Monthly Archives: September 2008

Over at the Columbia Journalism Review’s Language Corner, Merrill Perlman writes about misuse of the word crescendo — which “is a gradual increase in the loudness or force of the music” – to mean climax:

“Crescendo” is the gerund form of the Italian verb crescere, meaning to grow or increase. The “crescendo” is not the top; it’s the trail to the top. (For those wondering what a gerund is, it’s a verb masquerading as a noun.)

…

As is true of so many other casual evolutions in English, the use of “crescendo” to mean “peak” is an American invention. The Oxford English Dictionary notes its first use in The Great Gatsby: “The caterwauling horns had reached a crescendo and I turned away and cut across the lawn toward home.”

I thought the only meaning of cipher was “code.” Apparently not.

From a Slate article about McCain’s and Obama’s invocations of Henry Kissinger’s thoughts on negotiating with other countries:

Apparently, (Kissinger) does not know that the envoys of the Iranian foreign ministry are only ciphers, easily overridden by the mullah-dominated “Guardian Council” that holds all real power in Tehran.

The first meaning of cipher is “zero,” according to both Merriam-Webster and the OED. Thus, by figurative extension, it can mean what the Slate author used it to mean, “a person who fills a place, but is of no importance or worth, a nonentity, a mere nothing,” as the OED puts it in definition 2a.

Cipher as a code is all the way down in the fifth definition in the OED:

5a. A secret or disguised manner of writing, whether by characters arbitrarily invented (apparently the earlier method), or by an arbitrary use of letters or characters in other than their ordinary sense, by making single words stand for sentences or phrases, or by other conventional methods intelligible only to those possessing the key; a cryptograph. Also anything written in cipher, and the key to such a system.

According to the OED, cipher comes from the Medieval Latin cifra, which comes from the Arabic cifr,  which is the name in Arabic for the arithmetical symbol for ‘zero’ or ‘nought.’ From that, cifr came to be used to mean “empty, void.” The OED also says cifr was a translation of the Sanskrit sunya, which means “empty.”

A New York Times article on the stalled bailout plan has Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts dipping into his Russian vocabulary book:

Mr. Frank blamed a “troika” of conservative House Republicans — Jeb Hensarling of Texas, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, and Eric Cantor of Virginia — for pushing the alternative proposal.

I knew a troika was Russian word meaning a trio of people wielding power. The OED, in the second definition for the word, defines it as “a group or set of three persons (rarely things) or categories of people associated in power; a three-person commission or administrative council.”

What I didn’t know is what the word’s original meaning in Russian. The first definition in the OED: “A Russian vehicle drawn by three horses abreast.” The American Heritage Dictionary’s definitions are similar: “1a. A Russian carriage drawn by a team of three horses abreast. b. A team of three horses abreast. 2. See triumvirate.”

Frank surely meant the second definition, but it sounds like he’d be happy associate the trio with a particular end of a team of horses too.

The news continues to serve up words that are new to me.

In a Washington Post article today about the new interim president of South Africa, Kgalema Motlanthe of the African National Congress party:

The new president has not himself escaped scandal. He was among ANC leaders who went to Iraq to promote an oil deal that saw nearly $1.4 million in state funds from the South African oil parastatal funneled to the ANC’s 2004 election campaign.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines parastatal as “a company or agency owned or controlled wholly or partly by the government.” The OED defines it as “an organization or industry, now especially in some African countries, having political authority and serving the state indirectly.”

I think parastatal needed to be better explained or put in a better context here to be clear. The issue of the parastatal is a very small part of the article, and not the point at which I’d send readers to the dictionary.

The New York Times has a story today about an agency in China that procures the finest foods for its political elite, which insulates them from the tainted food supplies that regular Chinese people have to deal with, such as the current milk crisis.

The article deals with all the particulars (which may be hard to find on your own, since “Much of the information on its Web site was removed after media inquiries and interview requests this week”). I just wanted to highlight its extremely wordy name: The State Council Central Government Offices Special Food Supply Center.

Wow. Sorry if anyone tried to click the online mind reader link from yesterday’s post. I apparently put in a broken link. (Thanks to my mom for letting me know). Anyway, I am reposting the entire thing below, with a real link this time. Sorry!

This is off topic, but this online mind-reader was really freaking me out. Check it out, then come back and click through below to get the explanation. I felt dumb when I realized what the trick was.

Read the rest of this entry →

An AP story about clothing-free skater Gennifer Moss in Portland, Ore. — who was told to put on some clothes after some construction workers complained about her — contained an a phrase that I’ve always wondered about: “Moss donned a string bikini bottom for the nonce and skated on.”

The phrase means “for the occasion,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary. (The OED gives a slightly different, but similar definition of “for the particular purpose.”)

It comes from an alteration of the early Middle English phrase “for then anes,” which appeared as early as 1175, according to the OED. The alteration changed it to “for the nanes,” which became for the nonce. “For then anes” meant “for the once,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary, which explains that “then” was a form of the at the time.

CORRECTION: An changed to a in first paragraph. Thanks to Dr. Trayes for pointing it out.

UPDATE: Gah! The link below is corrected. And I am reposting the entire thing tomorrow for anyone who misses this.

This is off topic, but this online mind-reader was really freaking me out. Check it out, then come back and click through below to get the explanation. I felt dumb when I realized what the trick was.

Read the rest of this entry →

A New York Times story today talks about the media’s word choices when it comes to reporting on the brewing financial crisis:

Rumor, speculation and fear can cripple a bank with shocking speed. That has reporters and editors, so often accused of hyperbole and sowing alarm, parsing their words with unusual care.

So in most of the news, stocks have “slid” and markets “gyrated” but not “crashed.” Companies have “tottered” and “struggled” rather than moved toward failure and bankruptcy.

What else aren’t they saying?

“ ‘Crash,’ ‘panic,’ ‘pandemonium,’ ‘apocalypse,’ those are the words we’re staying away from,” said Robert H. Christie, a spokesman for The Wall Street Journal, now part of the News Corporation.

Thanks to Andy Bechtel at The Editor’s Desk for pointing this story out.

That is all.