KUAC

The language of bees is the bees' knees, ya know?

On our (green and) salad days...

/ker-OWN-uh/ /kəˈrəʊnə/. A crown or something crown-like. A flat projecting part of a cornice. A colored ring around the sun, moon or other object.

/kəˈlamɪti/. Great adversity or misfortune. A Disaster. Affliction.

/ˈlɪbəti/. Freedom from captivity, slavery, constraint or tyranny.

Odd couples, brothers from another mother...a bit on "false cognates."

Broken legs, green rooms, ghost lights and more...

Dunce, dismal, disaster...it's been one of those weeks.

/ˈɛksɪdʒ(ə)nsi/ /ˈɛgzɪ-; ɪgˈzɪdʒ(ə)nsi/. An instance of urgent, pressing demand or necessity. A desperate quality.

Ketchup (or is it catsup), mustard, barbecue and more...

Speaking of tongues...

/bi:d/. A small, usually spherical, piece of jewelry. A drop of moisture. A bubble. A small globule. A bead on a rosary. A prayer.

/ɒnəˈmastɪks/ noun. Relating to names and naming, particularly the art and science behind them. And how about a little nominative determinism?

/fəʊk/ noun. A people; a nation (collectively). A species; a kind. One's family or kin. -- but that's far from the whole story...

From English to Japanese, vice-versa, thrice-versa...and a few surprises.

Some thoughts on the language of (and in) museums.

/naɪs/ adjective. Pleasant; kind; friendly; good; agreeable. Foolish; ignorant. Wanton. And MORE...

/SIGH-rən/ /ˈsaɪərən/ noun. A seductive sea nymph; a woman of dangerous allure; a device for emitting a wailing signal or warning.

A gamut ranging from guitars and luthiers to solfa and re-bracketing...

/buh-HE-muth/ /bɪˈhi:mɒθ/ noun. A large Biblical animal, usually thought to be a hippopotamus; a large beast; something huge, gigantic, monstrous.

/en-THOO-zee-azzm/ /ɪnˈθju:zɪˌæzəm/ noun. Eager interest, passion, fervor, zeal. But literally?

...the dead—and the living who live in the wake and churn of the world and words around them—deserve compassion, not condemnation. The least I can do—the least we can do—is honor them with the small gift of our words most carefully chosen.

To simplify a bit, words that appear as if they should have an opposite but do not (such as disheveled).

/vol-KAY-no/ noun. The center of a subterranean eruption, usually, but not always, of molten rock, that is often, but not always, basically conical in shape.

/in-EF-uh-buhl/ adjective. Too great or powerful to be described. Inexpressible. Unutterable. Unspeakable.

/kee-ar-uh-SKYER-oh/. noun. Literally, the composition of light and shade or black and white in a painting or picture; figuratively to describe deep contrast.

adjective or noun or verb. Not genuine. A counterfeit or forgery. To pretend. To produce a counterfeit.

Outside the boundaries of acceptable behavior.

/AWM-fə-ləs/. noun. A sacred object, often a stone. The central point. The navel. Greek *omphalos* (navel).

/et-uh-mith-ALL-ə-gee/. noun. A false/folk etymology. "The lexical version of the urban legend..."

/pə-NUM-bruh/. noun. A half-shadow caused by a partial obstruction of light. In painting, the area where light and shade blend together.

/PED-ə-gah-jee/. noun. The principles, practices, art and science of teaching. From Greek paidos (boy), and agogos(leader).

/EP-ə-nimz/. noun. Words derived from names. From Greek epi (to) and onyma (name).

/TAH-dree/. adjective. Cheap, garish, gaudy.

/PET-ri-ker/. noun. The smell of rain on hot earth or pavement. From Greek petra (stone, rock) + ichor (or I-KORE) which, in Ancient Greek mythology, was the liquid that flowed in the veins of the gods.

/TWIN/. noun or adjective. One of two born at the same birth. One very like another. As an adjective: two-fold or double.

/AN-throh-pə-DəR-mik BIB-lee-OP-əjy/. noun. Bookbinding with human skin.

/KAWN-troh-nim/. noun. Words that have two opposite meanings. Coined in 1962 from the Latin contra- (against) with the Greek suffix -nym (used to indicate that something has the sense of a name).

/steg-ə-NAW-grə-fee/. noun. Secret writing. Concealing a secret message within another visible (or otherwise perceivable) message. From the Greek steganos (covered) + the Latin suffix -graphy (written) Relating to the sense of touch.

/HAP-tik/. adjective. Relating to the sense of touch. From Greek haptomai (to touch, to adhere to, to cling) + -ic (suffix: of or pertaining to).

Libraries are their own little (delightful) linguistic world...

/aw-TAW-tə-mee/. noun. The reflexive casting off (or ejection) of a body part in response to being attacked. Colloquially, if such a word can be said to be used that way!, self-amputation.

/GAWB/. noun. A lump or mouthful of something. Slang for the mouth. In mining: a seam or area emptied of valuable material and/or the waste material used to fill such an area back in.

Sometimes the obvious assumption about the story behind a word isn't so obvious...

/AC-shun-ə-bəl/. adjective. Something that can be used as the ground for legal action. More generally, something that can be acted upon or used as the basis for taking action.

/ag-NAW-stik/. noun. One who maintains that an answer, often to the question of the existence of God, is impossible to know with certainty.

The language of illness, particularly cancer, is rife with militant metaphors...

/GAYM-ə-fə-CAY-shən/. noun. Bringing game mechanics to non-game activities and situtations.

/DOH-tərd/. noun or adjective. A stupid, foolish, possibly senile person.

noun or verb. A large, amphibious rodent. To work industriously and eagerly at something.

/TROH-pizm/. noun. The movement of an organism in reaction to some stimulus. Instinctual tendencies.

/KAWL-ə-fən/. noun. A section in a book detailing the book’s production. A publishers logo, emblem or mark.

/WUULF/. noun or verb. A large, dog-like mammal. A voracious or cruel person. To gulp down.

/MAIR-ə-thon/. noun. A foot race of 26 miles, 385 yards. Abstractly, a difficult, arduous task.

/POSH-ləst/. Adjective. Banality and kitsch, vulgarity and triviality, all riddled with a lack of spirituality and an overt physicality, even sexuality.

/ə-PAW-fə-sis/. noun. A rhetorical device in which one asserts something by saying they won’t bring it up. Apophasis can often be identified by phrases such as, “not to mention.”

/PEENG-oh/. noun. (also called a hydro- or cryo-laccolith, if you want to get all sciency about it) is a conical or dome-shaped earth mound of soil-covered ice.

More than 400 years since he shuffled off this mortal coil, Shakespeare continues to live a vibrant life not just through the enduring legacy of his plays and poems as a whole, but in his contributions to the English language. Putting a precise number on these contributions is complicated by the way the first modern dictionaries—including the OED and Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language—emphasized finding examples in the established classics, causing a kind of selection bias for the Bard’s work. ¶ So, how many words and phrases did Shakespeare coin and how many did he “simply” capture? It’s logically impossible to be sure, but either way he is popularly and properly given credit in some way for over one-thousand words and hundreds of common phrases still used today. ¶ In order to manage this linguistic menagerie, I’m going to focus on just one play—my own favorite—and arguably Shakespeare’s most verbally inventive: Hamlet.

...Generally speaking, a triffid is a vigorous, rapidly-developing, usually invasive plant. But in its original use, these plants were also mobile, malignant and carnivorous, with a sting demonstrably capable of killing humans. These were the plants John Wyndham was describing when he coined the term in his 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids. (Incidentally, Wyndham writes that the word evolved from the “etymological gymkhana” around the combination of “tri” (three) and “it…”

noun. A ridge, or a low hill, often oval (think of a half-buried egg), formed by---and in the direction of---glacial movement.