Home »

• Word of the Day Index

June 22, 2008

Kitsch  (noun)

Pronunciation: [kich]

Definition: Art or decoration exemplifying taste both pretentious and bad. More broadly, anything that appeals to a popular, vulgar sensibility.

Usage: "Kitsch" can also be an adjective, rendering "kitschy" redundant. "Kitschify" is the facetiously contrived verb which, unfortunately, begs "kitschification," "kitschifiable," and so on. Let's not let this derivation get out of hand.

Suggested Usage: "Kitsch" implies that an artwork is either cloying, ostentatious, or both: "The Lazy Boy recliner was just too kitsch for the otherwise contemporary furnishings in Llewellyn's living room." "Bethany wasn't in a mood for high-brow culture, so she settled for a weekend of kitsch at the local craft fair." A little bit of kitsch may be necessary in our lives. Kitsch is popular culture that binds classes together in many industrialized countries.

Etymology: German dialectal kitsch "trash, knickknack, shoddiness" of unknown origin.

June 23, 2008

Victual  (noun)

Pronunciation: ['vit-êl]

Definition: Human food; (Plural) food and provisions.

Usage: Today's word is used most often in the plural as in "to lay in victuals for the coming storm." The noun may be used as a verb, too, which leads to the British use of "victualler" [vitt(e)ler] in reference to an inn-keeper or provisioner of ships and armies. Supply ships themselves have been referred to as "victuallers." "Victualage" [vitt(e)lage] may refer to the occupation of a victualler or the supplies he victuals.

Suggested Usage: The reason the [c] was returned to today's word was to make it sound more formal, more Latinate (see Etymology). The result was the misconception that the pronunciation "vittles" is incorrect. In fact, it is the natural one: "We have enough victuals in the house to live for three months without leaving it." But don't forget the delightful derivations of this word, "Bernard, could you help me remove the victualage from the trunk of the car?"

Etymology: From Old French vitaille (also vitale), the normal descendent of Late Latin victualia, the neuter plural of victualis "food, sustenance." In Middle French, the [c] was reintroduced in the word to produce victuaille and English soon followed suit. The word is, in fact, sometimes spelled "vittle" but it has always been pronounced that way throughout the English-speaking world. The root goes back to Proto-Indo-European *gwei- which gave us English "quick" in the original sense of "alive." Latin lost the [g] and the [w] became [v] in vivere "to live," which stands behind our "vital," "vivid," "Viva!" and "vivacious."

June 24, 2008

Afflatus  (noun)

Pronunciation: [ê-'fley-tês]

Definition: A strong creative impulse from a muse or higher power, divine or supernatural inspiration.

Usage: The adjective for today's word is "afflatitious" but it has also inspired a more regular family with essentially the same meaning: afflate "to blow upon or inspire" and its noun, afflation "inspiration from mysterious higher powers."

Suggested Usage: An afflatus is usually divine, "Collette played the Bach fugues under divine afflatus as we all sat in awe." However, the ultimate test of an afflatus is simply whether it springs from the supernatural, "Arlene must have been under a Satanic afflatus when she agreed to host her husband's office party."

Etymology: Latin afflatus, the past participle of afflare "to blow on" from ad-, (up) to + flare "to blow." The same connection between blowing and inspiration is seen in "inspiration" itself, based on a Latin word meaning to blow in or inhale. The Proto-Indo-European root from which "flare" derives is *bhle-/*bhlo- which shows little change in Modern English "blow." The same root, though, underlies "bladder," perhaps because of the Celts' proclivity to blow into bladders to make music (as in bag-pipes). Nor is it coincidental that blowhards blather—the stems share the same origin. In Latin, however, the initial [bh] became [f] and this root ended up in a word (flare "to blow") that marks blowing at both ends: as in today's word and, again, in "flatulent."