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May 11, 2008

Ok (adjective)

Pronunciation: [o-'key]

Definition: As an adverb or adjective, today's word means "all right." When it's a noun, it's an approval, and the verb means "to approve."

Usage: OK is spelled OK, O.K., Ok, or okay. The US astronauts have extended it to A-OK, meaning "absolutely OK."

Suggested Usage: If you listen closely, you'll hear this word sprinkled in every European language, and others as well. That's because of the spread of the English language, the far-flung reaches of American popular culture, and the term's brevity coupled with its usefulness. It's an Americanism of the first order: a shorthand way of communicating your satisfaction in any situation, which has gone around the world. That is OK by us.

Etymology: Urban legend has it that Andrew Jackson, with a dubious grasp of written English, spelled "all correct" as "oll korrect." Another assigns "OK" to a World War II body-count system which included 0K (zero + K), meaning "zero killed," implying that everything is all right. But OK entered English well before the 1940s. Allen Read claims that the word entered American English in the Boston Morning Post in March of 1839 during a fad of acronyms and abbreviations, including OFM (Our First Men), NG (no go), and SP (small potatoes). Apparently, it was the scenesters' jargon of the time. As scenesters tried to establish an even more "elite" vocabulary for the in-crowd, facetious spellings began to appear, with NG turning to KG (Know Go). OK came from that silly spelling "Oll Korrect." By autumn, 1840, the term had traveled from New York to New Orleans via the popular press, and during the Van Buren campaign, OK was used to take advantage of the acronym game to refer to "Old Kinderhook," an extension of the name of Van Buren's birthplace in the Hudson Valley, Kinderhook.

May 12, 2008

Muckle (adverb)

Pronunciation: ['mê-kl]

Definition: Much, a great many, a large amount; large, great (Scots English).

Usage: Usage of today's word tapered off over the course of the 20th Century even in its last stronghold, Scotland, always the land of fascinating words. An older variant of this word is "mickle." In the Eve of St. Agnes (xiv) Keats pleads, "Let me laugh awhile, I've mickle time to grieve." Most Scots today would probably prefer using "muckle," as did Frank Kippax as recently as 1992 in The Butcher's Bill: "The Home Guard barged in and waved a muckle pistol in his face."

Suggested Usage: Today our word is heard mostly in the idiom, "Many a mickle mak's a muckle," meaning roughly "a lot of littles make a lot," an encouragement to save for a rainy day. This idiomatic (unpredictable) phrase seems contradictory and probably is a corruption of "Many a little mak's a muckle," suggesting the Scots themselves are letting this quaintly old fashioned word slip away. Still and again, J. D. Salinger wrote in Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 11, that Jane Gallagher "was sort of muckle-mouthed" because when she talked excitedly "her mouth sort of went in about fifty directions."

Etymology: The origin of today's word is a prominent root *meg- "great, large" found in some form in almost every Indo-European language. It ended up (also) as "much" in English but we find it in Norwegian and Danish meget "very (much)" and Swedish mycken "much," as well. The ancient Greek cognate is megas "great," borrowed in all the English words on "mega": "megastar," "megaton," "megabyte." It also underlies megalomania "delusions of wealth and power." In Armenian it became mec "great" and in Albanian, madh "great." Sanskrit maha "great" is used in several words borrowed into English, including mahatma as in Mahatma Gandhi, maharishi "great seer," an eminent spiritual teacher, and maha raja "great king," which also includes "raja," a relative of "royal" and French roi "king."

May 13, 2008

Red herring (noun)

Pronunciation: ['red 'her-ing]

Definition: An issue or idea that serves no function other than to divert attention away from more important issues. Some have argued that the war with Iraq is a red herring diverting our attention away from the War on Terrorism.

Usage: The first question is whether some herring are really red. There are white herring, black herring, gray herring and red herring, depending on how they are prepared. If smoked slowly over burning willow branches, herring do turn red and develop a distinctive aroma.

Suggested Usage: Today's words come from the phrase "to draw a red herring across the track," originating in the second half of the 17th century. Originally, red herring and dead cats and foxes were dragged along a trail to train hunting dogs to follow a scent. Because the scent was so strong and familiar to the dogs, farmers were wont to drag a red herring around their fields to divert the howling hounds and stamping steeds of the fox hunt away from their crops. Fleeing criminals would also mislead blood hounds in hot pursuit by dragging the occasional red herring across their tracks and sending the dogs off on a wild goose chase.

Etymology: Yes, a red herring can send you on a wild goose chase. This is another common English idiom with an interesting story. After all, exactly what is it that wild geese are supposed to chase? In fact, the wild goose chase was a kind of horse race of 17th century England in which the horses behind the leader had to follow the leader's course. This encouraged the leader to set as tortuous and confusing a course as possible to prevent the other horses from passing. A wild goose chase thus became a confusing chase in many directions with little chance of success. The name of this race was chosen because wild geese always strictly follow a leader in their migrations across the spring and autumn skies.

May 14, 2008

Enjoin (verb)

Pronunciation: [en-'joyn]

Definition: (1) To force or compel someone to take an action or cease in some action, usually with a court order or "injunction" (to enjoin someone to act/from acting). (2) To forbid or prevent by legal action (to enjoin any public activity).

Usage: (1) This term is from English legalese: "The Republican Party asked the Florida courts to enjoin the election boards of four counties from counting votes by hand."

Suggested Usage: The term may be used outside the courts as an emphatic substitute for "compel": "I will enjoin you from parking here by whatever power I may" or "I know of no injunction against parking here." Still, it maintains a legalistic ring.

Etymology: From Latin iniungere, in- causative prefix + iungere "to join." The prefix is akin to the English "in" in, well, "in," and "income," "input," etc. The stem, iung- derives from Indo-European *yeug- which also gave English "yoke" and Sanskrit yogah "union" from which "yoga" was borrowed.

May 15, 2008

Rubric (noun)

Pronunciation: ['ru-brik]

Definition: (1) A title or heading. (2) A class or category. (3) An authoritative rule on a certain topic. (4) A brief description of a broad topic.

Usage: The first definition gives the original meaning, and the word is derived from the old practice of writing important titles or information in red ink (see Etymology). Meanings (3) and (4) refer to the sort of information that printers or medieval manuscript writers might choose to highlight in red in this way. Meaning (2) is the most commonly encountered today, and is a metaphorical extension of the idea of a "heading." To create rubrics of type (3) or (4) is to "rubricate," and the process itself is "rubrication."

Suggested Usage: We are beset in modern life by pieces of text that are part brief description and part authoritative rule: "The IT department has just issued a little booklet of rubrics concerning the care of the office PCs." Next time you feel the need for the word "heading," try using "rubric" instead: "This long-distance call to the speaking clock in Kuala Lumpur must surely fall under the rubric of 'unnecessary expenditure,' my dear."

Etymology: From the Latin rubrica "red chalk," from ruber "red." The original Proto-Indo-European word is *reudh "red," and it has spawned a host of words relating to that color. There's "red" itself, and also "ruddy," "ruby," "rufous," "rouge," "rust," "russet" and "rubicund." The red rashes associated with measles and what is sometimes called "German measles" gave the diseases their medical names of "rubiola" and "rubella," respectively. And the alternative name of the pretty European mountain ash tree is the "rowan," a reference to its characteristic red berries.

May 16, 2008

Reticent (adjective)

Pronunciation: ['re-tê-sênt]

Definition: Reluctant to speak or say anything; taciturn.

Usage: This word is misused so often to mean "reluctant to do anything" that the errant meaning is creeping into US dictionaries. This adjective has but one meaning: "reluctant to speak or express oneself."

Suggested Usage: The remarkable aspect of this misused term is that it has so many interesting legitimate uses: "Bill was understandably reticent about the lipstick on his collar" or "Hillary became abruptly reticent when asked about the box of chocolates under the couch." Let's restore the original precision of this hapless word's meaning.

Etymology: Latin reticentia "silence" from re-tic-eo "I am silent", based in turn on re + tac-ere "be silent". The stem tac- may also be found in "taciturn" and "tacit."

May 17, 2008

Segue (verb)

Pronunciation: ['seg-wey]

Definition: To proceed without pause from one musical piece to another; to make a transition without interruption.

Usage: "Segue" escaped the bounds of the musical world and crept into academic jargon in the 1980's and since then has spread well beyond the ivy-covered halls. It is all too often used as a synonym of "transition," which it is not, but rather a shift from one theme or thought to another without an intervening transition.

Suggested Usage: "The jazz quintet segued directly from a moody blues rendition of 'It's Been a Long Time' to an upbeat arrangement of 'Smoke Gets in your Eyes.'" Today's word may used to point out a missing necessary transition, "From a critique of Kant's categorical imperative Ramsey segued into a story about his last trout-fishing trip, leaving most of us behind and a bit befuddled."

Etymology: Today's word was lifted directly from Italian segue "there follows," 3rd person singular seguire "to follow" from Vulgar Latin *sequere "to follow." The Latin word is based on PIE *sekw- which underlies dozens of Latinate English words, including "sect," "sequel," "execute," "sequence," "sue," and "society" (from Latin socius "companion," originally "follower"). "Second" derives from *sekw+ondo from Latin secundus "following, next."