96 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
  2. Jan 2024
    1. 日本戰敗之後,昭和21年(1946年)6月,內閣再次提出「支那ノ呼称ヲ避ケルコトニ関スル件」議案(約略中譯:關於避免「支那」一稱呼的議案)。6月6日,當時的外務省事務次官岡崎勝男把此議決議案寄到日本各新聞社,由日本的新聞開始不使用「支那」一字來稱呼中國。 自此日本人也避免使用「支那」一字,一來是日常新聞已接觸不到此名稱,二來是日本是一個講究「禮」的國家(就算是表面上有禮都好)。既然對方反感,而且名從主人,中國喜歡被稱為「中國」的話,就不會用「支那」、既尊重人也免卻很多被投訴歧視的麻煩。 當然如果你問我,在靖國神社外聽見那些右翼分子不停大喊「支那」有什麼感覺,我是反感的。正如上面說過,任憑「支那」的語源是如何清白,歷史卻賦予了這個名目不能磨滅的貶義、侮蔑的語感了。 上面所說的全屬日文、中文、漢字下的語感發展,我不否認「支那」在中日文均有貶義。可是新晉議員如果選擇以英文宣誓,有心人以日文和中文的尺度去抽秤就顯然是用錯尺。當然我是議員的話,會大方承認說:「對,我讀成Chi-na,有什麼問題?在英文這個字這個發音這個拼法,有問題嗎?」而不是左閃右避說這是鴨脷洲口音。 再糾纏於「支那」一詞也是浪費時間,玻璃心的終歸玻璃心、欲加之罪何患無辭。不如不要浪費時間、不要再像小學生捉字蝨,爽爽快快正正經經宣誓,正式成為議員之後,再光明正大、激進地抗爭吧。 補充:小女子不才,文章刊登後經大學時的恩師提點,說了一個我忽略了的觀點。中國語言學家鄭張尚芳先生(是男的!不要誤會!)認為China是「晉」的音轉而非「秦」。理據是「晉」的上古音 /*tsin/ 是清音(同Chin),而「秦」/*dzin/ 是濁音;又晉國早於秦國崛起。秦在上古漢語中為濁音,近代才轉變為清音。可是以「秦」為語源的說法已十分普及,而我在搜集資料時只看日文資料,卻忽視了中國語言學的觀點,所以有此遺漏,實在抱歉。
  3. Dec 2023
      • for: polycrisis, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Cascade Institute Royal Roads University - Changemakers Speakers Series, etymology - polylcrisis

      • Talk: Hope in the Polycrisis

      • Speaker: Thomas Homer-Dixon
      • Host: Royal Roads University - Changemakers Speakers Series
      • Date: 2023

      • SUMMARY

        • Thomas Homer-Dixon is a leading complex systems scientist and director of the Cascade Institute, which he co-founded at Royal Roads University in Victoria, B.C., Canada, to study the polycrisis and identify strategic high leverage interventions that could rapidly shift humanity's trajectory in the next few critical years.
        • The talk, entitled "Hope in the polycriisis" chronicles Homer-Dixon's multi-decade journey to understand the convergence of crisis happening in the world today.
        • In a real sense, the evolution of his thinking on these complex problems are reflected in the series of books he has written over the years, culminating in the 2023 book "Commanding Hope", based on a theory of hope:

          • Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (Princeton, 1999). - a book showing how other factors combine with environmental stress to produce violence.
          • “The Ingenuity Gap: Can Poor Countries Adapt to Resource Scarcity?,” which appeared in Population and Development Review in 1995
          • “Resource Scarcity and Innovation: Can Poor Countries Attain Endogenous Growth?" ?” coauthored with Edward Barbier, which appeared in Ambio (1999)
          • The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (2006), examined the threat to global stability of simultaneous and interacting demographic, environmental, economic, and political stresses. This led to examining energy as a major factor in our modern society.
          • "Commanding Hope: The Power we have to Renew a World in Peril"
        • Homer-Dixon also talks about practical solutions, His team at Casacade Institute is researching a promising technology called ultra-deep geothermal, which could provide unlimted energy at energy densities comprable to fossil fuels.

        • He finishes his talk with his theory of Hope and how a "Robust" hope can be the key to a successful rapid transition.
      • etymology - polycrisis

        • https://polycrisis.org/lessons/where-did-the-term-polycrisis-come-from/
        • Complexity theorists Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern first used the term polycrisis in their 1999 book, Homeland Earth, to argue that the world faces
          • “no single vital problem, but many vital problems, and it is this complex intersolidarity of problems, antagonisms, crises, uncontrolled processes, and the general crisis of the planet that constitutes the number one vital problem" (p. 74).
        • South African sociologist and sustainable transitions theorist Mark Swilling then adopted the term to capture
          • “a nested set of globally interactive socio-economic, ecological and cultural-institutional crises that defy reduction to a single cause” (2013, p. 98).
        • Climate change, rising inequality, and the threat of financial crises interact in complex ways that multiply their overall impact (Swilling 2013, 2019).
  4. Nov 2023
    1. The flat earth myth and the myth of a Catholic Church fighting against real knowledge gets taken up by another scientist. William Whewell. And this is, again, a very influential figure. This guy even invented the word scientist. And with his history of the inductive sciences, he actually has proof of Christian backwardness. He introduces two Christian authors, and they become a poster childs 00:08:04 for Christian bigotry. Really evil figures. Lactantius and Cosmas Indicopleustes.
      • for: etymology - scientist, William Whewell, myth - flat earth - William Whewel, myth - flat earth - Christian villains - Lactantius - Cosmas Indicopleustes
  5. Oct 2023
    1. The word coffee entered the English language in 1582 via the Dutch koffie, borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish kahve (قهوه), borrowed in turn from the Arabic qahwah (قَهْوَة).[2

      "coffee" stems it root from "koffie" (and from kahve, qahwah)

  6. Sep 2023
  7. Aug 2023
    1. animalhomificans

      This term comes from Ramon Llull's definition of a man in the Ars Brevis (1303)-the humanifying animal. "Homificans is produced through the realization of the three main activities of the human soul, which for Llull are knowing, remembering, and loving, which correspond to the three superior faculties of the soul: understanding, memory, and will." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/llull/). An interesting thought exercise that sums up other semi-nebulous terms like "actualized" and "sapient".

    1. Auto industry actively demonized pedestrians making fun of pedestrian victims of auto accidents and coining the term jaywalker from the term J used in the late 1800s to mean worthless 00:10:26 fourth rate a hick or a dope and walking in the suburbs is actively discouraged through City planning
      • for: history - suburbs, history - car culture
      • etymology
        • jaywalking
          • invented by the auto industry to discourage waling in the suburbs. A "Jay" was a derogatory term in the 1800s that meant "worthless"
  8. Jul 2023
  9. bafybeihzua2lldmlutkxlie7jfppxheow6my62x2qmywif2wukoswo5hqi.ipfs.w3s.link bafybeihzua2lldmlutkxlie7jfppxheow6my62x2qmywif2wukoswo5hqi.ipfs.w3s.link
    1. we inhabit a world that isboth material and nonmaterial.
      • claim
        • we inhabit a world that is both material and nonmaterial
      • comment
        • this is where their terminology physiosphere and symbolosphere originates from
  10. Jun 2023
    1. f more intelligence comes to our world and has our best interest in mind that's the best possible scenario you could ever imagine and it's a likely 00:19:39 scenario okay we can affect that scenario the problem of course is if it doesn't and and and then you know the scenarios become quite scary if you think about it so 00:19:50 scary smart
      • etymology
        • of book title
          • scary smart
  11. Apr 2023
  12. Jan 2023
    1. the development of media technologies and their global distribution have long since made usfamiliar with the idea that we ourselves are media.

      This claim relates to later statements about humans being in the middle (like medium thinking as media being both an infrastructure of how we act and are) of the pandemic mediation in that humans are part of the process of transformation and intersection between themselves and other nonhuman powers. I think intersection in this instance is more of a cooperative and cohesive existence with nonhuman and human entities that naturally intersect.

    2. Mediation

      Mediation stemming from *mediationem * or "middle" and "a division in the middle."

    1. cosmos

      n. the universe seen as a well-ordered whole

      Originating from Greek kosmos = "order of world"

    2. –™2–™“ 9u

      10/10 pun to be sure. Star-struck is colloquially used now to refer to mostly teenage girls paired with boy bands. However, a dated version refers to being under a malevolent influence of the stars or horoscopes. This term is slightly more interesting when using the malevolent version. The "striking" features of the term indicate a violent nature that is uncontrollable.

    1. alien

      Alien- Derives from the Latin word Allienus, meaning "belonging to another." Allienus deriving from Alius, meaning "other."

      https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

    2. radical empathy

      Coined by Terri Givens, she emphasized how empathy needed to be expanded, and argued that you must not only care to understand racism but also understand the origins of racial contextes and biases.

    3. reverence

      latin for "stand in awe", to revere, to admire or think highly of, often religiously

  13. Nov 2022
    1. Pedagogy is closely related to didactics but there are some differences. Usually, didactics is seen as the more limited term that refers mainly to the teacher's role and activities, i.e how their behavior is most beneficial to the process of education. This is one central aspect of pedagogy besides other aspects that consider the learner's perspective as well. In this wider sense, pedagogy focuses on "any conscious activity by one person designed to enhance learning in another".[7]
  14. Sep 2022
    1. &Husks

      OED

      husk, n.1

      (hʌsk)

      [Late ME. huske, of uncertain origin.    A common word since c 1400, of which no earlier trace has been found. Conjectures have been offered of its relationship to Ger. hülse, Du. hulze, huls, which (notwithstanding the identity of sense) appear to be historically and phonetically untenable, and of its ultimate derivation from hús ‘house’, which is perhaps possible: cf. for the form, chink, dalk, halk, holk, polk, stalk (and see Kluge, Stammbildung. §61); for the sense, LG. hûske = Ger. häuschen, ‘little house’, in E. Fris. also ‘core (of an apple)’, ‘case’ (e.g. spectacle-case), ‘paper bag’; also MDu. huuskijn, huusken, Du. huisken, ‘little house’, core (of an apple); Ger. gehäuse, ‘case, capsule’, etc. The connexion of Norwegian husk ‘piece of leather used to enlarge a shoe-last’, is quite uncertain.]

      1. a.1.a The dry outer integument of certain fruits and seeds; esp. the hard fibrous sheath of grain, nuts, etc.; a glume or rind; spec. in U.S., the outer covering of an ear of maize or Indian corn.

      1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. cliv. (1495), Codde and an huske hyght Siliqua.    c 1400 Mandeville xxi. (1839) 188 As the Note of the Haselle hathe an Husk with outen.    Ibid. (Roxb.) 94 Þe macez er þe huskes of þe nutemuge.    c 1440 Promp. Parv. 254/2 Huske of frute, or oþer lyke, corticillus.    1474 Caxton Chesse 81 The huske whiche is about the grayn.    1548 Udall Erasm. Par. Luke xv. (R.), To fil his bealie‥with the verai huskes and coddes, wherwith the hogges were fedde.    1557 N. T. (Genev.) Luke xv. 16 The huskes [Wycl., Tind., Coverd. coddis, coddes] that the swyne ate.    1631 Widdowes Nat. Philos. (ed. 2) 36 The Chesnut‥is covered with a sharpe huske, and within it hath a red huske.    1665 Hooke Microgr. 156 Carret seeds are like a cleft of a Coco-Nut Husk.    1704 J. Harris Lex. Techn. s.v. Verdegrease, The Husks of pressed Grapes.    1830 M. Donovan Dom. Econ. I. 87 The malt is parched until it has acquired a slight tinge of yellowness on the husk.    1855 Longfellow Hiaw. xiii. 29 The women who in Autumn Stripped the yellow husks of harvest.

      †b.1.b The calyx or involucre of a flower. Obs.

      1450–1530 Myrr. our Ladye 210 Whyche floure yf he se yt not yet sprynge oute of the huske.    1727–41 Chambers Cycl., Husks, among botanists, the part which a flower grows out of‥Of these there are several kinds, as bulbous or round husks, bottle husks, middle husks, foot husks, hose husks.

      c.1.c Husks collectively, husky matter.

      1883 C. J. Wills Mod. Persia 233 By about the twenty-fourth day the wine was ready for clearing of the husk.    Ibid. 234 The sweet wine had already no husk in it.

      2.2 Applied to animal coverings or shells: †a.2.a The coriaceous wing-case of an insect; an elytron. Obs. b.2.b The shell or case of a chrysalis; a cocoon. ? arch. c.2.c In Georgia, U.S., an oyster shell.

      1552 Huloet, Byttel flye with a blacke huske.    1616 Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 488 Euerie one [silkworm] shutting vp himselfe in his scale or huske, which they make and build vp in two daies.    1653 Walton Angler xii. 226 A good bait is the young brood of Wasps or Bees, baked or hardned in their husks.    1665 Hooke Microgr. 187 Several of them flew away in Gnats, leaving their husks behind them in the water floating under the surface.    Ibid. 215 They seem cover'd, upon the upper side of them, with a small husk, not unlike the scale, or shell of a Wood-louse.    1802 Paley Nat. Theol. xix. (1830) 228 This [chrysalis] also in its turn dies; its dead and brittle husk falls to pieces, and makes way for the appearance of the fly or moth.    1842 Tennyson Two Voices ii, I saw the dragon-fly Come from the wells where he did lie. An inner impulse rent the veil Of his old husk.

      3.3 techn. Applied to a frame of various kinds: see quots.

      1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. 100/2 Husk is a square Frame of Moulding‥set over the Mantle Tree of a Chimney between two Pillasters.    1873 Knight Dict. Mech., Husk, the supporting frame of a run of millstones.

      4.4 transf. and fig. a.4.a The outside or external part of anything; mostly in depreciatory sense, the mere rough or worthless exterior, as contrasted with the substantial inner part or essence.

      1547–64 Bauldwin Mor. Philos. (Palfr.) 98 That‥the bitternesse & hardnesse of his [Death's] rough huske should hinder vs from the sweet taste of such a comfortable kirnell.    1644 Hunton Vind. Treat. Monarchy iii. 10 A few huskes of reason.    1652 L. S. People's Liberty xvi. 39 Their acquiescing in God's choice should be the pith and kernel of the precept, and the setting up of a King onely the husk and shell of it.    1841–4 Emerson Ess., Friendship Wks. (Bohn) I. 85 Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk, in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening.    1861–8 Lowell Emerson Pr. Wks. 1890 I. 355 He‥gave us ravishing glimpses of an ideal under the dry husk of our New England.    1887 W. H. Stone Harveian Oration 21 The mere reproduction of the dry husks of thought termed words.

      b.4.b Applied to the human body.

      a 1677 Barrow Serm. Wks. 1716 I. 62 May not our soul‥challenge a good share of our time‥or shall this mortal husk engross it all?    1818 M. G. Lewis Jrnl. W. Ind. (1834) 102 It is a matter of perfect indifference to me what becomes of this little ugly husk of mine, when once I shall have ‘shuffled off this mortal coil’.

      †c.4.c Applied to a person. Obs.

      1601 ? Marston Pasquil & Kath. i. 76 in Simpson Sch. Shaks. (1878) II. 138 You keepe too great a house‥Yon same drie throated huskes Will sucke you vp.    Ibid. iv. 39    Ibid. 183 Bra. Iu. How like you the new Poet Mellidus? Bra. Sig. A slight bubling spirit, a Corke, a Huske.

      d.4.d A figure or ornament somewhat resembling a husk.

      1934 Burlington Mag. Oct. p. xv/2 The tablet is carved with festoons, and the frieze and jambs inlaid with festoons and pendants of husks and coloured marble.    1955 R. Fastnedge Eng. Furnit. Styles 285 Husk, with ‘honeysuckle’ ‘wheat-ear’ a favourite ornament on furniture of the Adam and Hepplewhite periods.    1971 Country Life 3 June 1356/3 The ground paint was decorated with motifs such as festoons of drapery and husks, interlacing hearts, urn patterns, and so on.

      5.5 attrib. and Comb. (from 1), as husk-porridge; husk-like adj.; ‘in the husk’, as husk corn, husk nut; (from 4 d) husk design, husk festoon, husk ornament, husk pattern; husk-hackler, ‘a machine for tearing corn-husks into shreds for stuffing for mattresses, pillows, cushions, etc.’ (Knight Dict. Mech. 1875).

      1687 S. Sewall Diary 3 Oct. (1878) I. 191 *Husk Corn.

      1904 P. Macquoid Hist. Eng. Furnit. vii. 191 The sides are inlaid with the‥ *husk design so popular at this time.    1973 Country Life 31 May 1567 Chestnut wood window seats‥the‥legs‥faced by well carved husk design.

      1770 J. Wedgwood Let. 20 Aug. (1965) 94 First, his Majesty approved of the *husk festoons in particular, and I think more so than the desert pattern.

      1796 Withering Brit. Plants (ed. 3) II. 60 Flowers with valves like grasses, and *husk-like calyxes.

      1888 Pall Mall G. 24 Jan. 5/2 The *husk nuts piled on the top.

      1934 Burlington Mag. Oct. 165/1 The back shows the honeysuckle, *husk or catkin ornament.    1960 H. Hayward Antique Coll. 146/2 Husk ornament, an ornamental motif resembling the husk of a wheat ear used continually by architects and craftsmen during the Adam period.

      1876 C. Schreiber Jrnl. 14 Nov. (1911) I. 485 A good set of Wedgewood, *husk pattern.

      1851 Mrs. Browning Casa Guidi Wind. i. 1003 To see the people swallow hot *Husk-porridge which his chartered churchmen stir.

  15. earlybritishlit.pressbooks.com earlybritishlit.pressbooks.com
    1. Nesses

      OE næs "point of land running into the sea"; obsolete except in place names

  16. Aug 2022
  17. earlybritishlit.pressbooks.com earlybritishlit.pressbooks.com
    1. moor-fens

      OE mor "morass, swamp" (i.e. a marsh, a tract of soft wet land) and fenn "mud, mire, dirt; fen, marsh, moor,"

    2. Clear song of the singer

      OE scopes "poet, minstrel, professional reciter of poetry"

    3. bairn

      from OE "child, son, descendant"

  18. Jan 2022
  19. Nov 2021
    1. They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and I can only imagine the conversation between Eve and Skywoman: “Sister, you got the short end of the stick . . .”

      It's a bit funny and ironic to think that the communal/peaceful Skywoman would use such a Western-centric phrase like "short end of the stick", which as I understand it has an economic underpinning of a receipt by which the debtor and the lender used marked sticks that were broken apart with one somewhat shorter than the other. When put back together the marks on the stick matched each other, but the debtor got the shorter end. (Reference: Behavioral Economics When Psychology and Economics Collide by Scott A. Huettel; what was his source?)

      Compare with etymologies expanded upon here:

      The Long Story of The Short End of the Stick by Charles Clay Doyle. American Speech, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Spring, 1994), pp. 96-101 (6 pages), Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/455954

      Which doesn't include the economic reference at all.

    1. https://www.jstor.org/stable/455954

      Charles Clay Doyle (1994). The Long Story of The Short End of the Stick. American Speech, 69(1), 96–101. doi:10.2307/455954

    2. Lexicographers often show more credulity in positing origins of phrases than they ever would in reporting the etymologies of individual words.
    3. er the years, writers (and speakers) have experimented with numer- ous images in expressions with the same general structure and probable meaning as worse end of the staff and short end of the stick

      Not mentioned here is the idea of the "fuzzy end of the lollipop" as heard (twice?) by the character Sugar Kane Kowalczyk played by Marylin Monroe in Some Like it Hot (United Artists, 1959).

      It's the story of my life: I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop."

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chJbqwCTURI

      The urban dictionary has an unsourced reference for Abraham Lincoln as the source, but I'm loathe to believe it without more direct sourcing.

  20. Sep 2021
    1. nabled Tristram to date his conception very exactly. It also provoked The Clockmaker's Outcry against the Author: The directions I had for making several clocks for the country are counter- manded; because no modest lady now dares to mention a word about winding- up a clock, without exposing herself to the sly leers and jokes of the family ... Nay, the common expression of street-walkers is, "Sir, will you have your clock wound up

      It also provoked The Clockmaker's Outcry against the author:

      [...] Nay, the common expression of street-walkers is, "Sir, will you have your clock wound up?"

      I've actually heard the euphemism clock in a sexual setting in my youth, but never heard the origin. This is the likely source. It's been 20 years or more since I've heard this in common speech though.

  21. Aug 2021
  22. May 2021
    1. gilding

      Any chance he's chosen this word--from among the several dozen or so at his disposal--for its homophonic play with "gelding"? Any chance at all? Betcha . . .

  23. Mar 2021
    1. Originally he had used the terms usage scenarios and usage case – the latter a direct translation of his Swedish term användningsfall – but found that neither of these terms sounded natural in English, and eventually he settled on use case.
    1. The word authority in authority control derives from the idea that the names of people, places, things, and concepts are authorized, i.e., they are established in one particular form.
    1. The term taxon was first used in 1926 by Adolf Meyer-Abich for animal groups, as a backformation from the word Taxonomy
  24. Feb 2021
    1. Good intentions, but I doubt there's any relation of the origin of the terms blacklist/whitelist to race. There are many idioms and phrases in the English language that make use of colours without any racial backstories. I haven't met any black person (myself included) who was ever offended by the use of "blacklist".
  25. Oct 2020
  26. Jun 2020
  27. Feb 2019
    1. duce

      It's really cool to see "reduce" used this way. I've never seen it like this in English, but it makes perfect sense.

      "duce" is from "ducere" which means "to lead." "reduce" is "to lead again."

      Actually, now that I ponder it, I'm having trouble seeing the metaphor we employ when we use it today.

      Edit: Holy smokes ok so the metaphor is "leading back to a more primordial state." Fascinating.

    1. &

      story time.

      "&" is a contraction of sorts of "et," the Latin word meaning "and." "&" used to be at the end of the alphabet, and was pronounced "and." When people would say the alphabet, they'd say "y, z, and per se 'and'." Over time, "and per se and" was corrupted to "ampersand."

    2. ecording

      from re- meaning "again" and cor, "heart." The word was originally active ("I call it back to my heart"), but over time took a passive form ("It is recalled back to my heart") in the Latin. Funny that it has retaken an active sense in English.

      But of note for me is the fact that the word, albeit metaphorical, has an origin in the life of the body, not the mind.

  28. Jan 2019
  29. Sep 2018
  30. May 2017
  31. Apr 2017
    1. salient

      Etymology of "Salient"

      In the past, "salient" meant "to leap," an action. I find this interesting, because according to Vatz, a rhetor must actively create salience. A leap also implies more effort or action than, say, walking. So again, to make something salient requires active, extra effort on behalf of the rhetor.

    1. kairos

      The definition of kairos is "a propitious moment for decision or action," but I was wondering if the etymology would yield anything interesting. Nope.

      Etymology: "1930s: Greek, literally ‘opportunity.’"

    1. terremotes

      etymology: borrowed from Latin terraemotus (earthquake)

      In this scenario, meaning "rocks/earth".

    2. identity.

      c. 1600, "sameness, oneness, state of being the same," from Middle French identité (14c.), from Medieval Latin identitatem (nominative identitas) "sameness," ultimately from Latin idem (neuter) "the same" (see idem). [For discussion of Latin formation, see entry in OED.] Earlier form of the word in English was idemptitie (1560s), from Medieval Latin idemptitas. Term identity crisis first recorded 1954. Identity theft attested from 1995.

    1. signification"

      Etymology of signification: early 14c., "symbolization, representation," from Old French significacion and directly from Latin significationem (nominative significatio) "a signifying, indication, expression, sign, token, meaning, emphasis," noun of action from past participle stem of significare "make known, indicate" (see signify). From late 14c. as "meaning" (of a word, etc.).

      I thought it would be interesting to look at the etymology of "signification" (as it is a main topic of this essay) because Gates has been discussing the diverging meanings of the word in different rhetorics. It is unsurprising that the etymology defined here comes from the "white rhetoric" tradition, as described by Gates. I suppose upon further search and inquiry I could possibly find the meaning of "signification" as defined within African American rhetoric, but it would require a lot of extra effort on my part. This lack of available definition demonstrates the "glossing over" of the African American culture in the United States and the general lack of knowledge and understanding on behalf of the majority of white Americans, and is a reminder of the ignorance that is very much alive in the US.

      This reading has encouraged me to think a lot more on divergent cultural rhetorics and how awareness and acknowledgement of the validity of different rhetorics is crucial to any progress that is to be made in race relations in the US.

  32. Mar 2017
    1. lexicon

      Today's definition: a book of words, dictionary

    2. heuristic,

      The definition of heuristic is roughly "allowing someone to learn something for themselves" but I was interested in the etymology.

      Apparently, it's "early 19th century: formed irregularly from Greek heuriskein ‘find.’" I wonder if this is where we get the phrase "to find out."

    1. change

      early 13c., "to substitute one for another; to make (something) other than what it was" (transitive); from late 13c. as "to become different" (intransitive), from Old French changier "to change, alter; exchange, switch," from Late Latin cambiare "to barter, exchange," from Latin cambire "to exchange, barter," of Celtic origin, from PIE root *kemb- "to bend, crook" (with a sense evolution perhaps from "to turn" to "to change," to "to barter"); cognate with Old Irish camm "crooked, curved;" Middle Irish cimb "tribute," cimbid "prisoner;" see cant (n.2). Meaning "to take off clothes and put on other ones" is from late 15c. Related: Changed; changing. To change (one's) mind is from 1610s.

    1. histories

      Etymology of history (n): late 14c., "relation of incidents" (true or false), from Old French estoire, estorie "story; chronicle, history" (12c., Modern French histoire), from Latin historia "narrative of past events, account, tale, story," from Greek historia "a learning or knowing by inquiry; an account of one's inquiries, history, record, narrative," from historein "inquire," from histor "wise man, judge," from PIE wid-tor-, from root weid- "to know," literally "to see" (see vision).

      Related to Greek idein "to see," and to eidenai "to know." In Middle English, not differentiated from story (n.1); sense of "narrative record of past events" probably first attested late 15c. Meaning "the recorded events of the past" is from late 15c. As a branch of knowledge, from late 15c.

    2. narrative

      Etymology of narrative (adj): mid-15c., from Middle French narratif, from Late Latin narrativus "suited to narration," from Latin narrat-, stem of narrare

      Etymology of narrative (n): "a tale, story," 1560s, from Middle French narrative and from narrative (adj.).

      Etymology of Narration (n): early 15c., from Old French narracion "account, statement, a relating, recounting, narrating, narrative tale," and directly from Latin narrationem (nominative narratio) "a relating, narrative," noun of action from past participle stem of narrare "to tell, relate, recount, explain," literally "to make acquainted with," from gnarus "knowing," from PIE suffixed zero-grade gne-ro-, from root gno- "to know

    1. dialectic
    2. trivium

      Definition: "grammar, rhetoric, and logic," the first three of the seven liberal arts in the Middle Ages, considered initiatory and foundational to the other four: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.

      Etymology: From Latin "trivium," tri (three) + via (road); a place where three roads meet.

      Wikipedia has it broken down as "grammar, logic, and rhetoric" = "input, process, and output." This is pretty consistent with Enlightenment thinking that logic is the process and rhetoric is the presentation. I'm interested in how this gets appropriated to a trivium of "syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics."

    1. unperturbed

      early 15c., from un- (1) "not" + past participle of perturb (v.)

      perturb

      late 14c., from Old French perturber "disturb, confuse" (14c.) and directly from Latin perturbare "to confuse, disorder, disturb," especially of states of the mind, from per "through" (see per) + turbare "disturb, confuse," from turba "turmoil, crowd" (see turbid). Related: Perturbed; perturbing.

  33. Feb 2017
    1. grist for his mill,

      Ah, yes, "grist for his mill," that phrase we all know!

      I was really thrown by this phrase, so I thought others might find this helpful:

      If you say that something is grist to the mill, you mean that it is useful for a particular purpose or helps support someone's point of view.

      def. anything that can be turned to profit or advantage

      Etymology notes: Grist is the corn that is brought to a mill to be ground into flour. In the days when farmers took 'grist to the mill' the phrase would have been used literally to denote produce that was a source of profit.

    1. datum

      def.

      ˈdādəm,ˈdadəm/ noun 1. a piece of information. 2. a fixed starting point of a scale or operation.

      I thought the etymology was interesting, too: From the Latin dare (to give). The Latin datum (something given), brings us to the mid 18th century usage of datum (a given).

    1. concepts

      etymology of concept: 1550s, from Medieval Latin conceptum "draft, abstract," in classical Latin "(a thing) conceived," from concep-, past participle stem of concipere "to take in" (see conceive). In some 16c. cases a refashioning of conceit

    2. gnat

      Old English gnæt "gnat, midge, small flying insect," earlier gneat, from Proto-Germanic *gnattaz (source also of Low German gnatte, German Gnitze); perhaps literally "biting insect" and related to gnaw.

      The gnatte is a litil fflye, and hatte culex he soukeþ blood and haþ in his mouþ a pipe, as hit were a pricke. And is a-countid a-mong volatiles and greueþ slepinge men wiþ noyse & wiþ bytinge and wakeþ hem of here reste. [John of Trevisa, translation of Bartholomew de Glanville's "De proprietatibus rerum," 1398]

      Gnat-catcher, insectivorous bird of the U.S. woodlands, is from 1823.

    3. hitherto

      From Middle English hiderto, corresponding to hither +‎ to.

      hither

      Old English hider, from Proto-Germanic hideran (source also of Old Norse heðra "here," Gothic hidre "hither"), from Germanic demonstrative base hi- (compare he, here). Spelling change from -d- to -th- is the same evolution seen in father, etc. Relation to here is the same as that of thither to there.

    4. metaphors

      Nietzsche seems to have some degree of curiosity concerning this term.

      The etymology of "metaphor": late 15th century, from Middle French metaphore (Old French metafore, 13th century), and directly from Latin metaphora, from Greek metaphora "a transfer," especially of the sense of one word to a different word, literally "a carrying over," from metapherein "transfer, carry over; change, alter; to use a word in a strange sense," from meta "over, across" + pherein "to carry, bear"

      The role of the term "transfer" in the evolution of this word is curious, as it suggests a certain level of action implicit in metaphor... metaphor as an activity.

    1. desideratum

      Etymology: desiderare (Latin) --> desideratum (Latin) mid 17th century: from Latin, ‘something desired,’ neuter past participle of desiderare (see desiderate)

      Definition: something that is needed or wanted.

    2. Heiglw

      Um, what?! I had no idea, until this very moment, that heigh-ho was an actual word and not a nonsense-sound for the Seven Dwarves to sing.

      Def. used typically to express boredom, weariness, or sadness or sometimes as a cry of encouragement

      Etymology: The phrase "Heigh-Ho" was first recorded in 1553 and is defined as an expression of "yawning, sighing, languor, weariness, disappointment". Eventually, it blended meanings with the similarly spelled "hey-ho".

    1. perspicuity

      Etymology: late 15c., of things; 1540s, of expressions, from Latin perspicuitas "transparency, clearness," from perspicuus, from perspicere "look through, look closely at"

      I looked this up because there was an embarrassingly long moment in which I understood "(or economy)" as a synonymous suggestion, taking the phrase "perspicuity (or economy)" to mean something like "finance and economic concerns," which made no sense in context. In retrospect, I was clearly thinking of the word "pecuniary," but I thought I'd keep the etymology available in case anyone else had a similar moment of confusion. Concision. They just wanted concision.

    1. "Belles Lettres,

      etymology: 18th c. French; "fine letters" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/petitio%20principii

    2. Rhetoric

      The etymology of "rhetoric" that Whateley is referencing: early 14th century, from Old French rethorique, from Latin rhetorice, from Greek rhetorike techne "art of an orator," from rhetor (genitive rhetoros) "speaker, orator, teacher of rhetoric," related to rhesis "speech," rhema "word, phrase, verb," meaning literally: that which is spoken.

    3. a.scertai1111

      early 15c., "to inform, to give assurance," from Anglo-French acerteiner, Old French acertener "to assure, certify" (13c.), from a "to" (see ad-) + certain "sure, assured" (see certain). Modern meaning of "find out for sure by experiment or investigation" is first attested 1794. Related: Ascertained; ascertaining.

    4. etymology

      late Middle English: from Old French ethimologie, via Latin from Greek etumologia, from etumologos ‘student of etymology,’ from etumon, neuter singular of etumos ‘true.’

    1. Potter's Field

      def. ˈpädərz ˌfēld/ noun historical "a burial place for paupers and strangers."

      I then thought that "Potter's Field" might be a corruption of "pauper's field," but it turns out the etymology is "from the mention in Matthew 27:7 of the purchase of a potter's field for use as a graveyard," according to Merriam-Webster.

  34. Jan 2017
    1. symbol

      Etymology: Greek σύμβολον mark, token, ticket, ‘tessera’, < σύν sym- prefix + root of βολή , βόλος a throw (compare συμβάλλειν to put together, < σύν sym- prefix + βάλλειν to throw)

      See the excellent documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Trailer here. There is a lovely discussion of Paleolithic hunting techniques, which collect around the throwing of spears. The film thus brings together both the projections of the spears and the projections upon the cave walls. And just as hunting is not a representative task but rather a performative task design to produce an effect, so too are the cave paintings.

  35. Jun 2016
    1. What Is The Primordial Reference For The Phrase 'Publish Or Perish'?

      Garfield, Eugene. 1996 “What Is The Primordial Reference For The Phrase ‘Publish Or Perish’?” The Scientist 10:12. 11.

    1. Did you know“Publish or perish” has been worrying researchers for 60 years Publish. Or. Perish. These three little words describe the constant pressure on academics to publish their research and make their name. But this is not a new phenomenon; these three words have been keeping researchers awake for over 60 years. The phrase was coined in 1950 by Kimball C. Atwood III, a geneticist at Columbia University (1). Although never written down, it struck a chord with researchers, and, so legend has it, it was just a month before the phrase found its way back to Atwood, in an address given by a visiting lecturer. Despite the long history of “Publish or Perish”, it is likely to ring around the halls of the world’s research institutes as long as competition among researchers for limited funds and positions continues to intensify. Reference (1) Sojka, R.E. and Mayland, H.F. (1991) Driving Science With One Eye On the Peer Review Mirror

      Publish or perish origins

  36. Apr 2014
  37. Nov 2013
  38. Oct 2013
    1. Some have not hesitated to apply to etymology for the origin of every name or word;

      danger of etymology, it can be over done and lead to no deeper insight. should be used with care

    2. Etymology,

      The history of words and the way they change is significant and effects our understanding

    3. Etymology, which inquires into the origin of words,