Word of the day: nut job
Perhaps nut job will be the 2017 word of the year.
Word of the day: nixie
“Post which cannot be forwarded by the postal services because it is illegibly or incorrectly addressed.”
Orient and orientate
Choosing “orientate” on either side of the Atlantic might mark a speaker or writer as something of an outlier.
Nomenclature
I am a sous-farmer.
If ever there was a need for misinflammation . . .
Anthony J. Blinken’s opinion piece in today’s New York Times cries out for use of the timely word misinflammation, coined in these pages last year.
Houses, homes, legs, limbs
From Willa Cather’s My Ántonia (1918).
Review: Word by Word
Kory Stamper’s Word by Word does for lexicography what Mary Norris’s Between You & Me does for copyediting: it makes visible the work, the worker, and the workplace.
“Hungh?”
An odd question in Mark Trail.
Imaginary word of the day
Fequid.
Word of the day: heirloom
Long story short: an heirloom isn’t a weaving machine, nor is it something looming in the distance. Nor is it related to Erroll Garner, though the rights to “Misty” would be quite a heirloom.
Cosmetic, cosmos
I wondered last night in a conversation with friends: could cosmetic and cosmos be related? Yes, they could be, and are.
Word of the day: enrichen
“EZ-Straw helps enrichen soil for . . . GREAT RESULTS!”
Word of the day: counterpane
Why it means “bedspread.”
“An enemy of the people”
Long story short: the French Revolution, an Ibsen play, Lenin, Stalin, and sometimes Mao.
Words of the day: post, posthaste
Whence the post in post office?
Neologism of the day
Dammit, I’m lanelocked.
Dictionaries rising
From the Fashion and Style pages of The New York Times, a report on increased interest in dictionaries.
“Hot dog parlor”
From Henry.
“Alternate” and “alternative” “facts”
Mary Norris on “alternate” and “alternative.”
E. B. White on America Firsters
Fascism, nationalism, and America Firsters.
Word of the day: tyrant
Our president-elect appears to possess the traits of both Platonic and theatrical tyrants.
Words for these times
From the American Heritage Dictionary, words for these times: “Minions, sycophants, toadies, and other creatures.”
Word of the day: emolument
See also: “kleptocracy.”
Words as money
Harry R. Warfel: “Just as the fiscal operations of a nation are intricate and infinitely complicated and yet seemingly simple to the child that exchanges a nickel for a candy bar, so the transfer of a few words — like ‘I love you’ — produces a simple yet immense effect.”
M-W Word of the Year
Surreal.
Man, oh man
Dated language in a New York Times book review.
Crafted
The vitamin and mineral supplement Airborne is “crafted.” In fact (or in adspeak), it’s “specially crafted.”
Yoda, n.
“Yoda” is a new addition to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Merriam-Webster v. fascism
Merriam-Webster is encouraging readers to look up something other than “fascism.”
A Word of the Year
“After much discussion, debate, and research, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016 is post-truth.”