AWADmail Issue 263
May 27, 2007
A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day
and Other Interesting Tidbits about Words and Languages
----------------------------
From: Wordsmith.org (words wordsmith.org)
Subject: Wordsmith.org online chat with Anne Curzan
Join us in an online chat on the history of English. Our guest will be
Anne Curzan, author, editor, and professor of English.
She is the author of "Gender Shifts in the History of English" (2003)
and "How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction" (2006) and editor of
Journal of English Linguistics.
The event will take place on Tue, June 12, 2007, 6 pm Pacific (GMT -7)
For more details, please see http://wordsmith.org/chat
----------------------------
From: Sarah Greek (excelsior.g gmail.com)
Subject: Tocological Trickery
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/awad/awadmail262.html
My name is Sarah Greek, and I'm a homeschooled student in Mountain Grove,
Missouri, who just graduated from high school. I'm a subscriber of AWAD
and just read your latest email and its reference to 'tocological trickery'
with interest.
"If only they were reading AWAD"? We were. That's how this happened!
I live in Missouri, and have been working with Senator Loudon and
others on midwifery legislation all year. You might be interested to
know that I discovered the word 'tocological' as a result of your
daily emails. When we were working on midwifery legislation several
weeks ago, I remembered the word and informed Senator Loudon. We
inserted it into our amendment, resulting in the events that the news
article which you referenced narrates.
The whole situation, especially the word tocology, has been all over the
Missouri news this week. I spent the week in Jefferson City, and can
personally attest to the fact that the word tocology has been in the
mouths of nearly every politician all week. It's become the latest inside
joke in the Missouri Legislature. I've been called 'a tocological pain'. :)
Thanks to AWAD, midwifery is well on its way to becoming legal in
Missouri, and the whole state has added a new word to its vocabulary!
Here are some other news articles on the predicament. Several of them made
the front page of Missouri's major newspapers. Not all the facts are correct
(AWAD didn't get any credit, unfortunately), but you'll get the general idea.
http://www.myfoxstl.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=B422E59F9F4097BFC6EA6CC775DAF41F?contentId=3215803&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/stlog/2007/05/mo_midwifery_bill_lives_thanks.php
http://www.komu.com/satellite/SatelliteRender/KOMU.com/dd7b5a56-c0a8-2f11-0160-892d5f947562/9208f3ee-c0a8-2f11-00d8-cbe41347feb2
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2007-05-16/news/life-support/
----------------------------
From: Angel Martin, Sr. (amartintam aol.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--peccadillo
Picadillo is a popular dish in Cuba, Mexico, and other Latin American
countries. It's prepared with, among other ingredients, ground beef.
----------------------------
From: Yosef Bar-On (jobaron galon.org.il)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--mesa
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/mesa.html
There's a good old Yiddish joke about mesa: The sentence,
"Aqui es una mesa" means "Here is a table" in Spanish.
In Yiddish, however, it means, "A cow eats without a knife."
----------------------------
From: Colin Wright (cwright cmc.edu)
Subject: plateau
There is a Butte, Montana and a Mesa, Arizona. Is there a Plateau anywhere?
----------------------------
From: Janet Popish (bearpaul peoplepc.com)
Subject: feedback: mesa
My home town, Grand Junction, in Mesa County, Colorado, sits in the shadow
of the world's largest flat-topped mountain, Grand Mesa. Consequently,
everywhere you look, you find things named after it: Mesa Mall, Mesa Point
Shopping Center, Mesa State College, and 65 other organizations and
businesses listed in the phone book. I didn't learn anything from
A.Word.A.Day today... but that's a first.
----------------------------
From: Dorothy Patent (doropatent aol.com)
Subject: table and tablet
My husband and I have just returned from Scotland, where tablet has yet another
completely different meaning -- it's a delicious sugary candy, somewhere
between fudge and just plain crystalline sugar. Yum! We had to sample the
tablet everywhere we went while there, to find the best.
----------------------------
From: John Borojevic (john.borojevic dotars.gov.au)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--cabana
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/cabana.html
In Australia Cabana is a type of soft, thin salami (about a 60cm long thin
sausage shape). Its close relative is Cabanossi which is a harder dried and
perhaps lightly smoked version of it. Not sure of the origins -- perhaps
Italian?
I don't think I've ever heard Australians refer to a cabin, a cottage, or
beach shelter as a cabana and it always sounds slightly strange when I hear
it used in that sense on American TV or movies.
----------------------------
From: Mack Bell (mackbell coastalnet.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--peccadillo
Do you know what the Ecuadoreans call the equator?
La Mitad del Mundo: The Middle of the World.
There is a monument a short distance outside Quito marking the equatorial
line. I've been there many times showing visitors the equator. As a Foreign
Service Officer, I lived there with my family for five years.
............................................................................
Stability in language is synonymous with rigor mortis. -Ernest Weekley,
lexicographer (1865-1954)
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]".
