Vest-Pocket Vocabulary Nidoros’ity, n. a belching up the taste of roast meat. Word in the Wild: A guest’s nidorosity after a meal may be either a compliment to the chef or a sign that the entrée had spoiled. According to the OED this word is now obsolete: we can hope this is because the condition […]
Lexical Vexations Stationary adj. unmoving, staying in one place. Stationery n. items used for letter writing, especially paper but also pens and the like. Words in the Wild: If you don’t remain stationary while writing, your stationery will be sullied with deplorable penmanship. I often see the word stationary used when the author intends to […]
Vest-Pocket Vocabulary Myth’oplasm, n. a mere fiction. Word in the Wild: I’d thought it would calm him down, but for some reason my son grew more agitated when I told him that bogey monsters and ghosts were just mythoplasms. This rare word has only one use, dating back to 1731, recorded in the OED. But […]
Proofreaders’ Marks Today’s proofreaders’ mark allows you to swap two letters or words. Sometimes those typing fingers just go so fast that our letters jumble, or our cutting and pasting goes a little awry and our words end up in the wrong order. The transpose mark… …allows you to quickly mark the correction without rewriting […]
Recommended Read Poerksen, Uwe. Jutta Mason and David Cayley, trans. Plastic Words. University Park, PA: Penn State UP, 1995. [ISBN-10: 0-271-01476-8] Plastic words are words so pliable that their use in almost any context tends to sound authoritative and important. However, these words are inhabited more by what the listener wishes to hear than what […]
Vest-Pocket Vocabulary Logoc’racy, n. government by the power of words. Word in the Wild: Without these avenues that allow us to amend the law, the justice system risks becoming a totalizing logocracy. Although “government by the power of words” may sound as if it is a form of government based on the power of rhetorical […]
Proofreaders’ Marks The latest in this series explaining proofreaders’ marks concerns that workhorse punctuation mark, the comma. As we all know commas go some places and not others, but—thank goodness—that’s an entry for another day. Today’s entry is merely concerned with inserting a comma once you’ve decided you need one. We’re going to use that […]
Lexical Vexations Affect v. to influence. Effect n. result or outcome. Words in the Wild: The dreadful effects of her childish pranks will almost certainly affect her brother’s decision about loaning her the money. In common use, affect is almost always a verb with the definition shown above, and effect is most often a noun […]
Lexical Vexations Peak 1. n. summit, highest point. 2. v. to reach the extent of one’s abilities. Peek 1. v. to look at quickly or sneakily. 2. n. a quick or surreptitious glance. Pique n. annoyance or resentment. Pique v. to arouse or excite esp. in response to challenge. Words in the Wild: A peek […]
Vest-Pocket Vocabulary Kick’shaw, n. a nondescript fantastical thing. Word in the Wild: That’s neither a fusion reactor nor an adequate science-fair project: it’s nothing more than a kickshaw. Kickshaw is a mangling of the French quelque chose, which means something in English. You can find a complete listing of the Word Blog’s Vest-Pocket Vocabulary entries […]