Crescendo

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Crescendo

Postby Dr. Goodword » Mon Jul 04, 2022 10:41 pm

• crescendo •


Pronunciation: kre-sin-do • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A gradual increase in the volume of any sound. 2. A sustained increase in anything else. 3. The point at which a gradual increase reaches it maximum.

Notes: A crescendo should not be a destination. However, most dictionaries have caved and accepted this word as a destination after years of hearing and reading the phrases, 'reach a crescendo' and 'rose to a crescendo'. The plural of crescendo is crescendos.

In Play: Although crescendos should be progressions, they do reach climaxes: "A gradual crescendo in the percussion section reached a climax that woke those in the audience who had dozed off." While originally a musical term, it may now be used anywhere a gradual increase occurs: "Delbert depended on the crescendo of city noises outside his window to wake him up in the morning."

Word History: Today's Good Word, like so many musical terms, was borrowed and never returned to Italian, which inherited it from mother Latin. In Latin it was the dative/ablative case of the gerund of crescere "to grow, increase", based on a reduced form of the PIE word ker-/kor- "to grow". This word became ser "lineage, progeny" in Armenian, koros "saturation, satiety" in Greek, Ceres "goddess of agriculture" in Latin, šerti "to feed" in Lithuanian. The reduced form went into the making of Latin creare "to make, produce"; the past participle of this verb, creatus, was adopted by and adapted to English. The Latin word became criar "to raise, bring up" in Portuguese, the source of cria "offspring, protege", whose diminutive is crioulo "(historically) slave born in the house of its master; (today) creole", which French borrowed as créole, whence English creole. (Now let's all thank Mike Nichols for thinking of us when he discovered today's Good Word, which has wandered off its semantic tracks.)
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David Myer
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Re: Crescendo

Postby David Myer » Wed Jul 06, 2022 6:33 am

My musical friend who is also into semantics, deplores 'reaching a crescendo' (which incidentally he insists on pronouncing creskendo in deference to its classical origin) and wonders how long it will be before the world starts using diminuendo as a destination. He is hoping never.
Last edited by David Myer on Sat Aug 13, 2022 12:22 am, edited 2 times in total.

David Myer
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Re: Crescendo

Postby David Myer » Sat Aug 13, 2022 12:20 am

Revisiting this word after the Good Dr's exploration of Crescent yesterday, I am reminded of an abuse similar to this 'crescendo as a destination' rather than as a journey. I am thinking of the word 'spike', now widely used also as a verb. Covid cases are spiking again. We read this almost daily and, grrr, it does irritate. They mean surging. It is not a spike until it has come down the other side. A spike is a journey steeply up and steeply down the other side. Who trains these journalists today?

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Re: Crescendo

Postby Slava » Sat Aug 13, 2022 7:00 am

The online dictionaries I looked at tend to agree that the intransitive verb 'spike' is a sharp increase. Some do mention the idea of a subsequent falling-off, but the spike is still the abrupt rise.

I view it as the reverse of what a noun spike does; that drives sharply down-ward, a verbal spike goes sharply up-ward. It may or may not have a corresponding down-slope. Prices can, and often will, spike and then stay there.
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Re: Crescendo

Postby David Myer » Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:36 am

Prices may, but they jolly well shouldn't. The verb clearly comes from the noun and the object itself has two steep sides - one up and the other down. This is especially so when referring to statistical representations in graphs.

And that is precisely why online dictionaries should be considered with a pinch of salt.

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Re: Crescendo

Postby Philip Hudson » Sat Aug 20, 2022 7:24 am

I used to be a drummer of sorts in the high school band. They trusted me with the bass drum. It isn't much good at crescendo. They said I was too dangerous to be trusted with the tympani [kettle drums]. A good tympanist can out crescendo any other musician.
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