AWADmail Issue 234
November 5, 2006
A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day
and Other Interesting Tidbits about Words and Languages
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From: Anu Garg (garg wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the net
Cyber-Neologoliferation:
http://nytimes.com/2006/11/05/magazine/05cyber.html
The Million Dollar Comma:
http://theregister.co.uk/2006/10/26/the_case_of_the_million_dollar_comma/
Kids Are Reading For Speed -- And Getting Nowhere:
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/living/15868709.htm
In Plain, Southern English:
http://chattanoogan.com/articles/article_93887.asp
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From: Alison Huettner (pondalorum aol.com)
Subject: Ordinal words
The following was the 1993 winner of the Bulwer-Lytton contest for the
worst conceivable opening line for a novel (named after Bulwer-Lytton's
"It was a dark and stormy night", beloved of Snoopy). It's my favorite!
"She wasn't really my type, a hard-looking but untalented reporter from
the local cat box liner, but the first second that the third-rate
representative of the fourth estate cracked open a new fifth of old
Scotch, my sixth sense said seventh heaven was as close as an eighth
note from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, so, nervous as a tenth grader
drowning in eleventh-hour cramming for a physics exam, I swept her into
my longing arms, and, humming 'The Twelfth of Never,' I got lucky on
Friday the thirteenth." -Wm. W. "Buddy" Ocheltree, Port Townsend, Washington
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From: Charlotte Whale (cwhalejr aol.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--fifth column
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/fifth_column.html
Casey's request of lining up alphabetically according to height,
just might work for me - I am tall and my last name begins with "W".
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From: Murray Frank (mfrank.ihp vineyard.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--fifth column
At my first pay-day in the Army in 1944, they called us out to the
squadron's drill grounds -- several hundred of us -- and told us to
line up in alphabetical order. It took hours to get paid.
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From: Mike Schoenberg (hellfroze1 mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--fifth column
Sometime in the late 1970s or early '80s there was a interesting book that
came out called "God's Fifth Column" by an English writer, William Gerhardie.
He had been a novelist in the 1930s and then went to work for the government
during the war. Afterward he supposedly disappeared as his works went out
of fashion and I remember reading a piece on how BBC went looking for him
and found him in this tiny apartment with bits of paper scattered all over.
These bits constituted the contents of "God's Fifth Column" as Gerhardie
tried to make sense of what had happened in the last 100 years with the
idea that writers and other thinkers from all over Europe were part of
this grand scheme.
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From: Frank Ruddy (globalltd earthlink.com)
Subject: fifth column
Your definition of a fifth column as traitors is outrageous. But for
General Mola and other officers of Francisco Franco, Spain would have
become another Rumania. Did you ever see the pictures of nuns driven
through the streets naked by the Republican government? Are you aware
of the theft and transfer to Russia of the Spanish treasury? Read
Orwell's Homage to Catalonia to get some idea of the murderous tactics
of the Stalinist forces in Spain aiding the Republican government.
Orwell, after all, was no right winger. The fifth column in Spain were
patriots who successfully kept Spain from going Communist. There were
heroes. You should be ashamed of maligning them as traitors.
Frank Ruddy, U.S. ambassador (ret.)
Language doesn't always follow fact or logic. John Duns Scotus,
after whom the word dunce is coined, was no dull-witted ignoramus.
The French, after whom the term French leave is coined, are no
more prone to leaving without notice than the rest of us.
The list is endless.
The term "fifth column" is in the dictionaries, and to try to
change the definition you'd need a fifth column in the editorial
offices of their publishers.
-Anu Garg (garg wordsmith.org)
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From: Evelyn Clement (erren aol.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--third degree
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/third_degree.html
When my youngest son (fourth child) was a pre-schooler, he was pretty
emphatic about doing things his own way and often scolded me when I
insisted on MY way. His favorite threat when this confrontation occurred
was, "If you don't let me (whatever) I'm going to say 'three' at you!"
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From: Cecile Hessels (v.hessels versatel.nl)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--second fiddle
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/second_fiddle.html
That most beautiful 'Second Fiddle ' sung by Bessie Smith!
Thank you for making me dig up the old LP and play it.
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From: Vickie Hook (vickieh ontera.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--second fiddle
This term brings to mind one of my favourite sounds -- the cacophony
of an orchestra tuning up. May I make a wee correction to your
definition? The concertmaster may lead the tuning, but it is the
oboe player who actually sounds the first note to which everyone else
in the orchestra subsequently tunes. It is an instrument (one of
many), which I hope someday to learn.
See http://www.dubuquesymphony.org/dso/education_askorchestraqa.asp
............................................................................
Lexicographer's business is solely to collect, arrange, and define the words
that usage presents to his hands. He has no right to proscribe words; he
is to present them as they are. -Noah Webster, lexicographer (1758-1843)
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