bulldoze

Posted on January 8, 2009 | 4 comments

The sense of this word might have one thinking it’s straightforward in every way. The sound seems right enough: the mouth-pop of bull, a word often used like a verbal fist, and the broken-nose machine buzz of doze. You can even see the progress of the equipment: the ascenders are being levelled from the left side… or perhaps bull is the machine, with the ll the front shovel, pushing against doze, which itself has an aspect of machinery moving leftward, with the o and e as wheels. But a pause to look at the sense will give just a beginning of a hint that it might be more complicated. If we think of a large earth-moving machine, we can see how the intransigent, inexorable, ineluctable vector of a forward-moving bull might equate. But what does doze have to do with it? The bull is lumbering, not slumbering! Well, you’re in for a dose of surprise. A real horse pill, in fact. When we speak of someone pushing through opposition or intimidating it as bulldozing, it’s not originally a metaphor based on the earth-moving equipment; it’s the other way around: the machinery is named after the human action. People were bulldozing opposition a half-century before they were ever bulldozing land. OK, but where does that come from? From bull-dose – a dose strong enough for a bull. Of what? Originally of whipping: an incredibly brutal lashing, enough to kill a man, or nearly so. Threat of such a whipping was used in 1876 to coerce southern US blacks into voting Democrat, or at least not voting Republican (yes, that’s right – remember, just over a decade earlier Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president). From that came the sense of coercion (and, along the way, a change of the s to a z); the first bulldozers were people, and sometimes guns, too. From pushing people around it expanded to pushing things around. And now a dose fit for a bull is delivered to the earth, typically by a Caterpillar.

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cubicle

Posted on January 7, 2009 | Leave a comment

Not necessarily a friendly word. It has a functional edge, with its apparent cube root (how mathematical) and resonances of queue and Bic, but cubes may make one think of ice, especially icicle, and the bic when it runs on to icle may put one in a pickle. The echo of tickle seems rather weak; fickle, with its f closer to the b, might come to mind sooner. Other rhymes may give a sense of excess testosterone. The shape of the word seems to mirror its object: the two c‘s and the u are shaped rather like many a cubicle seen on a floor plan, while the word as a whole looks like a side view, with the b and l forming walls (with a desk, and the c doubling as chair) and the i boxed inside, perhaps about to prairie-dog. Or perhaps about to nod off… which would be appropriate, etymologically, since that’s what a cubicle first was: a bedchamber. You see, this word doesn’t actually come from cube (which the Latins took from the Greek word for a die, as in the gaming item); it comes from Latin cubiculum, from cubare, “recline.” And, frankly, looking around an office mid-afternoon, in spite of all the hard surfaces and this hard-seeming word, you may find it hasn’t shifted very far in meaning after all…

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amortization

Posted on January 7, 2009 | Leave a comment

This word has, by some, been misread as amateurization. And well may it be so: getting debt away from the professionals, if gradually. This is a complex word with an interesting mix of flavours. It has five syllables, but why should a word for such a long process be short? It begins with amor, and while it does conquer all, there’s often little love involved. The mort is more to the point, especially if the payments are too high, and you get into a tiz. The ation simply marks it as a noun, that overwhelmingly favoured word class in business documents. But francophones will appreciate the ti…ti, for indeed amortization involves a little here and a little there. One just hopes the o…o doesn’t gain significance. And where do we get this word? Via French from Latin ad “to” plus mortem “death”… the death of the loan, we hope.

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selachian

Posted on January 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

If you ever see this word come up, it will surely seem to have surfaced from some unclear depths. Its very pronunciation is likely to be uncertain. Has it do with with Appalachian? Quite the opposite. With selah? Rather not: more likely seizure than caesura. With seals? Only as dinner. Is a chain involved? Expect ropes if anything, but only attached to macropiscatorial gear. With a lack? Depends on whose perspective. With an ache? A short sharp one perhaps. With a loch? Sooner a sea – a selachian is, in the broad sense, a thalassian. And the word does sound rather like “sea-lake-ian,” or perhaps like “seal achin’,” both of which are not altogether off-key (or off-quay). It slips in voicelessly with an s, jumps to a liquid l, then putes a bite in with a [k], releasing for the suffix. But I should not put too mordant a bent on this: although the genus Selachii (from Greek selachos, “shark”) includes sharks, it also includes skates and rays – or, as the OED puts it, “the sharks and their allies,” making one wonder whether its natural enemies are the jets. But that’s a story for the west side; this is one for the wet side – and a word probably best used at a distance.

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homily

Posted on January 5, 2009 | Leave a comment

A homely word for a less homely style of discourse. Indeed, the homilist in his homiletics may hit some home truths, but likely not in a homy manner or context. It is, after all, a speaking to an assembled throng: Greek homilos means “crowd.” Specifically, it’s speaking to them for their spiritual edification. And why do I say “his homiletics”? Not because of the misleading hom at the beginning – it is not a word by nature reserved exclusively for hombres – but because this word is particularly preferred in Catholic circles, and Catholic priests cannot but be male. It is, however, also used by Anglicans and a few other denominations; the rest of the Christian churches tend to prefer sermon. But certainly there is a difference in taste between homily and sermon! The calming hum of hom (almost ho-hum), the overtones of humility, perhaps the corn and grit of hominy, even that little echo of the land where Puff the Magic Dragon frolicked, all give a smoothness to the piety; the ascenders and dot lend a visual variety. Level-topped sermon, on the other hand, echoes stiff sir and medicinal serum, and its cultural overtones and various uses can give it a real flavour of stern, finger-pointing, didactic moralizing. The blended notes of salmon and vermin may not make the tongue tingle too happily either. Beyond this, homily also comes more calmly in part because it is much less used than sermon – in the realm of 1/6 to 1/12 as often, depending on where you count. I will offer the additional personal impression (very unscientific) that homilies tend to be shorter than sermons, too.

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zygology

Posted on December 31, 2008 | Leave a comment

Good golly! Does this word cause you to make googly eyez? It’s like a face: l nose, olo eyes, golog ears, ygology hands on the sides of the face, and then there’s that z – like a lightning bolt, or maybe just a telephone (“Can I phone a friend for the answer?”). It’s a perfect palindrome plus a z. What’s up with that z? Perhaps it’s like how some people file things on their computer: if it’s of bottom importance, or personal, they put a z before it to sort it low. But what is this word we’re gazing at anyway? The z gives it a racy buzz, augmented by the y‘s. One may be tempted to put stress on the first and third syllables in a double trochee, but undazzle your eyes from the mirror pattern and you will see ology, and you know what that means. This word sounds like psychology but as zaid by zomeone vrom Zomerzet. And what is zyg? Is it zig-zags? Is it anti-abecedarianism? (Or wouldn’t that be zyxology?) Is this fuzzy geology? You may note a tone of zygote. And indeed it is the front of zygote that is here yoked. So has this to do with cells, embryos? Not so fast. Rather, fasten. Our zygo root comes from Greek zugon, “yoke” (a zygote is cells conjoined to form a body), and this word refers to the branch of technology focused on joining and fastening. And so the opening z is a zap of electricity fusing ygo and ogy at the l.

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xenial

Posted on December 31, 2008 | 1 comment

Oh no, it’s another x word. (Actually, it’s the first one beginning with x that I’ve done tasting notes on.) That opening cross-out: the letter of mystery, of the unknown; like eyes of unconscious cartoon characters, negating consciousness, as it negates whatever it is superimposed on; but also like a pucker, often standing in for a kiss, and normally having the sound of kiss… without the i. Not here, though; English doesn’t allow a stop to be followed by a fricative word initially. So here we get a [z] sound, a voiced fricative – the sound of another radical, rakish, edgy letter beloved of ad men. And after the [z]? Two [i] sounds separated by a nasal, and then a schwa and a liquid. And the tongue touches its tip three times on the same spot: the alveolar ridge. Like knocking softly three times on a door, waiting for your host to open up. This word is very close in sound to venial – and has something else in common with it, too: venial is a forgiving word that sounds too much like venal, a rather unforgiving word, and xenial might make one think first of xenophobic, likewise a word rather unfriendly in tone. But isn’t xenial related to xenophobic? Indeed it is. So xenial is “like a stranger,” no? No. Greek xenos means “guest,” not stranger. Xenial refers to the friendly relation between host and guest, personally or nationally. The person knocking on the door may be unknown, even mysterious, but you greet with a xenial kiss, not with denial and negation. Look: the e and a are like host and guest facing across a threshold, the n an open door, the i a torch carried by the a, and behind one the crossroads and the other a wall, or behind one a chair and the other a street. If the guest had been turned back, he would have lain ex – by ex we may assume “outside.” And is the role of host menial? No, it’s a joy. Let’s party!

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utriform

Posted on December 31, 2008 | 1 comment

If this word isn’t your bag, that’s no surprise – but its referent is somebody’s bag, or at least it looks like one. The word itself presents a possibly confusing form. Or, rather, everything before the form is confusing. We know it means “shaped like something,” but what? The hand of the mind rattles around in the toy-drawer of words: cult? ultra? beauty? u (not) plus tri? triffid? nutri, turi, ruti… argh, this isn’t Scrabble. The beginning u, especially with an immediately following t, is rather abrupt (like a but with its head cut off), and may be redolent of extremity (ultra, utmost) or uncertainty (unknown, uh-oh), especially if the pronunciation is unclear. If you think first of Utopia you at least have the sound. If you think of uterus you are closer still, for this comes from Latin uter, which means a leather bag or wineskin, and uterus is a related word. Come to think of it, udder may be said to be related, too, though Latin for udder is uber. The shapes of the letters now seem to taunt: the u, the o, perhaps even the uberous m… But never mind; one is unlikely to guess it, and unlikely to use it. Add it to your toy drawer: you now have a word for, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, “having the shape of a leathern bottle.” Paisley lovers take note.

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outrage

Posted on December 29, 2008 | 4 comments

“Out!” he raged, pointing the way. Ah, yes, the tone of this word is clearly set by its apparent constituents: out – beyond, as in beyond the pale, simply too much, but also the act of emotion in outcry and outpouring – and rage. It’s a word simply meant to be shouted! Especially with that out echoing shout and ow and now and then the growling r right after, going through the vowel to the teeth-clenching voiced alveolar affricate at the end. But why doesn’t it simply mean “rage out” or “rage more than”? Well, because the rage is really a mirage – in fact, it’s the same rage as in mirage: the nominalizing suffix -age with an r from the stem before it. Yes, the stem is outr! Outrageous, isn’t it! There’s no out in here either! But there is a similarity in sense between out and the source of outr, French ultre or outre: think ultra, as in utraviolet… “beyond.” One could say that an outrage is an instance of something outré, though the sense of outrage has always been a bit stronger than mere bad manners or bad taste. From the very first, it has signified violent or disorderly behaviour, a violent wrong done, or a gross affront – in short, a transgression (which is a going beyond). So naturally an outrage is something that would provoke an enraged outcry, and this has played quite nicely with the form of the word so that the second syllable is no longer said as in shortage (a word that has not come to be an antonym for longevity!) but instead gets an unetymological emphasis and “long” vowel (see my post on “long” and “short” vowels in English). And so, along with the preceding phrase “this is an” and a following exclamation mark, this word also hangs out in the same neighbourhood as howls, indignation, provoke, moral, widespread, shock, and of course public (for who else is raging out?).

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sheer

Posted on December 29, 2008 | 2 comments

This word has a sound perhaps reminiscent of steel shears cutting sheer fabric: the sh like metal against metal, the sliding ee subsiding to r. The tip of the tongue sheers away from the alveolar ridge as you say it. And, no doubt, the homophony with shear has affected its usage; nautical uses for curves of trajectory or form seem to have come from shear. But the two words are not etymologically related. They both come from old Germanic roots, but this one did not have to do with cutting. Rather, it started out as meaning “free and clear”; from that, it came to “lean,” “thin,” and “fine” meanings, which have remained with fabrics; finally, it arrived at its most common modern senses of “absolute,” “pure,” and such like. Its phonaesthetics no doubt affect its meaning. The individual sounds start with the opening expulsion of air at sh – used to hush or to express stress, caution, and exception (as at the beginnings of exclamations such as sheesh and similar) – and move to the high and tense ee, a noise made when standing on a chair to avoid a mouse or as a sound effect for a high-speed fall. The r may give a Doppler-effect sound of rapid passing. The tension of the tongue in saying the ee may have an analogue in the palms-up air-clutching gesture used with phrases such as sheer brilliance and sheer stupidity. This word also likely draws on its echo of fear – as well as of clear and sheet. You will know from the company it keeps that along with denoting purity and absoluteness it can connote a certain respect, even fear, on the part of the speaker. On the one hand there are sheer cliffs, which can inspire sheer terror and sheer horror in the acrophobic; on the other hand, there is sheer inventiveness, sheer willpower, sheer bliss, and a host of similar others: always strong attributes that lend to strong emotions. And then, of course, there are sheer stockings made of sheer fabric smooth like sheer ice and inspiring sheer pleasure or sheer folly.

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