in shame." Which is sort of how I feel about that bistro definition.
Appeared in the May 2007 Community News
Those of us who are old enough remember when frock was used to refer to a woman's dress. It's a much older word than that, going back at least to the 14th century. In those days, it could mean any item of clothing, for men or women, that was long, loose, and had full sleeves. Over the centuries, frock was applied to various types of clothing, from women's dresses to men's frock coats to various items of sailor's clothing. The clothing worn by a priest was called a frock. If a priest was thrown out of the priesthood, he had to give up his priestly clothes, and he was said to have been defrocked. Because the robes worn by judges are commonly believed to have evolved from the clothing of priests, a judge who is expelled from the bench is also said to be defrocked.
Appeared in the February 2008 Community News
Nowadays, this generally refers to a person who doesn't do his part, a loafer, someone who shirks his work. In earlier days, especially during the World Wars, it usually referred to a soldier who didn't do his part of the work. It can also refer to an investment that looks good but turns out to be worthless. Supposedly, the word originated in late 19th-century America, when people were fooled into buying bricks of gold that were only gold on the outside. In World War One, new recruits were sometimes promoted to lieutenant before they knew what they were doing, earning the scorn of their men and being called goldbricks because of the color and shape of their insignia. From there, the term became general, first for lazy soldiers and then for lazy civilians. Personally, I think this story smacks of folk etymology and we'd know the real origin of this word if the etymologists would just stop goldbricking.
Appeared in the August 2008 Community News
Chickens are nasty creatures. It's no wonder we consider them food instead of pets. They peck at each other, and I'm not talking about a love peck. Under some conditions, such as overcrowding, they may even peck each other to death. If one chicken is injured, the others may peck it to death. Under more normal conditions, they have a social hierarchy, called a pecking order, in which the top chicken pecks any other chicken it wants to, and each chicken pecks the chickens below it and is pecked by those above it. The ones at the bottom can be pecked by any of the others but can never peck back. A husband with a nagging wife can find himself at the bottom rung of his household pecking order -- cowed, dominated, unable to peck back. He is said to be henpecked.
Appeared in the July 2007 Community News
An object implodes when it collapses inwards. For example, to prevent damage to surrounding structures, buildings are sometimes demolished by timed explosions that destroy their internal supports, resulting in those spectacular implosions we all love to watch on television. Physics teachers sometimes demonstrate the force of air pressure by drawing the air out of a container (evacuating it) so that the container collapses in upon itself - it implodes. This is obviously the opposite of explode, in which something breaks apart and the parts fly outwards. Unfortunately, implode is now often used for any kind of collapse. People say that the Soviet Union imploded, when in fact it fragmented - broke apart into a number of separate countries, a common process when an empire dies. In this election season, when a politician withdraws from the presidential race, you'll hear that his campaign imploded, but of course it really just fizzled out, a very different kind of catastrophe.
Appeared in the March 2008 Community News
Something is inflammable if it tends to ignite at commonly encountered temperatures. Other English words that come from the same Latin root are inflammation, inflame, and inflammatory. At one time, trucks hauling materials that could catch fire easily had signs on them saying INFLAMMABLE. However, too many people apparently thought that flammable means "easily set on fire" and that those the loads on those truck were not easily set on fire. So now such trucks have signs saying FLAMMABLE. That's not really a word in English, but presumably, because of those signs, it soon will be, and inflammable will disappear.
Appeared in the January 2007 Community News
A nicety is a small, important detail that can make a large difference. The word is commonly misused to mean an appealing characteristic, but in fact a nicety may not be nice in that sense. For example, knowing which knife and fork to use for which food at a formal banquet is one of the niceties of formal etiquette, but most of us would agree that such rules are silly, not nice. The confusion arises because the word nice, on which nicety is based, has changed meaning over time. The Latin word it comes from meant foolish or silly, but in English, in different centuries nice has meant timid, then dainty, then precise, then pleasant. Some of the older meanings survive. A subtle difference between two things is still called a nice distinction.
Appeared in the October 2007 Community News
Or nit-picking, or nit picking, or picking nits.
Nits are lice eggs. In the old days, people used to get rid of lice infestations on their kids' heads by shaving off all the hair and then picking off the nits, so that there wouldn't be another generation of lice. (The parents had to pick the nits off because lice use their saliva to glue their eggs to your scalp. Lice don't find that disgusting.) So nitpicking is looking for tiny details.
Appeared in the March 2007 Community News
This can refer specifically to an inheritance, such as what's left to you in a will, or more generally to your heritage, such as the customs and laws handed down to you from previous generations. It derives from the Latin word pater, father, and originally meant what you inherited from your father. Thanks to the Romans, a lot of our words derive from pater. Some are obvious, such as paternal and patriarch. A less obvious one is patriot. The Romans referred to a man's country as his patria, his fatherland. Thus, a patriot is one who is devoted to his fatherland.
Appeared in the August 2007 Community News
A restive person is resistant to being controlled. It can also mean that the person is impatient or unhappy when an attempt is made to control or restrict him. The word comes from the French word rester - which used to have the meaning to resist. Restive is a nifty word, but it's easy to confuse with restless, which has nothing to do with being controlled and comes from an entirely different root - the old Germanic word rasta. One could lead to the other, though. For example, parents whose restive child refuses to go to bed will end up restless. Both will probably get whiney, which comes from another Old English word.
Appeared in the April 2008 Community News
To be reticent is to be reluctant to speak. It comes from the Latin word for being silent. It can refer to someone who is taciturn - that is, simply doesn't talk much. Or it can refer to someone who is reluctant to speak about something specific. For example, a politician who is being cagey about his plans to run for President might be reticent on that one subject but loquacious (very, very talkative) on all others. Many people misuse reticent when they mean reluctant. They might say, "He was reticent to act." That should be, "He was reluctant to act." Reticent can only refer to speech, not to action.
Appeared in the September 2007 Community News
These are interesting words that are famous because each has two diametrically opposite meanings.
Cleave, from an old Germanic word meaning to stick, can mean to stick to. The Bible refers to a man "cleaving to his wife." But another old Germanic word gives us the meaning of cutting apart - for example, a cloven hoof, meaning a hoof that is split in two.
Sanction, from the Latin sancire, to make holy, can refer to approval or disapproval. The world can sanction Iran's nuclear program by saying that it's peaceful and can go forward, or the world can disapprove of it and impose sanctions.
It's a good thing we English speakers are so logical, orderly, and rational. Otherwise, words like these would get us all confused - which comes from a Latin word meaning to mix together, which certainly describes these two words.
Appeared in the June 2008 Community News
To toe the line is to fall in line with a group and to follow its rules and customs. Linguists think it originated in the 19th Century, from athletes putting their toe to the line at the beginning of a race. In some old books, the phrase toe the mark is also used, with the same meaning as toe the line. Another suggested origin is from navies having sailors line up with their toes at the line formed by one of the deck planks. Tour guides at the House of Commons in London claim that the expression comes from two straight lines drawn on opposite sides of the room. They tell tourists that, back when gentlemen wore swords, when parliamentary discussions got too heated, the Speaker would shout, "Toe the line!" The Members would have to stand behind the two lines, which were deliberately painted more than a sword's length apart, so that the only blood drawn would be rhetorical. It's a great story, but the present House of Commons was built after World War Two, the older one having been damaged in the air raids, and old paintings of Parliamentary meetings from the days when men did wear swords don't show those lines, so that tale is probably untrue. You'll often see this phrase misspelled as tow the line, which is incorrect and makes no sense. Perhaps people think of barges being towed, but then the phrase would refer to a heavy burden, not to falling in line.
Appeared in the May 2008 Community News
To vilify someone is to say extremely nasty things about him. Those things may be true or false, just so long as they're really nasty. Its root is the Latin word vilis, meaning cheap. The English word vile comes from the same root. In both cases, the words acquired much stronger meanings in English. Vilify isn't commonly used in conversational English, but we can expect to see it in action a lot during the upcoming election season. The candidates will be vilifying each other. Vilification will fill the air.
Appeared in the November 2007 Community News