Talk Wordy to Me

Last week, I offered to take boring, beat-up old words and make them ostentatious. I have one more request to take care of. If anyone has any requests for future episodes, send them via Twitter, Facebook, e-mail or in the comments below.

SBP0123 asked me to pimp the word fun, saying, “I was taught that ‘fun’ was a noun, not an adjective, but more and more people use it to describe something, e.g. ‘I had a fun time.’ It gets on my nerves big time.”

While I don’t have a problem with the word fun as an adjective, if you’re looking for a pimped alternative, how about blithesome? It means cheery or merry.

While walking in the woods last week, I started wondering about the origin of the word game, as in animals that are hunted. Here’s what I dug up in the OED:

The etymology:

Old English gamen, gomen = Old Frisian game, gome, Old Saxon, Old High German gaman (Middle High German gamen), meaning joy, glee. Old Norse gaman (Swedish gamman, Danish gammen), meaning game, sport, merriment.

The word has seventeen definitions in the OED, but the first, ninth, and tenth are relevant here, and they give an idea of how the meaning of hunted animals came about:

1. Amusement, delight, fun, mirth, sport.

This is the oldest use documented by the OED, with citations from around the year 1000 and from 1160.

9. Obsolete. Sport derived from the chase. dog of game: one used in hunting or sporting. to be in game: to be engaged in the chase.

The OED’s oldest quotation for this use is from 1297.

10a. The object of the chase; the animal or animals hunted.

The OED’s first quote of this use is from 1486.

I saved this a few weeks ago and never wrote it up. It’s from a New York Times article about the challenger in the disputed Iranian election:

Mir Hussein Moussavi is in some ways an unlikely figurehead. Calm and deliberate, he has a soporific speaking manner, and even his most ardent defenders grant that he has little charisma.

Several dictionaries give the definition of soporific as “Inducing or tending to induce sleep.” Merriam-Webster Online gives this etymology: “probably from French soporifique, from Latin sopor, meaning deep sleep; akin to Latin somnus, meaning sleep.” The OED points out  a Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian equivalent: soporifico.

My wife and I went on a picnic last week, and I started wondering where the word came from.

From the OED:

• Definition: Originally: a fashionable social event at which each guest contributed a share of the food (now obsolete). Now: an informal meal eaten out of doors, especially as part of an excursion to the countryside, coast, etc.
• Etymology: French pique-nique (1694 in repas à piquenique; 1718 denoting a meal at which each person pays for his share or at which each person contributes a share of the food; subsequently also denoting a meal eaten out of doors, perhaps after English), probably from piquer + nique (14th or 15th century in Middle French in sense ‘nothing whatever’, second half of the 15th century in sense ‘small copper coin’; probably ultimately of imitative origin), although the latter word is apparently rare after the end of the 16th century.

Each week, Talk Wordy to Me challenges readers to beat the word nerd in a quiz challenge and post their scores in the comments.

This week, a from businesswriting.com:

The 25 Most Commonly Misspelled Words is a list that has circulated among American businesses for decades. Two words have variant spellings for companies using British English spelling. Those two words are repeated at the end of the list of 25 words asking for the British spellings.

Here’s the quiz. I got 20 out of 27.

In yesterday’s Talk Wordy to Me birthday post, I mentioned that my “Pimp my word” post (about the origins of the word pimp) was the most-viewed on the site in its first year. This is largely because 188 people found my blog searching for either “pimp my word” or “pimp my words.” I didn’t realize there was a market out there for a service where I take a boring, beat-up old word and make it ostentatious. (With thanks to Xzibit and “Pimp My Ride.”)

So yesterday, I offered to pimp words, and I got two requests. I’ll do one today and the other next week. And you can send in more requests via Twitter, Facebook, e-mail or in the comments below.

JD (The Engine Room) asked me to pimp the word blue.

How about we pimp that with one of my favorite colors from my big box of Crayolas when I was a kid: cerulean. American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “Azure; sky-blue” and gives this etymology: “From Latin caeruleus , dark blue; akin to caelum, sky.”

Wow. Talk Wordy to Me turns one today. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long.

I’ve been resisting posting anything about the blog’s stats, but today seems like a good day to let the geek loose and share some numbers about the past year:

• Number of page views: 14,193
• Total posts (including this one): 199
• Total comments: 314
• Most popular post (356 views): Pimp my word (more on this in a second)
• Second most popular post (258): Jell vs. gel. Go!
• Third most popular post (256): A myriad of misconceptions (Well, just one, really)
• Fourth most popular post (168): Churchill might not have put up with that, but he liked to pedantically oppose this
• Fifth most popular post (150): Play this game
• Weirdest thing about the blog: The two most common terms people found my blog through via search engines are “pimp my words” with 102 instances and “pimp my word” with 86. The “Pimp my word” post  was an exploration of the origins of the word pimp. But apparently there are people who are looking for someone to fix up their dull words and make them ostentatious, like Xzibit does with beater cars in “Pimp My Ride.” OK, I’ll give it a try. If anyone sends me a boring, beat-up old word in the comments or in e-mail, I’ll add rims, a 42-inch plasma and a popcorn machine — IN YOUR WORD! Or I’ll just find a longer, more obscure alternative.

It’s gratifying that after the pimp post, the next three most popular are ones that address confusing word usages. Many of those hits came from people searching for advice, and I’m glad that this blog has been useful to a handful of people beyond just amusing me.

Thanks to everyone who’s read and supported Talk Wordy to Me in the past year.

Each week, Talk Wordy to Me challenges readers to beat the word nerd in a quiz challenge and post their scores in the comments.

OK, so I just realized that June does not in fact end until tomorrow. Like I said last week, we had a guest, so I was rushing out that post. Who needs a month with five Mondays, anyway?

So this week I’ve got a new etymology quiz. I got a 5 out of 10, including one that was the subject of a blog post in the past year.

Each week, Talk Wordy to Me challenges readers to beat the word nerd in a quiz challenge and post their scores in the comments.

Because I’m having trouble finding good quizzes every week, and because I’m lazy, I am using the Etymologic quiz on the last Monday of each month.  It offers different questions each time you try it.

Here’s the quiz. I got a 4 out of 10 on my first try, so I went again and got a 7 out of 10.

Also, this will be my only post this week. We have a guest at the house, and between that and working, I am a bit busy. I’ll still be posting to Twitter; you can follow me there if you’re interested.

In a New York Times story today about the election crisis in Iran, it made a reference to samizdat video of a protest march. The Iranian authorities have banned press coverage of the demonstrations and are trying to suppress all information about the dissent:

For the third day in a row, supporters of (opposition candidate Mir Hussein) Moussavi massed in silence, from Hafteh Tir Square, with photographs and samizdat video showing a sea of people at least tens of thousands strong.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, samizdat means:

• 1a. The secret publication and distribution of government-banned literature in the former Soviet Union.
• 1b. The literature produced by this system.
• 2. An underground press.

Samizdat is Russian, coming from sam, meaning self, + izdatel’stvo, meaning publishing house.

I think the NYT story should have given context for the word. Aren’t the photos also samizdat? It could read as though it is a style of video, not a form of journalism.

But maybe I don’t recognize it because I grew up mostly after the Cold War ended? Does this word look more familiar to any of my Baby Boomer or Gen-X readers?

Here’s a link to the video.