Paige's Words of the Week

For my three words, I found them in one of our class readings. I found them from the reading from "The New Yorker" called "Noah's Mark." I chose these words either because I liked the way they sounded or because I had no idea what it meant.

Clobber. (v.)
I chose this word because I liked the way it sounded. It means to patch up or to add enameled decoration to. This word was first used in 1851 and the origin of the word is unknown. It is apparently connected to the noun word "Clobber" and it has an appearance of an onomatopoeic word of frequentative form. An example of how to use this word is: The suits needed to be clobbered up.

Opus. (n.)
I also chose this word because I liked the way it sounded. It's definitions are:
1. A book or other written work, esp. one considered to be of great size or importance; a collection of writings by a particular author.
2.   Music. A musical composition or set of compositions, esp. as numbered in a catalogue of a composer's works.
3. A work or production in any of the arts; a production or performance more generally.
The etymology of this word is Latin. In classical Latin, opus was used from the 15th to 16th century in Italy to denote musical compositions. It was later adopted to Germany to be denoted as a whole collection. It is frequently used with musical compositions. This word was also first used in 1808.

Pusillanimous. (adj.)
I chose this word because I had never seen it before and I had no idea how to pronounce it.  It can be defined as:
1. Of a person: lacking in courage or strength of purpose; faint-hearted, craven, cowardly.
2. Of a quality, action, etc.: resulting from or manifesting a lack of courage or determination.
This word was first used in 1586 and came from the Middle French. It's history comes from a person who is a coward and/or faint-hearted.

Source: Oxford English Dictionary

Amy's words of the week

Amy's words of the week

1. Okey Docky

       As an English language Learner,  the variation of english words always confuse me. I  often think in my mind, 'Is this the right word to use?' 'Is it the proper circumstance to use this word?' ' Doesn't X and Y mean the same? So when to use it?' etc.  Okey Docky is one of them.  When I first heard it,  I thought it was some entertaining effect that is needed in the TV shows. And then I heard different version of them, like ' Okey Dock', 'Okey Docky, Artichokey'. After several times, I think, oh, ok, that's the way American speak in TV shows. Then, after I came here, I found it real life when Professor Eric Raimy says that all the time in class. It makes me think, it is about time to look it up. So, here it is: 

Meaning:

   
       Okay. There are some late 20th century alternative meanings, limited to the USA, e.g. 'absurd or ridiculous' and 'to swindle or deceive'.

Origin:      

       This little phrase is a variant of okay. It is 20th century American and first appears in print in a 1932 edition of American Speech. There are several alternative spellings - okay-doke, okey-doke, okee-doke, etc. In addition to these is the comic version that has brought the phrase back to popular attention in recent years - The Simpson's Ned Flanders' 'okely-dokely'.
       All of them are just a perky reduplicated variants of okay, utilizing that favourite device of two-word phrases - rhyming. As a reduplication it is properly spelled with a hyphen, although it is often given without. Like okay, 'okey-doke' is used to indicate that all is well, e.g. 'everything is okay here', but may be used when responding positively to a request. That is exemplified in this piece from Colin MacInnes' book City of Spades, 1957:

"One Guinness stout, right, I thank you, okey-doke, here it is. 

        The playfulness of okey-dokey is evident when it turns up as the name for a recipe inFondue by Lenny Rice and Brigid Callinan, published in 2007. The artichoke fondue “Okey-dokey Artichokey” is to be paired with Austrian grüner veltliner, which “has a crisp, peppery quality that makes it one of the only reliable artichoke-friendly wines we know.”

        Perhaps the name of the recipe was inspired by a children’s book published four years earlier, Okie-dokie, Artichokie! by Grace Lin. That’s the story of a new downstairs neighbor named Artichoke who bangs mysteriously on his ceiling, the protagonist’s floor. “Hey, if I get too loud or something, you can just bang on the ceiling and let me know,” says the protagonist, who happens to be a monkey. The downstairs neighbor is a giraffe, hence the inadvertent banging.

        By now, okey-dokey (and variants like okely-dokely) has long lost its freshness—hence its suitability for a not-so-cool character like Ned Flanders. For some, it’s an annoyance. Slang expert Tom Dalzell, in The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2007), acknowledges that okey-dokey is “used for communicating agreement,” but he can’t resist grumbling that it is “an old-fashioned, affected, still popular perversion of OK.” 

2. Onomatopoeia

     Summer this year, I got myself a part-time job in English First, a English learning institution for little kids. And for children, it is always interesting to see animals and images of them. However, it's not that easy. They have to learn the sounds of the animals before they learn animals name, like ' woof, woof, little dog, meow meow, big cat, quack quack, little duck, oink oink big pig.' At that time, I was thinking, these kids are so lucky to have foreign teachers to teach them those words, cause I don't even know pigs are supposed to sound like 'oink oink'. I mean of course I know how a pig sound like, I can even make the sound, but not the exact English words for it. Then, I look it up, those words for sounds are called onomatopoeia. 
       I have noted about writing animal sounds in English is that often the words are written with repeated letters to emphasize the sounds, for example: buzz (the sounds many insects make) may be written as “buzzzzzzzzzzzz” or 'moo' (the sound a cow makes) may be written as “mooooooooo”.   Also some animal sounds are written twice connected by a hyphen, for example: cluck-cluck (the sound a chicken makes).  I look it up and list some common examples of onomatopoeia for animals.

bee: buzz                          bear: grrr*, growl          birds: cheep-cheep*, chirp, tweet*, squawk

cats: meow, purr            chicken: cluck (or cluck-cluck)                 cow: moo

dog: arf*, woof* (or woof-woof), ruff* (or ruff-ruff), bow wow*, bark               dove: coo

donkey: hee-haw         duck: quack (or quack-quack)          frog: croak, ribbit (or ribbit-ribbit)

horse: neigh                sheep or goat: baa*                  pig: oink (or oink-oink)
mouse: squeak (or squeak-squeak)              owl: whoo-whoo      rooster: cock-a-doodle-doo*
snake: hiss          tiger: grrr*, raaa*, growl, roar            turkey: gobble (or gobble-gobble)
wolves: ou ou ouooooo*, howl

I have also included a video below of a children’s song that you can listen to in order to hear how all of these examples of onomatopoeia sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99ULJjCsaM&feature=player_embedded#at=25

Question: why some of the onomatopoeias come with a asterisk? 

3. ain't

       American English have a lot of contractions, but 'ain't' is a unconventional one, at least, for me. It turns out is more than one meaning, which as know, means 'am not'. 

Definition:

1:  am not :  are not :  is not2:  have not :  has not3:  do not :  does not :  did not —used in some varieties of Black English

Usage:

       Although widely disapproved as nonstandard and more common in the habitual speech of the less educated, ain't in senses 1 and 2 is flourishing in American English. It is used in both speech and writing to catch attention and to gain emphasis <the wackiness of movies, once so deliciously amusing, ain't funny anymore — Richard Schickel> <I am telling you—there ain't going to be any blackmail — R. M. Nixon>. It is used especially in journalistic prose as part of a consistently informal style <the creative process ain't easy — Mike Royko>. This informal ain't is commonly distinguished from habitual ain't by its frequent occurrence in fixed constructions and phrases <well—class it ain't — Cleveland Amory> <for money? say it ain't so, Jimmy! — Andy Rooney><you ain't seen nothing yet> <that ain't hay> <two out of three ain't bad> <if it ain't broke, don't fix it>. In fiction ain'tis used for purposes of characterization; in familiar correspondence it tends to be the mark of a warm personal friendship. It is also used for metrical reasons in popular songs <Ain't She Sweet> <It Ain't Necessarily So>. Our evidence shows British use to be much the same as American.

Examples:

1. It's a free country, ain't it?

1. Those people ain't got a clue.

1. Her husband left and she ain't never been the same.

Daniella's words of the week

The first word I decided to talk about is the word “queer”. I chose this word because of its history and the change of meaning it carries. I started paying attention to it mainly after I arrived in Madison and met some people that work in the LGBT Campus Center and identify themselves as queer. I have talked to some of them about the meaning of the word for them and it is very different from what we find in many dictionaries.

QUEER

According to the dictionary Merriam Webster, for instance, some of the meanings given for the word are:      

•  worthless
• questionable, suspicious
• eccentric
• differing in some odd way from what is usual or normal
• unconventional
• often disparaging: homosexual and sometimes offensive: gay

After providing the definition, the dictionary provided an observation about the late usage of the word “queer”. The term has had a pejorative meaning through most of the 20^th century, but some LGBT groups began to reappropriate the word to establish a political identity and a community. It also denotes an opposition to binary thinking. It is interesting to read about semantic shifts and linguistic appropriations like this in which some people that would be offended by the word are actually taken it as a positive and representative of who they are. In addition to that, some academic disciplines also use the term such as queer theory and queer studies. Interestingly, I do not believe we have a translation for “queer” in Portuguese other than its offensive meanings. The word in its new meaning is used in English. (Source: Merriam Webster and Wikipedia)

The second word I chose is the word “awkward”. Although I usually have trouble to spell this word correctly, I really like it, mainly how it sounds. I just think the word itself, its sound and spelling, matches its meaning somehow.

AWKWARD

• lacking skill 
• lacking grace or ease in movement: an awkward gesture
• lacking manners
• not well planned or designed for easy or effective use: an awkward instrument; an awkward method.
• requiring caution; somewhat hazardous: an awkward turn in the road. (Source: dictionary.com)

Something I think is funny is that the awkward moments have a “mascot” called awkward turtle. It is a hand gesture.

“During an awkward moment, this hand gesture is used to mark the situation as awkward, and, depending on the situation, makes it more awkward or clears the air. The awkward turtle is made by putting one hand on top of the other with the thumbs sticking outward and rotating forward. The speed of the rotating thumbs depends on the degree of awkwardness.” (Source: Urban dictionary) 

Finally, the last word chosen was “doppelganger”. I saw it for the first time when watching an episode of the TV show “How I met you mother” and I actually thought the word was invented by the show maybe because it does not sound or look like English words. The funny thing about that is that I avoided using the word with other people because I thought they would understand it only if they had watched the show. It took me a while to find out that it is a “real” word.

DOPPELGANGER

• a ghostly counterpart of a living person
• double
• alter ego
• a person who has the same name as another (Source: Merriam Webster)

1830, from German Doppelgänger, literally "double-goer", originally with a ghostly sense. (Source: Online Etymology Dictionary) 

Babbling about Moisture and Diddly-Squat

One phrase I came across a while ago that intrigued me was "diddly-squat." My grandparents use it, my parents use it, I use it, but I realized, who in the world would have made that up? What is diddly? Does it derive from "diddle?" And what does it have to do with squatting?  And so I looked it up.  According to Oxford English Dictionary, it means "very little; of little to no significance." It derived from "doodle 'excrement,'" as the dictionary terms it, which took me a minute to figure out can be translated to "doodly-shit."  I found that there may be some connection with "doodle" from the song "Yankee Doodle Dandy" dating back to the American Revolutionary War, where "doodle" means "a silly or foolish fellow; a noodle."

The second interesting word I encountered just this past weekend was "babble," after finding out from my parents that I apparently tend to babble a lot when I ingest alcohol.  Where did "babble" come from?  Apparently the syllable "ba-" is derived from baby-talk, which is fitting because the definition of "to babble" is "To talk excessively or inappropriately; to chatter quickly, excitedly, or at length; to speak indiscreetly," and the noun "babble" is defined as "foolish, incoherent, or excited talk; gabble; prattle; (also) meaningless prating; empty rhetoric."  

Lastly, I was watching How I Met Your Mother this week, and the episode that came on was the one where Barney accepts Lilly's "challenge" where she says she would sit through a performance by him no matter how bad it was because he was her friend.  Earlier in the episode, Lilly briefly mentions how much she hates the word "moist," which Barney takes to his advantage and proceeds to present the first part of his performance, which is repeating the word "moist" over and over again for 40 minutes.  I'm not sure why, but I've actually heard a lot of people say they hate that word, so I couldn't pass it up to write in this assignment.  The definition of moist is "Slightly wet, imbued with moisture; containing liquid in a state of suspension or absorption; not dry; damp, humid."  If you look on youtube, there's about a thousand rants from people complaining about how much they hate the word moist; there was even a VH1 segment about it.  Does anybody else find this word to be gross?!

Megan's Words of the Week

Rapscallion:

The first word that I chose was one I found while reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Rapscallion was used by Twain multiple times throughout the novel, and my English professor even highlighted the word as relating to important themes in the novel. I think this is a really cool word and definitely can be applied not only to Huck Finn, but also to my new 8-week old puppy, who I learned this weekend is definitely a rapscallion.

A rapscallion is defined by OED to be a rascal, a rogue, or a vagabond. Now often used in a humorous manner, its earliest usage in literature dates back to 1648.

The rapscallion contemplating his next shenanigan

Shenanigans:

The second word that I chose is one of my very favorite words: shenanigans. This word can also be, and has been, applied to my new puppy, who has already gotten into all types of shenanigans in one weekend at our house. The OED defines shenanigan as trickery, skullduggery, a prank, an exhibition of high spirits, a carry-on. I really like this definition, especially the “exhibition of high spirits”, as I feel like shenanigans cannot be categorized in a negative way, and can only be said in a manner of teasing or lightheartedness. The origin of the word is categorized as “obscure” by the OED, which I found to be pretty disappointing, so I did some further research. One site suggests that shenanigan may have originated in California about the time of the Gold Rush, though it was first recorded in print only in 1855. It has been spelled in many different ways since then, though most dictionaries have settled on “shenanigans” as the accepted spelling.

Where it comes from is still a matter of considerable disagreement. The word looks Irish, and there was no shortage of Irishmen in the California diggings, so it’s possible that the Irish word sionnachuighm is the source, meaning ‘I play tricks’, which is pronounced roughly as ‘shinnuckeem’. It may also come from an East Anglian dialect word nannicking for “playing the fool” or as a link with the Spanish word chanada for a trick or deceit. It could also come from the German word schinnagel for a nail that holds the rim to the wheel, which produced the German slang terms schinageln, to work, and Schenigelei, a trick.

Flea market:

One of my favorite summer activities is going to flea markets around Wisconsin, and for my third word I decided to choose the idiom flea market to see where this word originated from. Flea market comes from the French phrase marché aux puces, a name originally given to a market in Paris which specialized in shabby second-hand goods of the kind that might contain fleas. The earliest English use that the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary has found dates from 1922. Although you wouldn’t sell much today at a flea market if it was infested in fleas, it is intriguing to me that we still use this idiom commonly to refer to a open-air markets all around the world, when fleas are not something that we would like to bring home with us from any type of market.

Words Associated with Halloween (by Yichen)

1. Halloween:

Etymology: It is shortened from All-Hallow-Even. According to OED, the word Halloween was first used in 1556. And the original form of this word "All-Hallow-Even" was used since early 1300s.

Definition: The eve of All Hallows' or All Saints'; the last night of October.

Why: In the Old Celtic calendar the year began on 1st November, so that the last evening of October was ‘old-year's night’, the night of all the witches, which the Church transformed into the Eve of All Saints. (Source: OED)

2. Jack-O'-Lantern

Etymology: It is originated from the visual phenomenon ignis fatuus also known as a will-o'-the-wisp in English folklore, first indicating something misleading or elusive. Also according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it is more commonly used in East Anglia and its earliest use dates to 1660s.

ignis fatuus: A phosphorescent light that hovers or flits over swampy ground at night, possibly caused by spontaneous combustion of gases emitted by rotting organic matter.

ignis fatuus

Definition:

1. A man with a lantern; a night watchman.

2. An ignis fatuus or will-o'-the-wisp

3. A lantern made of the rind of a large turnip or a pumpkin, in which holes are cut to represent eyes, nose, and mouth; a turnip- or (in U.S.) pumpkin-lantern. north. Eng., Sc., and U.S. (Source: OED and Online Etymology Dictionary)



3. Poltergeist

Etymology: It comes from the German words poltern ("to make a loud noise or uproar, to rumble, to thud", 15th century) and Geist (ghost).

Definition:  A ghost or other supernatural being supposedly responsible for unexplained physical disturbances such as loud noises and the movement of objects. (Source: OED)

Observation of Poltergeist:

The phenomenon of poltergeists have been found in different cultures, including both eastern and western countries. Most of them are described in a situation that inaminated objects are being thrown away which causes lots of noises such as human voices, coughs, or knocking.

Scientific Explanations:

According to the excerpts of the book: Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking, written by Leonard Zusne, Many claimed poltergeist events have proved on investigation to be pranks. A study (Lange and Houran, 1998) wrote that poltergeist experiences are delusions "resulting from the affective and cognitive dynamics of percipients' interpretation of ambiguous stimuli". Other investigations find that the poltergeist phenomenon may also associate with factors like underground water, heavy rainfalls, and vibrate geographical locations ( Lambert,1955).

Aila's Amazing Words

Albedo (noun): 

What? The proportion of incident solar light that is diffusely reflected by the surface or surface material of a planet or other celestial object. [Earth's average albedo is roughly 30%].

From where? Found in the Monthly Notices from the Royal Astronomical Society in 1860.

Why? After learning this word from my Environmental Studies class, I was surprised to learn its alternative meaning from Madeleine's blog post below.

Macabre (adj.) [məˈkɑb]:

What? Grim, horrific, repulsive; Characterized by or suggestive of the danse macabre.

From where? Of French origin from 1843.

Why? In high school, a very good friend of mine was sharing a word that he had come across in his reading.  Very proudly, he introduced the word 'macabre'.  Unfortunately, he pronounced it incorrectly and continued to pronounce it incorrectly throughout his presentation even after being correctly.  Perhaps it was a classic "you-had-to-be-there" moment, but I laughed so hard that I cried.

Besmirch (verb):

What? To dim the luster of.

From where? Appeared in Shakespeare's Hamlet in 1604.

Why? I found this word in an article in "Mark Twain: America's Original Superstar" by Roy Blount Jr. and noted its phonetic appeal.