Monthly Archives: May 2009

Another interesting entry today in my Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day:

meretricious (= alluring by false show) has not lost its strong etymological connection with the Latin word for “prostitute” (meretrix). A “meretricious marriage” is one that involves either unlawful sexual connection or lack of capacity on the part of one party. Outside law, though, the word is typically figurative, meaning “tawdry and showy without substance or merit” — e.g.: “Of course, there’s also another reason to spurn some of these costly new mansions. . . . They look like starter homes on steroids, like Disney cartoons, like health clubs and encyclopedias of kitsch. We’re talking bad taste. Tacky, gross, ostentatious, meretricious, vulgar, fake, phony, dreadful.” Colin Campbell, “Historic Real Estate Market Exists Far Afield,” Atlanta J. & Const., 27 Nov. 2001, at B3.

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As promised in yesterday’s post, here’s the second interesting word from a New York Times story about the origins of torture techniques recently used by the CIA:

Worse, the study found that under such abusive treatment, a prisoner became “malleable and suggestible, and in some instances he may confabulate.”

It’s an interesting word, although the story never really explains it or gives context that does so. Of course, if you’re reading it online, you can always use the Times’ double-click on a word to get the American Heritage Dictionary definition feature. (No help for readers of the printed paper.)

And that definition is: “To fill in gaps in one’s memory with fabrications that one believes to be facts.” So you can see why that would be a bad thing in an interrogation.

Merriam-Webster Online gave a good etymology: From the “Latin confabulatus, past participle of confabulari, from com- + fabulari meaning to talk, from fabula, meaning story.” Fabula also gives us the word fable.

I set this aside a few weeks ago and never wrote it up.

From a New York Times story about the origins of some of the torture techniques recently used by the CIA:

“Jim believed that people of this ilk would confess for only one reason: sheer terror,” said one C.I.A. official.

We know ilk means “type or kind,” but I wondered where the word came from. The American Heritage Dictionary has a lengthy and interesting etymology:

When one uses ilk, as in the phrase men of his ilk, one is using a word with an ancient pedigree even though the sense of ilk, “kind or sort,” is actually quite recent, having been first recorded at the end of the 18th century. This sense grew out of an older use of ilk in the phrase of that ilk, meaning “of the same place, territorial designation, or name.” This phrase was used chiefly in names of landed families, Guthrie of that ilk meaning “Guthrie of Guthrie.” “Same” is the fundamental meaning of the word. The ancestors of ilk, Old English ilca and Middle English ilke, were common words, usually appearing with such words as the or that, but the word hardly survived the Middle Ages in those uses.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage adds that the old meaning of ilk persisted among the Scots. Follow that link for an even longer entry on ilk, if you’re interested in reading more. 

I’ve actually got another post from the NYT story, and I’ll post it second tomorrow.

I stayed overnight in my hometown of Philadelphia last week, and my dad gave me a front page he’d torn from the Metro, a free paper in the city. The main headline contained a relatively obscure word that was never explained in either of the paper’s stories on the subject:

New busking rules
hit dissonant chord

To busk is to “play music or perform entertainment in a public place, usually while soliciting money,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary. I knew this, but only because I’d read a review of a movie about a busker a year or so ago.

Once you read the story, you can probably figure out what busking means. But the word isn’t even used in the story, and I think it’s a terrible word to use in a headline. I’m not sure if the headline writer was trying to be clever or just to find a shorthand for “street performance.” Part of the problem might have been that the headline writer wanted to use the “dissonant chord” pun, so they didn’t have much room left to actually explain what the story is about.

I’m all for introducing readers to new words, but not in headlines unless it is immediately clear in the headline what the word means. This is almost impossible, given the 4-10 words we get to use in a typical headline. Better to leave new words to the actual story. (Not that busking is in this particular story.) Headlines need to be clear the first time they are read, or people won’t read the story the headline is supposed to be selling. (I’m guilty of violating this rule myself, and I’ve had plenty of headlines nixed that were “clever” but unclear. But I’m learning.)

American Heritage gives an uncertain etymology for busk: “Earlier, to be an itinerant performer, probably from busk, to go about seeking, cruise as a pirate, perhaps from obsolete French busquer, to prowl, from Italian buscare, to prowl, or Spanish buscar, to seek, from Old Spanish boscar.”

My wife and I went to Rome earlier this month, and one of the places we visited was Palatine Hill, which was the site of the Roman emperors’ palaces. And we learned that the word palace comes from Palatine. In the photo, Palatine Hill is in the background, fronted by the arched ruins.

Here’s the OED etymology for palace:

Anglo-Norman and Old French palais, paleis, meaning vast and luxurious residence belonging to or having belonged to an important person, royal residence (11th cent.; Middle French, French palais), from the classical Latin Palatium, originally the name of one of the seven hills of Rome … hence imperial residence or temple on the Palatine hill, imperial or royal residence in general.

I’m taking a sick day. Full resumption of blogging activities should resume Monday.

My wife and I are back from Rome, and I am still in the grip of jet lag. Waking up too early, feeling very sleepy at work. But who cares about all that?

Here’s an interesting bit I read in the New York Times on Tuesday on my flight back to Louisville, in an article about how French investors are turning to cows for a safe return:

For Pierre Marguerit, 60, cows make a safe, secure investment, allowing for long-term growth from a renewable resource. The cow contracts are hardly new, but go back to Richard the Lionheart; the French word for livestock, “cheptel,” is the root for “capital.”

Talk Wordy to Me is on vacation this week, so each day I’ve scheduled a post that will present a piece of rhyming cockney slang. One of my co-workers is British, and we were testing his knowledge of the slang last week. Don’t know what I’m talking about? If you’ve seen Ocean’s Eleven, you might remember this quote from Basher, the British guy played by Don Cheadle: “Basher: So unless we intend to do this job in Reno, we’re in barney.” [everyone pauses] Basher: “Barney Rubble.” [they look bewildered] Basher: “Trouble!”

Funnily enough, given that there is a slang word for trouble,  trouble and strife means wife.

And that’s all folks. I’ll be back in the middle of next week.