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NEW FROM THE E-MAGAZINE THIS WEEK Adust With this word, you may be at one with Google — whenever I searched, Google asked if I meant adjust. No, adust is a distinct word, with no link to adjust. Nor is it linked to dust, though one sense is relevant — it can mean ... Crisitunity Either in this spelling or as crisatunity, this word blends crisis and opportunity. It’s occasionally used by writers and political activists for a problem or difficulty that provides an opportunity to communicate their views and ... Southpaw As it happens, northpaw turns up often enough that it has been recognised in at least one slang dictionary and has an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. As you’d guess, it’s usually intended as a joke, but not always ... UPDATED PIECES THIS WEEK Panjandrum There’s a wonderful story about the origin of this mock title for an imaginary or mysterious personage of much power or a pompous, pretentious or self-important person in authority. In 1753, the actor Charles Macklin retired ... Petrichor This word was in the news in 2009 and early 2010 for two reasons. It was cited as one of his favourite words by Ammon Shea, who read through the whole of the Oxford English Dictionary and published a book about it ... Shovel-ready It has caused much comment among the lexicographical classes — it was voted Word Most Likely to Succeed in the annual contest of the American Dialect Society in early January 2009 and became the Word of the Year 2009 ... RANDOMLY CHOSEN Dracontology Strictly speaking, dracontology should refer to the study of dragons. It derives from Greek drakon, serpent (plus –ology from a Greek ending that indicated the study of a subject). It’s a kissing cousin to the almost equally ... RECENTLY ADDED PAGES Centre about; Hoosegow; Sundae; Drunkard's cloak; Jollop; Pearls of wisdom; Twenty-three Skidoo; Climate velocity; Manticore; Rannygazoo; Colour Me Environmental; Redding; Shoestring; Griffonage; Amn't; Emuscation; Dot and carry one; Smartbook; Deliquescent; Slipshod; Macquarie Dictionary; Unfriend; Bull in a china shop; E-bandoned; Niddering; Muggins; Acersecomic; Witching hour; Tabnabs; Deleb; Colcannon Night; Two Brewer's Dictionaries; Talaria. THE NEXT WEB SITE UPDATE The next update is scheduled for 13 February, when the story behind chicanery is investigated, I refute the suggestions that the expression rub of the green is from snooker or golf, and add anything else that comes up during the week. SIC! • The recent wild weather in California was the subject of an Associated Press report which appeared in various newspapers on 25 January. Karen Courtenay read it in the Boston Globe: “The hypothetical but plausible storm would be similar to the 1861–1862 extreme floods that temporarily moved the state capital from Sacramento to San Francisco.” Now that’s a flood! • Joel S Berson reported that somebody on another list had received an automatic e-mail response in response to a message: “Thank you for your email. I am out of the office toady.” Joel wrote, “This is clearly from someone who drops the the — in my dialect, the above would have to be ‘I am the out of the office toady’.” • The NZCity site in New Zealand, Lorna Russell reports, had this lead sentence in a report on 22 January: “Stu Jacobs, who stepped in to stop dog fight, wants owner of Bull Mastiff that started the fight put down and owner charged”. In time, it was changed to “Former All White soccer player Stu Jacobs wants the owner of a dog which attacked him charged and the dog put down.” Better. • A sentence Ed Sundt read on the back of a gift card for P F Chang’s (a US chain of Chinese restaurants) puzzled him: “This card cannot be redeemed for cash, except where prohibited by law.” TECHNICAL INFORMATION This site is designed to work with the current generation of browsers. Some older ones might not be able to display every aspect of the design as it is intended to look, nor some of the special characters. If you want to download an updated browser, we recommend Firefox 3.5. The main text on every page is best viewed using Microsoft’s Georgia font. If you do not have it on your system, you can download it for Windows or the Apple Mac. Pronunciations are given in IPA symbols; to view these requires you to have a font on your system that includes them, such as Lucida Sans Unicode, Charis SIL, Doulos SIL or Arial Unicode MS. If you can read this (/mɛtɛmpˈtəʊsɪs/) as IPA you have a suitable font already installed. The site preference is for Lucida Sans Unicode (click on the font name to download the version for Microsoft Windows). See your system help files for how to install fonts.
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Last updated 6 Feb. 2010
Weekly E-Magazine
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