Words of the Day - March 26, 2018.

More compound words. Wheelwright. Wainwright. Millwright. Cartwright. Playwright. Shipwright. Plowwright.

Are there any other English words with double "w"s? How about double "u"s other than vacuum?

Wright - Someone who makes or fixes something.

While we're on the subject - Wight. Originally a person. Now it usually refers to a ghost or spirit.

I've always loved the word 'articulate'. From the Greek arthron, meaning 'joint'. Giorgio Agamben glosses it as such: "arthron, an articulation; or rather, a discontinuity that is also a continuity, a removal that is also a preservation (arthron, like armonia [Harmony - SX], originally derives from the language of woodworking; armotto signifies to conjoin, to unite, as the woodworker does with two pieces of wood)".

Arthron was also just the word Plato used when talking about 'carving Nature at it's joints', the vocation of philosophy as such. Also related to the words 'particular' and 'article': 'a small part', the bits of wood which are articulated by the joint.

Continuum! Residuum!

I've always loved the word 'articulate'. From the Greek arthron, meaning 'joint'. — StreetlightX

I wonder how the word came to also mean "speak carefully."

Continuum! Residuum! — StreetlightX

Thanks.

One of my all-time favorites is indefatigable: untiring, unrelenting, and the like.

Something about how the word roles off the tongue … can never take it’s saying seriously (due to the sound; not the meaning).

I wonder how the word came to also mean "speak carefully — T Clark

'String your words together carefully' (join them well). Wordsmithing. Like carpentry or woodsmithing.

Astrolabe: a catcher of heavenly bodies, literally 'taker of the stars'; used to measure the incline of celestial objects and help find one's way. From the Greek astron, "star" (hence astrophysics) and lambanein, "to take". Said to be invented by Hypatia, one of the earliest female mathematicians and philosophers, and was used against her when the Christians - barbarians as they were - flayed her and tore her limb from limb; the astrolabe was said to be a pagan tool of divination, of which she was accused.

wonderful word and brilliant object

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00st9z8

Christians, eh? Don't they consume human blood and flesh in their ceremonies and refuse to recognise the emperor as a god?

Astrolabe: a catcher of heavenly bodies, literally 'taker of the stars'; — StreetlightX

Here's a link to a story in "Vox." Don't know if you'd heard about this.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/5/17/15646450/antikythera-mechanism-greek-computer-astronomy-google-doodle

I enjoy humour, jokes, silliness, Hanoverisms — TimeLine

This is from a post that TimeLine made in a different thread. I've never heard the word "Hanoverism" before and can't find a definition on the web.

'Hanoverture', 'Hanoverkill' - also not on wiktionary. https://thephilosophyforum.com/profile/15/hanover

Never crossed my mind. Really? Hanover? As an example of humor?

Yeah it's pretty Hanoverrated.

I did read this when it came out, I remember finding it inordinately cool.

Hanoverisms — TimeLine

Not even a word is it?
Can you give an example?

Not even a word is it?
Can you give an example? — charleton

I think we've come to the conclusion it is a neologism. Another good, but not new, word.

I wonder if the guy who came up with "neologism" enjoyed the irony.

I think we've come to the conclusion it is a neologism. Another good, but not new, word. — T Clark

Can you give an example?

See my quote from TimeLine above.

Why do you lot have to dissect every attempt at humorous innovation to the point of fatal fastidiousness?

Word of the Day - March 27, 2018.

Odd's and ends.

"Opt" - hate this. Hate, hate, hate.

"As such" - Drives me crazy.
Correct - CuddlyHedgehog is a hedgehog and, as such, has hair and spines.
Incorrect - CuddlyHedgehog went shopping and, as such, was late getting home.

"Which" and "That" - Always get this wrong.
Correct - Dogs, which are friendly, make good pets. i.e. Dogs in general make good pets.
Correct - Dogs that are friendly make good pets. i.e. Some dogs, those that are friendly, make good pets.

"Method" vs. "Methodology." In my experience, you use "methodology" when you want to sound smart.
"Method" - A set of procedures to do something
"Methodology" - A set of methods or an approach to establishing methods. Or something like that.

"Use" vs. "Utilize." In my experience, you use "utilize" when you want to sound smart.
"Use" - "Take, hold, or deploy (something) as a means of accomplishing a purpose or achieving a result. Employ."
"Utilize" - "Make practical and effective use of." Sounds like I was right. It's just to make you sound smart.

I have so many pet peeves about big words that sound impressive. Vis-a-vis is one. Say it as simply as possible, people.

Oh yes. From the Shoutbox 2 days ago, by Hanover: "So what I've been doing is I hold the victim's nose, offer three quick thrusts, remove my hand and allow her a quick gasp, and I continue repeating through to conclusion. Once concluded, I carefully tip the head back with my right hand and say, "Night night Punkin."

While it has been entirely ineffective for cardiac arrest, I have found it effective for curing hiccups"

Words of the Day - March 28, 2018

American Indian place names:

• Alabama
• Alaska
• Arizona
• Arkansas
• Connecticut
• Illinois
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• Nebraska
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Wisconsin
• Wyoming

24 of 50 US states have American Indian names. Doesn't count towns, cities, counties, rivers.....

American Indian place names: — T Clark

Okay you got me to open the thread with your comment in the shoutbox. Excellent start.

Many of the Indian nations still exist and if they arrest you on the reservation, you are NOT entitled to a phone call or a whole lot of other "rights" you have just on the other side of a street, off the Inidan nation.

Never crossed my mind. Really? Hanover? As an example of humor? — T Clark

@Hanover Did you know you were being discussed? What a flippin honor!

Okay you got me to open the thread with your comment in the shoutbox. Excellent start. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I think next time I'll do words which come from American Indian languages that are not proper nouns, e.g. toboggan.

I wish to thank Tiff for pointing out that I have become the topic of discussion of yet another thread. I'd also like to thank Timeline (aka Punkin) for having created a word describing all that is me.

Carry on.

:vomit:

Don't be jelly. You can be Punkin too.

@Agustino brought to attention this line by David Hume, which I thought was really interesting:

"But though this topic be specious and sublime, it was soon found in practice weak and ineffectual".

The cool thing here is that Hume uses 'specious' in a positive way, and not a negative one, as is usually done today. In his day, to be specious meant to be beautiful, to have a good specular appearance. Today specious instead means something pejorative, like 'mere appearence' and lacking depth. But this merely scratches the surface of a really cool network of cognates: the Latin specere, means means 'to look' or 'to see', and is the root of species, which is of course today what we use to designate kinds of animals or organisms. The idea being that animals that look different are animals of different species. And this root ramifies through a whole series of other words too:

'Specular', already mentioned, 'spectral' (image or ghost), 'spectrum' (as in, the color spectrum) 'perspicuous' (transparent, easily understood), 'specimen' (example, sign), as well as 'spectacular' (awesome, overwhelming), 'specific' (particular), and 'spectacle' (display, performance) along with 'spectacles' (pair of glasses). Philosophically, the deepest connection is to the 'species', which has connotations of 'form', as in the Platonic eidos or Idea. In the Middle Ages, the species or species-being designated a very particular kind of being, one that was neither just 'in the mind', nor 'out there in the world' (neither ens reale, mind-independent, nor ens rationis, mind-dependant), but half-way between the two, the clearest instance of this being the image in the mirror, which is neither a 'substance' nor a 'thought', but, precisely, a special being. 'Species' also means 'aspect', which is why Spinoza will talk of looking at things sub specie aeternitatis - under the aspect of eternity.

Giorgio Agamben also draws attention to the theological, mythic, and even amorous dimensions of the word(s): "The being of the image is a continuous generation, a being (essere) of generation and not of substance. Each moment, it is created anew, like the angels who, according to the Talmud, sing the praises of God and immediately sink into nothingness"; and "Given the proximity between the image and the experience of love, it is not surprising that both Dante and Cavalcanti were led to define love in the same way: as an “accident without substance" ... "The mirror is the place where we discover that we have an image and, at the same time, that this image can be separate from us, that our species or imago does not belong to us. Between the perception of the image and the recognition of oneself in it, there is a gap, which the medieval poets called love. In this sense, Narcissus’s mirror is the source of love, the fierce and shocking realization that the image is and is not our image." (Agamben, Special Being).

So yeah. A series of really special words. And let's not even start to talk of the sublime...

Don't be jelly. You can be Punkin too. — Hanover

Hey man. No sharing.

Word of the day: Archduchy