 Here at Wordmonger, we’re celebrating the last three weeks of March by focusing on wise women’s words. March 2 we considered progress, & March 9 we considered lying. This week we’ll take a look at what some wise women had/have to say about kindness.
When the milk of human kindness turns sour, it is a singularly unpalatable draught. -Agnes Repplier When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason has left them. -Willa Cather Kindness is always fashionable. -Amelia E. Barr I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness. -Mother Teresa So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind, Is all the sad world needs. -Ella Wheeler Wilcox May you take every opportunity to spread some kindness. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women., Oxford Dictionary,& Etymonline.
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 Here at Wordmonger, we celebrated the last week by considering some wise women’s thoughts regarding progress. This week we’ll take a look at what some wise women had/have to say about a topic that's getting a heap of news coverage these days -- lying. Cowards are not invariably liars, but liars are invariably cowards. -Minna Thomas Antrim Elvira always lied to herself before she lied to anybody else, since this gave her a conviction of moral honesty. -Phyllis Bottome Particular lies may speak a general truth. -George Eliot You can lock up from a thief, but you can’t from a liar. -Flora Thompson Once admit the idea that it is good to lie for religion’s sake, and the lie may grow to any dimensions. A little lie may serve a man, but it is hard to calculate how big a lie may be wanted to serve God. -Frances B. Cobbe Lying is an occupation, Used by all who mean to rise; Politicians owe their station But to well concerted lies. -Letitia Pilkington May your week be free of liars and lies. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women., Oxford Dictionary,& Etymonline.  Here at Wordmonger, we’re celebrating Women’s History Month by focusing on selected words of selected women. This week we’ll take a look at some wise women ’s thoughts about progress.
Progress affects few. Only revolution can affect many. Alice Walker Even the “worst blizzard of the century” accumulates one flake at a time. Mary Kay Blakely This seems to be the law of progress in everything we do; it moves along a spiral rather than perpendicular; we seem to be actually going out of the way, and yet it turns out that we were really moving upward all the time. Frances E. Willard We have not crawled so very far up our individual grass-blade toward our individual star. Hilda Doolittle Things that don’t get better, get worse. Ellen Sue Stern If a man has lived in a tradition which tells him that nothing can be done about his human condition, to believe that progress is possible may well be the greatest revolution of all. Barbara Ward May whatever progress you’re working toward in your life come to fruition. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women., Oxford Dictionary,& Etymonline.
 Since last week’s post covered words related to caca, why not move onto synonyms for stinky?
Though the word stinky didn’t come to English until 1888, its root word stink came from an Old English word stincan, a verb that meant to emit a smell of any kind. Its cousin, stench was also in the Old English lexicon. Both came from a Proto-Germanic word meaning bad smell. So originally, stench & stink had a similar noun/verb relationship to our modern words drench & drink. One of the two original meanings of the Old English word foul was rotten, unclean, vile or offensive to the senses. Its second meaning was ugly. This second branch of meaning is the source for foul play, which likely led to the term foul ball. Malodorous is an English construction that occurred in 1832, combining the Medieval Latin word for having a smell (-odorus) with the French word for bad (mal-). The modern word rank came from the Old English adjective ranc, which meant overbearing & showy. During Middle English, it evolved to mean large & coarse, then excessive & unpleasant, then foul. Some etymologists suggest this last shift was influenced by the English acquisition of the French word rance, which meant rancid. In the late 1300s the word fusty arrived in English, meaning stale-smelling. It came from a French wine-related word meaning tasting of the cask, which came from a Latin word meaning sticks of wood. And frowsty showed up in 1865, meaning having an unpleasant smell. It may have come from a French word meaning ruinous. Though hard-working etymologists haven’t nailed down the connection, they have identified a connection to the word frowsy, which means both musty/stale & slovenly/uncared for. Nothing like a few stinky words, eh? Please consider commenting on which of these words’ histories most surprised you. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: the Merriam Webster, OED, Wordnik, Oxford Dictionary, & Etymonline.  Since wallowing in the wonder of Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth back when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I’ve loved the onomatopoeic words cacophony & cacophonous - wonderfully honest words that sound like what they mean. At the time I was probably a nine- or ten-year-old boy with all the disgusting proclivities of that easy-titillated crowd. How the younger me would’ve loved to have known the etymology of cacophony.
The last part isn’t all that titillating: -phony comes from the Greek word for sound. The first part, though, comes from the Proto-Indo-European word *kakka-, which meant defecation. And yes, this same root traveled through Spanish to give us caca. It also gave us these cacophonous cousins: Cachexia, meaning a generally bad state of health appeared in English in the mid-1500s. Poorly chosen or incorrect taxonomic names of organisms are known as caconyms, a term that’s been around since 1888. Poppycock, which appeared in 1865 through Dutch, meaning nonsense. And since the 1500s, bad handwriting or spelling has been known as cacography. Kakistocracy, coined in 1829 by Thomas Peacock, meaning government by the worst element of a society. So readers, did you know about these caca-related words? My thanks go out to this week’s sources: the Merriam Webster, OED, Wordnik, Oxford Dictionary, & Etymonline.  These days novels and films are filled with quirky characters. What exactly is quirky, & what words come close to meaning the same thing?
The word quirky was born in 1806, when it meant shifty. It came from the 1500s word quirk, which meant evasion. It wasn’t until 1960 that quirky meant idiosyncratic. Coined by Hunter S. Thompson, the word gonzo came to English in 1971, meaningweird, bizarre, idiosyncratic. Though we’re not 100% certain, & Thompson’s gonzo leanings have kept him tight-lipped on the matter, gonzo may have been inspired by an Italian word meaning rude & sottish, or a Germanic word for goose. In the 1400s, nutty meant nut-like. By the 1820s, it meant in love, & by 1898 it came to mean unbalanced or idiosyncratic. Someone who is aberrant is wandering from the usual course. We’ve had this word since 1798. Its initial usage applied generally to the animal and plant kingdoms. Since 1938 we’ve had the word off-beat (or offbeat). It was born in the world of music, & was almost immediately applied to idiosyncratic humans. The Old English word utlendisc referred to the customs or people of a foreign country. In time, xenophobia & discomfort with “other” took their toll on this word’s meaning. The word it has become, outlandish, now means odd or bizarre. In 1866 the word screwball referred to an unexpected sort of pitch in the game of cricket. By 1928, baseball welcomed screwball into its lexical arms to refer to an erratic pitch. By 1938, Carol Lombard’s comedy got labeled screwball comedy, & ever since, the word screwball can be used to identify a person who is unbalanced or idiosyncratic. In the comments section, I’m hoping you’ll nominate a character from fiction or the silver screen who might be defined with one of the above words. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: the Merriam Webster, OED, Collins Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary, & Etymonline.  This week, we celebrate the tiny Proto-Indo-European word, *ar-. a word that meant to fit together.
Its progeny are legion. *ar- gave us words that acknowledge the fitting together necessary for military action: armada armament armor armory army gendarme ordnance & the fitting together it takes to cease military action: armistice disarm *ar- gave us words that acknowledge the fitting together that is art: art artifact artist artisan It gave us the names of critters that fit together: arthropod armadillo And words that recognize other ways things might fit together: armoire aristocracy arthritis articulate artifact coordination harmony ornament ornate subordinate order Even words that suggest fitting together is simply the way of things: ordinary inert inertia And a word that may just be where all this fitting together started: primordial Did any of these fitting together words surprise you? If so, please say so in the comments section. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: the Merriam Webster, OED, Collins Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary, & Etymonline.  There is magic in lists, & a very particular sort of magic in lists of idioms. To celebrate that magic, here’s a list of idioms beginning with the word pull. pull a fast one pull a muscle pull ahead pull in the reins pull one’s punches pull one’s weight pull oneself together pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps pull over pull a rabbit out of a hat pull rank pull someone down pull someone’s chain pull someone’s leg pull something off pull something out of a hat pull something out of thin air pull something together pull strings pull the long bow pull the plug on something/someone pull the rug out from under something/someone like pulling teeth pull the trigger on something pull the wool over someone’s eyes pull through pull up stakes pull up with a start I hope that brought a smile. Any responses are welcome. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: the MyEnglish Teacher site, OED, TheFreeDictionary, Oxford Dictionary, & Etymonline.  The process of preening ourselves to look smart, tidy or stylish, has any number of labels. Here are a few.
Since the late 1800s we can get duded up (or dooded/doodied up if preferred). This term came about in the late 1800s from the word dude (city slicker). The Proto-Indo European word *sleigh- meant to glide smoothly, & gave us the English word slick, which made its way across the pond to America, where one variant came to mean preening oneself to look smart, tidy or stylish -- slicked up. We can also get spruced up. This idiom seems to have been born of the fancy leather jerkins worn by Prussian soldiers back when the word spruce used to refer to Prussians. In the early 1800s a fancily dressed individual could be referred to as a spiff, which gave birth to the late 1800s idiom spiffed up. And since the 1940s we’ve had the term gussied up. Though nobody’s certain of its origins, it may have come from a familiar name for Augustus (Gussie), or from the word gusset. In the early 1800s when one tidied oneself, the verb tidivate came along (from the word tidy + verb ending -vate). It soon shifted to titivate. So, next time you need to look fancy, what term will you use for the process of getting there? My thanks go out to this week’s sources: the OED, Etymonline. Free Dictionary, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary, & Wordnik |
I write for teens, narrate audio books, bake bread, play music, and ponder the wonder of words in a foggy little town on California's central coast.
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