It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always been fun to play with the language. Rather than being a drudge, English can be fascinating. It is to me.<\/p>\n
Let me explain: Several years ago, I served on a committee charged with the hiring of the editor for La Mecha, Highlands\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 weekly newspaper. One of the applicants was Eva, an Austrian-born woman who spoke English, Spanish, German and French. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been my student in several journalism courses, and naturally, I recommended her. I told the group that Eva was a polyglot.<\/p>\n
Well, that drew umbrage from one of the student members, a man just a few years younger than I. He used a line straight from Thumper in the 1942 movie, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bambi\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say something nice, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say anything at all.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Then he insisted, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your<\/em> opinion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t used \u00e2\u20ac\u0153polyglot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to flaunt it but mainly because I assumed most people had heard and used it before. Remember, a glot sounds like glob<\/em> or blot<\/em> or clot<\/em>, or troglodyte<\/em>, and poly indicates many of them.<\/p>\n And in what way did I malign Eva? Well, apparently calling her a polyglot was petty and unprofessional of me. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t explain at the time what it means, but in case you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re interested \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and even if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a polyglot is one who knows several languages. And I suppose I could have called her something \u00e2\u20ac\u0153worse,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d e.g., a polymath, but the sensitive student likely would have stormed out of the room, refusing to listen to any further character assassination. Better to be a polyglot than a polliwog.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n We can say almost anything and convey an ironic meaning by our tone of voice. For example, as hard as I try, I cannot say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re so much help\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and sound sincere. Somehow that combination of words is always going to appear ironic.<\/p>\n I thought back to that editors interview and wonder whether it was not really what I said but how I said it that set off the other student.<\/p>\n In addition to making words appear to represent something else, I find it interesting to look up words that have changed meanings and those that make us wonder where they came from.<\/p>\n Take the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153curfew,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which generally indicates a time to be back indoors, something every teen opposes. The word, from Middle English, signals the hour in which to extinguish fires. The word, in Old French consisted of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153curvir,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to cover, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153feu,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d fire.<\/p>\n The word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153trivia,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d representing details or pieces of information of little importance, is the plural of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153trivium,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a place where three roads meet. And when there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a convergence of three roads, what better activity is there than to exchange trivia at the tri + via?<\/p>\n And what else might be exchanged on those roads? How about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gossip\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? We all think of gossip as the exchange of information that tends to disparage others. The word is of Old English origin and was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153godsibb,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d another word for godfather, godmother or a baptismal sponsor. Then, in Middle English, the word became a fusing of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153God\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sibb,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a relative or close friend with whom one gossips. Later, in the 19th<\/sup> century, gossip came to mean idle talk.<\/p>\n So, who do we believe are the biggest gossips? Possibly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hussies.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A hussy, we all know, is a word usually following \u00e2\u20ac\u0153brazen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It describes a loose, immoral woman. However, in 1530, in Middle English, the word was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153husewif,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d meaning housewife. Later, its meaning was broadened to mean \u00e2\u20ac\u0153any woman or girl.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d More than a hundred years later, improper behavior became associated with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hussy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Silly\u00e2\u20ac\u009d now means \u00e2\u20ac\u0153having or showing a lack of common sense or judgment.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Only 10 short centuries ago, the word meant blessed or happy and later evolved into pious, innocent, harmless, pitiable and feeble-minded before ending up as foolish or stupid.<\/p>\n What about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153toothsome\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153personable\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? Some would assume toothsome had something to do with dentition. In a way it does, but the first meaning is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pleasing to the taste, palatable,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as in a toothsome dish. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a dish we would want to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sink our teeth into.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A secondary definition refers to pleasing, as fame or power, and farther down the dictionary list, toothsome refers to being voluptuous, sexually alluring.><\/p>\n And what about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153personable\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? You defined it as having a pleasant personality, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you? Wrong! The first definition has to do with a pleasing personal appearance; handsome attractive.<\/p>\n The secondary definition does allude to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pleasing personality\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153affable,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153amiable\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sociable.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Some people, especially college freshmen, refuse to recognize that dictionaries list definitions of words in order of custom and practice. They fail to recognize that the first definition is what dictionary editors consider the most proper and the most common<\/p>\n But we unrepentant language cops \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 cops? Speaking of which, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cops\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a shortening of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153copper,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which comes from the German \u00e2\u20ac\u0153kapen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cop\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as a verb means to take something without permission. But don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cops arrest others who take (cop) stuff?<\/p>\n An acquaintance habitually copped things of little or value. After years of the five-finger discount, he began to be bothered by this kleptomania. And to help him get through the pain, he usually took something for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always been fun to play with the language. Rather than being a drudge, English can be fascinating. It is to me. Let me explain: Several years ago, I served on a committee charged with the hiring of the editor for La Mecha, Highlands\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 weekly newspaper. One of the applicants was Eva, an Austrian-born woman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":522,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions\/522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}