Rubric

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Dr. Goodword
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Rubric

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sat Nov 04, 2017 11:19 pm

• rubric •

Pronunciation: ru-brik • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A title or heading, the name of something, especially the name of a category. 2. A direction for the conduct of services in a liturgical text, often distinguished from the text by red print. 3. Any red-letter entry in a diary, on a calendar, etc.

Notes: Today's Good Word is related to many others in English, but only distantly so. Rubric comes with a natural adjective, rubrical, but all its other relatives mean "red" in some sense: ruby, rubescent, rubeola. The reason for this becomes apparent in the Word History.

In Play:
Today's word comes in handy when talking about categories of things: "Carlton, I would say that charging me 30 percent on a personal loan until payday would fall under the rubric of usury." Introduce it whenever you are talking about the name of something: "Marian Kine has been married so many times it almost falls under the rubric of polygamy."

Word History: Today's Good Word is another snipped from Latin, this time rubrica "red chalk". Rubrica was derived from ruber "red". Its meaning shifted to "heading" because the headings of the liturgical texts in the Catholic Church have traditionally been printed in red. Those headings came to be referred to as "the reds" in Latin and French. Latin inherited it from Proto-Indo-European reudh- "red", for some reason changing the DH to B in rubrica. We would have expected DH to become F in Latin, and so it does in rufus "red-haired", a word that also became a common name in Rome. The Proto-Indo-European root for "red" also came to English via its Germanic roots as ruddy, converting the DH to D, just as we would expect. (Let's file Eric Berntson's suggestion of rubric as today's Good Word under the rubric of a stroke of good luck for all of us.)
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George Kovac
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Re: Rubric

Postby George Kovac » Wed Nov 08, 2017 7:12 pm

This word has kept its core association with the color red as it migrated across a range of languages. Yet the Spanish word “rubia/rubio” means “blond” not “red.” How did that happen?

By the way, one of the best local beers here in bilingual Miami is “La Rubia,” which describes itself as a “blonde ale.” It is the color of a pilsner or American blonde ale—a rich golden yellow, definitely not red.
"Every battle of ideas is fought on the terrain of language." Zia Haider Rahman, New York Times 4/8/2016

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Slava
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Re: Rubric

Postby Slava » Wed Nov 08, 2017 7:22 pm

Maybe it's related to the idea of strawberry blond? Some peoples also have somewhat different ideas of just what a color is. I have met several people who called what I call orange something else.
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Perry Lassiter
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Re: Rubric

Postby Perry Lassiter » Sun Nov 12, 2017 11:56 pm

I had endless wars with females over color identification ever since I picked up a lipstick in my. High school parking lot labeled "Skybluepink!" Huh? NO girl I showed it to had ANY problem with it.
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Re: Rubric

Postby Philip Hudson » Wed Nov 15, 2017 4:21 am

On Black Friday, retailers hope they will go out of the red and into the black. This refers to the color of ink formerly used in bookkeeping.

Perry: Men are pretty sure about red, yellow, green, blue and etc.
But women know a myriad of names which distinctly pins down the exact color intended. It is a mystery to me that they have so many. I only know two words in this special vocabulary, puce and chartreuse. I have no idea what they mean.
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