AWADmail Issue 262
May 20, 2007
A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day
and Other Interesting Tidbits about Words and Languages
----------------------------
From: Anu Garg (words wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the net
Tocological trickery:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/A6B8ADF657D0E5DE862572DC0011F960?OpenDocument
http://tinyurl.com/276yqz
If only they were reading AWAD. From the archives:
http://wordsmith.org/words/tokology.html
Bilingual are better spellers:
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20071305-15875-2.html
Pentagon setting up Language Corps:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070510/LOCAL/705100516/1196/LOCAL11
----------------------------
From: Lucie Singh (lmsingh aol.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--mesmeric
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/mesmeric.html
Here's what I've thought about for a long time: If Lord Cardigan had been
the gambler and the Earl of Sandwich was desirous of a jersey that buttoned
up the front, why we'd all be eating cardigans and wearing sandwiches.
----------------------------
From: Mary Ellen Leuver (maryellen.leuver yale.edu)
Subject: Correction of Mesmeric
I have a comment about the origins of mesmeric. The email stated:
[After physician F.A. Mesmer (1734-1815) who discovered a way of
inducing hypnosis through what he called animal magnetism.]
This is actually historically inaccurate. Franz Anton Mesmer did indeed
start the phenomenon termed "mesmerism" in the late eighteenth century
but his practice of animal magnetism did not involve what we would term
hypnosis. His theory was that there was "but one disease and one cure".
The disease was an imbalance of a cosmic magnetic fluid in the body
which purportedly solved through the passing of magnets over the body.
Mesmer eventually began to lessen his use of magnets and relied on his
own skill and person to produce the calming and regenerative effects.
It was not until his follower, Armand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet,
Marquis de Puységur, realized that he could put patients into deep,
trance-like states that "mesmerism" became likened to hypnotism. The
eponymic use of the term is loose as it was not Mesmer who actually
began the phenomenon we call "mesmerism" today.
Mary Ellen Leuver
Doctoral Candidate, Yale Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, History of
Science and Medicine
----------------------------
From: Philip Wilkinson (philipwilkinson ukonline.co.uk)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--penelope
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/penelope.html
Fascinated to read about penelope the day I finished reading Roger Green's
"Hydra and the Bananas of Leonard Cohen" which includes the word
penelopize, derived from the delaying tactic employed by Homer's Penelope:
"I was tempted to penelopize, to go back to the beginning and start
again in order to postpone the moment of discussion."
----------------------------
From: Gary Muldoon (muldg aol.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--Alford plea
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/alford_plea.html
You hit upon a veritable treasure trove with today's definition. The
criminal law abounds with eponyms, usually named for the defendant whose
case results in a rule from the highest court of a state, or a United
States Supreme Court decision. They often are the names given to a pretrial
hearing involving suppression of evidence. Among these are Wade hearings
(identification), Miranda warnings (self-incrimination), Bronston defense
(perjury), Terry search (patdown for weapons), and Teague doctrine (habeas
corpus). Other colorful expressions derived from leading cases include the
cat-out-of-the-bag theory (confessions), choice-of-evils defense
(justification), and the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine (suppression
of evidence). Such terms are defined in a book by Glenn Edward Murray and
me, entitled Criminal Law Slanguage of New York, 3rd ed., published by
LexisNexis.
----------------------------
From: Charles Becker (renderedright verizon.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--Alford plea
My understanding (as a Spanish-English court interpreter and translator)
is that the defendant who takes an Alford plea, acknowledges that the
prosecution has enough evidence that in all likelihood would result in his
or her conviction. Under a regular plea, the defendant, after waiving the
right against self-incrimination, inter alia, must acknowledge the elements
of the crime to which s/he is pleading guilty. But if, say, you wake up in
a hospital and are told that you're being charged with vehicular homicide,
yet all you remember is imbibing the whiskey at your surprise birthday
party prior to heading home, then you can't honestly acknowledge acts of
which you have no recall.
----------------------------
From: Phil Somerset (psomerset comcast.net)
Subject: Selenography
This is just a parallel to the much more common word geography with the
root ge, from the Greek for earth. Similar situations occur. For example,
NASA has familiarized us with the words perigee and apogee referring to
the near and far points of an orbit, but objects circling the sun reach
perihelion and apohelion. You could also conceive of the word heliography,
referring to the process of dealing with the physical features of the sun.
----------------------------
From: Kent Brooksby (kbrooksby ci.pinetop-lakeside.az.us)
Subject: Freudian Slip
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/freudian_slip.html
I love Freudian slips. They remind me of the joke about the man who told
his analyst, "Last night I made a terrible Freudian slip. We were having
dinner with my mother-in-law. I turned to her and I meant to say, "Would
you please pass the butter, Mother?" But what came out was, "You stupid
cow! You've ruined my whole life!"
----------------------------
From: Carsten Kruse (c-kruse t-online.de)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--Freudian slip
I well remember a discussion in a German newsgroup (the name of which I
can't remember, however ;-) where someone used the term "Freudian slip"
and it turned out it provoked a Freudian slip itself since another guy
asked why this topic should have anything to do with panties. :-)
----------------------------
From: Pat Fowler (pfowler hypernet.com)
Subject: catbird seat in AWADmail issue 261
I copied the message about the "Alec Guinness" movie to my husband
and received this info in return:
"I'm not sure where you got this information, but ...
1) The film in question was not from the 1960s - it was made in 1959
2) The film was not titled "The Catbird Seat" it's titled "Battle of the Sexes";
it was based on a short story by James Thurber entitled "Catbird Seat"
3) The film doesn't star Alec Guinness, it stars Peter Sellers.
But other than that ..."
............................................................................
Bare lists of words are found suggestive to an imaginative and excited mind.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
Send your comments to (words AT wordsmith.org). To subscribe, unsubscribe,
update address, gift subscription: http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscriber.html
See previous issues of AWADmail at http://wordsmith.org/awad/awadmail.html
This message was sent to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]".
