PELAGIC
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PELAGIC
• pelagic •
Pronunciation: pê-læ-jik • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Living in or over the open sea rather than along the coastline.
Notes: Pelagic does not have a large family but it is one of a set of fraternal triplets, including pelagial and pelagian with the same meaning. To indicate the main body of a lake or sea, as opposed to the littoral or riparian area, we simply use pelagial as a noun, as in a species that feeds in the pelagial.
In Play: This is another very lovely English word that focuses our discussions of the sea. It allows us to distinguish the shoreline, the offing from the pelegial: "The albatross is a pelagic bird that is often the first bird spotted by a ship approaching land." Unfortunately, not all the uses of this word are so halcyon: "Roger Jolly always sails his boat close to the shore to avoid pelagic pirates who lay in wait just beyond the offing."
Word History: Today's Good Word originates in Greek pelagikos "marine, sea" from pelagos "sea". The root of this word originates in the Proto-Indo-European root *plak "flat". We would expect the PIE [p] to become [f] in English and the [k] to become [h] or disappear, as it did in floe "a flat mass of ice". The [k] remained in flake because this word was probably was borrowed from Norwegian like flag, which came from Old Norse flaga "flat layer of stone". Apparently the seas are calm much of the time around Greece, since ancient Greek selected this root for their word for "sea". (Today we are grateful to Grogie of the Agora for another good Good Word suggestion.)
Pronunciation: pê-læ-jik • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Living in or over the open sea rather than along the coastline.
Notes: Pelagic does not have a large family but it is one of a set of fraternal triplets, including pelagial and pelagian with the same meaning. To indicate the main body of a lake or sea, as opposed to the littoral or riparian area, we simply use pelagial as a noun, as in a species that feeds in the pelagial.
In Play: This is another very lovely English word that focuses our discussions of the sea. It allows us to distinguish the shoreline, the offing from the pelegial: "The albatross is a pelagic bird that is often the first bird spotted by a ship approaching land." Unfortunately, not all the uses of this word are so halcyon: "Roger Jolly always sails his boat close to the shore to avoid pelagic pirates who lay in wait just beyond the offing."
Word History: Today's Good Word originates in Greek pelagikos "marine, sea" from pelagos "sea". The root of this word originates in the Proto-Indo-European root *plak "flat". We would expect the PIE [p] to become [f] in English and the [k] to become [h] or disappear, as it did in floe "a flat mass of ice". The [k] remained in flake because this word was probably was borrowed from Norwegian like flag, which came from Old Norse flaga "flat layer of stone". Apparently the seas are calm much of the time around Greece, since ancient Greek selected this root for their word for "sea". (Today we are grateful to Grogie of the Agora for another good Good Word suggestion.)
• The Good Dr. Goodword
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- Grand Panjandrum
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- Grand Panjandrum
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- Location: Botucatu - SP Brazil
I used to jokingly call my 4 month sailboat trip "thalassic therapy." I had no idea there was really a thalassotherapy!
That is cool! I hope pelagic isn't jealous!
Apo
That is cool! I hope pelagic isn't jealous!
Apo
Last edited by Apoclima on Mon Jan 30, 2006 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
'Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.' -Max Planck
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Last edited by portokalos on Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
"What is hell?" I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
Fyodor Dostoevsky-The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky-The Brothers Karamazov
A Quick Overview of the History of the Greek Languagen the classical or hellenic period Greek existed in several major dialects, each of which has its own significance for the history of the language, but the most influential of these would ultimately prove to be the one spoken in Athens, called Attic. Well within the hellenic period, though, Attic and Ionic—the form of the language spoken mainly in the Greek city states directly across the Aegean Sea from Athens—exerted significant influence on each other as the preferred forms of the language for oratory and philosophical prose, eventually producing a dialect now called Attic-Ionic.
Apo
'Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.' -Max Planck
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Last edited by portokalos on Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:46 am, edited 2 times in total.
"What is hell?" I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
Fyodor Dostoevsky-The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky-The Brothers Karamazov
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Last edited by portokalos on Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
"What is hell?" I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
Fyodor Dostoevsky-The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky-The Brothers Karamazov
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- Grand Panjandrum
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I looked, but I couldn't find a sure reference. There was some stuff about the difference between the letter 'san' and the letter 'sigma' which appeared or was joked about in the plays
"Banqueteers" and "Horses" but nothing definite about the plight of sigma.
Apo
"Banqueteers" and "Horses" but nothing definite about the plight of sigma.
Apo
'Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.' -Max Planck
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Last edited by portokalos on Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
"What is hell?" I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
Fyodor Dostoevsky-The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky-The Brothers Karamazov
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- Grand Panjandrum
- Posts: 1464
- Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 3:31 pm
- Location: Botucatu - SP Brazil
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- Junior Lexiterian
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- Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2005 6:13 am
Last edited by portokalos on Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
"What is hell?" I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
Fyodor Dostoevsky-The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky-The Brothers Karamazov
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