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Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 4:57 pm
by Katya
Digit wrote:Computer science luminary Donald Knuth uses that word for parts of his great series of books on
The Art of Computer Programming, which he started in 1968 and has been continuing to do
as of 2011 it appears.
Nice. I think the
Oxford English Dictionary was originally released in fascicles.
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 5:00 pm
by Katya
sneckdown - An area of the street where cars don't drive, which is made apparent when the streets are covered with snow. (The etymology is "snow" + "neckdown," where "neckdown" is another name for a curb extension. Sneckdowns are useful in urban planning, because they can be used to make arguments for street areas that should be turned into pedestrian zones.)
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 5:48 pm
by Yarjka
Katya wrote:sneckdown - An area of the street where cars don't drive, which is made apparent when the streets are covered with snow. (The etymology is "snow" + "neckdown," where "neckdown" is another name for a curb extension. Sneckdowns are useful in urban planning, because they can be used to make arguments for street areas that should be turned into pedestrian zones.)
I hate the name (makes me think of 'stiff-necked'), but it's a cool concept.
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 10:17 pm
by Katya
colliery - a coal mine and the buildings and equipment associated with it
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 11:47 pm
by Marduk
rhizomatic (rhizome) - a thick plant stem that grows underground and has shoots and roots growing from it.
From
this article about playing a sick patient for med students to diagnose. She talks about the loss her character has experienced in her life as "a root system of loss [that] stretches radial and rhizomatic under the entire territory of my life." I kind of love it.
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:23 pm
by Cindy
oppugn -- to fight against; to call into question
Source: a legal opinion.
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 8:56 pm
by Katya
Cindy wrote:oppugn -- to fight against; to call into question
I know I've heard this word before, but I think this is the first time I've ever seen it written.
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 10:27 pm
by Marduk
With the somewhat similar meanings and spellings, it makes me wonder what the connection is between "oppugn" and "impugn."
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 1:43 pm
by Cindy
It looks like they both are based on the Latin root
pugnare, meaning "to fight." According to an
old book on synonyms I found on Google books, oppugn is considered a more forceful term than impugn:
To oppugn is to exercise hostile reasoning against a person or his statements while impugn is rather to call in question the truth of what he states. So we might perhaps better say "He was publicly oppugned in the senate" and "The truth of his statements was impugned." To oppugn is a term of stronger force than impugn and denotes a determined and total opposition while impugn is applicable to questions of detail and lesser moment: "I have no desire to oppugn the statements you have just made but pardon me if I impugn the accuracy of one observation in particular."
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:11 pm
by Katya
Marduk wrote:With the somewhat similar meanings and spellings, it makes me wonder what the connection is between "oppugn" and "impugn."
Oh wait, maybe I was thinking of "impugn." (Which I still don't think I've ever seen written.)
Cindy wrote:It looks like they both are based on the Latin root pugnare, meaning "to fight."
Huh. Like "pugnacious" and "pugilistic"?
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 9:19 pm
by Yarjka
Katya wrote:Cindy wrote:It looks like they both are based on the Latin root pugnare, meaning "to fight."
Huh. Like "pugnacious" and "pugilistic"?
And pug dogs?
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 5:18 pm
by Digit
Another interesting etymology tidbit from a
Daily Beast article:
The word “genius” derives from a Latin verb meaning to father or beget and is related to our word “genitals.”
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 11:26 am
by Tally M.
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 12:21 pm
by mic0
Tally, are you taking corpus ling? Just curious, because when I took it we had an assignment using that awesome site.
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 1:25 pm
by Tally M.
mic0 wrote:Tally, are you taking corpus ling? Just curious, because when I took it we had an assignment using that awesome site.
I actually am. It's where I was linked to the site.
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 1:50 pm
by mic0
Haha, well cool. Yeah, that is a really neat site.
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:15 pm
by Whistler
it's like a more intellectual urban dictionary
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:31 pm
by Tally M.
Whistler wrote:it's like a more intellectual urban dictionary
Or as Professor Davies puts it, more BYU appropriate
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2014 2:13 pm
by Katya
exurb - a district outside a city, esp. a prosperous area beyond the suburbs
Re: Word of the Day
Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2014 11:24 pm
by Katya
overweening - showing excessive confidence or pride