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Chapter 20
THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE
Here are some interesting bits and pieces about our American
language that are not covered elsewhere in this book. In fact
most of these items are not covered elsewhere in any book.
When modern kids say "bad!" their actual meaning is "good!"
Some of us wince at this slang reversal. This is not the first
such reversal in the English language, however. "Awful" used to
mean awe-inspiring, and "artificial" used to mean full of art.
Here's an interesting item in the evolution of our language.
Butterflys used to be called "flutterbys."
In France computer use is called l'informatique, and in
Sweden computers are called dators (because they handle data).
Hemidemisemiquaver is a funny word. It is a musical term
meaning a 64th note.
In the mid-1800's, there was a guy hired by an Irish earl to
collect high rent from tenant farmers. The farmers totally
ignored him. His name was Charles C. Boycott.
Some Vocabulary Going Out Of Style
(This may be the last time you see some of these phrases.)
FIFTH WHEEL, someone not needed.
SHALL, this word is seldom used in ordinary conversation.
BIBCOCK: A faucet.
DUFF: The rotten leaves that cover the ground in the woods.
When is the last time you heard the word "aglet" in
conversation? It is the clear plastic tip on the end of a
shoelace.
Blowouts are less-often seen nowadays. They are the things
you used to see at parties - you put one end in your mouth, and
when you blow into it, the other end unrolls and makes a weird
noise.
A word people don't use anymore is "ariel" when they are
refering to an antenna.
And pianoforte has gone out of style. This is what a piano
used to be called. Pianoforte literally translates to quiet-loud.
Here are some seldom used nautical terms from a
century-year-old book:
Bend: To fasten; as, to bend on a rope.
Bulwarks: The sides of a vessel surrounding and extending above
the deck.
Caboose: A kitchen on deck.
Cat's paw: A light puff of wind.
Painter: A rope used to secure a boat to anything.
Reeve: To pass the end of a rope through a pulley, etc.
Thwarts: A boat's seats.
Trick: A sailor's duration of time in steering.
More Miscellaneous
These words came from the Hindu language: Bungalow, pajamas,
shampoo, jungle, cot.
From Algonquin (American Indian) we get: Skunk, pecan,
chipmunk.
From Arabic: Almanac, mattress.
From Chinese: silk, tea, ketchup, tycoon.
Ernest Hogan, a black musician, wrote a song in 1896 called
"All Coons Look Alike To Me". He used the then-common slang of
"coon" to mean white man. After the song became popular, the
terminology reversed, with "coon" becoming slang for a black man.
The word gobbledygook was coined by a Texas congressman in
1944.
There is one word mispelled in this sentence which is one of
the most often misspelled words in America. Which one is it?
Mispell is misspelled.
The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
Do you know what a Zambony is? It's the machine used in ice
rinks to polish the ice.
When you type the word "typewriter" you do it all from the
row of keys above the home row.
The entire Hawaiian language uses only twelve letters of the
alphabet: a,e,i,o,u,h,k,l,m,n,p and w.
All except 15 percent of international phone calls are
conducted in English.
Here's a new word that is already passe: "Microcomputer." It
means an ordinary desk top computer. It was used a few years ago
because until then, computers were five feet tall and several feet
wide. Now we just say computer, home computer, personal computer
or sometimes pc. The new small ones, called laptops because you
can hold them in your lap, are more capable than a gymnasium full
of equipment made in 1976. Part of this almanac was written on a
laptop weighing 6.4 pounds, batteries and all.
A new high-tech term is "degrade gracefully" which is the
opposite of a computer crash.
A palindrome is a sentence that if read backward says the
same thing. The following may be the stupidest palindrome on
earth: "Straw? No, too stupid a fad, I put soot on warts."
This thing is not a slash: /. It is called a solidus or an
obolus.
California means "hot furnace" in Spanish. Alabama means
"here we rest" in Indian. Connecticut means "the long river" in
Indian. Kentucky means "the dark and bloody ground" in Indian.
Vermont means "green mountain" in French.
A camera was originally called camera obscura.
The word "paper" came from the papyrus plant from which paper
was made. Papyrus used to be a common plant in Egypt, but no
longer grows there.
The word "bible" came from the Greek word "biblion" which
means book.
The word "pen" came from the Latin "penna" which means wing,
or feather.
To the ancient Romans, the left side of the human body was
thought of as evil and the right side was good. The Latin word for
left is "sinister."
The Caesar family has two months named after them. July was
named for Julius Caesar and August for Augustus Caesar.
The average American knows about one-tenth of a million
words.
If you look at a monkey wrench, you think it is obvious where
it got its name, but you are wrong. It was named after its
inventor, Charles Moncke.
And camel's-hair brushes were named after Mr. Camel.
We think of snow - as snow, but to Eskimos, there are twenty
variations, which are all different things, each with their own
name - much as we think pencils and pens are different things.
The technical term for snapping your fingers is "fillip."
A ball of thread was originally called a clue.
The word robot was invented in 1920, in an early science
fiction play.
The French word "verre" which means glass is similar to the
word "vaire" which means fur. It makes more sense that
Cinderella's slippers were made of fur than glass. It is assumed
early translators of the story goofed.
Freelance originally meant mercenary soldier, a person who
was free to use his lance for you, if you had money to pay him.
The letter B evolved from the Egyptian symbol for house.
A radio announcer speaks about 183 words per minute.
If you write a letter to the New York Times, chances are one
in 22 that it will be published.
Cooties are a kind of lice. Kids are right, you really don't
want to catch cooties.
Etymologists are not sure, but the origin of the term "OK"
may be from an American Indian word, "okeh," meaning "it is so."
If you have had a haircut, you can be called an acersecomic.
Hoful is an unusual word meaning cautious.
In a typical office, each worker uses 2.5 pounds of paper
each day.
If you stretched out 1429 words written in longhand, about
the amount necessary to fill a small pocket notebook, the line
would be one mile long. This almanac contains 40 miles of
writing.
A professional typist's fingers move 12 miles in one workday.
You can speed up your writing considerably with the following
hints:
* Instead of writing out the ending "ing," just write "." It
is much faster to write "end." than "ending," for instance.
* Any long word that you cannot mistake for another you can
shorten by writ. the first few letters, then using a "-" to
represent the rest. For exam-, "computer" becomes "co-."
* You wont hav much trubl read. senten- witho- punctuat-
such as apostrophes, but u cant safly omit comas or periods.
* You can leave out double "leters" in most cases and still
have a word that you can understand.
* Consider omit. silent letrs.
* Many smal words such as and, at, a, is, cn b left entir-
out.
* U mst b care- avoid tak. so many shortcts u cant mak sens
out of what u wrot latr.
Speed writ. taks longr to red but fastr to writ. Usually, yu
r mor in hury when wr-. than when read.