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March 16, 2008

Bailiwick (noun)

Pronunciation: ['bey-li-wik]

Definition: Originally, this word meant the jurisdiction of a bailiff; now it refers to one's proper sphere of influence or knowledge.

Usage: There are no current adjectives or verbs. Not much you can do with this word derivationally.

Suggested Usage: This is an important word in defining yourself to others: "Well, I eat out a lot; the kitchen is not my bailiwick," or: "Lawn mower repair is not my bailiwick; I just design rockets." You might even stretch it to include educational disciplines, "Geography is not my bailiwick but I'm a whiz at math."

Etymology: From Middle English bailliwik(e) "district under the jurisdiction of a bailiff (sheriff's deputy who delivers writs)" from bailie (or bailiff) + wik(e) "village, district." Bailiff is from Latin bâjulus "carrier, one who bears." Wick is from Old English wic "hamlet or town district." It is akin to Latin vicus "town, district" (as in "vicinity" and "vicar"), Greek oikos "house," and Sanskrit visah "house." With the ancient suffix "-sla" (weik-sla-) the same root resulted in "villa," "village," and the suffix -ville. "Wick" itself remained in English as a locative suffix in two forms: -wick, as in Eastwick, Brunswick and -wich, as in Greenwich, Sandwich.

March 17, 2008

Litigious (adjective)

Pronunciation: [li-'ti-jês]

Definition: (1) Related to litigation, law suits; (2) given to filing law suits, inclined to sue with little provocation.

Usage: Today's word comes with an adverb, "litigiously," and its own noun, "litigiousness." It is, of course, related to "litigation" and the verb which spawned it, litigate "to sue, file a law suit, undertake legal proceedings." Someone engaged in legal proceedings is a litigant while the lawyers that represent them are litigators.

Suggested Usage: One million lawyers—70% of the lawyers in the world—practice in the US, a nation with only 5% of the earth's population, at a cost of about $300 billion a year. "When Tad washed his pet poodle and put him in his microwave oven to dry, the poor puppy exploded. Now they think Tad is litigious for suing the oven manufacturer for not warning him not to dry pets in the oven." (This is an urban myth that actually circulated in the US for years. It is credible only in a highly litigious nation.)

Etymology: Today's word is undisguised Latin litigiosus "disputatious," the adjective of litigium "dispute," the noun from litigare "to quarrel." "Litigare" is a compound of lit- "lawsuit" + ager "to act, force, drive." This root of this verb is found in English "agent" and "act," where the [g] has become [k] because of the following [t]. Of course, "squat" comes from the same source via Old French esquatir "to crush, squeeze out," combining es- "out" (Latin ex-) + quatir "to flatten." "Quatir" comes from "coactus," the past participle of Latin coager "to compress" which, in its turn, comes from co "together" + ager "to act, force, drive."

March 18, 2008

Captious (adjective)

Pronunciation: ['kæp-shês]

Definition 1: Not merely deceptive but designed to (mis)lead you to the wrong conclusion, e.g. a sign, argument, or advertisement; sophistical.

Usage 1: Captious is a well-behaved adjective that belongs to a small family: "captiously" is the adverb and "captiousness" is the noun.

Definition 2: Having an ill-natured inclination to find faults and raise objections; caviling, carping.

Suggested Usage: "Have you stopped beating your husband?" is a captious question in the first sense of the word. That sense also brings to mind advertisements like, "Super Eldopé Extra with BMX-43 helps stop tough headache pain according to studies by a respected east coast research institution." This ad is designed to make you think Eldopé is a wonder drug for stopping headaches. But "BMX-43" could be evaporated water and the studies could have been conducted in the company's own laboratories (not Harvard). People who are captious in the second sense could even find fault with the Word of the Day. We hope none of these ever cross your (or our) path.

Etymology: From Old French captieux, from Latin captisus, the adjective from captio "seizure, sophism," the noun of capere "to seize." Related words from Latin include "capture" and "captain." The English word "catch" comes from Old North French cachier "to chase" from the same Latin word. The original root, *kap, came down to English as "have" (from Old English "habban"; cf. German "haben") and "heavy" (from Old English "hefig"). In German it became Haft "arrest" but also the suffix –haft "like, having," as in lebhaft "lively, spirited" from leb-en "live" + -haft.

March 19, 2008

Wrought (adjective)

Pronunciation: [rat]

Definition: Worked, crafted, done.

Usage: Today's word is an archaic form for "worked" but it is still used fairly widely, e.g. overwrought "overworked, worked up," wrought up "worked up," and "wrought iron." The archaic noun has been crystallized in several words such as "wheelwright," "shipwright," and "playwright," which is unrelated to "write" but rather a Greek loan translation based on dramaturge from drama + ergon "work."

Suggested Usage: Since today's is an archaic word, save it for an archaic mood; they come over you with increasing frequency as you mature. "The antiqued knotty pine shelf was wrought by my husband back when 'wrought' was the only participle for 'work.'" The reference of "wrought" is usually artifactual, "All my jewelry is hand-wrought right here in town." For this reason, using the word creatively is difficult: "a machine-wrought boat" sounds a bit facetious.

Etymology: Middle English wroght, Old English geworht, the past participle of wyrcan "to work" and the origin of "work," as well. The same root *werg developed into Greek ergon "work" found in "ergonomics" and "surgery," from Latin "chirurgia" from Greek kheirourgia "hand-work" based on kheir "hand" + erg- "work" + ia, noun suffix. The o-grade, *org-, turns up in Greek organ "tool" and orgia "sacred rite," the origin of "orgy."

March 20, 2008

Debacle (noun)

Pronunciation: [di-'bah-kl]

Definition: A sudden rush of water and debris such as results from dam failure or the breaking up of river ice in the spring; any sudden, total collapse or rout.

Usage: The problem with today's word is that no one knows how to pronounce it. Most dictionaries now concede three acceptable pronunciations: [di-'bah-kl], [di-'bæ-kl] and ['de-bê-kl]. The first is not only closer to the original French but seems to be the preference of most speakers today. It is the one we recommend.

Suggested Usage: We seem to be moving away from the original meaning of this word, "The spring debacle of the Susquehanna caused considerable damage to several bridges." We should keep it alive since it serves a useful function. We can also speak of the debacle of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 or the debacle of the Soviet empire in the 1990s.

Etymology: French débâcle, from débâcler "to unbar, release" from Old French desbacler : des- "un-" + bacler "to bar." The Old French word probably came from a Vulgar Latin verb *baculare, derived from Latin baculum "rod, staff, walking stick." "Bacillus" is the diminutive of "baculum" and hence means "a little "rod," the shape of many bacilli and bacteria. "Bacterium" goes back to Greek bakterion, the diminutive of baktron "rod."

March 21, 2008

Mawkish (adjective)

Pronunciation: ['mak-ish or 'maw-kish]

Definition: Having a sickening taste (archaic); sickeningly or sentimentally insipid.

Usage: Not to be confused with mawky "full of maggots" (see Etymology) though this word would make a good substitute for "maggoty" in polite company, if only we could restore it from its current obscurity. The adverb is "mawkishly" and the noun "mawkishness."

Suggested Usage: You must know people who tempt you to say, "Reinhart, cut the mawkish sentimentality about my eyes and buy us another drink," or, "There is a mawkish sweetness in his manner that makes me slightly queasy when I speak with him."

Etymology: Here is another word cast off from its own origins. Its root is Middle English mawke "maggot." Little is known of the origins of either word. The suffix -ish, however, forms adjectives of common Germanic origin: Gothic -isks, Old Norse -iskr, Old English -isc, German and Dutch -isch. It is a cognate with the Greek noun suffix -ik-os and Latin -ic-us underlying such words as "linguistic(s)," "statistics," and Slavic suffixes -ik (bolshevik) and -itsa (tsaritsa).

March 22, 2008

Blandiloquent (adjective)

Pronunciation: [blæn-'di-lê-qwênt]

Definition: Smooth-talking, honey-tongued; flattering.

Usage: Today's word is another tottering on the brink of extinction—most dictionaries have already given up on it. The Oxford English Dictionary has retained the noun, "blandiloquence," and an adjectival cousin, "blandiloquous." We need to retain this word, however, if for no other reason than it sounds better than "smooth-talking."

Suggested Usage: When today's word was last used, it, too, had acquired the pejorative sense of "smooth-talking," "Some blandiloquent used-car salesman convinced Millicent to buy a 1986 Chevy with 150,000 miles on it." However, since we must revive it, we might just as well revive it as a neutral term, "Bridget is so easily attracted to blandiloquent men that we don't let her go out with subscribers to yourDictionary's Word of the Day."

Etymology: Today's is another case of lexical larceny by Mother English, this time of Latin blandiloquentia "smooth-talking," a compound composed of blandus "soft" + loquor "to talk," whose verbal noun is loquentia "talking, talk." Oddly enough, the PIE root underlying bland- is *mol- "soft" (cf. Italian molle "soft") in the usual three ablaut flavors, including *mel- and *ml-. The word-initial combination [ml] sometimes became [bl] in Latin and Greek, hence Latin "blandus" with a suffix –nd. In Greek we find malakos "soft," in Serbian, mlad "young," and in Russian molodoy "young." English inherited this root through the Germanic languages as "melt" and "mild."