AWADmail Issue 297
Mar 9, 2008
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 (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the net
Nigeria's Ornate Brand of English:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/02/africa/AF-FEA-GEN-Nigeria-English-o!.php
Idiom Shortage Leaves Nation All Sewed Up In Horse Pies:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/idiom_shortage_leaves_nation_all
And a couple of stories related to this week's words:
More Expensive Placebos Bring More Relief:
http://nytimes.com/2008/03/05/health/research/05placebo.html?ex=1362373200&en=7ce7bfab78a478d4&ei=5090
Popular Italian Catholic saint exhumed 40 years on:
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSEIC37645320080303
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From: WM (web.master cyberservices.com)
Subject: Postcautionary/this week's words
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/prepone.html
Postcautionary may fit with this week's words:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcautionary_principle
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From: Michael Herbst, MD (mmherbst earthlink.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--prequel
In medicine, we sometimes use the interesting term "prehabilitation" to
refer to the process of preparing a patient for a treatment, e.g. joint
replacement, that will also require rehabilitation.
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From: Susan Marr (susan.marr mainepers.org)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--prepone
I have lived in New England all of my life and in the winter am always
familiar with the inclement weather policy of my employer and the various
organizations to which I belong. You never know when the weather will be
too foul to go to work or for a particular event to be held.
My husband, being the clever fellow that he is, has decided that in addition
to an inclement weather policy, one must have a clement weather policy where
the weather is just too fine to be in work that particular day or to hold
that particular event.
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From: Linda Bevard (lindab qadas.com)
Subject: Prepone
I'd never heard "prepone", but my grandmother, Ruth Knowlton Woodis, used
a similar word in her diary. (I've always figured she coined it.)
She said on September 12, 1913: "Wrote Clark about anteponing our wedding."
Four days later she wrote: "Clark agreeable to having our wedding Oct. 8
and suggests Denver as the place."
On October 5, Clark reported: "Tend to be sick all day."
They were married in Denver by a Universalist minister and soon afterward
had pitched their tent on Colorado's eastern plains, where they set about
proving up her father's homestead claim.
The Oxford English Dictionary shows the first citation of
this word ("to put or set before, to prefer") from 1656.
-Anu Garg
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From: Fin Po (fipo optonline.net)
Subject: feedback: prepone
A friend of mine is the manager of an amateur radio traffic net. So he has
instructions for the several amateurs who run the net. He has a PREAMBLE to
explain how to start and run the net and he has a POSTAMBLE to explain how
to close the net after all traffic has been passed.
Why is POSTAMBLE not an accepted word?
It is; first citation from 1978.
-Anu Garg
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From: Sendhil Revuluri (sendhil revuluri.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--dystopia
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/dystopia.html
According to the Penguin paperback edition of Utopia I read way back in high
school, More intended the word to be glossable in two ways: both as ou + topia
(non-place) but also as eu + topia (good-place).
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From: Vaughn Hathaway (pastorveh cs.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--inhume
Actually, the failure to use inhume may be because there is another word that
Americans use most frequently -- the word inter.
American funeral parlors (mortuaries) use the word interment in information
bulletins made available at funeral services to direct mourners to the burial
site following a formal memorial service in a church or at a funeral parlor.
E.g. Interment will be at Evergreen Memorial Cemetery.
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From: F.J. Bergmann (demiurge fibitz.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--inhume
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/inhume.html
Terry Pratchett, my absolute favorite author of all time, uses the word
"inhume" as the official term of the Assassins' Guild, in his Discworld
novels, for having someone murdered. My favorite: "to inhume with extreme
prejudice".
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From: Frederick Armstrong (frederick-armstrong terra.com.mx)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--nocebo
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/nocebo.html
The word nocivo (pronounced the same as "nocebo") in Spanish means
a substance that is actually harmful to you.
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From: Joseph Spenner (joseph85750 yahoo.com)
Subject: counterpart
These counterpart words have always interested me. One of my favorites is
"Progress", whose counterpart is "Congress".
............................................................................
Language is the only homeland. -Czeslaw Milosz, writer, Nobel laureate
(b. 1911)
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