Word of the Day

[Katya]

Computer science luminary Donald Knuth uses that word for parts of his great series of books on The Art of Computer Programming, which he started in 1968 and has been continuing to do as of 2011 it appears.

Nice. I think the Oxford English Dictionary was originally released in fascicles.

[Katya]

sneckdown - An area of the street where cars don't drive, which is made apparent when the streets are covered with snow. (The etymology is "snow" + "neckdown," where "neckdown" is another name for a curb extension. Sneckdowns are useful in urban planning, because they can be used to make arguments for street areas that should be turned into pedestrian zones.)

[Yarjka]

sneckdown - An area of the street where cars don't drive, which is made apparent when the streets are covered with snow. (The etymology is "snow" + "neckdown," where "neckdown" is another name for a curb extension. Sneckdowns are useful in urban planning, because they can be used to make arguments for street areas that should be turned into pedestrian zones.)

I hate the name (makes me think of 'stiff-necked'), but it's a cool concept.

[Katya]

colliery - a coal mine and the buildings and equipment associated with it

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

[Marduk]

rhizomatic (rhizome) - a thick plant stem that grows underground and has shoots and roots growing from it.

From this article about playing a sick patient for med students to diagnose. She talks about the loss her character has experienced in her life as "a root system of loss [that] stretches radial and rhizomatic under the entire territory of my life." I kind of love it.

[Cindy]

oppugn -- to fight against; to call into question

Source: a legal opinion.

[Katya]

oppugn -- to fight against; to call into question

I know I've heard this word before, but I think this is the first time I've ever seen it written.

[Marduk]

With the somewhat similar meanings and spellings, it makes me wonder what the connection is between "oppugn" and "impugn."

[Cindy]

It looks like they both are based on the Latin root pugnare, meaning "to fight." According to an old book on synonyms I found on Google books, oppugn is considered a more forceful term than impugn:

To oppugn is to exercise hostile reasoning against a person or his statements while impugn is rather to call in question the truth of what he states. So we might perhaps better say "He was publicly oppugned in the senate" and "The truth of his statements was impugned." To oppugn is a term of stronger force than impugn and denotes a determined and total opposition while impugn is applicable to questions of detail and lesser moment: "I have no desire to oppugn the statements you have just made but pardon me if I impugn the accuracy of one observation in particular."

[Katya]

With the somewhat similar meanings and spellings, it makes me wonder what the connection is between "oppugn" and "impugn."

Oh wait, maybe I was thinking of "impugn." (Which I still don't think I've ever seen written.)

It looks like they both are based on the Latin root pugnare, meaning "to fight."

Huh. Like "pugnacious" and "pugilistic"?

[Yarjka]

It looks like they both are based on the Latin root pugnare, meaning "to fight."

Huh. Like "pugnacious" and "pugilistic"?

And pug dogs?

[Digit]

Another interesting etymology tidbit from a Daily Beast article:

The word “genius” derives from a Latin verb meaning to father or beget and is related to our word “genitals.”

[Tally M.]

http://www.wordspy.com/

This was FASCINATING

[mic0]

Tally, are you taking corpus ling? Just curious, because when I took it we had an assignment using that awesome site.

[Tally M.]

Tally, are you taking corpus ling? Just curious, because when I took it we had an assignment using that awesome site.

I actually am. It's where I was linked to the site.

[mic0]

Haha, well cool. Yeah, that is a really neat site.

[Whistler]

it's like a more intellectual urban dictionary

[Tally M.]

it's like a more intellectual urban dictionary

Or as Professor Davies puts it, more BYU appropriate

[Katya]

exurb - a district outside a city, esp. a prosperous area beyond the suburbs

[Katya]

overweening - showing excessive confidence or pride