Word of the day

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Richard Frost
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Word of the day

Post by Richard Frost » Thu Aug 06 2020 8:13am

THURSDAY, AUGUST 06, 2020 - https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/

faux pas

[ foh pah ]
noun

a slip or blunder in etiquette, manners, or conduct; an embarrassing social blunder or indiscretion.

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF FAUX PAS?
Faux pas, from French and still unnaturalized in English, literally means “false step,” nowadays referring to a breach in good manners, a social blunder. French faux comes from Old French fals, faus, from Latin falsus, past participle of the verb fallere “to deceive, mislead.” The French noun pas, source of English pace, comes from the Latin noun passus “a step, stride, pace,” a derivative of the verb pandere “to spread (legs, arms, wings), spread out, open.” Faux pas entered English in the second half of the 17th century.

HOW IS FAUX PAS USED?
I sat for almost half an hour as they finished preparing, acutely aware of my social faux pas. - TRESSIE MCMILLAN COTTOM, "THE PROBLEM WITH OBAMA'S FAITH IN WHITE AMERICA," THE ATLANTIC, DECEMBER 13, 2016

I accidentally exposed to them my entire desktop, which felt like a big faux pas despite the fact that there was nothing embarrassing on there at that moment. - JEANNIE SUK GERSEN, "FINDING REAL LIFE IN TEACHING LAW ONLINE," THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 23, 2020
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Re: Word of the day

Post by macliam » Thu Aug 06 2020 10:19am

The use of Foreign expressions in the lingua franca is hardly avant-garde, but, when used de rigeur and ad nauseam, this bete noir of the cognoscenti may be a faux pas or a soupçon passé. The piece de résistance of the aficionado, is to use them as a tour de force, with élan and a certain joie de vivre - but there can be no carte-blanche for their overuse in a smorgasbord of expressions by those not au fait with the rules and without the savoir-faire to avoid a debacle.
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Re: Word of the day

Post by BeautifulSunshine » Thu Aug 06 2020 4:12pm

macliam wrote:
Thu Aug 06 2020 10:19am
The use of Foreign expressions in the lingua franca is hardly avant-garde, but, when used de rigeur and ad nauseam, this bete noir of the cognoscenti may be a faux pas or a soupçon passé. The piece de résistance of the aficionado, is to use them as a tour de force, with élan and a certain joie de vivre - but there can be no carte-blanche for their overuse in a smorgasbord of expressions by those not au fait with the rules and without the savoir-faire to avoid a debacle.
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Word of the day

Post by Richard Frost » Fri Aug 07 2020 9:34am

FRIDAY, AUGUST 07, 2020 - https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/

axiomatic

[ ak-see-uh-mat-ik ]
adjective

self-evident; obvious.

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF AXIOMATIC?
Axiomatic ultimately comes from the Greek adjective axiōmatikós, which originally meant “dignified (of persons or literary style); worthy, high in rank”; as a technical term, axiōmatikós in Stoic philosophy meant “employing logical propositions” (not a cocktail party term!); its adverb axiōmatikôs meant “self-evidently.” Axiōmatikós is a derivative of the noun axíōma, literally “something worthy of someone,” hence “esteem, honor, reputation, rank.” As a scientific term, axíōma meant “something assumed as the basis of a demonstration, a self-evident principle” (Aristotle), and in geometry, “axiom.” Some people may remember axiom from high school geometry (Euclidean), e.g., “If A is equal to B, and B is equal to C, then A is equal to C.” Axíōma is a derivative of the adjective áxios “of like value, worth as much as, worthy,” literally “counterbalancing.” Áxios in its turn derives from the verb ágein, one of whose dozens of meanings is “to weigh on a scale, weigh.” Axiomatic entered English in the late 18th century.

HOW IS AXIOMATIC USED?
It’s axiomatic: Reporters run to the story. They don’t sit it out. - JOHN OTIS, "THE JOURNALISM STUDENTS HELPING THE TIMES COVER CALIFORNIA," NEW YORK TIMES, JUNE 3, 2020

Psychiatry, and society in general, had been subverted by the almost axiomatic belief that “hearing voices” spelled madness and never occurred except in the context of severe mental disturbance. - OLIVER SACKS, HALLUCINATIONS, 2012
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Word of the day

Post by Richard Frost » Sat Aug 08 2020 10:37am

SATURDAY, AUGUST 08, 2020 - https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/

diphthong

[ dif-thawng, -thong, dip- ]
noun

an unsegmentable, gliding speech sound varying continuously in phonetic quality but held to be a single sound or phoneme, as the oi-sound of toy or boil.

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF DIPHTHONG?
Diphthong is hard enough to spell and pronounce, let alone define. Diphthong ultimately comes from Greek díphthongos, literally “with or having two sounds,” a compound of the Greek prefix di- “two, twice, double” and the noun phthóngos “voice, sound,” a derivative of the euphonious verb phthéngesthai “to utter a sound, raise one’s voice, call, talk.” Phthéngesthai is also the root of the Greek verb apophthéngesthai “to speak one’s opinion plainly,” whose derivative noun apóphthegma “a brief, pointed saying” comes into English as apothegm or apophthegm, even harder to spell and pronounce than diphthong. Phthéngesthai has no convincing etymology, but some scholars point to “phonetically convincing” Lithuanian žvéngti “to neigh” and speñgti “(in the ears) to resound, hum, drone.” (The Lithuanian and Greek words derive from the Proto-Indo-European root ghwen-, ghwon- “to sound.”) Diphthong entered English in the second half of the 15th century.

HOW IS DIPHTHONG USED?
The best word ever—according to deep lexicographical research, science, taste, and common sense—is this: diphthong. - MEGAN GARBER, "HERE IT IS: THE BEST WORD EVER," THE ATLANTIC, SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

It [Atlas of North American English] is vast enough to include 139 color-coded maps and software that lets users click around the country to hear native speakers drop their r’s and overextend their diphthongs with abandon. - TAMMY LA GORCE, "YA GOTTA BLAME NEW YORK FOR DAT," NEW YORK TIMES, FEBRUARY 12, 2006
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Re: Word of the day

Post by macliam » Sat Aug 08 2020 12:06pm

Dipthongs can be the most difficult part of a language to master - firstly because they may be sounded differently in language A than in language B, as in EU being pronounced "YU" in English but "OY" in German; and secondly because they go to the heart of a language's pronunciation.

Portuguese is great for this.... with the famous ã (a with a tilde over it) nasalising the following dipthong.... and even tripthongs! This normally suggest that the letter "n" has been dropped.... as in "Cão" pronounced cow(ng), meaning Dog (from latin Canus).... and the harder "Cães" pronounced Ceye(ng)sh being the plural.

The famous tripthong beloved of football commentators is the name "João", pronounced like zhwow(n) the zh being close to the "sh" sound in English but more like the "s" in casual.... so João Moutinho is actually Zhwow(n) Mooteen-yo (just like José Mourinho is Zhosay Mooreen-yo, not Khosay as in Spanish)
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Word of the day

Post by Richard Frost » Sun Aug 09 2020 9:47am

SUNDAY, AUGUST 09, 2020 - https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/

tome

[ tohm ]
noun

a book, especially a very heavy, large, or learned book.

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF TOME?
The noun tome comes from Middle French tome, from Latin tomus “a cut, slice, or bit; a piece or length of papyrus; a book (in general).” Tomus is a borrowing of Greek tómos “a slice” (e.g., of ham, cheese), (in geometry) “the frustum” (e.g., of a cylinder), “a beam” (of wood). By the 3rd century b.c. and in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures, dating between the 3rd and 1st centuries b.c.), tómos had also come to mean “(papyrus) roll,” and by the 1st century a.d. “tome, volume” (in the modern sense). Tómos is a derivative of the verb témnein “to cut,” from the Proto-Indo-European root tem-, tom– (with its extensions tend-, tond-) “to cut.” From the variant tem-, Latin derives templum “shrine, temple” (because the property has been cut out from, set apart from profane use). The variant tond- forms Latin tondēre “to cut or clip (hair), shear (a sheep)” and the agent noun tonsor (stem tonsōr-) “barber,” with its derivative adjective tonsōrius, from which English derives the not very serious adjective tonsorial “of or relating to a barber or barbering.” Tome entered English in the first half of the 16th century.

HOW IS TOME USED?
That eight-hundred-page tome (with an additional three hundred pages of downloadable essays to accompany it) includes the whole Caesarian corpus, as well as hundreds of maps and illustrations. - MICHAEL KULIKOWSKI, "A VERY BAD MAN," LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS, JUNE 18, 2020

The 240-page tome is less of a tourist guide than it is a primer for a future Washington “Jeopardy” category. - KATIE HICKOX, "CAPITAL TOME," WASHINGTON POST, DECEMBER 13, 1992
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Re: Word of the day

Post by kevinchess1 » Wed Aug 12 2020 10:14am

Wednesday 12 Aug 2020

Todays word is 'Quitter' ( kwit-er )

noun
a person who quits or gives up easily, especially in the face of some difficulty, etc.
Politically incorrect since 69

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Re: Word of the day

Post by BeautifulSunshine » Wed Aug 12 2020 3:14pm

kevinchess1 wrote:
Wed Aug 12 2020 10:14am
Wednesday 12 Aug 2020

Todays word is 'Quitter' ( kwit-er )

noun
a person who quits or gives up easily, especially in the face of some difficulty, etc.
kevinchess1 genius you are. Your "Word of the day" has a direct relationship to reality.
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Re: Word of the day

Post by macliam » Fri Aug 14 2020 10:21am

Today's word is Narcissist (nar-siss-ist)

Noun
Someone with a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for attention and lack of empathy.

- Narcissists have an exaggerated sense of self-importance and will routinely overestimate their abilities whilst simultaneously devaluing the contributions of other people.

- Narcissists believe they’re special or unique, whilst ignoring the contribution of others.

- Narcissists require excessive admiration, using titles and assuming airs beyond the reality of their position.

- Narcissists have a sense of entitlement. They believe that people actually want to hear them.

- Narcissists lack empathy. They are notorious for being unable to recognize the feelings of others.

- Narcissists are envious of others and believe others are envious of them.

- Narcissists behave in an arrogant or haughty manner.

- Narcissists are preoccupied with fantasies of success and the perfect mate.

- Narcissists take advantage of others, their sense of entitlement and lack of empathy allows them to exploit the effort of others for their own reward.
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