Learning New Words

Copperfox

Copperfox

Well-known member
Fiction, even supposedly-frivolous fiction, can improve a person's vocabulary. When I was a nerdy teenager, I enjoyed the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and I don't mean only the Tarzan books. I learned many words from Burroughs. Among these were "dissolution" and "accoutrements."

Look them up yourself.
 
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I have heard this a lot in part due to some sites I have visited. It is a Japanese portmanteau of two words yanderu, which means insane and deredere, which means loving. Basically, it is a female (this is almost exclusively used to describe girls or women) who is in love with someone and will go to any lengths, including violence, to keep that person. Usually, she is very sweet and loving to her paramour until jealousy or him wanting to leave triggers her yanderu personality.

MrBob
 
Long-time forum stalwarts will recall that I am a Russian linguist. Here comes big-league trivia, category word origins.

There is a word now used by English speakers, which originated in Russian and came to us via French.

When Napoleon invaded Russia, his troops were noticeably LESS cruel and predatory than Viking and Tatar-Mongol invaders in past generations. Because of this, once the Russians got the upper hand over Napoleon, they took a remarkably forgiving attitude toward captured Frenchmen. Russian troops would be herding French soldiers toward places where the Frenchmen would be set to forced labor, and at rest stops compassionate civilians would bring food to the prisoners. When this happened, the escorting Russian soldiers would tell the civilians to be quick about feeding the prisoners.

They would say a Russian word which is pronounced approximately "BWISS-truh." Phonetic issues here are complicated, just take my word for it.

One Frenchman who had been a prisoner of war, after he was allowed to return to France, remembered hearing this one Russian word many times when he was fed. Understanding that the word had something to do with quickness, he made it a business name. He established a cafe which would emphasize getting the food to customers quickly.

This was the first BISTRO.
 
I shouldn't worry too much about electromagnetic fields if I were you. Every crank and his brother has had something to say about it for years. You might as well worry about dihydrogen monoxide, which is indeed pernicious stuff: a component of most industrial acids which, however, is completely unregulated as a food additive; a chemical which has a higher pH than concentrated sulfuric acid; a chemical which can cause burns in solid, liquid or gaseous form; a chemical which is regularly found in tumours excised from cancer patients; a chemical which can cause catastrophic failures in electrical appliances; a chemical that contributes extensively to soil erosion; and a chemical which causes dependency in living creatures exposed to it. <-- every word of this is the absolute truth.

My word for the day is "synecdoche". Many of us don't know it, most of us have done it or heard it done. "The White House today said..." -- well, houses can't talk, not even white ones, and what we really mean is that the persons staffing the White House said such-and-such. When you let a part of something stand for the whole, or a place stand in for a person, that's synecdoche (sin-EK-do-kee). As you'd expect, you have the Greeks to thank for this rhetorical device.
 
In Toastmasters this week I learned a new word: sedulous (ˈsejələs)
• It is an adjective meaning: hardworking, zealous, active, tireless
a) Showing dedication and diligence
b) Involving or accomplished with careful perseverance
c) Preserving and constant in effort or application

• Sample sentences:
a) Mike is a quiet and sedulous student.
b) He watched himself with the most sedulous care
 
Many people have misunderstood the word "TEMERITY." Because it contains the consonants T and M, they assume it must be related to the adjective "TIMID." Quite the contrary, "temerity" means boldness. I don't think there is any adjective form of "temerity," but anyone who HAS temerity is NOT timid.

Perhaps one can remember this word by thinking of the actor TEMUERA Morrison, who has played Jango and Boba Fett in Star Wars. The father and son bounty hunters are anything but timid.

On the other hand, "TIMOROUS" does mean "fearful."
 
The numerical system of ancient Rome is utterly useless for mathematics. But some have retained it, because Latin numbers make a good alternate numbering system for LABELLING purposes, like numbering the chapters in a book. Here's how the numerals run.

The numbers I, II and III are simple enough, they're 1, 2, and 3. Then comes the foremost peculiarity of Latin numerals. Certain numbers are treated as "something MINUS ONE." The Roman numeral for five is V; thus, four is five minus one, written as IV. On the other side of five, more ones are added; so, 6, 7 and 8 are VI, VII and VIII. Then the "minus one" is used again for the number nine: nine and ten are IX and X.

Counting eleven through thirty goes as follows:

XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX.

Fifty is L; one hundred is C; and one thousand is M. The same peculiarity continues to apply.

Thus, the current year 2021, in Latin numerals, is MMXXI.
 
"Quid pro quo" does not mean equivalence or substitution; it means an EXCHANGE, usually an exchange of service or favors. Literally, "This in return for that." For instance, if you and I were next-door neighbors, and you gave me a ride to pick up my van from the repair shop, and in return I pulled up all the weeds on your property, this would be a quid pro quo.
 
You know what I'd like?

Since you're new here, I'd like it if you scroll down Writing Club, and start reading the saga of Alipang Havens.

My now-deceased first wife and I, unable to have our own children, adopted a Korean girl-- who, by now, is a corporate vice-president. Eleven years ago, then, I created a fictional family roughly similar to Mary and me with Annemarie. The fictional parents adopt SEVERAL children, one of whom is Asian: a Filipino boy. Alipang Dumagat Havens gets to be what what was denied to me in real life: a STRONG boy who earns a position of leadership among teenagers.
 
The wings of any normal airplane will have two kinds of hinged flaps or fins on their trailing edges. One type is simply called "flaps;" their purpose is to hang down during a plane's landing approach, "dragging" against the air to help the plane slow down.

It's the other type of flap which is the new word here. It is called an "AILERON" (a word originating in French).

If a pilot makes his right aileron flex upward, the air-catching effect makes the right wing want to tilt its leading edge upward. Aileron down does the opposite. So if the pilot puts right aileron up and left aileron down, the plane will begin to roll toward the left.

If you have ever watched an airplane making a right or left course change in its horizontal direction of travel, you probably noticed the plane tilting to one side WHILE making the turn. This is called "banking," and it is controlled by the ailerons.
 
Look at a soup bowl. The curved inside surface is described by the adjective "CONCAVE." The curved outside surface is described by the adjective "CONVEX." These two opposite adjectives are useful when explaining aerodynamics. Note that the noun "aerodynamics" means the study and understanding of how air moves, and how objects move THROUGH air.

Each wing of an airplane (and a rotor blade on a helicopter is effectively a wing) is shaped so that the upper surface is convex, and the lower surface is concave. As soon as a parked airplane begins moving along the ground for takeoff, the concave under-surface of each wing is beginning to "gather" air. As air flows over the accelerating airplane, air passing ABOVE each wing is "looser;" it has less pressure than the air below the wing. When a high enough speed is reached, the air pressure UNDER each wing grows strong enough to give LIFT to the airplane.... and it takes off.

This is why an airplane is in trouble if its engines quit. Without movement, there will not be the same "gathering" of air under the wings.
 
Here's a cool word: METALEPSIS.

1. A figure of speech in which a word or phrase makes indirect reference to another figure of speech. For example, in "His new leaf turned out to be short-lived, and his life spiraled back out of control," "new leaf" alludes to the expression "turn over a new leaf."

2. A narrative device that involves transgressing the boundary between a fictional world and the real world or between two discrete fictional worlds, as when a character from one TV series makes an appearance in a different series.
 
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