Words, Meanings, Language & Quotes

Graham Greene , in a speech titled "Freedom of Thought," delivered when he accepted the Jerusalem Prize on 6 April 198

 

April 22, 2020  Jessica Maggi Italy and swearing just belong together. When it comes to curse words (parolacce) and insults, no one does it quite like the Italians. One of the most fascinating things about swearing in Italian is that the vocabulary is so vast, rich and colorful. Here is a guide to the insults and bad words you will need when arguing like an Italian. Even if you don’t use them, knowing these swear words will allow you to fully understand what is being said around you, since you will surely come across them often when in Italy. Note: This post may contain terms that are inappropriate for some readers. Cazzo – F*ck In Italian, the word cazzo literally means “dick”, and is commonly used not only to express anger, but also as an exclamation of surprise, disappointment or even appreciation. It is extremely common, and mastering its usage is crucial to better relate to those around you. It can be added to a sentence, or be used as an exclamation. You can use cazzo, pronou...

Matt Garrick ABC March 24, 2023 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-24/attacked-darwin-security-guard-feels-linked-to-bottle-shop-death/102138142

Roslyn Petelin The Conversation November 29, 2022 The Macquarie Dictionary has announced its word of the year – “teal” – also chosen recently by the Australian National Dictionary Centre as its word of 2022. Teal, a colour that’s not quite green and not quite blue, is, of course, a peculiarly Australian choice. As is the Macquarie people’s choice: “bachelor’s handbag”. I wonder who came up with this as a term for supermarket BBQ chicken (and pork and beef) sold in plastic bags with handles. And why narrowly confine it to the demographic of “bachelor”? Did we really need this term? Will it catch on? But let’s return to the Macquarie committee’s choice. The greenish-blue colour was used by several independent candidates for their promotional material in the 2022 federal election. A loosely-aligned group of female professionals turned politicians successfully challenged incumbents in blue-ribbon seats, resulting in a “teal bath”. Teal is now used as a term to cover independent centrists ...

horripilation [ haw-rip-uh-ley-shuhn, ho- ] (noun) a bristling of the hair on the skin from cold, fear, etc.; goosebumps. ORIGIN The horri- part comes from a Latin verb meaning “to bristle,” and this verb is also the source of words such as horrendous, horrify, and horror. Unlike terror, which literally has to do with being frightened, the root of horror is all about hair standing on its end! In addition, the -pil- part of horripilation is a Latin stem meaning “hair.” Horripilation was first recorded in English in the 1650s. EXAMPLE As the truck set off on the haunted hayride route, the riders experienced some horripilation in anticipation of the scares ahead.

cacimbo [ noun] [kuh-sim-boh]  A heavy mist or drizzle that occurs in the Congo Basin, often accompanied by onshore winds. ORIGIN Cacimbo “a heavy mist that occurs in the Congo Basin” is a borrowing from Portuguese, which in turn likely adapted the term from the word for “well (for water)” in Kimbundu, a Bantu language of northern Angola. Because the former Portuguese Empire maintained a presence in several parts of western and southern Africa, numerous terms originating in African languages (particularly the Niger-Congo family) passed into Portuguese, which is still an official language in six African countries. With Portuguese as an intermediary, English has inherited batuque , samba , and the recent Word of the Day capoeira , all probably from West African languages. Cacimbo was first recorded in English in the early 1860s. EXAMPLE The wind can really get strong here, very powerful, you know. It’s so sweet in the cacimbo, when you’re inside with something warm to drink and you ...

ratoon [ra-toon] NOUN  A sprout or shoot from the root of a plant, especially a sugarcane, after it has been cropped. ORIGIN Ratoon “a sprout from the root of a plant” is likely anglicized from Spanish retoño “sprout,” which is based on the verb retoñar “to sprout again in the fall,” from re- “again” and otoño “fall, autumn.” Spanish otoño and English autumn together come from Latin autumnus, which is of uncertain origin, even stumping expert linguists! Among the few proposals are connections to the Etruscan language, to Latin augēre (stem auct-) “to increase,” or distantly to English sere “dry, withered” (compare archaic English sere month “August”). Old English ​​hærfest “autumn” is the source of modern English harvest. Ratoon was first recorded in English circa 1630. EXAMPLES  Sugarcane is one of the few crops that has seen an increase in planting area. But across Maharashtra, large fields of sugarcane ratoons—the new cane that grows from the stubble left behind from the pr...

Teepoy noun a small three-legged table or stand What is the origin of teapoy? Teapoy “a small three-legged table or stand” is adapted from Hindi tīpāi, with a spelling change likely because of the association with tea. Hindi tīpāi, however, is not related to tea; instead, tīpāi comes from Persian sipāya “three-legged stand.” The phonetic change from Persian s to Hindi t is due to a replacement of the Persian word for “three” with its Hindi cognate tīn, while the instrument sitar “a lute with a small, pear-shaped body” preserves this Persian numeral. Sipāya is a compound of Persian sē “three” and pāy “foot,” which are distant relatives of English three and foot, Latin trēs and pēs, Ancient Greek treîs and poús, and Sanskrit trí and pád. Teapoy was first recorded in English in the 1820s. How is teapoy used? In front of the fireplace were placed three cane stools with a long, low, mahogany teapoy. Richard often sat there, his pipe in hand and browsed through his books and ancient manuscri...

SANGUIVOROUS   (adjective) feeding on blood, as a bat or insect. WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF SANGUIVOROUS? Sanguivorous “feeding on blood” is a compound of the combining forms sangui- “blood” and -vorous “devouring.” Sangui- derives from Latin sanguis, of the same meaning, but the story does not stop there. Continuing a common pattern in the Indo-European language family, the Romans had two words for “blood”—sanguis and cruor—and while sanguis implicitly referred to blood inside the body, cruor referred to blood outside the body, particularly in violent contexts. In this way, it should come as little surprise that cruor is distantly related to English raw (Old English hrēaw) and Ancient Greek kréas “raw flesh,” while sanguis may be a compound of the Proto-Indo-European roots for “blood” and “to pour.” While cruor survives today to some extent in modern Romance languages, it is sanguis that serves as the root of most Romance words for “blood,” such as French sang, Italian/Portuguese ...

"There's a saying that the food in India changes every 100km and yet we're still using this umbrella term popularised by white people who couldn't be bothered to learn the actual names of our dishes," blogger Chaheti Bansal said August 11, 2021  The food blogger said that that while she did not want the word "curry" to be cancelled entirely, there needed to be an end to its use by "people who don't know what it means". (Source: pixabay) In a viral Instagram post, Indian-American blogger Chaheti Bansal called on people to “cancel the word ‘curry'”, deemed a universal term for Indian dishes in the West. In a recipe video for Rajasthani dish ‘Gatte ki sabji’, Bansal said that the term “curry” has been misused by “white people” to name any dish made in India. Stating that one can “still unlearn”, she said, “There’s a saying that the food in India changes every 100km and yet we’re still using this umbrella term popularised by white people w...

Mickle [mik-uhl] adjective great; large; much. ORIGIN Mickle is often found in the expression “many a little makes a mickle,” which sometimes appears instead as “many a pickle makes a mickle” or “many a mickle makes a muckle” and points to how a vast number of small quantities can form a great quantity. Mickle has many cognates in other Indo-European languages that pertain to greatness, whether literal size or figurative influence—from mickle’s Latin cognate, we have magnify and magnitude; from its Greek cognate, we have megabyte and megalomania; and from its Sanskrit cognate, we have maharajah “a ruling prince,” and maharishi “a respected teacher of mystical knowledge.” The adjective much originated as a shortened form of mickle likely in the 12th century and is not related to Spanish mucho, which derives instead from the Latin word for “many”—the same word that gives us multiple and multitude. USAGE [M]ight never any man bethink of bliss that were greater in any country than in this...

[ ahr-i-tey ] noun the aggregate of qualities, as valour and virtue, making up good character. ORIGIN Not every word has a direct translation in other languages, and arete falls into this category; though it is frequently translated as “excellence,” using “excellence” alone ignores all the nuances, such as bravery, intellect, and productivity, that arete implies in the original Greek. You may also know that Ancient Greek had multiple words for “love,” and “love” alone can’t fully communicate how philia is a type of brotherly love, how eros signifies passion and desire, or how agape refers to the love between spouses or for fellow humans. These translation issues also arise with philosophical terms such as pathos, which can be translated succinctly as “feeling”–its intended meaning in compounds such as apathy, empathy, and sympathy. However, pathos is more than another word for “emotion”; it refers to the feelings of pity, sorrow, or compassion that result when hearing, seeing, or lis...

noun Any flight or journey to a more desirable or congenial place. ORIGIN Hegira, “a flight to a more desirable or safer place,” comes from Medieval Latin hegira, a Latinization of Arabic hijrah “emigration, flight, departure,” a derivative of the verb hajara “he departed.” Hijrah specifically refers to the flight of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution in July c.e. 622. The Arabic form hijrah (more fully al hijrat) for Muslims marks the beginning of the Muslim Era. Hegira entered English in the late 16th century; the spelling hijra in the late 19th. USAGE After The San Francisco News assigned [John] Steinbeck to write a series about the pathetic living conditions of the Dust Bowl refugees in California’s San Joaquin Valley, he actively began The Grapes of Wrath, his touching 1939 novel about the hegira of these Oklahoma sharecroppers. BRENDA WINEAPPLE, "JOHN STEINBECK, BARD OF THE AMERICAN WORKER," NEW YORK TIMES, OCTOBER 6, 2020 [T. S.] Elio...

adjective Pertaining to leave-taking or departing; valedictory. ORIGIN The English apopemptic is a straightforward borrowing of the Greek adjective apopemptikós, “pertaining to dismissal, valedictory,” a derivative of the adverb and preposition apό- “off, away” and the verb pémpein “to send,” a verb with no clear etymology. The Greek noun pompḗ, a derivative of pémpein, means “escort, procession, parade, magnificence,” adopted into Latin as pompa (with the same meanings), used in Christian Latin to refer to the ostentations of the devil, especially in baptismal formulas, e.g., “Do you reject the devil and all his pomps?” Apopemptic entered English in the mid-18th century. HOW IS APOPEMPTIC USED? As Opal Codd said sweetly my last day, her apopemptic word for me was “agathism.” Once again, I could do no more but ask her to translate. “My dear,” she said, “apopemptic! Pertaining to farewell, of course.” “Of course. But ‘agathism’? A belief in Agatha Christie?” GILLIAN ROBERTS, ALL'S ...

[es-tuh-veyt] verb To spend the summer, as at a specific place or in a certain activity. Zoology. to spend a hot, dry season in an inactive, dormant state, as certain reptiles, snails, insects, and small mammals.

(noun) Something that passes everywhere or provides a universal means of  ORIGIN Passe-partout , “something that provides a universal means of passage; a master key, skeleton key,” comes from the French compound  passe-partout , whose literal meaning is “(it) passes everywhere.” In French the phrase originally meant “a person who can go anywhere,” and slightly later “a master key.” The French verb passer “to pass” comes from Vulgar Latin  passāre  “to walk, step, pass,” from the Latin noun  passus  “pace, step.”  Partout  is a compound of  par  “through” and tout “all.”  Par  comes from the Latin preposition  per  “through”;  tout  comes from Latin  tōtus  “all, the whole of, complete.”  Passe-partout  entered English in the 17th century. USE Journalists have an invisible passe-partout that allows them to roam the world and ask consequential people impertinent questions. NICHOLA...

Alissa Walker  and  Emma Alpern June 11, 2020 A demonstrator holds a sign at the rally against NYC’s current policies regarding the homeless population.   Photo by Albin Lohr-Jones / Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images Over the past several weeks, leaders across the country have announced the results of their annual homelessness counts, which are conducted in U.S. cities every January. This year, though, those figures might hit harder thanks to an update to the style manual used by many news organizations that will help to remind readers that behind each statistic, there are people. New guidance was presented at the 2020 American Copy Editors Society conference in May, where  AP Stylebook  editors recommended that journalists stop using the catchall label “the homeless,” a term the editors deem dehumanizing, to describe those without homes. “Do not use the collective noun ‘the homeless,’ just like we don’t use ‘the elderly’ or ‘the disabled,’” said Paul...

Verklempt is a loan word from the Yiddish language that acts as an adjective. It means to be overwhelmed by emotion, perhaps so much that one cannot speak. An alternative spellings include ferklempt, farklempt, verklemmt, and faklempt. However, the v spelling is vastly preferred. Verklempt was popularized in the United States in the 1990s and many credit that to a comedy sketch on Saturday Night Live. Though, in the transcripts of the sketch the word is spelled faklempt

The  Monster Study  was a  stuttering  experiment performed on 22 orphan children in  Davenport, Iowa  in 1939. It was conducted by  Wendell Johnson  at the  University of Iowa . Graduate student Mary Tudor conducted the experiment under Johnson's supervision. Half of the children received positive speech therapy, praising the fluency of their speech, and the other half, negative speech therapy, belittling the children for speech imperfections. Many of the normal speaking orphan children who received negative therapy in the experiment suffered negative psychological effects, and some retained speech problems for the rest of their lives. It was dubbed the "Monster Study" as some of Johnson's peers were horrified that he would experiment on orphan children to confirm a hypothesis. The experiment was kept hidden for fear Johnson's reputation would be tarnished in the wake of  human experiments conducted by the Nazis  during  World...