A Word A Week

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Episode #044, 05.08.2012: behoove, behove

Sound: /bɨˈhuːv/, /bɪˈhəʊv/

behove (esp. British) or behoove (American), impersonal transitive verb. Be incumbent on (person) to (do something).

In a sentence: “It behoves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others.” -Thomas Jefferson

What is incumbent? As a noun, it is the Holder of ecclesiastical benefice or (in the US) Holder of any office. But here they mean the adjective: resting upon a person as duty.

Long story short: behove or behoove means to suit, to befit.

Note that the British tend to spell it with one o and the Americans with two.

This is the script to an episode.
You can listen to this episode at: awordaweek.podomatic.com
Please subscribe!
Intro and outro music in the podcast: The Jam by General Fuzz
Like the A Word A Week page on facebook!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Episode #043, 29.07.2012: circumvallate

Sound: /sɜːkəmˈvæleɪt/

circumvallate, transitive verb. circumvallation, noun. (Surround with) rampart or entrenchment; process of doing this.

In a sentence: “The settlement is circumvallated by a stake-fence.”

This word comes from Latin circum, which means around, and vallum, which is rampart. A rampart is a defensive barrier.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Episode #042, 22.07.2012: high jinks

Sound: /haɪ ʤɪnks/
jink

verb. Move elusively, dodge, elude by dodging; (slang) maneuver aircraft, be maneuvered, jerkily to avoid anti-aircraft fire etc.
noun. Act of jinking; high jinks: boisterous sport, merrymaking

In a sentence: “The kids took part in some happy high jinks.”

About high jinks: Wiktionary also notes that “hijinks” is an alternative spelling and that it means “tricky and/or humorous behavior”. The plural of hijinks is the same.

When kids fool around, they tend to chase each other. The one being chased might run and try to escape by dodging the other child. Maybe this is the reason why it is called high jinks…?

It is closely related to shenanigans, which we covered in episode 7.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Episode #041, 15.07.2012: licentiousness

licentious, adjective. Disregarding accepted rules especially of grammar or style (rare); lascivious /ləˈsɪvɪəs/, libertine, lewd /luːd/. Hence licentiousness.

In a sentence: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness…” (Galatians 5:19)

The bible uses this one a few times. It means hedonistic behavior. It comes from the Latin word licentia (license, freedom). You might say being licentious means you give yourself the license to do certain things.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Episode #040, 08.07.2012: Spotlight: The American Language by H. L. Mencken

The American Language is a book by H. L. Mencken that was first published in 1919.

H. L. Mencken was an American writer and journalist, who was a severe critic of American life and culture. He was once called the American Nietzsche, whom he admired.

He wrote brilliant satirical reporting from the Scopes trial (Scopes Monkey trial). By the way, if you want to know more about the Scopes trial, I recommend that you watch the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind or let H. L. Mencken’s reporting be read to you (link).

In his book, Mencken discusses the English language as it is spoken throughout the United States, discussing the differences between the US and UK, spelling, names, slang etc. When I read it, I was particularly impressed by the various regional differences. He discussed words and slang from various groups, for example immigrants, Native Americans, blacks, soldiers and criminals.

All in all it is a very interesting book. It’s worth reading, even though it is fairly long.

The whole text is also on the web.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Episode #039, 01.07.2012: vicious

Sound: /ˈvɪʃəs/

vicious, adjective. Of the nature of vice, morally evil or injurious as in vicious tendencies, courses, life; addicted to vice as in vicious companions; (of language, reasoning, etc.) incorrect, faulty, unsound, corrupt as in a vicious style, vicious circle; bad-tempered, spiteful as in vicious dog, mood, remarks.

In a sentence: “As he became more and more vicious, he became an outlaw.”

This word sounds very strong. “You’re bad.” sounds whiny, but “You’re vicious!” really gets across the message of moral contempt.

Note that, as seen in the dictionary entry, its meaning is not always that strong. Something that is simply incorrect can be vicious, too.

A vicious circle is:

I won’t give you the dictionary definitions for a change, because those are rather complicated. Also, you probably already know most meanings. What are the meanings?

A situation in which the solution to one problem creates a chain of problems, each making it more difficult to solve the original one.
A fallacy in which the premise is used to prove a conclusion which is then used to prove the premise (circular argument).

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Episode #038, 24.06.2012: miscellaneous

Sound: /ˌmɪsəˈleɪnɪəs/

miscellaneous, adjective. Of mixed composition or character; (with plural noun) of various kinds; (of persons) many-sided.

In a sentence: “His pencil case has a set of miscellaneous pens.” “There are miscellaneous items in the bag.”

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Episode #037, 17.06.2012: mean (all meanings)

Sound: /miːn/

I won’t give you the dictionary definitions for a change, because those are rather complicated. Also, you probably already know most meanings. What are the meanings?

to intend. As in: “I didn’t mean to do that.” “She meant well.” “The sugar was meant for the cake.” “He was meant (by providence) to do this job.”
to convey meaning. “What do you mean?” “Did she mean what she said?” “My home means a lot to me.” “What does this word mean?”
cruel, malicious, unkind. “He’s very mean. He tried to make me fall down.”
A method or course of action used to achieve some result (now chiefly in plural). “…the means to an end.” “By which means will you accomplish this task?”
financial resources. “He lives by his own means.”
average, medium. “5 is the mean of 2 and 8.” “A compromise is a mean between two parties.” “The mean sea level is half-way between those of high and low water.”
in the mean (intervening) time, while
inferior, poor, low in quality. “He is no mean scholar.”

Those are the most common usages. Check your dictionary and wiktionary.org for even more definitions.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Episode #036, 10.06.2012: Savvy?

Sound: /ˈsæv.i/

savvy. Corruption of Spanish sabe (knows). In slang use: Do you understand? (no savvy I do, he etc. does not know or understand); also as noun: understanding, wits, know-how.

In a sentence: “I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy?”

Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean uses this one a few times. It simply means, “do you understand”, but it sounds a little bit cooler.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Episode #035, 03.06.2012: Spotlight: Google Ngram

Today we’ll talk about Google Ngram. You can find it here.

As you might know, Google scanned a lot of books, which you can search and preview with Google books (books.google.com). With Google Ngram, you can see how many times (in percent) a word was used in books of a certain year. With this tool, you can see how widely a word was used in a certain time period. For example, type in the word “war”. In the graph you can see two spikes; they are unsurprisingly at the two world wars. You can also type in “war, peace” and compare the two words. Go ahead and try; type in words that come to your mind. Try “dog, cat” or “pencil, pen” or maybe also words from this podcast. You will find interesting results. For example, the word “Google” was more present in books around 1900 than in 2000!

Send your most amazing insights to: awordaweek@hotmail.de