LandaBlog

LandaBooks: Final Word Quiz Answers

2011-12-08T19:00:00Z

ADIOS:

1. Apostasy (uh-POSS-tuh-see). Someone who's in a state of apostasy might well have:

   c. deserted his religion, party, or principles

Some of the tea-partiers condemn any mention of raising taxes as an act of apostasy. It's from Greek (through Latin, French, and Middle English) for "a standing away, withdrawing." Someone who is in a state of apostasy is called an apostate (uh-POSS-tate).

2. Decrepitude (duh-KREP-uh-tood or tyood). Decrepitude is most likely associated with:
   d. old age and feebleness

He's probably giving up the word-quizzes because of his decrepitude--feebleness from old age or long use. It's from Latin decrepitus, broken down, from de and crep (to crack).

3. Illocutionary (ill-uh-KYOO-shun-ary). A politician who performs an illocutionary act is most likely:

   a. giving a "dog whistle" to some listeners

The candidate's mention of Willie Horton was an illocutionary act, intended as a "dog whistle" to the racist elements of his supporters, creating fear that the opposing candidate would be soft on criminals, letting too many of them run free. (In performing an illocutionary act, a speaker, by uttering certain words, intends to bring about a certain effect--often fear or hate--in listeners, even though the words may not directly suggest that.)

4. Ouzo (OOZE-oh). The word ouzo would most likely be used by:

   c. a party of partying Greeks

Ouzo is a colorless, anise-flavored liqueur of Greece.
If the Greeks manage to pull themselves out of their economic crisis, they'll probably party so heartily they'll be oozing ouzo.


5. Saurian (SORRY-un). You'd most likely use the word saurian to compare something to a:

   b. lizard

His cold, saurian eyes were like the bullets peeking from the cylinder of a revolver. It's from neo-Latin, originally naming a group of reptiles (Sauria) including lizards, crocodiles, and some extinct forms, but now restricted to lizards.

LandaBooks Word Quiz Answers: Straight A's

2011-10-26T17:29:00Z

To acerbate is to make bitter, or to exasperate (from Latin acerbare, to make bitter).
Argyle means having a diamond-shaped pattern, usually of two or more colors. The design was worn by the Campbell clan of Argyll, Scotland--in Old Irish, it literally means "land of the Gaels."
To alleviate is to lighten, make easier to endure. (From Latin al-levi, not heavy.)
To adumbrate is to outline or sketch, make a faint image of--from Latin ad (to) and umbr (shade, shadow).
Arugula is a pungent Mediterranean plant of the mustard family, used in making salads. (From Latin eruca.)

Bye, Bimonthly

2011-10-08T19:00:00Z

And we should say goodbye to the term bimonthly, because it can get us into trouble.
Sometimes we ask the working adults in our writing classes this questions: "If a magazine is published bimonthly, how many issues come out each year?"

About a third of the answers say six, a third say twenty-four, and a third say they aren't sure. Which answer is right? Although most publications that call themselves bimonthly come out every two months, our sympathies are with the people who weren't sure how to answer.

Why? Because the word bimonthly is used both ways—to mean twice monthly, and every two months. And you can find both definitions in some good dictionaries.

So what should you do? If you choose one of the definitions, you're in danger of misleading your readers unless you use some additional words to explain what you mean. If you do that, why bother to use the word at all?

Unless you're sure your readers—all of them—will know what you mean, it's a good idea to avoid the term altogether. Just use other words to say what you mean—words like every two months, or every two weeks, or twice monthly.

LandaBooks Word Quiz Answers: LEAFS

2011-10-05T15:02:33Z

To limn is to describe (in words or drawings)--from late Middle English Lymne, illuminate (originally from Latin illuminare).
Enervate (from Latin enervatus, weakened) means to weaken, to tire thoroughly. Onomatomaniacs never find these word quizzes an enervating experience.
Abeyance means suspension, inaction--Congress held the matter in abeyance until after the election (from Anglo-French abeance, a gaping at or toward).
Fastidious (from Latin fastidiosus, squeamish) means picky, demanding, hard to please--choose your words carefully, but don’t be too fastidious about others’ usage.
A sextant is (or was, ere GPS) used by sailors to find their position at sea--from Latin sextans, a sixth, because it has a graduated arc of sixty degrees--one-sixth of a circle.

LandaBooks Word Quiz Answers: Mind Your Ps and Qs

2011-09-28T18:50:33Z

To palpate is to feel with fingers and hands, especially as part of a physical examination. (From Latin palpare--to stroke, touch.)
To parboil is to cook partly, precook (from Latin perbullire, to cook thoroughly, changed through confusion of per, through, with par, part).
A quartile is the number or value that divides a set of data into four equal-sized parts: one-fourth would fall below the first quartile, one-half below the second, and so on (from Latin quart, fourth).
Quasars (from quasi-stellar radio source) are thought to be the most distant objects in the universe.
A quid is a hunk of chewing tobacco (used mostly by young white males in the American South), as well as another term for British pound sterling.

A Zeugma

2011-09-24T19:00:00Z

A zeugma (ZOOG-muh) is a figure of speech that uses a word in two different senses, usually in the same sentence: "Her tastes were rich, but her husband wasn't."
Zeugmas are usually intentional, and can be fun. You most often find them in print, carefully crafted by clever writers. But my favorite one came from a conversation I overheard. So it was spontaneous, as many good things are.

A couple standing near me at a party began a semi-friendly argument about whether or not they should move back to their home state. She was for it, he was against. The most interesting part of their exchange began when she raised her voice a little and said "I really can't understand why you don't want to move back."

"For one simple reason," he answered. "There's nothing there."

"That's just not true," she pouted, "there's a lot there."

He paused only a second, then nodded. "Yeah," he said, "I'll admit there's a lot there. But it's vacant."

Of course we would enjoy zeugmas like that even if we didn't know what to call them. But learning a new word can be fun too. And we don't have to worry about running out of new terms. There's a lot there, for sure.

LandaBooks Answers: September Song

2011-09-21T18:01:40Z

In the early Roman calendar, September was the seventh month, and Latin septem means seven.
Emery is a hard, abrasive mineral, often ground and applied to paper (sandpaper, emery boards). The name comes from Greek smyris, akin to their term for smear.
Nomenclature is the set of names or terms used in a specific art, science, etc. It comes from Latin nomenclautura, a calling by name, or list of names.
Senescence (from Latin senescere, to grow old), means growing old, or characteristic of old age.
Etiology (Greek, equivalent to aiti, cause, and ology, study) is the study of causes (of disease, physical phenomena, etc.).

“The Proof Is in the Pudding?”

2011-09-17T19:00:00Z

A couple of folks I used to work with asked me about that old expression, saying that it didn’t seem to make sense.
And it doesn’t—not by itself, anyway.

Like some other maxims that have been used a lot, over a long period of time, part of the wording has been eroded away. Add those missing parts, and you get the full wording of the original: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

Now it makes sense. No matter how appealing something may look, smell, or sound, a more important question is how well it meets other, more-important criteria. In the pudding’s case, we want it to taste good.

Here are three other old saws that have similar meanings: Beauty is only skin deep, You can’t judge a book by its cover, and He can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk?

But like most such simplified expressions, the advice of these is often ignored. We admire (and buy into) many ideas, candidates, and such on the basis of speech and appearance; we do in fact let book-covers influence what we buy and read; and we’re not about to ignore physical beauty, especially in people.

Maybe that’s why we need such expressions—to remind us that although we do value these qualities, there are other important factors that aren’t so immediately apparent, and we should consider these too.

LandaBooksWord Quiz Answers: AUTUM

2011-09-14T16:04:00Z

Abstruse means hard to understand, esoteric--abstruse formulas or theories (from Latin abstrusus, concealed).
The ulna (from Latin ulna, elbow) is one of the bones in the forearm (the other is the radius). The ulnar nerve near it is called the crazy bone or funny bone.
Turmeric (from Old French terre merite, lit. meritorious earth) is a tropical plant with yellow flowers and a stem that, dried and powdered, is used as a condiment or dye.
Ultima Thule (from Latin) means farthest place, ultimate goal, or any distant or unknown region--Lord, why did I ever come to this ultima Thule?
To mesmerize is to hypnotize--from F.A. Mesmer, German or Austrian physician who practiced this.

LandaBooks Word Quiz Answers: LABOR

2011-09-07T20:08:45Z

A wild rabbit. Lagomorphs, which have short tails and two pairs of upper incisor teeth (one behind the other), include rabbits, hares, and pikas.
Potent drink. Absinthe was originally a toxic drink made from wormwood, but it was outlawed and has been replaced by a liqueur made from a wormwood substitute.
A boat’s sails. A batten is a this strip of wood (or plastic) fitted into a sleeve in a sail to keep it stretched smooth.
A prayer. May she be remembered in all our orisons.
Russian faith healer and mystic. Spiritual advisors like Rasputin can sometimes have dangerous influence.

Don't Sweat the Crocodiles

2011-09-03T19:00:00Z

It's amazing how emotional people can get about language. I'm not talking about insults, or anything disparaging or slighting. I'm talking about tiny, cosmetic differences that have no effect on the clarity of a message.
Things like whether the period goes inside or outside the closing quotes. (If you follow American-standard rules, it goes inside. For the Brits, outside, or variable.) And even though the placement doesn't change the meaning, some folks are ready to declare war on anyone who doesn't do it the right way—their way.

Same with ensure or insure, imply or infer, and dozens of other options. You can find lots of good dictionaries and style manuals that give the okay to either in certain uses—which is to say they recognize that good writers and speakers sometimes use the less-standard member of the pair. But that doesn't seem to be enough for the so-called purists, who see their jobs as protecting the virginity of our beloved language.

When I see grownups raging at each other over one of these trivial points, it reminds me of Ogden Nash's clever poem about the apotheosis of purists, Professor Twist. Here's the last part:

Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "A crocodile."

It would be nice if all members of the grammar gestapo would read that, or maybe even keep it posted where they can see it while they work.

Issues? No Problem.

2011-08-27T19:00:00Z

Some words, like some plants or insects, go through a sudden huge increase in frequency of appearance. One of these is issue.
Seems we don’t have problems anymore. We have issues. A New Yorker cartoon some time back showed a couple entering the front door of a house where a party was already in progress. “Sorry we’re late,” they said to the hostess, “but we had traffic issues.”

Today, while waiting at a Metro station to pick up relatives, I was listening to a radio talk show. The guest was responsible for keeping the streets in certain parts of our nation’s capital in good shape. The conversation was informative, both people bright and articulate.

When I became aware that I’d heard issue several times in the space of a very few minutes, I began counting. In about eleven minutes, the word was used eight times—mostly by the guest. When he used problem twice, I was relieved and ready to give him credit.

Then I realized that—consciously or not—he’d been selective in his choice. All the less-than-desirable conditions that his department might be considered responsible for were issues . Those that were not—including acts of God like really heavy rain—were problems .

What can we do about this rampant overuse of issue? Probably nothing. And although I notice it, and try not to be a party to it, the word doesn’t really bother me. I have no issue with it.

LandaBooks Word Quiz Answers: LOVER

2011-08-24T20:58:42Z

Is a little odd, or shady, or questionable. His mother always worried that he would become a lounge lizard who liked louche ladies (from a Latin term for blind, via a French term for cross-eyed).
An ovipositor is an organ at the end of some insects’ abdomens, used to deposit eggs (from Latin ovi, egg, and posit, to place).
Defeat. He was disappointed when the White Sox utterly vanquished the Astros (from Latin vincere to overcome).
A striptease artist. H.L. Mencken jokingly coined the term "ecdysiast," based on the Greek ekdysis, which refers to the shedding of skin by snakes, insects, etc.
Renal means kidney-related (from Latin ren, kidneys).

Take a Peak at This

2011-08-20T19:00:00Z

Some weeks back, the lead editorial in The Washington Post interchanged the words peak and peek. Twice. Yeah, it’s a little surprising. After all, it’s one of the country’s leading newspapers, and you’d expect that even if the writer slipped up, one of the paper’s proofers would catch it.
Another surprising thing is that the words peek and peak are not among those most often interchanged. We have lots that are more troublesome, like affect-effect, it’s-its, and stationery-stationary, to name just a few. Anyone who needs a memory crutch on peek-vs-peak can mentally connect the two e’s in peek to two eyes, or link the a in peak to alp.

But by far the most interesting aspect of the slip-up, and the most useful for us, is this: if it happens to the pro’s on the Post, it can happen to any of us. We all have holes in our vocabularies, and a few crossed wires. Considering all the thousands of words in our vocabularies, it’s almost inevitable that we mis-learned some words years ago, and just never happened to unlearn them.

And there’s no sure way to prevent a similar goof from happening to us—any of us. And our spellcheckers won’t help. In fact, they may give add to the problem by giving us false confidence. The best way to reduce the danger is to go back to those old reliable human eyes—to enlist a competent proofer to comb through our drafts before we send them out.

While it’s possible that any one of us can make a one-in-a-thousand mistake like the peak-peak bobble, if you add a second reader, the odds shift to something like one in a million. That’s worth the trouble.

LandaBooks Word Quiz Answers: ROSES

2011-08-17T20:31:22Z

Rapport (from French rapporter, to bring back) means a relationship or connection, especially a favorable one—as a teacher would try to establish with students.
Oracular (from Latin oraculum, divine announcement) means infallible, prophetic, as revealed from above—his oracular statements often proved entirely wrong.
Sargasso is a kind of floating yellow seaweed. The name may have come from Portugese sarga, a type of grape, because the seaweed has grape-sized air sacs.
To exonerate (from Latin exonerare, to unburden) means to declare blameless, to free of charges. The English teacher charged with overuse of the pluperfect subjunctive was exonerated by the panel of politicians.
A singularity, in astronomy, is a point of infinite density and infinitesimal volume—everything in the universe is packed into one tiny point, as just before the big bang, and perhaps at the center of black holes.

Microsoft Must Big Improve Its Grammar-checker

2011-08-15T19:00:00Z

It’s a big, big mistake to depend on your spellchecker or grammar-checker. They’ll let you down.
There are just too many ways to misspell a word that a spellchecker won’t catch—the most obvious one being when the misspelling of one word gets you another, unintended real word. Like stationary-stationery, affect-effect, imminent-eminent, and so on.

And grammar-checkers are even worse, as proved by someone I heard about on NPR yesterday. The skeptic had sent a sentence something like this through his grammar-checker: “Microsoft must big improve its grammar-checker.” And the grammar-checker let it slide right through.

I’m no luddite, and I’m all for almost anything (in software or not) that will help us reduce writing problems. But I keep my grammar-checker turned off, because it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

And I don’t rely on my spellchecker. I do use it regularly, but after running it, I make sure that a good pair of fresh human eyes gives the draft a careful reading before letting it go out.

Comma Needed—Desperately

2011-08-13T19:00:00Z

Sometimes commas are optional, a matter of the writer or editor’s personal style preferences. But sometimes they’re not, and the choice of using or omitting one can make a huge difference.
Here’s a quote from Time magazine that shows what happens when a needed comma is left out. The article was about congressional arguments over the budget—what to fund, what not to. One senator, arguing that money isn’t always the answer, used the Washington D.C. schools as an example.

If money were the answer, he said, “D.C. would have the best schools in the country.” The article went on to say (not here quoting the senator directly) that “the district spent more money per student than most states with worse results.”

On first reading, it might sound like the states had worse results than the district. But that doesn’t jibe with the rest of the article, or the senator’s point, so the reader has to circle back and reread, making sure of what’s meant.

One simple little comma after states would have made the meaning clear, and the reader’s job easier.

LandaBooks Word Quiz Answers: CARIB

2011-08-10T18:18:50Z

Caustic means corrosive, burning--as acid, or harsh criticism (from Greek kaustikos, burning).
To abet is to help or encourage, usually used in reference to a criminal act (from Middle English abette, from Old French abeter).
Rampant means spreading uncontrolled, acting violently--rampant looting in London and other cities (from Old French ramper, to rear up, crawl).
Incipient means just beginning--the incipient protest movement worried the dictator. (It comes from Latin incipere, to begin.)
Bucolic means rural, rustic. After moving from the city, they enjoyed the bucolic setting of their little cabin. (It comes from Greek boukolikos, rustic.)

Throwing Down the Gauntlet

2011-08-01T19:00:00Z

"You're going to change that, aren't you?" My cousin pointed to the offending subhead in a draft he was reading for me, his face showing something between surprise and disappointment that I'd let something so obvious slip by.

The subhead at the end of his accusing finger read "Running the Gantlet." His problem with it? He assumed it should have been "Gauntlet," because he'd seen it that way so many times. He was right that it's often spelled that way. But the two words are different, and from different languages. Gantlet is from a Swedish roots meaning roughly "running down a lane," and was used to describe a military punishment in which the offender was forced to run between two rows of men who struck him as he passed. So we use it now to mean attacked or pressured from two or more directions—sort of like being between a rock and a hard place.

Gauntlet, on the other hand, comes from Old French by way of Middle English. It referred to a kind of armored glove worn by knights, and by association, is now used in reference to other gloves as well. To throw down the gauntlet means to challenge someone. Largely because of their similarity in spelling and pronunciation, the two words have been interchanged so often that each is now viewed by many editors as a different (but acceptable) spelling of the other. Many editors, but by no means all. So to be safe, it's a good idea to use them the way they were used in their respective parent languages. And to be extra safe, don't throw down either when someone uses one of them differently.

Logorrhea

2011-07-29T19:00:00Z

Here’s a word our students enjoy learning. It’s interesting for a couple of reasons.

The first is that it shows how we often form words by stealing foreign roots and prefixes and hooking them together. Today’s word combines a pair of fairly common Greek elements—logo(which means “word, speech”) and rrhea (which means “flow”).

We find logo as a free-standing term, and as a part of words like dialogue (speaking across, from one to another), monologue (speech by one person), logomachy (pronounced luh-GOMMA-key, it means war of words). And one I may have invented myself is logoklept—somebody who steals words (a harmless kind of thievery).

And rrhea in a slimmed-down form is used in rheostat (which regulates the flow of current), rheometer (which measures the flow of a liquid), and some others you can almost certainly think of.

The second reason the word is interesting is that it fills a need for a term to describe a condition that we find in too many people.

Someone who suffers from logorrhea (or makes us suffer from their logorrhea) talks, talks, talks, just seems always to be always running off at the mouth. The next time you meet someone like that, you’ll have a word to describe the condition.

Guess I’d better stop now, before you apply it to me.