AWADmail Issue 302
Apr 13, 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
Names That Match Forge a Bond on the Internet:
http://nytimes.com/2008/04/10/us/10names.html?ex=1365480000&en=00e414c74b5f7a0e
Ving, Vang, Vong. Or, the Pleasures of a New Vocabulary:
http://nytimes.com/2008/04/09/opinion/09wed4.html?ex=1208491200&en=8f706d32201b48f7
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From: Geoff Reynolds (amundo iinet.net.au)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--ebullient
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/ebullient.html
With regard to your "good" conversation, watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_veIGGP1Uh4 I have tried to ban
the word "good" from our kids' answers with not much success.
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From: David E. Selvin (david_e_selvin mcpsmd.org)
Subject: This week's theme
The theme of this week's words about "tired" words is one of the important
ideas that I try to instill in my 5th grade students' writing. We have a
display I call "Graveyard Words" where students can add their entries to lay
to rest certain words that have too broad or an indefinite meaning. Good,
bad, nice, and like are usually the first ones to appear on the list. I think,
in light of today's economy, I should call these words "Retired Words" and
make a display of words looking for employment.
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From: Frank Brown (frank.brown travelport.com)
Subject: Retiring "good" and "bad"
Two other words I would like to see retired or at least semi-retired are
"love" and "hate", at least as they are used towards inanimate objects
and things.
"I HATE Brussels sprouts." What a strong emotion to waste on a vegetable.
"I LOVE your shoes." If you love my shoes, how am I supposed to respond
when you tell me you LOVE me. "What, like you love my shoes?"
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From: John Zeisel (zeisel thehearth.org)
Subject: good
When my kids answered questions about their day in school or a movie they
saw or a party they went to or whatever with the single word "good" I would
always say "Good is a four letter word starting with 'g' and ending with 'd'.
Now how WAS the movie, meal, or so on?"
Now when I am tired and answer similar questions with the descriptor "good",
I get the same lecture. Thanks for reminding me!
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From: Steve Benko (steve.benko gecapital.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--ebullient
I must object to your domestic banishment of "good". Especially with
children, it's all in HOW they say it. Isn't it? I'll never forget how
my then-four-year-old daughter, now 19, reacted when I asked her how she
liked her new baby sister, upon first setting eyes upon her minutes
after birth. Jumping up and down with excitement, she pronounced her,
"GOOD!" As did God of his creation in Genesis.
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From: John Rochat (houyhnhnmland sbcglobal.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--ebullient
Similarly, as a physician, I have told my patients for years that the words
"sick" and "ill" have been banned. If they insist on using those words, they
are advised that I will have to ask them about ten more questions to find
out more precisely what they intended to tell me in the first place, thus
delaying a meaningful solution even further.
If, however, they tell me they are "fine", I then require them to tell me what
that means, too. On further reflection, a few will maintain they are "fine"
but no one seems to remain just "sick" or "ill". While Sir William Osler may
have said, "If you listen carefully to the patient they will tell you the
diagnosis," I can't help but think his patients must have had a larger
vocabulary than good, bad, sick, ill, and fine, and a greater interest in
discovering the most appropriate remedy.
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From: Michael Anderson (michael evanstongroup.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--tremulous
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/tremulous.html
Seeing "tremulous" this morning, I thought of Robert Frost. (I had just
attended, last evening, a Frost reading group. My friend and I have been
meeting now for 14 years with one purpose: a careful reading of every poem,
seriatim. At roughly one title per night we expect to finish sometime in
2015!)
But, as I say, "tremulous" sent me immediately to Frost's "Tuft of Flowers"
in which a butterfly first flew away, "and then on tremulous wing came back
to me." The poem appears in "A Boy's Will", his first book. Browsing in
that same volume, I then re-read, "My Butterfly", the first line of which
I'd forgotten: "Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too."
How had we, all these years, missed this little cleverness? Here the bard
had paired--in one book, in two poems, both about butterflies--"tremulous"
and "emulous". It's a feat that would make Ogden Nash himself, king of the
clever rhyme, tremble in emulation.
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From: Brian McKeown (brian_mckeown ie.ibm.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--pusillanimous
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/pusillanimous.html
I reckon that word will strike a chord with many people out there - though
they might not know why! I knew I'd heard it before and after scraping the
bottom of the memory barrel remembered I'd heard it in a movie - The Wizard
of Oz. It's near the end, as the wizard gives scarecrow his diploma, he
declares - "Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the earth, or slinks
through slimy seas has a brain!" So in a Donald Rumsfeld kind of way that
word has been a 'known unknown' for me for many years -- I've heard it many
times (ie. seen the movie many times) but didn't know what it actually
meant -- until now. :-)
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From: Adele St. John (asaint stanford.edu)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--pusillanimous
This was the first "big" word I ever learned. My grandfather described
a speech in which then Vice-President, Richard Nixon said "pusillanimous
pussyfooters". I was very, very young but, grabbed onto words and had a way
above average vocabulary by the time I was in first grade. My dad and my
grandfather were chuckling because I was trying to say pusillanimous -- it
must have been amusing to see/hear a very small child repeating a very big
word that was probably longer than I was tall.... At that time, my
grandfather and grandmother lived in Long Beach, California. I enjoyed going
to the pier with my father so I could see the "fish-doggies"... my own, very
creative term for seals. Pusillanimous brings up those kinds of memories for
me.
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From: John Richardson (rubrick.illumus gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--pusillanimous
I was really amused to get this word in my mailbox today just a few days
after listening to this interview on NPR with the cookie monster:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18659731
In it Cookie monster claims his least favourite word is pusillanimous, but
doesn't know what it means. From the way that he describes it I reckon that
his definition sounds more appropriate!
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From: Bruce P. Bogert (bpbogert comcast.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--pavid
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/pavid.html
Years ago I chose the motto "Semper Pavidus" as appropriate for my yachting
activities and I still wear a baseball cap with that motto. Surprisingly, in
all those years only one person has overtly translated it. It looks close
enough to the U.S. Coast Guard motto "Semper Paratus" (Always Ready) so that
once I was mistaken for a USCG alumnus!
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From: Sue Kniss (suebk myaccess.com.au)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--piker
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/piker.html
Here Down-Under in Australia a piker is one who won't do something. Rather
derogatory, and implying a level of fear. One might be called a piker for
refusing to bungee jump, or go white-water rafting. No one wants to be called
a piker, so sadly the term is also used for less 'noble' undertakings -- like
drinking, smoking, drugs, gambling. To 'pike out' is the verb for not
participating in some activity, again with a connotation of fear being the
motivator. I guess the Australian meaning is closely related to the possible
origins of "to leave". One who is piker, or who pikes out, does actually
leave a situation.
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From: Griselda Mussett (mussetts btinternet.com)
Subject: Re: piker
Here in Kent, England (where some old dialect vocabulary is still alive and
well), piker is used interchangeably with pikey and is a very derogatory term
applied to gypsies and travellers. Such people are regarded as thieves as
well as vagabonds, and are chased away by 'respectable' house-dwelling
folks -- a medieval drama still enacted in our small towns and villages. The
possible Middle English meaning of pike (to leave) is fascinating as these
families are always leaving to try somewhere else.
............................................................................
Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and
pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines. -Bill Bryson, author
(b. 1951)
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