Monthly Archives: September 2009
Hiatus
I’ve been silent for two weeks. Sorry about that. I’ve been getting burned out in a lot of ways lately, and I am going to take the rest of the month off of the blog and come back, hopefully refreshed, in October. I’ll still be active on Twitter.
See you all next month.
Pimp My Word | Episode Six
I didn’t receive any requests this week, but fortunately, I was able to reverse-engineer an episode from a discussion at work earlier this week. This week’s pimped word(s): beauty and beautiful.
An article in the paper used the word pulchritudinous, so we looked it up. Pulchritude means “Great physical beauty and appeal,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary, and pulchritudinous means “Characterized by or having great physical beauty and appeal.”
However, like some of the cars that come out of Pimp My Ride, this isn’t really better than the simpler word. Telling your wife she is beautiful might get you a smile; telling her she is pulchritudinous might get you a confused look at best, or slapped at worst.
Pulchritude comes from the “Middle English pulcritude, from Latin pulchritūdō, from pulcher, pulchr-, meaning beautiful.”
Requests for future episodes can be sent via Twitter, Facebook, e-mail or in the comments below.
A debutante, or not?
Last week’s New York Times obituary of Ted Kennedy described his first wife this way:
That same year (1958), Mr. Kennedy married Virginia Joan Bennett, a debutante from Bronxville, a New York suburb where the Kennedys had once lived.
Whenever I see debutante, the context seems to suggest a rich woman. But I’ve never looked it up, and when I did this time, I found it has a very specific meaning. It may have been misused in this Ted Kennedy obit and definitely has been misused other times I have seen it.
The American Heritage Dictionary definition is “A young woman making a formal debut into society.” Bennett was 22 in 1958, and if she did make a formal entrance into society, I’d assume it would be at a younger age than that. And I know I’ve seen debutante used to describe married women, which would be wrong.
However, I could be wrong about 22 being too old to be a debutante. Formal entrances into society are a tradition with aristocratic origins (presenting young Ladies at court, etc.), but I have no idea in what form those traditions continue among the U.S. upper class. I did find a NYT article from last year about modern debutante balls in New York ($14,000 a table), and all the debutantes in that story were 18. Can anyone shed some more light on the issue?
The AHD gives this etymology for debutante: “French débutante, feminine present participle of débuter, meaning to begin.”
Maybe someday I’ll be an exemplar
I’m still reading Clive James’ Cultural Amnesia (and am likely to be for a month or two; it’s a long book and I am reading it a little at a time).
In an essay using Aregentine writer Jorge Luis Borges as a starting point, James talks about the idea (which he ultimately rejects) “that the whole world is, or should be, our country,” rejecting one’s own national ties. Then he used a word I’ve seen before but never really thought about:
One of my exemplars, Witold Gombrowicz, would have had good reason to accept the idea, but he didn’t.
The American Heritage Dictionary definitions for exemplar:
- One that is worthy of imitation; a model.
- One that is typical or representative; an example.
- An ideal that serves as a pattern; an archetype.
- A copy, as of a book.
The etymology: Middle English exemplere, from Late Latin exemplārium, from Latin exemplum, meaning example.
Exemplar has no relation to templar, as in the medieval military and religious order Knights Templar, except that both have Latin origins. (Templar’s AHD etymology: Middle English templer, from Anglo-Norman, from Medieval Latin templārius, from Latin templum, meaning temple.)
Wrestle this one out
Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day recently explained the origin of the phrase no holds barred:
The metaphor comes from wrestling: in some matches, no wrestling holds are illegal. When used as a phrasal adjective, of course, it is hyphenated {a no-holds-barred matchup}.
Not that I ever saw myself as a wrestler, but if I were, I definitely wouldn’t want to wrestle no holds barred. Sounds potentially painful, in a soprano-creating kind of way.
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