Cool Words

Pernicious

pernicious (pur-NISH-uhs) adjective

   Causing great harm; deadly; wicked.

[From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin perniciosus, from
pernicies (complete destruction), from per- (thoroughly) + nici-, from nex
(destruction).]

"As for yourself, (continued the King), who have spent the greatest Part
   of your Life in Travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto
   have escaped many Vices of your Country. But by what I have gathered from
   your own Relation, and the Answers I have with much Pain wringed and
   extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the Bulk of your Natives to be
   the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever
   suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth."
   Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag),
   1726.

Approbation

approbation (ap-roh-BAY-shun) noun

   Approval, praise, commendation, official sanction.

[From Latin approbation, from ap- + probatus, from probare (to test the
goodness of).

What do the words approve, prove, probe, probate, probity, and probation
have in common? They are all derived from the same root and involve the
idea of testing the goodness of something or someone.               -Anu

"I wrote for their Amendment, and not their Approbation."
   Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, 1726.

Metaplasm

metaplasm (MET-uh-plaz-uhm) noun

   A change in a word, for example by adding, omitting, inverting, or
   transposing its letters, syllables, or sounds.

[From Middle English metaplasmus, from Latin, from Greek metaplasmos
(remodeling), from metaplassein (to remold) from meta- + plassein (to
mold).]

Metaplasm is a generic term for almost any kind of alteration in a word. It
can be intentional, to produce a poetic effect, to fit a meter or rhyme. Or
it can be unintentional -- one we hear quite often nowadays is nucular for
nuclear. Some other examples are oft for often, rithmetic for arithmetic,
libary for library, sherbert for sherbet.
-Anu

"It is a kind of metaplasm, in this case the addition of a medial
syllable,
   as in people who say 'realator' instead of 'realtor.'"
   Zay N. Smith, Filmmakers Cutting Away at Their Rights?, The Chicago
   Sun-Times, Sep 29, 2002.

"So I said, `I'm going to write a letter. The world is getting too
   sensitive. Anybody who thinks otherwise needs to have his dog-gone brain
   examined.'
`Good idea,' said my sensitive friend, `but avoid using that
metaplasm...'"
   Richard A. Zidonis, Proper Address of the Question, The Plain Dealer
(Cleveland, Ohio), Nov 8, 1991.

Philogyny

philogyny (phi-LOJ-uh-nee) noun

   Fondness of women.

[From Greek philogynia, from philo- (loving) + -gyn (woman).]

"`Hence I speculated,' he continued, `knowing you have been to the altar
   more than once, I wondered if you were indicating that your personal
   ontogeny recapitulated ... philogyny.' He wondered whether I was
comparing
   my personal history of fondness for women (or at least for marriage) to
   the context of being representative of most men."
   Jan Glidewell, I Think, Therefore I Mess Up, St. Petersburg Times
   (Florida), Feb 25, 1994.

"Applauding each leap or spin like a younger crowd might cheer on an Eddie
   Van Halen guitar solo, all-embracing L.A. seemed to audibly adore every
   sexy nanosecond. An exhilarating evening of edgy pop vigor, philogyny
   and physicality? Of course. Cheesy, too? Certainly. Welcome to rock 'n'
   roll."
   Chris Willman, The Joffrey and Prince: A Funky Pas de Deux,
   The Los Angeles Times, Jul 24, 1993.

"I know the word for hatred of women is misogyny. Can you tell me the
opposite of this term?" I get this question in my mail often. Today's word
answers it. The counterparts of these words are misandry and philandry,
hatred and love of men, respectively. And to complete the picture, there is
an equal-opportunity term misanthropy, meaning hatred of humankind, where
one doesn't discriminate on the basis of sex.

A word of note: one who practices philandry is a philandrist, not a
philanderer which has an altogether different sense. How come we have two
words with same roots but senses as opposite as Mars and Venus: philandry
(love of men) vs. philander (to engage in frivolous love of women)? The
answer lies in the many organic ways in which language evolves. The latter
term comes from Greek philandros (loving of man), to refer to a woman who
loves her husband. The term Philander was later used in literature to name
a male character, apparently from the mistaken belief that it refers to a
man who loves, rather than one who loves a man.

Exoteric

exoteric (ek-so-TER-ik) adjective

   1. Not limited to an inner circle of select people.

   2. Suitable for the general public.

   3. Relating to the outside; external.

[From Latin exotericus, from Greek exoterikos (external), from exotero,
comparative form of exo (outside).]

"In crude terms, some critics of Strauss argue that he interpreted the
   ancient philosophers as offering two different teachings, an esoteric one
   which is available only to those who read the ancient texts closely, and
   an exoteric one accessible to naive readers. The exoteric interpretations
   were aimed at the mass of people, the vulgar, while the esoteric
   teachings - the hidden meanings - were vouch-safed to the few, the
   philosophers."
   Ronald Bailey, Origin of the Specious: Why Do Neoconservatives Doubt
   Darwin?, Reason magazine (Los Angeles), Jul 1, 1997.

"In their different ways and obviously to a varying degree these two
   publications should appeal to those who are alienated by exoteric Judaism
   stripped of its mystical elements. Ronald Isaacs begins by noting that
   there is no biblical Hebrew word for miracle."
   Jonathan Galante, Mysticism for the Masses, Jerusalem Post, Aug 27, 1999.

Wisenheimer

wisenheimer (WY-zen-hy-muhr) also weisenheimer, noun

   A smart aleck.

[From wise + -enheimer (on the pattern of names such as Guggenheimer or
Oppenheimer).]

"By way of background: Kyrgyzstan is an actual nation located in the
   Western Hemisphere. Or possibly the Eastern Hemisphere. It's definitely
   in a hemisphere. ... Why are we interested in this? Certainly it is
   not because we are juvenile wisenheimers who think these names sound
   funny."
   Dave Barry, Kyrgyzstan: Much More Than a Test of Spelling,
   The Seattle Times, Mar 19, 2001.

"Former Gannett Co. Inc. Chairman Allen H. Neuharth launched USA Today
   Sept. 15, 1982. Wisenheimer journalists said it looked like a comic book.
   Tagged it McPaper."
   Twenty - And Lovin' It, Editor & Publisher (New York), Sep 16, 2002.

Blatherskite

blatherskite (BLATH-uhr-skyt) noun

   1. A person who babbles about inane matters.

   2. Nonsense; foolish talk.

[From Old Norse blathra (to chatter) + Scots dialect skate (a contemptible
person).]

What does today's word have in common with the following seemingly disparate
words: bladder, flatus, blast, flavor, inflate, souffle, afflatus? They all
are ultimately derived from the Indo-European root bhle- and involve the
idea
of blowing.
-Anu

"You can play it solo, but that bouncing, blatherskite of a compere keeps
   nagging at you to get a partner."
   Mark Butler, Movie Trivia an Interesting Cameo, The Australian (Sydney),
   May 27,1997.

"We should perhaps clarify that we do not prefer lawmaking by politicians
   to lawmaking by judges because we have some unhealthy fondness for the
   blatherskites who every four years knock on your front door and want to
   put up a sign on the lawn."
   Ian Hunter, Judge-bashing is Here to Stay, National Post (Canada),
   Mar 30, 2000.

Illeist

illeist (IL-ee-ist) noun

   One who refers to oneself in the third person.

[From Latin ille (that) + -ism.]

"I've read that some famous sports figures become illeists during press
   conferences: `He [meaning the speaker] has to work more on his free
   throws.' I have but one thing to say about that, `Redgate finds that
   sort of thing somewhat irritating.'"
   Chris Redgate, The Red Pencil, The Washington Post, Mar 14, 2000.

Dysphemism

dysphemism (DIS-fuh-miz-em) noun

   The substitution of a harsher, deprecating or offensive term in place
   of a relatively neutral term.

[From Greek dys- (bad) + -phemism (as in euphemism).]

"There are lots of epithets for people like this - Grammar Nazis, Usage
   Nerds, Syntax Snobs, the Language Police. The term I was raised with is
   SNOOT. The word might be slightly self-mocking, but those other terms
   are outright dysphemisms. A SNOOT can be defined as somebody who knows
   what dysphemism means and doesn't mind letting you know it."
   David Foster Wallace, Tense Present: Democracy, English, And the Wars
   Over Usage, Harper's Magazine (New York), Apr 2001.

"In 1945, shortly after the final victory over Japan, newsreels provided
   evidence of another holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
   The Holocaust (the dysphemism chosen by Jewish historians to replace the
   Nazis' ghastly euphemism, The Final Solution) and the Nuclear Holocaust
   the one in the past, the other in the future were to hang over the next
   half-century like a mushroom cloud."
   Philip French, Hollywood and the Holocaust, The Guardian (London),
   Feb 13, 1994.

Dysphemism and its antonym, euphemism, are often two sides of the same coin.
A guerrilla in neutral language might be called freedom-fighter by some
while a terrorist by others. Novelist and story-writer Nathaniel Hawthorne
summed it well when he wrote, "Words - so innocent and powerless as they
are,
as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the
hands of one who knows how to combine them."

Labanotation

labanotation (lah-buh-noh-TAY-shun) noun, also Labanotation

   A system of notating details of a dance movement on a staff.

[After choreographer Rudolph Laban (1879-1958) who devised it.]

To see what a labanotation looks like, visit:
http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~griesbec/LABANE.HTML

"The full Labanotation of Gemmill's goal is also being published this
   summer by Finlay's Pocketbook Press, illustrated with time-lapse
   photographs of the dance steps."
   Severin Carrell, The Nutmeg Suite, Independent on Sunday (London),
   Mar 25, 2001.

"According to Odette Blum, who restaged the work from a Labanotation
   score, `Everything is very simple and very clear. Humphrey knew how
   to develop a theme and to build up emotional states from quiet to
   transcendent.'"
   Margaret Putnam, Dance Concert Offers a Swinging Mix of Moods,
   The Dallas Morning News, Nov 8, 1996.

Strepitant

strepitant (STREP-i-tant) adjective, also strepitous

   Noisy; boisterous.

[From Latin strepitantem, present participle of strepitare, from strepere
(to make a noise).]

"Thus it is not to be wondered at that throughout Mr Anderson was too
   loud; even his soliloquies, in the orchard of his foe's house, were as
   strepitous as if challenging the household to oppose him, and, while he
   overhears Juliet's apostrophe of love to himself, his `asides' are
   delivered in a tone so loud, that it requires a great effort of
   imagination in the auditor to suppose the lady does not hear them."
   Past Notes: Romeo and Juliet, The Guardian (London), Aug 4, 1994.

"Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive;
   Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant"
   Robert Browning (1812-1889), Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha,
   Dramatic Lyrics, 1842.

Hypercorrection

hypercorrection (hi-puhr-kuhr-REK-shun) noun

   A grammatical, usage or pronuciation mistake made by `correcting'
   something that's right to begin with. For example, use of the word whom
    in
   "Whom shall I say is calling?"

[From Greek hyper- (over) + correction.]

"One explanation is that some people may have been corrected for saying
   `bad' in another construction such as `I need money bad' and so in
   hypercorrection use `badly' in all constructions. Other use it trying to
   be elegant, thinking `feeling bad' is somehow less educated."
   Roz Young, The Good Word is Don't Feel Bad About 'Feeling Badly',
   The Dayton Daily News, Sep 4, 1993.

"The truth is that hypercorrection isn't grammar's coup de grace. We all
   do it occasionally; here's how: Fear of the objective case. This comes as
   a shock to we (should be `us') people who care about grammar, but between
   you and I (should be `me'), hypercorrection is quite common."
   Rob Kyff, The Error of Fixing What Ain't Broke, The Hartford Courant,
   Apr 20, 1994.

Holophrastic

holophrastic (hol-uh-FRAS-tik) adjective

   1. Expressing a sentence in one word, for example, "Go."

   2. Expressing complex ideas in a single word, as in some Eskimo
languages.
      Also polysynthetic.

[From Greek Holo- (whole) + Greek phrastikos, from phrazein (to speak).]

"Despite this mild heritage, Thomson sells packages easy as shooting fish
   in a barrel. Thomson is holophrastic."
   Trader Horn, Travel: Agents of Change, The Guardian (London), Sep 17,
1994.

"It's interesting that while Carmen never tells Jose that she loves him,
   the words that one hears continually -- almost as if they were a verbal
   tic -- from him are `Je t'aime' or `Je t'adore.' A linguist might call
   such expressions holophrastic -- their individual components come
   together as one -- and French pronunciation emphasizes the merging of
   these words."
   Stephen Wigler, Carmen Puts Male Nightmare Into Music, The Sun
   (Baltimore, Maryland), Oct 7, 1990.

Dehise

dehisce (di-HIS) verb intr.

   1. To burst open, as the pod of a plant.

   2. To gape.

[When a peapod is ripe after a long wait and bursts open, it's yawning,
etymologically speaking. The term dehisce comes from Latin dehiscere
(to split open), from hiscere (to gape, yawn), from Latin hiare (to yawn).
Another term that derives from the same root is hiatus.]

"Rhubarb is a vegetable, no matter what the government says: a member
   of the buckwheat family of herbaceous plants including buckwheat, dock
   and smartweed, which are characterized by having swollen joints, simple
   leaves, small petalless flowers and small, dry, indehiscent fruit.
   Indehiscent means `not dehiscent,' not opening at maturity to release
   the seed. So "indehiscent" means `hard, dry, holding onto the seed,'
   which actually describes Norwegians quite well. Most Norwegians
   consider dehiscence to be indecent. They hold the seed in. But rhubarb
   pie comes along in the spring, when we're half crazed from five months
   of winter -- it's the first fresh vegetable we get, and it makes us
   dehisce."
   Carol Stocker, Rediscovering Rhubarb, Boston Globe, May 16, 1996.

Anagram

anagram (AN-a-gram) noun

   A rearrangement of letters in a word, phrase, or name to form another
   word, phrase, or name.

verb tr.

   To rearrange the letters of a term to form another.

[From Middle French anagramme, from New Latin anagramma, from ana- (back,
up)
+ -gram (something written).]

Can you create one word out of the letters in new door? The answer is (ha
ha)
"one word". The letters in new door are the same as those in one word,
except
in a different order. When is enough not enough? When you rearrange the
letters in enough, you get one hug. Everybody knows that one hug is never
enough!

Aptagrams are words or statements that uncannily anagram into their own
synonyms or into uncannily related ideas:

aboard/abroad
abode/adobe
note/tone

Next up in this phase of anagramazing program are words and phrases that we
can shape into heaps of other meaningful phrases:

dormitory             DIRTY ROOM
Statue of Liberty     BUILT TO STAY FREE
television set        SEE? IT'S VIOLENT!

No wonder that an acronym of anagram is A New, Appropriate, Grandly
Rearranged, Alphabetic Message. No wonder that those who believe in the
magical potency of words have hailed the anagram as AH, AN ART GEM! and
anagrams as ARS MAGNA, "the great art".

Make your own anagrams at the Internet Anagram Server:
http://wordsmith.org/anagram