words: spell them – Better Living Through Literature

Word Tweets

April 6, 2022 Karen

Language Twitter is the best part of that hellsite so here are some tweets from which I’ve gained knowledge and joy lately:

AFFECT and EFFECT both come from the Latin verb ‘facere’, meaning to do—but AFFECT took the prefix ‘ad–’ (meaning to or towards) while EFFECT took ‘ex–’ (meaning out of or from). So to AFFECT something is essentially to do something to it, while an EFFECT is what results from it.

— Haggard Hawks 🦅 (@HaggardHawks) April 1, 2022

Seems like helicopter is a combo of heli and copter. Like it’s a copter that helis.

But it’s actually helico-pter. A pter that helicos. pic.twitter.com/2aVs1K3Lm5

— Tim Urban (@waitbutwhy) March 30, 2022

The Greek word for running, ‘dromos’, is the origin of HIPPODROME (literally a place for running horses), PALINDROME (a word that literally ‘runs’ back), and DROMEDARY camels (which are literally ‘running’ camels). pic.twitter.com/gVjqZ6v9M2

— Haggard Hawks 🦅 (@HaggardHawks) April 2, 2022

Learning About Words

June 17, 2021 Karen

It’s always good to remember that language evolves and thus you really don’t need to be a pedant about grammar (and as a former pedant, it feels really good to embrace the opposite approach).

TO and TOO were originally two forms of the same word. But because the adverb—meaning ‘in excess’, or ‘as well as’—was so often found in a stressed position at the end of a phrase, it gained an extra O in the 16th century. It has been considered a separate word ever since.

— Haggard Hawks ???? (@HaggardHawks) June 15, 2021

Friday Unrelated Information

August 15, 2014August 15, 2014 Karen1 Comment

1. Doc sent me one of the latest songs from Weird Al and it’s pretty much like that all the time in my head. (Maybe with a little less anger, but that depends on the day and the word crime.) The video is pretty helpful in explaining the “crimes,” too!

2. The food blog Dinner: A Love Story posted “How to be a Good Dinner Guest: 41 Rules” and they’re right on. Some are funny and some could be really good life advice, like #23: “Three words: Enthusiasm, curiosity, and gratitude.”

Words From the Cartoon Universe

March 7, 2013March 7, 2013 Karen2 Comments

My brother posted about a word I’d never heard of last week: Grawlix. A grawlix is “a sequence of typographical symbols used to represent a non-specific, profane word or phrase”–i.e., this string of characters: #@$%*! (He was talking about grawlixes in conjunction with breaking two toes, so it made lots of sense.)

The information I found that defined grawlix also gave me these words, which are perhaps even better:

Agitrons: wiggly lines indicating that something is shaking
Waftaroms: wavy lines rising from something indicating a strong smell or heat.
Briffits: clouds of dust indicating that a character left in a rush
Emanata: straight lines rising from around a character’s head indicating surprise
Plewds: drops of sweat indicating that a character is hot or stressed
Squeans: asterisks with an empty center indicating drunkenness or dizziness

Now I’m just trying to figure out how to work them into everyday conversation.

The English Song

October 10, 2011 Karen

How about some Sifl & Olly on a Monday morning? After all, I’m going to be using English all week.

I love all of it, but you know that my absolute favorite part comes at :49. I’ll be walking around work today humming “Now that I know your English ways I’ll translate all that Satan says!”

Not A Verb

July 29, 2010 Karen6 Comments

I’ve found a site that I want to print out and leave at everyone’s desks at work: notaverb.com. It makes the case conclusively that “login” is not a verb (if you don’t want to read the page, use it as two words). This makes me unreasonable happy–as does the conclusion on the “login” page:

If you take only one thing away from this page, take that one fact: “login” is not a verb. Educate others. Correct manuals, software, and web pages as you find them. Tell everyone you know that “login” is not a verb. You will make a pedant (me) happy. You will earn the respect of grammar nazis. Most importantly, you will know the truth.