etymology, Word of the Week 2 comments
In this political season there’s plenty of rhetoric on all sides claiming the patriotic high ground. The suffix, “-ism” is used to form nouns that refer to a set of political, or religious beliefs, studies, or ways of behaving: patriotism, feminism, globalism, and jingoism. Referring to another person’s “isms” frequently introduces a criticism. For example, […]
Let’s talk about dirty words. A euphemism is a mild or indirect expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt. It’s derived from the Greek term meaning “use of words of good omen.” Any place for that in modern fiction? Some colleagues in my critique group objected when I allowed my protagonist, […]
Recently I wrote about how Americans give away their backgrounds with a word choice. (Word of the Week – doodlebug.) At the grocery store, do you put your food in a bag (East)? Or a sack (everyone else except the South)? In the South you might carry groceries in a “poke.” Think of buying “a […]
Word of the Week – devil On the long Fourth of July weekend, boats are everywhere on Monterey Bay; fishing boats to paddleboards, everybody wants to get out on the water. All the fans of Patrick O’Brian’s series featuring Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin appreciate how the special nautical vocabulary created a vivid world of […]
etymology, Word of the Week 7 comments
Just a few choice words allow linguists to pinpoint where you (and your characters) are from. Take ten minutes for the old New York Times quiz at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html. It’s fun. But the linguists don’t know everything. The Cambridge Online Survey of World English gives several multiple choice answers for the question, “What do you call the […]
etymology, Word of the Week 0 comments
The term “foodie” has been with us longer than I thought. According to etymologist Barry Popick it was 1980 when Gael Green, food writer for the New Yorker, first put the word in print. The Oxford English Dictionary distinguishes a foodie from a “gourmet” who wants only the best, as compared to the foodie who […]