I'm not sure I want to feel like I can relate to the character of Jules in the new film The Kids Are All Right, but during a particular scene, I most definitely did.
When Jules suggests allowing the garden to be untamed and fecund, I'm sure many people in the audience had the same reaction as the character Paul, namely a quizzical "what?" Except for any word nerds in the theater, some of whom may have shared my reaction: "Feh-kund? Isn't it fee-kund?"
I've been in that situation, rambling along in a conversation and blurting out some 5- or 10-dollar word that brings the chatter to a stumbling halt and elicits a "wait, what did you just say?" reaction. Most often that reaction is accompanied by a bemused smile, like Paul's, though sometimes by a jeering snicker: "A whatsit?" "C'mon, say that again!"
Oh, sure, some of us logophiles are word snobs, dropping terms like bloviating or versimilitude into a conversation just to show off. (Yeah, I'm thinking about you, George Will.) But many former vocabulary quiz acers really aren't thinking about it when they employ a word like fecund. It's a good word. It perfectly encapsulates the intended meaning. It's just not used by many people, as Paul notes.
Jules is hardly a word snob. Playing Scrabble with her daughter, she argues the case for why zoomer is a perfectly valid word: zoom is a word; ergo, something that zooms is a zoomer. (Hence, I can use acer to refer to someone who aces vocabulary quizzes.) Of course, no dictionary will back up her case (or mine).
If you're going to drop polysyllabic or obscure terms into conversations, you just have to be prepared to accept the smiles and occasional scoffs. Still, as I've stated before in this blog, it's a pity that many people accept the convention that such words should be the sole purview of bookworms or the collegiate set. Whether you pronounce it fee-kund or feh-kund, it's a nifty word to trip off your tongue. I like that Jules and Paul can appreciate a word like fecund. Doesn't make up for their significant character flaws, but it adds a likeable aspect to their characters, at least in my book.
As for the pronunciation of fecund, it's a to-may-to, to-mah-to situation; either is accepted by all dictionaries. However, I prefer the long e given that the term derives from the same root as fetus. Somehow, feh-kund feels as odd to my tongue as feh-tus or feh-tal position. Or as feet-ah cheese does, for that matter. Eeyw.
Dictionary Definition
from Webster's Third New International Dictionary
fecund
1 a: characterized by having produced many offspring or having yielded vegetation, fruit or crops to a marked or satisfying degree
b: capable of producing : not sterile or barren : markedly fertile
2: marked by noteworthy intellectual productivity and inventiveness Syn. see fertile
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Minions & Myrmidons - To Serve and Obey
After watching the animated theatrical treat Despicable Me, how could you not want your own bevy of minions? As cute as little yellow pill bugs, yet ever so much more capable and resourceful, they can shop for a child's toy or build you a fully operational spacecraft! Yes, I want me some minions, as I noted on Facebook recently. To which a friend responded he would prefer some myrmidons. Well, same difference, I wrote back. To which he retorted, au contraire, they are hardly close to the same thing, myrmidons being the warriors who followed the heroic Achilles into battle against Troy and minions being dime-a-dozen servants.
So who would be the better underling -- a minion or a myrmidon? A thorough scan of several dictionaries shows that both terms have at some point been used positively and negatively to label a dutiful follower (see definitions farther down). Minion seems to have carried the negative sense longer and more routinely, but myrmidon at some point accrued its own connotations of lackey.
Perhaps the dualistic definitions of these terms hint at an age-old hierarchy of esteem in which we hold leaders and followers. One follows the leader, as we learn in childhood games. Leaders inspire admiration and even awe. They are exemplars who can do things better than others, or visionaries who can see farther than others, or simply individuals of such great charisma, they inspire loyalty and imitation (for better or worse). Followers are, well, not really celebrated and revered. They are, at best, sidekicks to the heroes. Sure, there are cases when the worker bees get due credit for their essential role in saving the day, as Scotty manages to skirt the Enterprise past a black hole, or dozens of men claim the name of Spartacus, or Patroclus rallies Achilles' men to the Greeks' rescue against the Trojans as the great warrior sits out the battle in a fit of pique. But leaders generally carry the day.
Myrmidon's etymology is entertaining in its own right with its derivation from the Greek term myrmex for ant. According to the renowned classics scholar Edith Hamilton, the Myrmidons were men created by Zeus from ants to repopulate the island nation of Aegina after its people were decimated by a plague. As recounted by the Latin poet Ovid, the pestilence was sent by an enraged Hera, the divine wife of Zeus, after she discovers her husband has once again been philandering, this time with the maiden for whom the island is named. King Aeacus, son of Zeus and Aegina (and grandfather of Achilles), begs his father for help, pointing out a colony of industrious ants and asking Zeus to make of them a people numerous enough to fill his depleted city. The next day he discovers his prayer has been answered as a multitude gathers outside his palace crying out that they are his faithful subjects.
Of course, Ovid and his ancient Roman contemporaries didn't know that the majority of ants are female.
Here's what the dictionaries had to say about minions and myrmidons:
From the American Heritage Dictionary:
Myrmidon
1. Greek Mythology, A member of a warlike Thessalian people who were ruled by Achilles and followed him on the expedition against Troy.
2. myrmidon. A faithful follower who carries out orders without question.
minion
1. An obsequious follower or dependent; a syncophant.
2. A subordinate official.
3. One who is highly esteemed or favored; a darling.
From French mignon, darling, from Old French mignot, mignon.
From the New Oxford American Dictionary:
Myrmidon
• a member of a warlike Thessalian people led by Achilles at the siege of Troy.
• (usu. myrmidon) a hired ruffian or unscrupulous subordinate: e.g., he wrote to one of Hitler's myrmidons.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin Myrmidones (plural), from Greek Murmidones
minion
a follower or underling of a powerful person, esp. a servile or unimportant one.
ORIGIN late 15th cent.: from French mignon, mignonne.
And from the granddaddy of dictionaries, the Oxford English Dictionary:
myrmidon
1. (With capital M.) One of a warlike race of men inhabiting ancient Thessaly, whom, according to the Homeric story, Achilles led to the siege of Troy (Illiad II. 684).
2. A soldier of (one's) body-guard; a faithful follower or servant. [OED notes this usage is now obsolete.]
3. An unscrupulously faithful follower or hireling; a hired ruffian; a base attendant.
b. Chiefly mymrdon of the law, of justice: applied contemptuously to a policeman, bailiff, or other inferior administrative officer of the law.
minion
The ultimate etymology is disputed: according to some the word is a derivative of OHG [Old High German] minnja, minna love; others refer it to Celtic min- small.
1. A beloved object, darling, favourite. [OED notes that this usage is now rare or obsolete.]
a. A lover or lady-love. Chiefly, and in later use exclusively with contemptuous or opprobrious sense, a mistress or paramour.
b. One specially favoured or beloved; a dearest friend, a favourite child, servant, or animal; the 'idol' of a people, a community, etc. Now only in contemptuous sense.
c. esp. a favourite of a sovereign, prince, or other great person; esp. opprobriously, one who owes everything to his patron's favour, and is ready to purchase its continuance by base compliances, a 'creature'.
2. A gallant, an exquisite. [Also obsolete.]
3. A small ordinance. [Ditto.]
4. A kind of peach, in full minion peach. [Apparently still in use as not labeled rare or obsolete.]
5. Printing The name of a type intermediate in size between 'nonpareil' and 'brevier'.
6. adj. Dainty, elegant, fine, pretty, neat.
So who would be the better underling -- a minion or a myrmidon? A thorough scan of several dictionaries shows that both terms have at some point been used positively and negatively to label a dutiful follower (see definitions farther down). Minion seems to have carried the negative sense longer and more routinely, but myrmidon at some point accrued its own connotations of lackey.
Perhaps the dualistic definitions of these terms hint at an age-old hierarchy of esteem in which we hold leaders and followers. One follows the leader, as we learn in childhood games. Leaders inspire admiration and even awe. They are exemplars who can do things better than others, or visionaries who can see farther than others, or simply individuals of such great charisma, they inspire loyalty and imitation (for better or worse). Followers are, well, not really celebrated and revered. They are, at best, sidekicks to the heroes. Sure, there are cases when the worker bees get due credit for their essential role in saving the day, as Scotty manages to skirt the Enterprise past a black hole, or dozens of men claim the name of Spartacus, or Patroclus rallies Achilles' men to the Greeks' rescue against the Trojans as the great warrior sits out the battle in a fit of pique. But leaders generally carry the day.
Myrmidon's etymology is entertaining in its own right with its derivation from the Greek term myrmex for ant. According to the renowned classics scholar Edith Hamilton, the Myrmidons were men created by Zeus from ants to repopulate the island nation of Aegina after its people were decimated by a plague. As recounted by the Latin poet Ovid, the pestilence was sent by an enraged Hera, the divine wife of Zeus, after she discovers her husband has once again been philandering, this time with the maiden for whom the island is named. King Aeacus, son of Zeus and Aegina (and grandfather of Achilles), begs his father for help, pointing out a colony of industrious ants and asking Zeus to make of them a people numerous enough to fill his depleted city. The next day he discovers his prayer has been answered as a multitude gathers outside his palace crying out that they are his faithful subjects.
Of course, Ovid and his ancient Roman contemporaries didn't know that the majority of ants are female.
Here's what the dictionaries had to say about minions and myrmidons:
From the American Heritage Dictionary:
Myrmidon
1. Greek Mythology, A member of a warlike Thessalian people who were ruled by Achilles and followed him on the expedition against Troy.
2. myrmidon. A faithful follower who carries out orders without question.
minion
1. An obsequious follower or dependent; a syncophant.
2. A subordinate official.
3. One who is highly esteemed or favored; a darling.
From French mignon, darling, from Old French mignot, mignon.
From the New Oxford American Dictionary:
Myrmidon
• a member of a warlike Thessalian people led by Achilles at the siege of Troy.
• (usu. myrmidon) a hired ruffian or unscrupulous subordinate: e.g., he wrote to one of Hitler's myrmidons.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin Myrmidones (plural), from Greek Murmidones
minion
a follower or underling of a powerful person, esp. a servile or unimportant one.
ORIGIN late 15th cent.: from French mignon, mignonne.
And from the granddaddy of dictionaries, the Oxford English Dictionary:
myrmidon
1. (With capital M.) One of a warlike race of men inhabiting ancient Thessaly, whom, according to the Homeric story, Achilles led to the siege of Troy (Illiad II. 684).
2. A soldier of (one's) body-guard; a faithful follower or servant. [OED notes this usage is now obsolete.]
3. An unscrupulously faithful follower or hireling; a hired ruffian; a base attendant.
b. Chiefly mymrdon of the law, of justice: applied contemptuously to a policeman, bailiff, or other inferior administrative officer of the law.
minion
The ultimate etymology is disputed: according to some the word is a derivative of OHG [Old High German] minnja, minna love; others refer it to Celtic min- small.
1. A beloved object, darling, favourite. [OED notes that this usage is now rare or obsolete.]
a. A lover or lady-love. Chiefly, and in later use exclusively with contemptuous or opprobrious sense, a mistress or paramour.
b. One specially favoured or beloved; a dearest friend, a favourite child, servant, or animal; the 'idol' of a people, a community, etc. Now only in contemptuous sense.
c. esp. a favourite of a sovereign, prince, or other great person; esp. opprobriously, one who owes everything to his patron's favour, and is ready to purchase its continuance by base compliances, a 'creature'.
2. A gallant, an exquisite. [Also obsolete.]
3. A small ordinance. [Ditto.]
4. A kind of peach, in full minion peach. [Apparently still in use as not labeled rare or obsolete.]
5. Printing The name of a type intermediate in size between 'nonpareil' and 'brevier'.
6. adj. Dainty, elegant, fine, pretty, neat.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Cudgel -- Nothing Cuddly About It
During a conversation last night on group politics and the misunderstandings people in the midst of a debate can have of the other side's intentions, I picked up on Mark's use of the phrase "offer an olive branch." "Well," I said, "one person's olive branch is another person's cudgel."
Mark laughed at that, not because he thought it particularly witty on my part, but rather because of my use of cudgel, which he noted sounds like something sweet and cute, kind of pet-like. "Here, little cudgel!"
I don't why cudgel popped out of my mouth rather than the more pedestrian term club, but that's what a cudgel is. There's nothing cute or fluffy about a cudgel or the verb form to cudgel, which means to beat something -- or someone. Though, for what it's worth, cudgel and cuddle are separated by a mere single definition in Webster's Third International Dictionary.
Webster's defines cudgel as:
Mark laughed at that, not because he thought it particularly witty on my part, but rather because of my use of cudgel, which he noted sounds like something sweet and cute, kind of pet-like. "Here, little cudgel!"
I don't why cudgel popped out of my mouth rather than the more pedestrian term club, but that's what a cudgel is. There's nothing cute or fluffy about a cudgel or the verb form to cudgel, which means to beat something -- or someone. Though, for what it's worth, cudgel and cuddle are separated by a mere single definition in Webster's Third International Dictionary.
Webster's defines cudgel as:
1. noun, a short heavy stick that is shorter than a quarterstaff and is used as an instrument of punishment or a weapon.I was amused to see that a couple of dictionaries offered idiomatic expressions linking the term to the act of thinking: "I cudgeled my brains to recall her name" on Dictionary.com and "cudgeled his brains for a rhyme" in Webster's. Ouch -- that's some painful pondering!
2. verb, to beat with or as with a cudgel: belabor, thrash, drub, rack.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Nominal - A Little Normal
During Sunday night's landing of Space Shuttle Endeavor, which Mark was watching on his laptop, I caught a command from the CapCom in Houston to the shuttle crew to do a "nominal chute deploy." "Nominal?" I asked. "I would think they'd want full deployment of their parachutes upon landing." "Nominal means normal," Mark said. "No, it means little or less than the full amount," I countered. After a bit of back and forth on the term's meaning, I went to the arbiter of word matters, the dictionary (in this instance the Oxford New American Dictionary loaded on our Mac) and quoted:
As so often happens, we were both right and our understanding of the term rested on the context within which we were most familiar with it. To a space geek like Mark, NASA staffers' use of the term made perfect sense whereas it sounded bizarre to me. Mark found some information suggesting that NASA's use of the term is borrowed from the term's usage in statistics. "Mission control-types are looking for unusual readings, so readings within an expected, or nominal, range are normal," he noted. This Wikipedia article on the term's various usage contexts provides further insights.
Fortunately, the shuttle experienced a nominal, full deployment of its chutes during its Sunday night landing, completing a safe and successful mission.
nominal
1. (of a role or status) existing in name only: Thailand retained nominal independence under Japanese military occupation. • of, relating to, or consisting of names. • Grammar relating to, headed by, or having the function of a noun.
2. (of a price or amount of money) very small; far below the real value or cost: some firms charge only a nominal fee for the service.
3. (of a quantity or dimension, esp. of manufactured articles) stated or expressed but not necessarily corresponding exactly to the real value: legislation allowed variation around the nominal weight (that printed on each packet). • Economics (of a rate or other figure) expressed in terms of a certain amount, without making allowance for changes in real value over time: the nominal exchange rate.
4. informal (chiefly in the context of space travel) functioning normally or acceptably.
As so often happens, we were both right and our understanding of the term rested on the context within which we were most familiar with it. To a space geek like Mark, NASA staffers' use of the term made perfect sense whereas it sounded bizarre to me. Mark found some information suggesting that NASA's use of the term is borrowed from the term's usage in statistics. "Mission control-types are looking for unusual readings, so readings within an expected, or nominal, range are normal," he noted. This Wikipedia article on the term's various usage contexts provides further insights.
Fortunately, the shuttle experienced a nominal, full deployment of its chutes during its Sunday night landing, completing a safe and successful mission.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Pogonology & Hirsute - A Wild Hair
There's an ologist for everything under the sun. This morning, a Washington Post article on the waning popularity of mustaches and beards in India enlightened me to the term for the study of facial hair: pogonology. The feature cited commentary from pogonologist Richard McCallum, author of Hair India: A Guide to the Bizarre Beards and Magnificent Mustaches of Hindustan. Now, that's a book to display prominently on your coffee table.
Reading the Post feature about the dwindling of the "facial foliage" that has long distinguished Indian men -- to the extent that someone could create a coffee table book about it -- brought to mind a particularly choice term that didn't find its way into the piece: hirsute. I just like this word. Hirsute is a fun and funky term for "hairy." More specifically, it connotes being covered with hair. Pronounced "her-suit," it sounds vaguely similar to ursine, the Latin term for bear, a creature sporting a great, shaggy pelt. But all good qualities aside, it's a true ten-dollar term. You can see why there aren't many hair restoration product ads proclaiming to "return you to your full hirsute glory in just two weeks!"
Speaking of hair and India, I remember how perplexed I was staring at the saffron-robed men I encountered for the first time in my life in Boston Commons during a vacation many years ago. The sight of their shaved heads was entirely antithetical to the image I'd formed upon hearing my father point out the "hairy krishnas" -- at least that's how my callow teenage brain interpreted the moniker.
Reading the Post feature about the dwindling of the "facial foliage" that has long distinguished Indian men -- to the extent that someone could create a coffee table book about it -- brought to mind a particularly choice term that didn't find its way into the piece: hirsute. I just like this word. Hirsute is a fun and funky term for "hairy." More specifically, it connotes being covered with hair. Pronounced "her-suit," it sounds vaguely similar to ursine, the Latin term for bear, a creature sporting a great, shaggy pelt. But all good qualities aside, it's a true ten-dollar term. You can see why there aren't many hair restoration product ads proclaiming to "return you to your full hirsute glory in just two weeks!"
Speaking of hair and India, I remember how perplexed I was staring at the saffron-robed men I encountered for the first time in my life in Boston Commons during a vacation many years ago. The sight of their shaved heads was entirely antithetical to the image I'd formed upon hearing my father point out the "hairy krishnas" -- at least that's how my callow teenage brain interpreted the moniker.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Refulgent -- I Gotta Wear Shades
Mining Simon Mawer's novel The Glass Room for vocabularic gems is proving a most enriching experience. Today, I came across refulgent in this passage describing the the installation of the glass panes forming the eponymous room of the book's title:
Mawer uses the term in this instance to describe the effect of the newly erected glass space, or glass room, as the couple for whom this modernistic house is being built experience it for the first time.
But this isn't the first instance Mawer uses the term in the novel. My eyes skipped over the first usage in an earlier passage when pregnant Liesel, the female half of the couple, is submitting to her friend's efforts to divine the gender of her unborn baby via an old wives' trick (the novel is set pre-ultrasound) of suspending her wedding ring by a string over her belly and watching its movements:
I'm tempted to take issue with the redundancy of shining. However, I'm more intrigued by the parallels that the author seems to be drawing between the woman and the unparalleled and resplendent house she occupies, a unique structure built exclusively for her and her family. I'm not far enough along in the novel to draw conclusions about the relationship between the character of the house and the character of the woman. However, this strikes me as a good example of how authors can suggest deeper meanings even by something as seemingly simple as their word choice.
It had become a palace of light, light bouncing off the chrome pillars, light refulgent on the walls, light glistening on the dew in the garden, light reverberating from the glass. It was as though they stood inside a crystal of salt.Refulgent, according to the Kindle's built-in dictionary, means "shining brightly." The OED says a bit more expansively, "shining with, or reflecting, a brilliant light; radiant, resplendent, gleaming."
Mawer uses the term in this instance to describe the effect of the newly erected glass space, or glass room, as the couple for whom this modernistic house is being built experience it for the first time.
But this isn't the first instance Mawer uses the term in the novel. My eyes skipped over the first usage in an earlier passage when pregnant Liesel, the female half of the couple, is submitting to her friend's efforts to divine the gender of her unborn baby via an old wives' trick (the novel is set pre-ultrasound) of suspending her wedding ring by a string over her belly and watching its movements:
'It's a girl.' The turning is obvious now, incontrovertible, a description of a perfect female circle over the smooth and refulgent dome of Liesel's belly.Nor is it the term's the last usage in the novel. Mawer applies it once more to Liesel in a passage where he describes her as she "now appears fantastic, a shining refulgent creature."
I'm tempted to take issue with the redundancy of shining. However, I'm more intrigued by the parallels that the author seems to be drawing between the woman and the unparalleled and resplendent house she occupies, a unique structure built exclusively for her and her family. I'm not far enough along in the novel to draw conclusions about the relationship between the character of the house and the character of the woman. However, this strikes me as a good example of how authors can suggest deeper meanings even by something as seemingly simple as their word choice.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Glaucous -- Vocabulary from The Glass Room
In between snow shoveling, pounding ice out of the gutter downspouts, and chipping away at ice dams on the roof, I've begun reading Simon Mawer's novel, The Glass Room. It's clearly a book full of vocabulary gems, which I'll make a point to mine along the way. My first fun find: glaucous.
The term means, according to the dictionary in the Kindle on which I'm reading the novel:
1. of a dull grayish-green or blue color.
2. covered with a powdery bloom like that on grapes.
The word's ultimate root is the Greek glaukos meaning "bluish-green" or "bluish-gray." This root is shared by glaucoma, the medical term for a gradual loss of sight due to increased pressure on the eyeball, which can be marked by a gray-green haze in the pupil.
Usage of glaucous in the novel is in reference to a model of a pavilion that the modernist architect Ranier von Abt has designed and is now showing off to his new acquaintances and perhaps potential clients:
It sounds cold but lovely to me.
The term means, according to the dictionary in the Kindle on which I'm reading the novel:
1. of a dull grayish-green or blue color.
2. covered with a powdery bloom like that on grapes.
The word's ultimate root is the Greek glaukos meaning "bluish-green" or "bluish-gray." This root is shared by glaucoma, the medical term for a gradual loss of sight due to increased pressure on the eyeball, which can be marked by a gray-green haze in the pupil.
Usage of glaucous in the novel is in reference to a model of a pavilion that the modernist architect Ranier von Abt has designed and is now showing off to his new acquaintances and perhaps potential clients:
The colours of the model were those that von Abt had extolled in their voyage down from Saint Mark's: ethereal white, glaucous pearl, glistening chrome.
It sounds cold but lovely to me.
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