Daphne's Word Blog

Balderdash and baloney

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:35:01 -0500

When my dad’s listening to the radio, he likes to say, “They’re serving up another plate of balderdash and baloney.” When I was little I figured that was sort of like corn beef and cabbage. In my mind, balderdash was actually a mixture of cabbage and corn and mashed potatoes.

I was wrong, of course. Balderdash means ridiculous, illogical, exaggerated talk. I guess it’s more polite than some things you could say. But here’s something really interesting: back in 1590 in England, it meant a mish-mash of different drinks, including alcohol. For example, a mixture of beer and milk could be balderdash. It sounds pretty bad - and ridiculous and illogical.

And how about baloney? It means “foolish nonsense.” Of cours, everyone knows baloney is also a kind of luncheon meat. It’s a brand of sausage that originally came from the Italian city of Bologna. I don’t know how sausage came to mean “foolish nonsense.” Maybe it’s because it’s foolish to grind up perfectly good meat and make it into a kind of pinkish, bland, cold, slimy… well, you get the idea.

So don’t you think that’s interesting, that two different words for “foolish talk” both come from unappetizing, mixed up food?

But if you actually like baloney sandwiches, I apologize. I wasn’t trying to criticize your taste in food.

Launch day

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 06:40:00 -0400

Launch sounds like what it means. Say it: it starts with a slow descent, like a boat sliding down a track at the shore. LAU…N… Then all at once you’re there: CH. The boat hits the water and rocks for a moment. Small waves slap the sides. The boat is in another place now. It’s on its way.

You can launch a boat, launch a career, launch a friendship. With all of them, there’s this sense of a push toward the moment and then, suddenly, it goes.

You can also launch a rocket. The meaning is the same, but to me, the sound doesn’t work as well. Launching a rocket is too noisy. The word should be something more like “lashrogashrogaroar-nch” for all those roaring engines. (I admit that doesn’t sound very practical.) Sadly, you can also launch a weapon.

Launching a weapon is probably closest to the original meaning. Launch comes from the Old French lancier, meaning to fling or to hurl. Further back, it comes from the

Latin lancea, which means a light spear. Think of a lance, or think of Lancelot hurling lances at evil knights. By the 1400’s, according to the Etymology Dictionary, the word was being used to describe setting a boat afloat.

Here’s a weird thing. The word launch can also be used as a noun to describe a heavy open or partially decked boat with either oars or an engine… but that meaning has a different origin. They think it comes from Portuguese (lancha), where it meant a “large boat carried on a warship.” The Portuguese word came from the Malay lanchar, which meant quick and agile. I can just see the Portuguese sailors in the seas around Malaysia, and Malaysian pirates launching their quick and agile boats to attack.

Hmm, launch really does seem to have warlike origins on both land and sea. But let’s forget about that and think of launching in the sense of plunging in and setting out.

Today is the launch of the second edition of Lost in Lexicon, the story of my adventures with my cousin Ivan in a magical land. I invite you all to plunge in and set out with us on the journey.

Perplexed, confused, and muddled

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:06:25 -0400

I am nonplussed. Nonplussed means all the things in my title, plus bewildered, confounded, disconcerted and at a loss. What am I nonplussed about? Why, the word nonplussed, that’s what.

Take a look at that word. If you had to choose its root, you would take off the non and the -ed ending, and you’d be left with plus, which means adding. So obviously nonplussed should refer to something that’s not added, or maybe even to two things that can’t be added together (though perhaps the word for that would be “nonplussable.” For example, here’s a sentence: “I know she has a great kick and is also a super sweet person, but really those attributed are nonplussed in the middle of a soccer game.” (Because, see, being a super sweet person doesn’t do anything to help you win once the game has begun.)

Instead nonplussed has to mean put out, put off stride, or as my griend would say, “confuzzled.”

Are there other tricky words pretending to be math words when they’re not? How about minuscule? (Everybody thinks it’s miniscule, as in “mini,” but it’s not.) Minuscule means very small.

Can you think of others?

Plunging into summer

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 22:28:05 -0400

Today in my hot, hot school seat - I’m sorry to say this, but little drops of sweat dripped off my temples onto the desktop - I thought about jumping off a high rock and plunging into a cool pond. Plunge! What a great word. To me it sounds like what it means.

Think of it. You leap. you fly up a little way, then you plummet toward the water. Your toes break the surface. That’s the “pl” sound in plunge: the sound of your toes, your feet, piercing the surface of the water.

Then comes the “unge.” Feel how long it takes to say that. That’s the part where you’re descending deep into the water. Bubbles are whooshing around your ears. You surge to your deepest point, and then, as the word plunge ends you reverse direction, and begin to bob toward the surface again. You’re cool, you’ve been washed clean, your sweaty sticky skin is all washed clean and alive again. You climb out, and before long, you’re ready for another plunge.

flibbertigibbet

Sun, 29 May 2011 14:35:00 -0400

Ooh. A lovely word. The first thing to figure out is that the g in flibbertigibbet sounds like j, so you pronounce it “flibberty-jibbet.” To me it sounds like the way a butterfly looks, flying in a jerky, fluttery way. Maybe a flibbertigibbet could be a magical flying creature you see only at dusk, and if you catch it it will give you one small wish.

But according to the dictionary, a flibbertigibbet is a chatty, gossipy, silly, flighty sort of person. Nobody is quite sure where the word came from, but in the 16th century it was sometimes used as the name of a demon. A demon! I guess being foolish and gossipy was a bigger deal in the 16th century than it is now.

I did look up a word that shows up inside flibbertigibbet to see if it would give any clues. The word is “gibbet,” and it turns out to be a nasty word. A gibbet was a kind of scaffolding like in the old word game hangman, with a horizontal pole sticking out from a vertical one. They used to hang executed criminals in chains from the gibbet until their bodies rotted, as a warning to others.

Well, in the New England colonies, gossips used to be dunked in the dunking chair, plunged into the cold water. That sounds unpleasant, but I’d still rather be dunked for being a flibbertigibbet than end up hanging from a gibbet.

Suspicious

Sat, 07 May 2011 18:35:18 -0400

I’m suspicious about the word “suspicious.” It just doesn’t seem to be playing by the same rules as other words. Think about it. The root it comes from is “suspect,” right? If you suspect everyone, you’re a suspicous person. If everyone suspects you, you’re probably a suspicious character doing suspicious things.

Well, at the root of “suspicious” is spect, which means “to look at,” and is also found in words like spectrum, inspect, and respect. But none of them play the same tricks. You never heard of someone who respects everyone being called “respicious” or or somebody who’s always getting inspected being called “inspicious.” Instead you get “respectful” and… I don’t know.

So why suspicous? What do you think? Do you hear all the hissing in that word? It practically makes you twist your face in distaste to say it. I think the word sounds as if it belongs sneaking around in the shadows.

Another puzzler

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:47:00 -0400

What is unusual about the following short sentences or phrases? Can you write one of your own that fits the pattern?

Daphne never errs.
Ivan announces essential alloys.
Adelaide defended Edwina’s aspirations.
Begin in innocence.
Furious user error or organic ice cereal?

It contains no e's.

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:00:05 -0400

Yes, that’s the answer to what’s unusual about the paragraph below. It contains no e’s. At least I don’t think it does, and I checked it about a million times. It takes some work to write a paragraph without e’s, because e is the most common letter in English. For example, this paragraph right here has 23. Try writing your own.

Unusual paragraph

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:00:06 -0400

Can you distinguish what is unusual about this paragraph? It’s short, but that’s not it. A particular quality of this chunk of writing marks it as a statistical anomaly – that is, as atypical. Not many paragraphs that you run into will contain this particular trait. In fact, I think you would find it difficult to construct such a paragraph on your own. If you know what I’m talking about, post your matching paragraph. If not, I’ll inform you all in a post two days from now.

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis:Its a lung disease caused by breathing in certain particals...lol

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:35:18 -0400

Can you read this?

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:34:50 -0400

Can you raed tihs? You mhigt be sprurised to see taht you can. Senticsits hvae fnuod taht as lnog as the fsirt and lsat lteerts of a wrod are creorct, ppoele can ulaulsy raed the wrod, eevn if all the oehtr lreetts are mxied up in the wonrg oedrr. Tat’hs bucaese we see the wohel wrod at one tmie, insaetd of raednig lteter by lteter.

I tnihk it mhgit be hrad for soomene who is dylsixec, thugoh.

The fifth essence

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 19:08:27 -0400

I don’t know if you noticed, but Ivan’s last post used the word “quintessence.” That’s cheating, as if I wrote a post about logarithms, whatever they are. I had to reassure myself about what that word meant.

“Quint,” I thought. “Like quintuplets. Maybe it means five.”

Essence means the fundamental substance of something, the real stuff it’s made of, as in, “A dedication to truth is the essence of justice,” or “Fluffiness is the essence of an alpaca.” Strangely, it also means scent or smell, as in, “Whenever she walked by, an essence of green apples lingered in the air.”

“Essence” came pretty unchanged from Latin. Esse is the verb “to be” in Latin. So this word what something is deep down inside.

“Quint” means fifth. In the Middle Ages, people believed there were four elements on earth, which I guess you could call essences: wood, air, fire, and water. Then they made up a fifth essence, the quintessence. That was supposed to be the element that made up the heavenly bodies like the moon and stars.

So you might think “quintessence” means somebody’s heavenly essence, their good side or I guess you could say their soul. But in fact it means the same thing as “essence” only more so. The dictionary says it means the concentrated essence of a substance, like what’s left after you evaporate the water out of it. It can also mean the most pure and perfect embodiment of something’s nature.

So when Ivan’s poet says mathematics is the “quintessence of Truth,” he’s saying math is truth in its purest form. Do you think that’s fair? What if math tells you that you have a 50% chance of flipping heads, but you flip tails five times in a row? Was that 50% the “quintessence of truth?” How about, “If you have two apples and give me five, you’ll have negative three apples.” Does that sound TRUE? To me it just sounds completely impractical.

Do you know the word,"omphaloskepsis"? It's a contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation.

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 22:47:50 -0400

Omphaloskepsis. Wow, what a word. Okay, I looked it up. You’re right about what it means. Omphalo means umbilicus or belly-button or navel. Want to know something funny? An outie belly-button is an omphalocele. That means skepsis is looking. Hmm. A skeptic is someone who doubts things and can’t easily be fooled into believing everything she’s told. The word comes from the idea of thoughtfully reflecting on what you see. That’s because a skeptic looks hard at ideas before reaching a conclusion.

I wonder whether a skeptic would believe that omphaloskepsis leads to wisdom.

Here’s the book cover for Lost in Lexicon’s first...

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:44:00 -0400

Here’s the book cover for Lost in Lexicon’s first edition. The second edition, with a new cover, is coming soon. Check out the book website for games and more about the book. That’s me on the right and my cousin Ivan with the algebraic compass. The animal is… well, read the book to find out.

Surd and absurd

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:16:12 -0400

My cousin Ivan asked me to do these two words. Before today I’d never heard of surd, but it’s a word. In fact, it’s a nerd word. It means an irrational number—you know, one that can’t be made into an exact fraction. Another way to say it is that a surd is a decimal that goes on and on without ever falling into a pattern of repeating digits. Surds always have a square root sign in them somewhere.

Yep, that’s Ivan for you, tricking me into writing about math.

But wait! There’s another meaning. A surd is also a “voiceless consonant”, which apparently is a consonant you make without vibrating your vocal cords. A “p” sound is a surd, but a “b” sound is not, because you say the “b” but you just kind of pop the “p”. “K” is a surd, but “g” is not.

The Latin root for surd is surdus, which means “voiceless,” which seems to make sense for the second meaning but not the first. But then I read that the famous Arab mathematician Al-Khawarizmi called rational and irrational numbers “audible” and “inaudible.” That is, he talked as if you could hear rational numbers but not irrational ones…which connects the voiceless surdus with the idea of irrational numbers.

Okay, now on to absurd. Absurd means preposterous, ridiculous, making no sense, and utterly opposed to reason. The origin of the word is the Latin absurdus, meaning foolish or out of tune. Hmm, so did the Romans think people who sing or play out of tune are foolish? Did you hear that, Ivan? (Ivan is, no offense, completely tone deaf.)

And here’s another connection. Another word that comes from the Latin surdus is the French sourde, which means deaf. So maybe there is a connection after all. Surdus=voiceless or deaf, which connects to having a really bad voice or being tone-deaf like Ivan, which makes him sound foolish or absurd, maybe because he spends too much time thinking about surds, which are irrational, just the way absurd people are.

There. Next time Ivan will probably look up his own words.

Dongle: a computer connector thingy

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 09:32:54 -0500

Here’s a word I bet you don’t know: dongle. The dictionary has a really long complicated definition. The guy who hooks computers together at our school told me yesterday that it’s the connector you use to connect a Mac computer to a projector, but actually it’s a bit more complicated than that.

From what I can figure out, it’s some kind of device you plug into your computer to let you run certain kinds of software. It somehow checks with the computer to make sure you’re really allowed to run that software and didn’t steal it. But it’s also used for any kind of external plug-in thingy that lets you run a program. Apparently they’re more common for Macs.

It’s a made-up word, invented in the 1980’s, which is pretty cool. One advertisement said it was named after its inventor, a man named Don Gall, but most people think that isn’t true. Probably it came from “dangle” because it dangles from the place it’s plugged into.

I’m still really not sure how to use this word in a technically correct manner, but I think it could be useful to make you sound less dumb. Instead of saying, “I’m looking for the computer connector thingy,” you can say, “Now, where’s that dongle?” and people might think you know what you’re talking about.

Easy-peasy

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 04:18:00 -0500

Back in third grade or so, when kids in my class wanted to brag about how quickly they could do something, they would chant, “Easy-peasy, Japanese-y!” Now that I think about it, that was kind of weird. From what I hear now, Japanese is pretty hard!

Anyway, today’s words are a collection of easies. Here they are:

easy

queasy

sleazy

greasy

So what do you think? Do they look and sound like what they mean? To me they do. First there’s easy, which moseys off the tongue. (Mosey: there’s a good word, meaning to saunter or stroll.) No effort, no problem, easy.

Then there’s queasy. At first you think it’s going to be easy, too, but there’s that funny forced little twist at the beginning that starts you off wrong. There’s something not quite right about queasy. Think of your stomach twisting and then kind of releasing and rolling. Yep, queasy means nauseated, kind of sick to the stomach. Or it can also mean having that same sort of uneasy feeling about something you’ve done. If you stole and ate a bag of cookies, both your conscience and your stomach might feel queasy.

Now it gets still worse: sleazy. A slimy, slithery word, one so sneaky it slips in a z where for the other words a plain honest s was good enough. Sleazy means low, sordid, bad in reputation, as in “I would never take a job as a waitress in a sleazy joint like this, with stains on the curtains and cockroaches in the kitchen.”

Speaking of kitchens, we come to greasy. Strangely, though it’s spelled like easy or queasy, now you hiss the s. You slide and plow through the s like a dishcloth sliding and plowing through congealed bacon grease on a frying pan. The s sticks around in your mind like the way the grease sticks to the cloth. The word comes from French words meaning “fat”, all the way back to a Latin word crassus, meaning “thick, solid, fat.” And greasy can refer to a person, not just a frying pan: a greasy person is slick and oily in manner, as if they’re trying to slide something past you.

It’s not easy to like a greasy person, because they seem so sleazy they make you queasy.

Horrendously late

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 20:36:56 -0500

Oh, wow, I didn’t realize it’s been such a long time since I’ve posted. I will resolve to do better.

I am horrified by how horribly late I am. I’m full of horror. It’s horrendous.

So I guess that means the ending “endous” means “really really.” Or maybe it means “causing”—in this case, “causing horror.”

Hmm, let’s try another example. How about tremendous? Could tremendous mean “causing tremor?” So astounding or wonderful it makes you shake in your shoes?

And then there’s stupendous. Maybe something stupendous is really really stupid. Or maybe it causes stupor, which is a state of being really really out of it, as in almost comatose. Maybe something stupendous stuns you.

Okay, time to hit the dictionary.

Wow! It turns out -endus is a gerund ending in Latin. I had to look that up. A gerund is the -ing form of a word. So tremendous is related to shaking, horrendous is related to horrifying, and stupendous is actually related to stunning.

I’m stunned.

Weepy words

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 20:21:00 -0500

I ran across this word: lachrymose. I looked it up. It’s pronounced LACK-ruh-mose, and it means tearful, sorrowful, mournful, given to weeping. A lacrima is a Latin tear.

Another synonym is dolorous, which means grievous or mournful, causing or affected by misery or grief. You could say, “Cease that dolorous howling!” and the howling could either be full of misery or be causing you misery or both. Now dolorous comes from the Latin word dolor, meaning pain.

This is such a cheerful subject (not) that I thought I’d look for some poetic reference. Here’s one from a poet named Swinburne:

There lived a singer in France of old

By the tideless dolorous midland sea.

In a land of sand and ruin and gold

There shone one woman, and none but she.

Can’t you just imagine that sea, gray and flat under a lowering sky? Causing grief and pain? I wonder what kinds of mournful song that one shining woman sang? Was it enough to make people stop feeling lachrymose?

Gawp, gawk, and gape

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:34:00 -0500

Here’s a funny collection: three words that mean almost exactly the same thing. The words are gawp, gawk, and gape. All three of them mean to stare stupidly with your mouth hanging open. There are slight differences, in my opinion. To me, gawp definitely sounds the stupidest. You can’t really expect a snappy reply from someone who gawps at what you say.

Gawk sound the most like something a crow would say. But then you have gawkers, like people slowing way down to look at an accident as they pass. I would say gawking has a hint of staring at something that is really none of your business.

Gape, to me, sounds slightly more proper than the other two. I feel as if an author would be more likely to write gape than gawp, at least in a book for grownups. Also, things that don’t have mouths can gape, as in, “The canyon gaped in front of them,” or, “The car trunk gaped open, and the secret briefcase was gone.”