Posts tagged as:

language

SOURCE: the place from which something originates

March 22, 2013

Every now and then it gets frustrating to read or listen to people who claim the “truth” based upon their having found a story on the Internet or in some other recently-created resource.   This is true in all walks of life, from politics and economics to biblical references.   It amazes me that well-meaning people believe [...]

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SKUNKED TERM: a word or term that experiences confusing change in its meaning

August 22, 2012

When a word’s meaning changes dramatically to the point of being confusing, it is referred to as a skunked term. In Bryan Garner’s, Garner’s Modern American Usage, he points out “When a word undergoes a marked change from one use to another–a phase that might take ten years or a hundred–it’s  likely to be the [...]

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CABINET: only in Rhode Island: a milkshake!

August 16, 2012

There’s a lot about Rhode Island that’s unique.  Like on Monday when the state observed “Victory Day.”   Rhode Island is the only state in the United States that continues to observe this day as “Victory over Japan” day.   The horrific details of that victory have caused a stir among many Rhode Islanders, but the [...]

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BALDERDASH: confused, muddled conversation

June 24, 2012

There are words like sarsparilla and hogwash that belong to a generation before my time.   They are words that are mouthed by aging cowboys, hermit-like gold miners, and eccentric grandfathers in movies that were in black and white and had little white spots that shot up and down the side of the frame of the [...]

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GOBBLEDYGOOK: obscure language which is difficult to de-cypher

May 15, 2012

When I first began thinking about using the word gobbledygook in a posting I thought I was dealing with a word that was so “made up” that it wouldn’t even appear in a dictionary.  I was surprised to find it every place I looked, including the classic Garner’s Modern American Usage.   I have to admit, [...]

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ALGORITHM: a set of rules for finding a solution in a specific number of steps

March 13, 2012

No, you don’t have to be a well-schooled mathematician in order to understand today’s posting.   While algorithm is a word appropriately identified with advanced mathematics to describe a process for solving problems, it is not restricted to that realm.  If it were, I would have hit the delete button long before this.  Math and I [...]

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MIDNIGHT: technically, twelve o’clock a.m.

December 31, 2011

Midnight is one of those words that was created to describe something literally.  Its literal meaning is “middle of the night.”  If that seems strange to you at all, it may be because 12:oo a.m. is hardly the middle of a contemporary night. I suppose that in the century in which the word originated it [...]

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WHATEVER: nation’s most annoying word

December 23, 2011

It doesn’t take a lot for a teenager to be characterized as ”annoying.”  It comes with the territory, as a teen lurches through the predictable stage of growing independence.  Parents know nothing. Rules are unfair.  “Everybody” is doing what they want to do.  And then, there’s the whole thing about language.  A new vocabulary emerges [...]

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ABSTRUSE: hard to understand

October 24, 2011

  An explanation that just doesn’t make things clear is said to be abstruse.  You’ve been there.  You ask someone a question about what something means, or how something works.  The answer you get leaves you in an even-more-confused state. It is very disconcerting to the person giving the explanation, because the answer is perfectly [...]

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CONDOLENCES: expressions of sympathy at the time of death

August 10, 2011

Yesterdays poignant arrival of the caskets of the 30 military men killed in Afghanistan at Dover Air Force Base was sobering.   The President joined others in recognizing the sacrifice of their lives and the nation found itself almost speechless as it tried to sort out the meaning of this tragic loss. Sprinkled throughout the reports [...]

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