Flaccid

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Flaccid

Postby Dr. Goodword » Wed Sep 25, 2019 10:21 pm

• flaccid •


Pronunciation: flæ-sid, flæk-sid • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Soft and loose, limp, drooping, without firmness, not tense. 2. Lacking vigor, effectiveness, weak, as 'a flaccid managerial style'.

Notes: Today's word is anomalous because it is the only word with a double C, both of which may be pronounced soft, like S. All others must be pronounced with the first C hard, like K, and the second soft: accept, succeed, accident. Notice that the double C in these words is always followed by an I or E. Before any other vowels, A, O, U, both are pronounced like K: occur, accord, occasion. The adverb is flaccidly and the noun, flaccidness.

In Play: Today's word usually refers to physical softness and laxity: "Rebecca's belly, which had been taut and muscular a decade ago, was now flaccid with accumulated fat." It may be used, though, for these qualities in the figurative sense: "For the past two decades the US Congress has been weak and flaccid."

Word History: This word was borrowed (and never returned) either from French flaccide or directly from Latin flaccidus "flabby, weak, drooping", the adjective for flaccus "flabby, flap-eared". How flaccus happened into Latin is a complete mystery. There is no evidence of a Proto-Indo-European origin in any other Indo-European language. (Today's Good Word arose out of a correction by Mary Jane Stoneburg, a long-standing Good Word editor. She correctly pointed out that the hard C soft C pronunciation is the historically and grammatically correct one.)
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Re: Flaccid

Postby wurdpurrson » Fri Sep 27, 2019 3:28 am

I'm surprised that no-one has yet commented on poor
Rebecca's belly's poor training: "Rebecca's belly, which had been taught and muscular a decade ago, was now flaccid with accumulated fat." Not sure exactly who or what was doing the teaching, and of what, but it most certainly wasn't spelling. I was taught that the opposite of flaccid or loose was TAUT. No wonder her belly is now such an accumulation of fat, poor thing. :D

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Re: Flaccid

Postby call_copse » Fri Sep 27, 2019 6:31 am

:lol:
Iain

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Re: Flaccid

Postby Audiendus » Fri Sep 27, 2019 8:26 am

Notes: Today's word is anomalous because it is the only word with a double C, both of which may be pronounced soft, like S.
It seems likely that the pronunciation was influenced by placid.

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Re: Flaccid

Postby wurdpurrson » Sat Sep 28, 2019 6:56 pm

Aha. I see a correction was made about poor Rebecca's abdominal condition from the original quoted illustration - "taught" instead of "taut". Ah well, just another illustration in and of itself about why English is so difficult to learn as a second language. As one who has worked in another culture to teach ESL, I'm fortunate to have been born to it. Thanks, Good Doctor.

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Re: Flaccid

Postby George Kovac » Wed Oct 30, 2019 10:44 am

A few thousand years later, you never know where a good word may lead.

So, interestingly, taut and ductile, which are antonyms, share a common etymological source.

About “taut,” (the Good Word of September 27, 2019) Dr. Goodword observed:

Togian came to English via its Germanic ancestors from PIE deuk "to drag, pull, lead". which also produced Latin ducere "to lead; drag, draw" and dux, ducis "leader", via a sense of "someone who draws (others)". This word led to English duke via a borrowing from French, a descendant of Latin. We find the Latin word in dozens of English borrowings, also via French: educate, conduct, deduct, and so on.

And about “ductile” (the Good Word of October 9, 2019), Dr. Goodword wrote:

The original root was PIE deuk- "to lead", which came into Old Germanic as teuhan, the father of German ziehen "to draw, pull". In Old English it appeared as togian "to draw, drag", on its way to becoming today's tug. But Old English also had another form, tiegan "to bind (draw tight)", which went on to become tie, while its past participle remained as tight "drawn securely". Of course, English borrowed many Latin words with this root, including duke (originally a leader), duct (which leads or conducts air from place to place), and educate. The last word came from Latin educare "to lead out, bring up" e(x) "out (of) + ducere "to lead", a kind of leading out into the world.

So, what does all this have to do with the current Good Word and wurdpurrson's comment above? Well, here is a (somewhat flaccid) defense of Dr. Goodword’s original typo (“taught” for "taut," subsequently corrected) because, as a close reading of the two quoted Word Histories reveals, “taut” and “educate” both descend from the same Latin root.
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Re: Flaccid

Postby brogine » Sat Aug 20, 2022 6:12 pm

• flaccid •


Pronunciation: flæ-sid, flæk-sid • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Soft and loose, limp, drooping, without firmness, not tense. 2. Lacking vigor, effectiveness, weak, as 'a flaccid managerial style'.

Notes: Today's word is anomalous because it is the only word with a double C, both of which may be pronounced soft, like S. All others must be pronounced with the first C hard, like K, and the second soft: accept, succeed, accident. Notice that the double C in these words is always followed by an I or E. Before any other vowels, A, O, U, both are pronounced like K: occur, accord, occasion. The adverb is flaccidly and the noun, flaccidness.

In Play: Today's word usually refers to physical softness and laxity: "Rebecca's belly, which had been taut and muscular a decade ago, was now flaccid with accumulated fat." It may be used, though, for these qualities in the figurative sense: "For the past two decades the US Congress has been weak and flaccid."

Word History: This word was borrowed (and never returned) either from French flaccide or directly from Latin flaccidus "flabby, weak, drooping", the adjective for flaccus "flabby, flap-eared". How flaccus happened into Latin is a complete mystery. There is no evidence of a Proto-Indo-European origin in any other Indo-European language. (Today's Good Word arose out of a correction by Mary Jane Stoneburg, a long-standing Good Word editor. She correctly pointed out that the hard C soft C pronunciation is the historically and grammatically correct one.)
If anyone’s still interested in this, or is in need of a soporific - I mean the pronunciation issue - the OED offers ‘flassid’ (indeed, first) in the on-line edition. My nearly fifty-year-old print version has only ‘flaksid’. Well, as my seldom-respected motto has it, ‘Language is what people say, not what I say’.

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Re: Flaccid

Postby Slava » Sat Aug 20, 2022 6:58 pm

If pronunciations didn't change we would all still be speaking Chaucer's English, and not understanding a word of it.
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Re: Flaccid

Postby brogine » Sat Aug 20, 2022 9:02 pm

Okay, okay, but ‘flassid’ is patently ridiculous. There are too many *cc-vowel* words to check, but - except for ones borrowed from other languages - I’d bet pronunciations are uniform for ‘cc-whatever vowel’.
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Re: Flaccid

Postby Philip Hudson » Sun Aug 21, 2022 10:42 am

The word flaccid itself is too flaccid to define the word flaccid :D.
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Re: Flaccid

Postby brogine » Fri Aug 26, 2022 2:54 pm

Similar mistake: pronouncing ‘dissect’ with a long i. Defies common sense and all similar words. Whence - association with ‘bisect’?

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Re: Flaccid

Postby David Myer » Sat Aug 27, 2022 7:30 am

I had no idea. Dye-sect is how I have always pronounced it, and incorrectly it seems. I assumed the di part meant two and sect of course is cut. Cut in two. But with the double ss it must be dis-sect. So, cut away or apart.

Perhaps there are two words here - disect and dissect with similar meanings but different etymologies?

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Re: Flaccid

Postby bbeeton » Sat Aug 27, 2022 2:05 pm

I guess the "dye" pronunciation of "dissect" could have been the reasoning behind this notice I spotted on a bulletin board during my first week at college:

"For sale: bisecting kit."

What? Obviously a student who was inept at both biology and English.
(This was a looong time ago, but it has stuck in my memory. I guess I was always meant to indulge in spontaneous proofreading.)

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Re: Flaccid

Postby brogine » Mon Aug 29, 2022 1:09 pm

I had no idea. Dye-sect is how I have always pronounced it, and incorrectly it seems. I assumed the di part meant two and sect of course is cut. Cut in two. But with the double ss it must be dis-sect. So, cut away or apart.

Perhaps there are two words here - disect and dissect with similar meanings but different etymologies?
Interesting point. Indeed, the OED does offer ‘disect’ - as obsolete - with a single citation, or two from the same source, I should say.


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