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ADUMBRATE

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2012 11:20 pm
by Dr. Goodword

• adumbrate •

Pronunciation: æd-êm-brayt, ê-dêm-brayt • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb

Meaning: 1. To vaguely suggest, to give faint indication. 2. To disclose only faintly, to make vaguely visible.

Notes: The abstract noun from today's Good Word is adumbration. An adumbration is the shadow of a suggestion, the weakest form of indication. It comes with two adjectives, adumbrant "vague, indistinct", adumbrative "vaguely suggestive".

In Play: Remember, an adumbration is not a suggestion, but the faintest hint of a suggestion: "The first colored leaves of autumn adumbrate the onslaught of winter, just as the first robin song and crocus adumbrate the explosion of color and song in summer." We see adumbrations everywhere, every day of our lives: "The light peeping under the door adumbrated that someone was in the room."

Word History: Today's Good Word was inspired by adumbratus "overshadowed, outline", the past participle of adumbrare "to overshadow, represent in outline". This word engages two constituents, ad "to(ward)" + umbra "shadow", as in umbrage and umbrella. Where the word umbra came from, no one knows. It has been suggested that it is related to Sanskrit andha "darkness", but the sound changes present problems. The preposition-prefix, ad "to(ward)", can be found in many Proto-Indo-European languages. It shows up in English as at and Sanskrit as adhi "near", so it must have been a preposition in PIE meaning "to, near, at". (I thus far haven't even adumbrated who suggested today's Good Word: it was William Hupy, to whom we owe more than an adumbration of thanks.)

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:28 pm
by MTC
Wallis Simpson: adumbration of an abdication

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 5:16 pm
by Perry Lassiter
Adumbrella - looks like rain.

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:26 pm
by Slava
Adumbrella - looks like rain.
An addendum to the forecast: it now looks like sunshine, take a parasol.

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 12:25 am
by Philip Hudson
MTC: Wallis Simpson played a very, very minor role in an abdication. Hitler was actually the star. I don't understand your phrase, “adumbration of an abdication”. I assume it is a humorous repartee. I am probably a little too dense.

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 1:08 am
by Slava
MTC: Wallis Simpson played a very, very minor role in an abdication. Hitler was actually the star. I don't understand your phrase, “adumbration of an abdication”. I assume it is a humorous repartee. I am probably a little too dense.
I understood it as an abstract reference. "This is Mr. X's 'Wallis Simpson' moment." A watershed moment in one's history, with a woman involved. He chose her over everything else.

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 8:23 am
by MTC
Explanation:

In his radio address to the nation, Edward VII explained he was abdicating "to marry the woman I love," commoner and double divorcee Wallis Simpson. Her arrival on the scene adumbrated his abdication. Just a little loose fun with words...

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:29 am
by Philip Hudson
Thanks for the explanations. Edward VIII (not VII) said he was abdicating "to marry the woman I love," but this is not true. He did marry her and then they were sent to the Bahamasw where he was the titular governor. He actually was under house arrest for working with Hitler.

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:26 pm
by MTC
Philip:

You say it is "not true" that Edward abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson.

Edward abdicated in December of 1936. He married Wallis Simpson in June of 1937. More than 3 years later in August of 1940 he was appointed Governor of the Bahamas (not Bahamasw) where he was sidelined during the War because of his Nazi sympathies. This is the historical sequence, if I understand it correctly. Do you contend he was forced to abdicate because of his Nazi sympathies? If so, what is the evidence?

MTC

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:42 pm
by Philip Hudson
I'm sorry I wrote "Bahamasw" for "Bahamas". I spell checked, but old eyes sometimes miss things. Edward abdicated saying it was so he could marry Wallis Simpson. They were both Nazi sympathizers at that time. A close second in Edward’s amorous pursuit of Wallis was a German Nazi. Hitler definitely believed Edward was an asset to Germany and planned to make him King of England when Germany won the war. Churchill supported Edward at first but he changed his mind. Edward’s governorship of the Bahamas was actually a house arrest ordered by Churchill. Wikipedia does a pretty good job of documentation. Others support it. Just Google Edward VIII. Some of the Google references are a little sensationalistic and of unknown value. But there are reliable sources that support what has been “common knowledge” since WW II. There has never been a time past my early childhood when I didn’t believe what I am saying about Edward. Of course it was not to England's advantage to publicize Edward and Wallis. I am not a professional historian, and I know one cannot believe everything he/she reads. I am also an Anglophile, and want to believe the best about England. Even for the professional historian, history is an art, not a science. Later discoveries change our view of history at times. Many things will remain unknown. I believe the weight of evidence is against Edward VIII.

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:12 pm
by MTC
The claim Edward's Bahama assignment was in effect a type of "house arrest" is more plausible than the claim he was forced to abdicate because of Nazi sympathies. If the latter were correct, then he would have been sidelined in the Bahamas or elsewhere immediately after his abdication rather than three years later. Instead he was promptly assigned to an official position--not a sinecure--in France. Only after he became a security risk in France was he placed where he could do no harm in the Bahamas.

Either way, Edward's Nazi connections are a blot on the English escutcheon. But Edward had company across the Atlantic. A number of prominent Americans including Henry Ford and Lindbergh sympathized with the Nazis. Ford actually provided monetary support.

What has all this to do with the price of beans or the meaning of "adumbration" you may well ask? Perhaps nothing except the lesson that we should always be on the watch for even a hint or adumbration of fascism.

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:29 pm
by Slava
What has all this to do with the price of beans or the meaning of "adumbration" you may well ask? Perhaps nothing except the lesson that we should always be on the watch for even a hint or adumbration of fascism.
Thank you muchly, MTC, for bringing this thread back around to recognizing that this is a language board, not one for history discussion.

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 8:10 am
by MTC
You're quite welcome, Slava. God forbid we should sail toward the edges of our four-cornered linguisic world and fall off into a bottomless void.

Re: ADUMBRATE

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2012 12:31 am
by Philip Hudson
For words to be of any use, they must be about something. I usually enjoy these excursions, but sometimes they do get out of hand.