Word Wednesday.

Disjunction

Noun.

1: a sharp cleavage: Disunion, Separation <the disjunction between theory and practice>.

2: a compound sentence in logic formed by joining two statements by or: a: inclusive disjunction b: exclusive disjunction.

[Origin: disjunccioun, from Old French disjunction (13c.) or directly from Latin disjunctionem “separation,” noun of action from past participle stem of disjungere.]

(1350-1400.)

” ‘No, Omega, Ariane. She killed one of the guards.’ ‘Good Lord. When?’ ‘Ten months ago. Disjunction – followed by escape.’ ” – This Night’s Foul Work, Fred Vargas.

Word Wednesday.

Keen

Adjective.

1 a: having a fine edge or point: sharp. b: affecting one as if by cutting <keen sarcasm>. c: pungent to the sense. <a keen scent>.

2 a: (1) showing a quick and ardent responsiveness <a keen swimmer>. (2) eager; b of emotion or feeling: intense.

3 a: intellectually alert: having or characteristic of a quick penetrating mind; also: shrewdly astute. b: sharply contested <a keen debate>. c: extremely  sensitive in perception.

4: Wonderful, excellent.

– Keenly, adverb.

– Keenness, noun.

– Keen on: very enthusiastic or excited about.

[Origin: Middle English kene brave, sharp, from Old English cēne brave; akin to Old High German kuoni brave.]

(13th century)*

“Daniel is a very keen fellow, and it is why I sent him to Duncarlin – he has gone before, and hates the errand, for the castle and its inhabitants oppress him, and he feels unclean when he has been there.” – The Wicked, Douglas Nicholas.

Am I the only one who remembers Neato keen?

*I am aware of the meanings ascribed in the 1800s. My book choice is set in the early Medieval period, and that’s the definition I am concerned with.

Tongue Tide!

Purgatory Pie Press, “Volumptuous: Hanging Tower of Babble” (2017) (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic).

Hyperallergic has a write-up on what sounds like a very grand show indeed, Tongue Tides, in Long Island City. I would so love to see this in person.

Are you ready for volumptuous? This hilarious sign by Purgatory Pie Press dangling from Flux Factory’s ceiling, part of “Volumptuous: Hanging Tower of Babble,” a large installation of hanging signage, is a fitting mascot for this playful summer show. Tongue Tide invites us all to play a little more with language, and to ponder other languages besides English. It’s a must-see for writers and wordsmiths and is well worth the trip to Long Island City.

Queens is the most linguistically diverse area on the planet. No other place boasts so many languages in such close proximity, something Rashedul Hasan and Dan Silverman illustrate in “We Are the Queens of New York” (2017), a map piece where dots of different colors represent these many varied languages. It’s really powerful to dwell on just how unique the borough — and New York City as a whole — is from this perspective.

[…]

It’s also good to ponder this map because, with all due to respect to Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker, English does not own a monopoly on wit. Many turns of phrase and poetic expressions in other languages pack a punch, even in translation. Some of the best work in this show plays with other languages to give us glimpses of their clever bons mots.

An intriguing artist book by Magali Duzant, A Light Blue Desire (2017), complies blue bromides from across the globe, and blue postcards featuring some of the selections are available for visitors to take home. Blue, in word and concept, can be stretched in so many semiotic directions. The blues are great, but they cast a sad shadow on the color as a metaphor in today’s English, which is further exacerbated by the minority status of the so-called blue states in the US’s broken political system. But blue is not so sad in other languages. One vivid example is the Polish expression for what we might call daydreaming: to think about blue almonds. It captures the futility of idle fantasy so well.

You can see the map, and much more, and there’s more to read at Hyperallergic.

Word Wednesday.

Charlantry

Noun.

Charlatan, noun.

  1. Quack.

  2. One making usually showing pretenses to knowledge or ability: Fraud, Faker.

– Charlatanism, noun.

– Charlantry, noun.

[Origin: Italian ciarlatano, alteration of cerretano, literally, inhabitant of Cerreto, from Cerreto, Italy.]

(1618)

That certainly makes me wonder about the inhabitants of Cerreto in the 15th century. Many thanks to rq for the recommend, Uprooted is a splendid story.

“I put my hands on it, and then I said abruptly, “What does it summon? A demon?” “No, don’t be absurd,” the Dragon said, impatiently. “Calling spirits is nothing but charlantry. It’s very easy to claim you’ve summoned something that’s invisible and incorporeal.” – Uprooted, Naomi Novik.

Collocation and Pejoration.

‘I am a gentil womman and no wenche’: from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Tale, c1386. Photograph: Alamy.

Linguists call it collocation: the likelihood of two words occurring together. If I say “pop”, your mental rolodex will begin whirring away, coming up with candidates for what might follow. “Music”, “song” or “star”, are highly likely. “Sensation” or “diva” a little less so. “Snorkel” very unlikely indeed.

What do you think of when I say the word “rabid”? One option, according to the dictionary publisher Oxford Dictionaries, is “feminist”. The publisher has been criticised for a sexist bias in its illustrations of how certain words are used. “Nagging” is followed by “wife”. “Grating” and “shrill” appear in sentences describing women’s voices, not men’s.

[…]

Perhaps “rabid” is collocated with “feminist” more often than with those other words (if the data the OUP uses includes online discussions, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case). Sexist assumptions find their way into speech and writing for the simple reason that society is still sexist.

Language, as the medium through which we conduct almost all relationships, public and private, bears the precise imprint of our cultural attitudes. The history of language, then, is like a fossil record of how those attitudes have evolved, or how stubbornly they have stayed the same.

When it comes to women, the message is a depressing one. The denigration of half of the population has embedded itself in the language in ways you may not even be aware of. Often this takes the form of “pejoration”: when the meaning of the word “gets worse” over time. Linguists have long observed that words referring to women undergo this process more often than those referring to men. Here are eight examples:

Those examples are Mistress, Hussy, Madam, Governess, Spinster, Courtesan, Wench, and Tart. I’ll just include Hussy here:

Hussy.

This once neutral term meant the female head of a household. Hussy is a contraction of 13th-century husewif – a word cognate with modern “housewife”. From the 17th century onwards, however, it began to mean “a disreputable woman of improper behaviour”. That’s now its only meaning.

My whole lifetime, hussy has carried a negative meaning only. I had no idea it actually meant head of a household, much like my surprise over the primary definition of paraphernaliaClick on over for the full article and to see the rest of the words, and how they have changed over the years! (I got to this article from another interesting one, on how American is taking over English all over the world. I get teased a lot for using English spelling rather than American, but that was how I was taught, and I’ll keep using it.)

Word Wednesday.

Concupiscent

Adjective.

Concupiscence, noun: strong desire; especially: sexual desire.

Concupiscent, adjective.

[Origin: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin concupiscentia, from Latin concupiscent-, concupiscens, present participle of concupiscere to desire ardently, from com– + cupere to desire.]

(14th Century)

It wasn’t like an apple, or any crisp fruit, where you might sink your teeth in and lever a piece away from the orb. She bit through, faint resistance of the skin and then concupiscent flesh. Juice slicked her cheeks and chin, coursed down her forearm, dripped from her elbow. The flavor was—intense. Honeyed, but not cloying, complex and buoyant. – Dust, Elizabeth Bear.

First Word: Idiot.

President Donald Trump (AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB).

9. What is the first word that comes to mind when you think of Donald Trump? (Numbers are not percentages. Figures show the number of times each response was given. This table reports only words that were mentioned at least five times.)

idiot         39
incompetent   31
liar          30
leader        25
unqualified   25
president     22
strong        21
businessman   18
ignorant      16
egotistical   15
asshole       13
stupid        13
arrogant      12
trying        12
bully         11
business      11
narcissist    11
successful    11
disgusting    10
great         10
clown          9
dishonest      9
racist         9
American       8
bigot          8
good           8
money          8
smart          8
buffoon        7
con-man        7
crazy          7
different      7
disaster       7
rich           7
despicable     6
dictator       6
aggressive     5
blowhard       5
decisive       5
embarrassment  5
evil           5
greedy         5
inexperienced  5
mental         5
negotiator     5
patriotism     5

This is part of an extensive Quinnipiac Poll, you can see the whole thing here.

Word Wednesday.

Fulsome

Adjective.

1a: characterized by abundance: copious. b: generous in amount, extent, or spirit. c: being full and well developed.

2: aesthetically, morally, or generally offensive.

3: exceeding the bounds of good taste: overdone.

4: excessively complimentary or flattering: effusive.

– fulsomely, adverb.

– fulsomeness, noun.

Usage: The senses shown above are the chief living senses of fulsome. Sense 2, which was a generalized term of disparagement in the late 17th century, is the least common of these. Fulsome became a point of dispute when sense 1, thought to be obsolete in the 19th century, began to be revived in the 20th. The dispute was exacerbated by the fact that the large dictionaries of the first half of the century missed the beginnings of the revival. Sense 1 has not only been revived but has spread in its application and continues to do so. The chief danger for user of fulsome is ambiguity. Unless the context is made very clear, the reader or hearer cannot be sure whether such an expression as “fulsome praise” is meant in sense 1b or in sense 4.  [Merriam-Webster.]

[Origin: Middle English fulsom, copious, cloying, from full + –som -some.]

(13th century.)

“Glad to meet you, sir. I have heard your name mentioned in connection with that of your friend. You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes. I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic* a skull or such well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection to my running my finger along your parietal fissure? A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.” – The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle.

*Dolichocephalic

adjective: having a relatively long head with a cephalic index of less than 75.

[Origin: New Latin dolichocephalus long-headed, from Greek dolichos long + – kephalos, from kephalē head.]

(1852)

Word Wednesday.

Peach

Verb.

2 . Transitive verb: to inform against: betray.

Intransitive verb: to turn informer.

[Origin: Middle English pechen, short for apechen to accuse, from Anglo-French apecher, empecher to ensnare. A shortening of appeach, an obsolete variant of impeach. Related: Peached; peaching. ]

(1560)

“I have the cabman who took you to Whitehall and the cabman who brought you away. I have the commissionaire who saw you near the case. I have Ikey Sanders, who refused to cut it up for you. Ikey has peached, and the game is up.” – The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle.

While James Cagney never actually said the line “you dirty rat”, I can hear his voice in my head, saying “you dirty, rotten peach!”

Word Wednesday.

Malevolent

Adjective.

1: having, showing, or arising from intense often vicious ill will, spite, or hatred.

2: productive of harm or evil.

-malevolently, adverb.

[Origin: Latin malevolent-, malevolens, from male badly + volent-, volens, present participle of velle to wish.]

(1509)

“He had a vision of that lone velvety ear, fluttering like a huge malevolent moth through the attics at the Schloss.” – Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand, Fred Vargas.

Word Wednesday.

Antipathetic

Adjective.

1: having a natural aversion; also: not sympathetic: hostile. Opposed, averse, contrary; having or showing antipathy.

2: arousing antipathy.

Antipathetically – adverb.

Antipatheticalness – noun.

[Origin: Greek antipathḗs opposed in feeling, anti– + –pathēs, adj. derivative of páthos, with –etic by analogy with pathetic.]

(1630-40)

“Schnee, the colony’s governor, called upon Fu Hao in the unexpected company of his antipathetic military counterpart, Oberstleutnant Lettow-Vorbeck.” – Everfair, Nisi Shawl.

Word Wednesday.

Gauche

Adjective.

1a: lacking social experience or grace; also not tactful: crude.

1b: crudely made or done.

2. not planar.

– gauchely adverb
– gaucheness noun

[Origin: French, literally, left]

(1751)

“I got out of my car, map of Glasgow in hand, and asked her for directions I did not need in an English I hoped was gauche and charming.” – Irene, Pierre Lemaitre.

Word Wednesday.

Nascent

Adjective.

Coming or having recently come into existence.

[Origin: Latin nascent-, nascens, present participle of nasci to be born.]

(C. 1624)

“Near the end of Delancey Street, the smells of sea and fresh water, along with the stench of refuse that those who lived near the waterfront simply dumped off the edge of Manhattan every day, mingled to produce the distinctive aroma of that tidal pool we call the East River. A large structure soon slanted up before us: the ramp approach to the nascent Williamsburg Bridge. Without pausing, and much to my dismay, Stevie crashed onto the boarded roadway, the horse’s hooves and carriage wheels clattering far more loudly against wood than they had against stone.” – The Alienist, Caleb Carr.