Search found 570 matches
- Tue Sep 05, 2023 11:03 am
- Forum: Good Word Discussion
- Topic: Insulate
- Replies: 7
- Views: 2914
Re: Insulate
(The name for W is "double-u", from the days when U was printed V, so the relation between [w] and [ u] is reflected in W's name.) Except in German, where the letter is pronounced as "v", and the name is something like "Doppel-v". Which gives us "Fau-vay" for...
- Sun Sep 03, 2023 11:04 pm
- Forum: Good Word Suggestions
- Topic: drag (n.)
- Replies: 3
- Views: 7762
Re: drag (n.)
A meaning I associate with "drag" is to attend an event with a date, as in "stag (without) or drag (with)". In particular, I associate it with the U.S. Naval Academy in the 1950s, when one's date was referred to as a "drag". It almost certainly predates that, but that's...
- Sun Sep 03, 2023 11:08 am
- Forum: Good Word Suggestions
- Topic: arity
- Replies: 3
- Views: 1848
Re: arity
My initial reaction was that it was a misspelling of "parity", but that seems not to be the case. Perhaps a more comprehensible way to describe it is by example. In math, if a function q is dependent on x and y, the arity of q is 2. (And to make the topic itself more evident, the original,...
- Sat Sep 02, 2023 8:22 pm
- Forum: Good Word Suggestions
- Topic: arity
- Replies: 3
- Views: 1848
arity
From a technical discussion in which I've been taking part: arity is the number of arguments or operands taken by a function or operator. I don't think it has made its way into any "major" dictionary yet; I had to look it up so that I wouldn't have to ask, and thus appear too much of a Lud...
- Fri Sep 01, 2023 3:44 pm
- Forum: Good Word Discussion
- Topic: Stoop
- Replies: 6
- Views: 2798
Re: Stoop
Nobody has yet mentioned "She Stoops to Conquer", a Restoration farce by Oliver Goldsmith. Only metaphorical stooping going on.
- Fri Sep 01, 2023 3:39 pm
- Forum: Good Word Suggestions
- Topic: banner
- Replies: 1
- Views: 1623
banner
Precipitated by seeing the term "book-banners" in a Wall Street Journal book review this morning. That's quite different (I think) from the more usual meaning of a waving flag or 72-point headline on a newspaper page.
- Thu Aug 31, 2023 11:24 pm
- Forum: Good Word Discussion
- Topic: Stoop
- Replies: 6
- Views: 2798
Re: Stoop
Regarding the unrelated version, it's a little broader than curb -- usually the front steps of a rowhouse, where city families would gather and talk to their neighbors on warm summer evenings.
- Wed Aug 30, 2023 10:27 am
- Forum: Good Word Discussion
- Topic: Discotheque
- Replies: 5
- Views: 5979
Re: Discotheque
The French "accent aigu" is simply "acute" in English. And I learned to pronounce the other one as "grahv", but my French teacher was very strict; on the other hand, I've never heard it pronounced otherwise during my life in typography.
- Tue Aug 29, 2023 7:06 pm
- Forum: Good Word Discussion
- Topic: Catfish
- Replies: 9
- Views: 2699
Re: Catfish
Well, whales aren't fish (although in some old chanteys they're called "whalefish", same as German "Walfisch", and one song is known as "The Greenland fishery"), but going out to catch them is called "whaling". (And that has a secondary meaning of a punishment...
- Sun Aug 27, 2023 12:03 am
- Forum: Good Word Suggestions
- Topic: Squire/esquire
- Replies: 1
- Views: 1711
Re: Squire/esquire
But in the US, "Esq." has become an indication that the individual so designated is an attorney, and can be found attached even to a woman's name.
- Sat Aug 26, 2023 11:55 pm
- Forum: Good Word Discussion
- Topic: Perambulate
- Replies: 4
- Views: 3862
Re: Perambulate
But wouldn't that be "circumambulate"? As in, "While in Vienna, I circumambulated the Bösendorfer piano factory."
- Fri Aug 25, 2023 10:52 am
- Forum: Good Word Suggestions
- Topic: dismal
- Replies: 1
- Views: 1371
dismal
Because today is dismal, having just stopped raining, and threatening to start raining again. Apparently from Latin dies mali , "evil days", its meaning expanded to describe environment, hence the Dismal Swamp. In sound and meaning it blends well with "drizzle", so "drzzmal&...
- Wed Aug 23, 2023 12:21 pm
- Forum: Languages of the World
- Topic: "I'm a Stranger Here Myself . . . ."
- Replies: 2
- Views: 40182
Re: "I'm a Stranger Here Myself . . . ."
Particularly New England islands, I think. Strangers who have settled in, even after many years, and perhaps even a generation or two, are called "washashores" by the "natives". (I don't know what those "natives" were called by the indigenes, but it was probably less po...
- Wed Aug 23, 2023 12:10 pm
- Forum: Good Word Suggestions
- Topic: Street
- Replies: 3
- Views: 5228
Re: Street
Then, whence cometh avenue and boulevard? (Via French, I know, but am too distracted to look up the etymology.) The little street that I live on, exactly one block long, has an official sign "Langham Road" at one end and "Langham Street" at the other. (The Post Office delivers to...
- Sat Aug 19, 2023 10:09 pm
- Forum: Good Word Suggestions
- Topic: list
- Replies: 2
- Views: 3161
Re: list
There are also the lists in which knights in armor tried to unseat their opponents in a jousting tournament. A variation on such tournaments, still known as jousting, consists of riding one's charger at full tilt, trying to snare a suspended ring; this is one of the state sports in Maryland. It can ...