WORD OF THE DAY

"The form lb is actually an abbreviation of the Latin word libra, which could mean a pound, itself a shortened form of the full expression, libra pondo, 'pound weight'. The second word of this phrase, by the way, is the origin of the English pound."

---

Today's Word of the Day comes courtesy of Michael Quinion at World Wide Words. Click the linked quote to read his full explanation (including the use and form of the English monetary £ symbol).

It's a neat bit of trivia you can produce the next time someone asks you to tell them "something interesting." ☺

Do you have any weird, interesting facts you share when the conversation lags?

You probably know it as a "slash" or "forward slash," or, if you're in the UK, a "stroke." But did you know this common symbol (/) has a lot of other names?

•

VIRGULA
From the 13th - 17th centuries, it was known as a "virgula suspensiva," and functioned as a comma.. Used in this capacity, it can also be called a "virgule" or "virgil" (virgula is Latin for twig), or a "scratch comma."

SEPARATRIX
As it preceded the comma in language, so it preceded the decimal point in maths, where it was once known as a "separatrix." (Now a separatrix in math is something else, but in language a separatrix is still a forward slash, only as a proofreader's mark. Got it?)

OBLIQUE STROKE and SHILLING MARK
At one time, the slash was most commonly known as an "oblique stroke" (oblique describes a slanting line). A shortening of this term resulted in the British common term "stroke." In some Commonwealth countries it is also a currency symbol known as a "shilling mark."

REVERSE BACKSLASH?
In North America, the term "forward slash" appeared as "a retronym used... following the popularization of MS-DOS and other Microsoft operating systems, which use the backslash for paths in its file systems." You could also call it a "front slash" or, if you're feeling delightfully absurd, a "reverse backslash."

•

And here you thought a line was the shortest distance between two points. ☺

British postage stamp, 1923

riposte
a quick, clever reply to an insult or criticism
a quick return thrust in fencing

---

I like this word. Its fencing connotation is evocative.

It also reminds me of the French expression l'esprit d'escalier (or the German treppenwitz). Both idioms translate to "staircase wit," describing those frustrating moments when you come up with the perfect riposte only after you've walked away.

Bits of interesting whatevers that piled up in my "maybe this could be a post" list:

Like the dickens
The "dickens" in this expression is a euphemism for the devil.

Three sheets to the wind
The "sheets" in this expression (a euphemism for drunkenness) refer to the ropes that hold the sails, not the sails themselves.

Sof ha'olam, smolah
A Hebrew expression translating to "at the end of the world, turn left." It means "in the middle of nowhere." (It's also the title of a movie.)

Weaved or Wove?
If you were weaving through traffic, you "weaved"; if you were making cloth, you "wove." The latter variant only applies to textiles.

Bonus nerdiness: Verbs with past tenses resulting in a vowel change (as "wove") are called "strong verbs"; verbs with past tenses ending in "ed" (as "weaved") are called "weak verbs." They were so named by Jacob Grimm. Yes, that Jacob Grimm.

Have you ever mixed your metaphors?

While not yet in the dictionary, Oxford is tracking a portmanteau to identify the kettle of fish in your wicket: **malaphors**.


Along with "rocket surgery," the link offers a few common examples, including ever popular "we'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

Can you think of any you've heard? (I had a friend who used to say he didn't trust someone as far as he could throw a stick at them.) Are there any metaphors you can't keep straight? Or maybe you just want to make some up--it's pretty fun. (This list of cliches could be the bird in the hand that feeds you.)

Let's try for the whole ball of hogs.

•

Image by Livi Prendergast for the Oxford Blog

antidisestablishmentarianism
opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England (the Anglican Church)

---

Random House has a slightly more illuminating definition: opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church.

In modern use (not that anyone uses it) antidesestablishmentarianism is the opposition to the belief a country should not have an official church. In other words, antidisestablishmentarianists are (at least somewhat) okay with a union of church and state.

I have only ever known this word as an example of a really long word. I thought it was time to find out what it meant.

Next time we'll talk about pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis and its effect on the population of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

23 skidoo is an American slang phrase popularized during the early 20th century. It generally refers to leaving quickly, being forced to leave quickly by someone else, or taking advantage of a propitious opportunity to leave.

23 skidoo has been described as "perhaps the first truly national fad expression..."

---

23 skidoo is an expression I learned working in vintage clothing, a field brimming with people who hoard weird facts and kitschy slang. This is the story they love to tell about its origin:

New York City's Flatiron Building, at 23rd and Broadway, had a shape that funneled wind. As a result, young men would loiter nearby in hopes the gusts would lift a skirt or two, and local police would chase them away with a cry of "23 skidoo!" (Skidoo was already a thing by then.)

It's bunk.

The Flatiron Building opened in 1902, but "twenty three" was noted as "get lost" slang by 1899, attributed to everything from Charles Dickens to circus gamblers to telegraph operators. Skidoo was (among other things) used to describe early automobiles--skidoo wagons--in print by 1904.

Around then, a musical called "Little Johnny Jones" opened in New York; it appeared in Los Angeles in 1906. One of the characters used "23" and "skidoo" together. (The writer, George M. Cohan, said he'd "heard it in San Francisco.") Somehow, that weird bit of slang tickled people. Soon "23 skidoo" was sweeping the nation, appearing on postcards and in advertisements.

But the Flatiron building had nothing to do with it, and if anyone tries to tell you different, you can tell 'em: 23 skidoo!

saturnine
(of a person or their manner, or of a place or occasion) gloomy

---

Saturnine means gloomy. Saturnalia was a mid-winter celebration of Saturn, the god of agriculture. Among the Romans, it was a time of excessive revelry and merrymaking (pretty much the opposite of gloomy).

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is approaching its final mission. This month it will dive into Saturn's atmosphere to meet its destiny. As space missions go, it's a big deal. But what of the planet--is it saturnine or saturnalian?

According to Michael Quinion at World Wide Words: the medieval alchemists identified the planet Saturn — named after the Roman god — with the element lead and astrologers linked it to slowness and gloom.

Conclusion: Though Cassini's final blaze of glory is arguably saturnalian, Saturn is literally saturnine.

amphibology
a phrase or sentence that is grammatically ambiguous (also amphiboly)

---

Amphibology, also known as "syntactic ambiguity," is a situation where a sentence may be interpreted in more than one way due to ambiguous sentence structure. A "globally ambiguous" sentence can be interpreted in more than one way; a sentence that is "locally ambiguous" is temporarily confusing, but becomes clear once read in its entirety.

---

The need for brevity often leads to amphibology in newspaper headlines. "The Lower Case" column of the Columbia Journalism Review publishes reader-submitted examples in a feature called Headlines editors probably wish they could take back.

For your consideration:

FARMER BILL DIES IN HOUSE

GOVT BANS MOVEMENT OF BIRDS

SERVICES FOR MAN WHO REFUSED TO HATE THURSDAY IN ATLANTA

19 FEET BROKEN IN POLE VAULT

RESEARCH FANS HOPE FOR SPINAL INJURIES

Puritans (reformed Protestants of the 16th and 17th century) were a group who sought both individual and corporate conformity to the teaching of the Bible, with moral purity pursued down to the smallest detail. Their righteous dedication saw Christmas banned in Boston for just over two decades and encouraged moral panic.

But it also made for some exceptional baby names.

This list offers some top notch examples.

The obvious standouts are the ostentatious hyphenates: the kicky Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith; the optimistic Job-raked-out-of-the-ashes; the always adorable If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned.

My personal favourites fall among the more demure selections, like Donation, Supply, and Wrestling (which it now occurs to me is actually a very pretty word).

---

Starting to feel like your own name is lacking panache?
Buzzfeed (of course) has created a Puritan name generator. Seems totally legit.