Words I'm Accidentally Looking Up (One in an occasional series on words I stumbled across in the dictionary)

beefalo

an animal developed by crossing the American buffalo, or bison, with beef
cattle (Webster's New World College Dictionary)

Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional cleverly named series on words I'm looking up)

From American Heritage online:

cow: (v. tr.) To frighten with threats or a show of force. See synonyms at intimidate.

bully: (v. tr.) To treat in an overbearing or intimidating manner. See synonyms at intimidate.

I spend a lot of time thinking about words, but never realized before today that, if someone's intimidating you, you're being both cowed and bullied. Gotta love this language.

Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional cleverly named series on words I'm looking up)

dowager

I came across this word today, used in earnest – not in a comedy context like the Wealthy Dowager character on The Simpsons.

Per American Heritage online, "dowager" means: 1. A widow who holds a title or property derived from her deceased husband. 2. An elderly woman of high social station.

Those aren’t bad things to be. “Dowager” may not be an enviable status, as it requires a woman to have lost her husband or lost her youth. But it doesn’t mean “ugly,” “uptight,” “mean,” or anything deserving of contempt or warranting shame.

Yet the thought of being labeled a “dowager” is perfectly icky. And I’d bet lots of other women would feel the same way. We 21st century types are awfully invested in NOT identifying with “old” – especially not with “old woman.”

That, in turn, got me thinking about other words used for woman – none of which I’d want slapped on me:

* matriarch (Hard-faced, old, mean)
* dame (Fraternizes with guys who still listen to Sam Spade radio broadcasts)
* lady (Once an honorable term even for the young and beautiful, but now somehow conjures images of pastel-suited biddies who subsist solely on gossip or quiet judgment)
* broad (See Sam Spade reference above)
* gal (Should be a perfectly good alternative to calling a grown woman “girl,” yet it remains stuck in the past)
* chick (A glimpse into my own sexism in that I hate it primarily when women use it. A man saying “chick” reminds me of Ritchie Cunningham. Coming out of a woman’s mouth, “chick” often seems venomous.)

I won’t get into those famously sexist words – babe, hon, bitches, etc. on down to beaver and worse. That’s not exactly the issue that interests me here. (If only because I don’t feel I can add anything new to that discussion.)

What interests me is how FEW words for women seem devoid of negative connotation. And though we could sniff out negative connotations in guy, fellow, dude, bro, chap, or bloke, it’s not the same. They’re not on the same scale.

Maybe we should take “lady” back. Then again, to do so, we would have to admit we can no longer go by “girl.” And that would be motherfrickin' icky.

Words My Sister's Looking Up (Similar to one in an occasional series on words I'm looking up, just with less work for me)

hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

n. Fear of long words -- Dictionary.com

Somewhat reluctantly, I 'spose I should add that neither Webster's New World College Dictionary, Merriam-Webster online, or American Heritage online recognize this word. Still. Fun stuff. Shout out to my sister Diane for calling this to my attention.

And there was something else she called to my attention. Our mother's maiden name was Little. So in a culture where children take the mother's name followed by the father's name, our name would be, in essence, Little Big House.

Words I'm Looking Up and Going-Dark Notice

Hello.

I'll be going dark until about March 30. Until then, I leave you with this thought: I have problems with the word "brickbat." Mainly because it has problems with me. I feel like "brickbat" tries to stay as far away from me as possible. I know it's out there. I know someone is using it. But almost never does this word crop up in my world.

Is it old-fashioned, like "nifty" and "23 skidoo"? Is it a regional thing like "wicked hot" or "dang hot, y'all"? I don't know. It's like a ghost word in my world that I have now, finally, looked up. Here's American Heritage Dictionary:

brick·bat (brĭk'bāt') n. A piece, especially of brick, used as a weapon or missile.
An unfavorable remark; a criticism.

Word History: The earliest sense of brickbat, first recorded in 1563, was "a piece of brick." Such pieces of brick have not infrequently been thrown at others in the hope of injuring them; hence, the figurative brickbats (first recorded in 1929) that critics hurl at performances they dislike. The appearance of bat as the second part of this compound is explained by the fact that the word bat, "war club, cudgel," developed in Middle English the sense "chunk, clod, wad," and in the 16th century came to be used specifically for a piece of brick that was unbroken on one end.

Now I know ... sort of ...

Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional cleverly named series on words I'm looking up)

ascertain

I was always completely comfortable with this word until I ran across it today while copy editing a sentence that started like this:

"Now that you’ve ascertained that the ocean-view room you reserved does indeed have an ocean view ..."

To me, "ascertain" connotes a somewhat lengthy and difficult process of investigation -- like you have to work a little to find out what you want to know. So it seemed a bad word choice in the sentence. I mean, to find out whether your hotel room has an ocean view, all you have to do is look up or maybe take three steps toward the window. I wanted to change "ascertained" to "confirmed." But first I looked it up.

From American Heritage at dictionary.com:

ascertain. To discover with certainty, as through examination or experimentation. See Synonyms at discover.

Ignoring my gut feeling, I left the passage unchanged.

Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional, cleverly named series on words I'm looking up)

quaalude

Hey, remember "Hey, Remember the '80s?"? I didn't think so. Then you probably don't remember quaaludes, either. Actually, I myself never had any firsthand experience with these once-popular-for-recreational-purposes pills. I was usually too drunk to hold in my hands anything smaller than a large Jack Daniels bottle or an average-sized steering wheel. But I did derive a great deal of pleasure from quaaludes as punch lines.

What's wrong with Diane? 'Ludes, man.
How did you spend the weekend? 'Ludes, man.
How do you explain Reagan's hair? 'Ludes, man.

See how that never got old?

Anyway, today's my husband's birthday and, as old folks in their autumn years are wont to do, he said, "You never hear anybody talk about angel dust anymore." (We share a nostalgia for simpler, more innocent times.) That's when I remembered that, for years, I've been meaning to look up quaaludes. Here's Webster's New World.

Quaalude: [a former trademark] methaqualone.

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, Webster's New World.

methaqualone: a white, crystalline powder, C16H14N2O, used in the form of its hydrochloride salt as a sedative and hypnotic.

Sounds like it might be related to the stuff all the kids are doing these days -- you know, the angel dust or the reefers. I wouldn't know. I recently had to downgrade from Coke to Sprite. I learned that, since I reached a certain age, all that carmel coloring (as Grampa Simpson says) "angries up the blood." But I remember Coke.

Hey, remember New Coke ...?

Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional cleverly named series on words I'm looking up)

hurtle
hurdle

You’re running like the wind, hauling tail Indian Jones-style through some busy marketplace. You’re shoving things out of the way, colliding into people, and leaping over displays of merchandise with a single bound. So are you hurdling or hurtling?

Answer: both.

The running part can be called hurtling. The leaping part is hurdling.

Per American Heritage online.

hurtle: 1. to rush violently; move with great speed: ‘The car hurtled down the highway.’ 2. to move or go noisily or resoundingly

hurdle (the verb form): 1. to leap over (a barrier) in or as if in a race. 2. to
overcome or deal with successfully; surmount: ‘hurdle a problem.’

Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional cleverly named series on words I'm looking up)

jack

Specifically, I was looking for a definition to support the expression, "You don't know jack."

Webster's New World had a lot of definitions, including terms for playing cards, car lifts, electrical sockets, applejacks, male laborers, and even slang terms for money and saying, "Listen here, Jack." But not the definition I was looking for. Ditto that for Merriam-Webster online.

American Heritage, however, did have it. Its very last definition for the noun — definition No. 15 — is:

Slang. A small or worthless amount: You don't know jack about that.

Funny. I sometimes worry that dictionaries (especially you know who) are a little too hasty in adding new words. But on "jack" it feels to me that they're lagging behind. Of course, that's purely prejudicial and due to the fact that I use this form of "jack" so often. (I'm sassy like that.)

Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional, cleverly named series on words I'm looking up)

stanch

"to stop or check the flow of (blood or tears, for example); to stop the flow of blood from (a wound)" — American Heritage Dictionary

"see staunch" — Webster's New World College Dictionary

Funny how being reared on style guides can mess you up for life. I long took the Associated Press Stylebook's words as gospel:

"stanch, staunch: Stanch is a verb: He stanched the flow of blood. Staunch is an adjective: She is a staunch supporter of equality." (AP)

But both Webster's New World and American Heritage allow "staunch" as a verb and a synonym of "stanch." In fairness, I should note that WNW also adds:

"USAGE—For the adj., staunch is now the prevailing form in the U.S.; for the v., usage is about evenly divided between staunch and stanch"

Still, AP should have used imperatives (Use "stanch" as a verb) instead of absolutes (Stanch IS a verb).

Wonderings and Googlings* (Wherein I wonder about words, then I Google them)

*(see late addendum below)

The reason is threefold = 419 hits
The reasons are threefold = 597 hits

I've mostly heard people use that plural one. But today I came across the "the reason is threefold" (Yes, it's another thrilling day of copy editing).

Dictionaries don't address this issue directly. But, the way I read their definitions, it seems to make more sense to use it with the singular.

Webster's New World:

threefold adj. 1. having three parts. 2. having three times as much or as
many. adv. three times as much or as many.

Dictionary.com offers examples:

a threefold program
a threefold return on an investment

So does Webster's Revised Unabridged (via Dictionary.com)

A threefold cord is not quickly broken. -- Eccl. iv. 12

Seems to me that when someone says, "The reasons are threefold," they're using "threefold" as a synonym for "three." (Answer me these questions three.) But none of the dictionaries I checked treats them as synonyms.

* Addendum:

I hadn't had much time to look at the news until late in the day, but this is for those of you who were interested in the politics of yesterday's post: The Center for Responsive Politics has released a report on how much money congress members got from banking/financial company donations in the years before a 1999 vote on removing some regulations. As also reported in the Los Angeles Times, the report demonstrates a clear correlation: Reps who got the most money from this industry were pretty much the same people who voted yes on the deregulation measure. Here's the link, where you'll also find a full list of names and dollar amounts: http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/money-and-votes-aligned-in-con.html

The Times also reported today the stuff that was on the Wall Street Journal's website yesterday about lobbying by banks, etc. to capitalize on the bailout plan.

Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional, cleverly named series on words I'm looking up)

transgender

One of the editors at one of the pubs I copy edit asked me to research whether it's best used as an adjective (a transgender person), a noun (Chris is a transgender), or whether it's "transgendered."

Answer: oy.

Webster's New World College Dictionary, which this newspaper group follows, say it's only an adjective and that "transgender" is preferred but "transgendered" is also okay. Merriam-Webster online agrees.

Dictionary.com gives it first billing as a noun but also lists it as an adjective. Plus it allows "transgendered."

American Heritage (via Dictionary.com) doesn't allow the spelling "transgender." It's "transgendered," say they, and it's only an adjective.

Palin-drone: 'Blue Collar' versus 'Working Class'

A funny little game of words is taking place between the lines in the news this week. Vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's blue-collar husband is being hailed as evidence of Palin's connection to working-class Americans. And the terms "blue-collar" and "working-class" are cropping up side-by-side in stories about the candidate. It's as if they're synonyms. But a quick look at Dictionary.com shows they're not.

class includes the defintion: a social stratum whose members share certain economic, social, or cultural characteristics: the lower-income classes.

In my experience, the word is most often used to make reference to that "economic" part.

blue collar has a slightly different emphasis: of or pertaining to wage-earning workers who wear work clothes or other specialized clothing on the job, as mechanics, longshoremen, and miners.

Palin's husband indeed works in a world of work-clothes-wearing laborers and probably works really hard himself. He's an oil production manager and a commercial fisherman. But class-wise, his income helps put the family well outside the group that's often called "working class" and that struggles to get by in today's economy. According to Slate, the Palin family's annual income is about $225,000, which includes Palin's $125,000-a-year income as governor plus those state of Alaska payments to residents that represent shared oil tax revenues.

So she may indeed have a strong connection to blue-collar workers, but that doesn't mean the term "working class," with all its economic emphasis, applies. The terms may have some overlapping definitions and implications, but perfectly interchangeable synonyms they ain't.

(Shout out to my husband, Ted, for calling this little word-switcheroo to my attention.)

Wonderings and Googlings (Wherein I wonder about words, then I Google them)

Here are some sample hits from a search for the word atrocious.

The atrocious sequel to Are We There Yet?

We've been keeping tabs on the Associated Press's atrocious campaign
coverage this year.

$100 million private-equity buyout boosts (are) atrocious

Do you remember the atrocious and disappointing OECD report on
counterfeiting?

And here are some sample hits for this adjective's noun form, atrocity(ies).

Conditions of atrocity: The crimes at Abu Ghraib are a direct expression of
the kind of war we are waging in Iraq.

In the first months after 9/11, the administration's ruthless exploitation
of the atrocity was a choice, not a necessity.

All varieties of atrocity: battle deaths, civilian casualties of war,
democide, famine caused by the economic disruption.

Other hits for atrocity/atrocities referenced Nuremberg, the Nanjing Massacre, and "Bosnian Muslim atrocities in Srebrenica."

Okay, so now that I've thoroughly bummed you out, I hope you don't mind me pondering the question: How did these two words -- really the same word as different parts of speech -- come to have such very different connotations?

Atrocity, it seems, is used to mean slaughter and bloodshed and torture, while atrocious is often used to ridicule bad sitcoms, bad hair days, and other non-brutal bad choices.

Why? I don't know. But I have a theory. It's a conspiracy theory pointing to a 6-foot-tall English-speaking mouse. A tyrant whose atrocities include forcing innocent children to wear plastic ears and those "Escape from Witch Mountain" movies of the '70s.

My evidence: "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. ..."

Yes, methinks mesmells Mickey brand sanitizer.

As You're Curious ... (On 'as' as 'because')

Someone asked me yesterday whether as can be used to mean because. Yup. It can.

Webster's New World College Dictionary, American Heritage's fourth edition, and Dictionary.com all list because as one of (many) definitions of as. Also good to know ...

As, when used to mean because, is a conjunction.

Example: As you are late, I'll dock your pay.

Think of subordinating conjunctions such as because, if, though, while, since, etc. (Refresher: Remember that conjunctions join things, but subordinating conjunctions join things in such a way as to make them grammatically inequal in a sentence. That is, I like you is a complete sentence. But when we put because in front of it -- because I like you -- it ceases to be a complete sentence. By adding a word, we have subordinated our clause -- made it grammatically less than a complete sentence. More is less. That's the magic of subordinators.) But ...

As is, first and foremost, an adverb, the dictionaries say.

Remember that adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or whole sentences and they answer the questions how, when, where, and to what degree?

So in I'm just as happy at home, the word as is modifying happy in a way that expresses degree.

As can also be a pronoun.

In, We are tired, as anyone can see, the word as is pretty much an object of the verb see. It's almost like saying anyone can see it. Therefore, this as is a pronoun.

As can also be a preposition.

As a preposition, it often means (basically) like. It's pretty easy to identify because, like all prepositions, it takes an object. In He's mean as a snake, the noun phrase a snake is the object of our preposition as.

Find these distinctions less than clear?

Don't feel bad. The dictionaries themselves seem to struggle with this stuff. For example, here's an American Heritage example of as being used as an adverb: The child sang as sweetly as a nightingale.

And here's an American Heritage example of as used as a conjunction: You are as sweet as sugar.

A while back, I reported here that linguist Geoffrey Pullum says that dictionaries are often very bad at distinguishing between adverbs and adjectives. Apparently, there are some other parts of speech they're none too clear on either (or at least not clear enough to demonstrate it better than this).

Still feel a little bad? Then consider this: The person who asked me whether as can be used to mean because said that, while studying for the GMAT, he had been taught that it was strictly forbidden.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of grammar snobbery … (On “yay,” “yea,” and “yeah.”)

As someone who’s made a career (sort of) out of tilting against grammar snobs, it’s hard for me to admit the darker side of my true nature. Yet when I’m honest, there’s no denying it: I have a meanie streak. And it goes way back -- all the way to middle school.

In those pre-Blackberry days, girls passed notes. The cooler you were, the more notes you got. As a mere satellite in the cool-girl constellation, I didn’t get many. But I got enough to know that the notes covered just three topics: guys, clothes, and repressive authority figures. The topics all had one thing in common: They all provided the opportunity to cheer -- to express in print something that, when spoken, sounds like “yay.”

But, in the notes, the cool girls all spelled it “yeah.”

Perhaps if I’d been invited to more sleepovers or shopping outings, I wouldn’t have even noticed. But, as it turned out, I had plenty of time on my hands to think how, if they were as smart as me, they would have spelled it “yay,” you know, something that rhymes with “bay.” Not “yeah,” which has the same vowel sound as “pat.”

Occasionally, they also spelled it “yea,” which seemed better. At least it seemed to have the right vowel sound, even if it did read like something Moses would say to his flock.

Finally twentymumbmumble years later, I looked it up.

American Heritage Dictionary affirms my petty attempts to feel better about not being more popular.

“Yay,” it says, is an “alteration” of “yea” and has the same pronunciation. But unlike "yea," which usually means "indeed" or something like that, "yay" is “used as an exclamation of pleasure, approval, elation, or victory.”

“Yeah” has the same basic vowel sound as “pat,” American Heritage says. It means “yes,” not “hurray.”

And if you attended Morgan Fitzgerald Middle School circa 1980, that’s all you need to know. You can stop reading here. Go on now. I’m sure you girls have some shopping or character assassination to do. In fact, look. I think see a heavyset girl with high-waisted acid wash jeans over there. Off you go, now. Bye bye.

They gone? Good.

Now I can confess to the rest of you that Webster’s New World College Dictionary doesn’t quite agree.

According to this Webster's, the correct word to use as a synonym for “hurray” is actually “yea.” The one I preferred, “yay,” is an alternate spelling of “yea.” The spelling "yay," Webster’s says, also is also the one you use to write, “I caught a fish yay big,” or, if you’re a formerly cute but now Us-Magazine-reading Floridian named Brenda or Tracey or Vikki, it's the one you use to write, “I owe June a hug yay big.”

Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional, cleverly named series on words I'm looking up)

muster

Recently, a New York Times editor named David Shipley rejected an opinion piece written by presidential candidate John McCain not long after running one by rival Barack Obama. A July 22 Los Angeles Times article asked why and then reported:

For a parallel piece to pass his muster, Shipley added, it "would have to
articulate, in concrete terms, how Sen. McCain defines victory in Iraq."

Normal people reading this may find their thoughts turning to issues of media bias and perceptions of media bias. Me, I'm stuck at: "Pass his muster"? What the hell is a muster and how do they know if Shipley really has one?

According to American Heritage and other dictionaries, muster is primarily a verb meaning "to call (troops) together, as for inspection" and variations also about calling things together or summoning (think "I mustered up the courage").

Muster does have a noun form that means, most often, a gathering -- usually of people.

So obviously, the well-known expression "pass muster" isn't literal. If so, it would mean to get something past a gathering of troops or other people. Clearly, "pass muster" is an idiom and a reference to the inspection of the troops that form into one of these muster things. And, yes, the dictionaries acknowledge the idiom.

Idiom. pass muster: To be judged as acceptable. -- American Heritage

But they don't mention any variation that uses a possessive determiner like "his." So "pass his muster" is not an idiom, nor is it completely logical as a straightforward construction.

Could you make a case for "pass his muster"? Probably. If you really wanted to. But if I were a copy editor in the Los Angeles Times editorial department and I had a muster, this usage would not have passed it.

If I Were a Webster (Wherein I criticize highly skilled lexicographers for not doing their job they way I think they should)

I would add another definition for the word "complement." It would be:

v. to go well with

This is how people often use it. And I believe there's a subtle but clear difference between how people use it and how the dictionaries define it. Webster's New World and Merriam-Webster's give the definition: "to complete."

something that fills up, completes, or makes perfect -- Merriam-Webster Online

But it seems to me that's not exactly how people use it. When they say, "This wine complements the meal nicely," they're not always saying that it completes the meal. Often they just mean it goes well with the meal.

Plus, you often hear stuff like, "That wine complements the chateaubriand nicely" or "That rug really complements the couch." Clearly, these people don't mean that wine completes meat or that rugs complete drapes.

A dictionary's job is to report how the language is being used. And when it comes to "complement," I think they've been asleep at the switch. (Either that or wine drinkers know something I don't about meat.)

War of the Websters -- Wherein we examine disagreements between dictionaries

handheld
-- Merriam Webster Online

hand-held
-- Webster's New World College Dictionary

War of the Websters -- Wherein we examine disagreements between dictionaries

Webster's New World College Dictionary gives you two choices on how to write:

preempt or pre-empt

Merriam-Webster Online gives you just one:

preempt