The origins and meanings of words

Some interesting words from the UK in here, as well as a few we’ve already covered. 
certainly keeps the brain cells jumping cheese


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-14/miley-cyrus-coronavirus-covid19-cockney-rhyming-slang/12324930


joanne said:

Some interesting words from the UK in here, as well as a few we’ve already covered. 
certainly keeps the brain cells jumping
cheese


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-14/miley-cyrus-coronavirus-covid19-cockney-rhyming-slang/12324930

 My first name was a rhyming swearword for a while, back when actor Gareth Hunt was prominent. I suspect politician Jeremy Hunt has (with more valid reasons) now taken that place.


“Risible“ — So as to provoke laughter 

Haven’t seen or heard that one in some time.


Even as fascinating  as rediscovering words, the root meaning of a word is wonderful...



“contemporaneous” — Existing or occurring in the same period of time.

Wow, that really describes the troubles we face in the United States — worldwide as well!


Here is a word I have not heard/read since 2016! And it is so fitting...

https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/1281516464688771073?s=21


mtierney said:

Here is a word I have not heard/read since 2016! And it is so fitting...

https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/1281516464688771073?s=21

 My OED gives some lovely history for this word. First recorded use around 1653, the sense is of slavish or unreasoned/irrational following of others perhaps in what today we might think of in social phenomena such cults, political movements, fashion trends/fads; in non-animate objects, it’s used to describe traction, malleability etc.

So, useful But a double-edged sword: possibly too elitist for today’s egalitarian manners. 


A Covid-19 indoor sport, read aloud!


My mum learnt her Hugo’s English with something very similar that my sister has preserved with the family records; Mum’s copy would date back to the ‘50s. She used to bring it out every few years and get my actress aunt to theatrically declaim it, or ask an embarrassed student (one of us or a cousin) to read it - usually when we’d all been laughing and had a little tipple. Um, yeah.  confused

Last year I had to read aloud a more modern (shorter) version of the above, liberally scattered with many of the more obscure words in it in order for the cognitive psychologist to reassess the progress of Acquired Brain Damage. (Definitely not the same mini-mental Mr Trump spoke about). Elspeth said I was one of a very few people she’d met who could pronounce a few of them at first sight, and commented on the quality of older education methods.
As many MOLers would agree, a love of reading and a love of word play help keep your brain nimble and buzzing, your mind alive.  cheese


mtierney said:

A Covid-19 indoor sport, read aloud!

Most of us have some form of audio recorder on our phones. Here's your challenge.  Is anyone game to upload their attempts?  Maybe not the whole lot, but choose a few lines.  Save your audio as an mp3 file, otherwise it gets too big.

smile


This might be easier to read:

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ***, glass, bass.   ***  = 3-letter word for donkey.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spiky?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!


marksierra said:

This might be easier to read:

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and eyrie. (changed from aerie)

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ***, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!

 Thanks for the retype! Easier to read aloud.


I will practice first, before going “live” — some folks think I still have a Brooklyn accent!


mtierney said:

I will practice first, before going “live”

Good idea, but practice with your recorder turned 'on', otherwise you risk a bit of 'stage fright' because you'll be conscious of the fact that you're recording.


Variations on the theme.
This was on a radio broadcast page:


You have to be joking, NPR!

Take it from the locals, the emu, Australia's flightless bird, is  pronounced 'E-mew', not 'e-moo.'

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/24/ee-moo-nprs-absurd-pronunciation-starts-new-emu-war-in-australia


marksierra said:

You have to be joking, NPR!

Take it from the locals, the emu, Australia's flightless bird, is  pronounced 'E-mew', not 'e-moo.'

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/24/ee-moo-nprs-absurd-pronunciation-starts-new-emu-war-in-australia

 Further on this:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-25/npr-emu-story-prompts-pronunciation-debate/12592060
Indigenous names for ‘emu’ (apparently derived from an old Arabic word for “big bird” and conferred by the Portuguese) include: wadji, wurrpan, and nguurruuyn.  cheese


Who would have guessed this!

Etymology of the day: ‘window’ was a gift from the Vikings, whose word for a hole in a wall or roof was ‘vindauga’: ‘eye of the wind’.

Before ‘window’, the Anglo-Saxons used ‘eye-thirl’, in which ‘thirl’ meant ‘hole’: hence ‘nose-thirls’ or ‘nostrils’, ‘nose holes’.


We haven’t been here for quite a while cheese

Here’s a word we don’t see very often now: prescient.  Having foreknowledge or foresight; foreseeing.          First documented use in 1626.  The word is being used quite a bit at the moment in relation to Letters to the Editor:                    

ETA: I was informed this evening that the Letter to the Editor was written in Oct 2016, and has recently been revived from the newspaper’s archives. 


I just discovered this thread and am trying to catch up.  Re antonym of exceed ... what about underperform?


Joanne, maybe you missed this one?

I posted this link on the other language thread — it was scary!


Here is another imported word...Sounds like a sneeze!


I think you’d find we’ve been using zeitgeist pretty much consistently since Prince Alfred was married to Queen Victoria and brought a whole lot of ‘modern’ German words into everyday/written English.  Others often accredited with importing specialised Germanic terms are Freud, Jung and Einstein. So, nothing new. cheese

Mtierney, I’ve just learnt a lovely botanical word (quite a mouthful, I think perhaps Swiss via Latin?) eschscholtzia, n., a yellow-flowered plant. 


Known here as the State Flower of California...Nothing new under the sun! Looks great in hanging baskets here.


Eschscholzia californica - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Eschscholzia_californicaEschscholzia californica, the California poppy, golden poppy, California sunlight or cup of gold, is a species of flowering plant in the family Papaveraceae, native to the United States and Mexico. It is cultivated as an ornamental plant flowering in summer, with showy cup-shaped flowers in brilliant shades of red, orange and yellow ...‎Description · ‎Pollen production · ‎Cultivation · ‎State flower of California



“winnowed”... from NYT today


In terms of synonyms, you could start looking through these categories: 

as a noun: husker; winnower; winnowing machine

as a verb: analyse; discern; distinguish between; fly; get rid of; jerk; thresh.

Thank you, Macquarie Thesaurus cheese


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