| | Isocrates said that the right word is a sure sign of good thinking. I'll take that as one further encouragement to investigate the histories of words.  A little bouquet of words I've come across lately (forgive the apparent randomness: they all come from my reading and that's their only connection) -
"Exasperate" comes from "ex" meaning, in this sense, entirely (according to my American Heritage dictionary), and the Latin adjective "asper", meaning rough, harsh, abrasive. To exasperate is to roughen.
"Unanimous" is a combination of "unus" and "animus" meaning "one soul" or "one mind." I looked this up after reading a short story ("The Circular Ruins") by Jorge Luis Borges which spoke in one sentence of the "unanimous night."
The word "distill" is formed from "de" + "stillare" meaning "to drop down." The usage of this word in Shakespeare's fifth sonnet is still obscure to me. Is he talking about distilling fragrance from flowers?
And one that interests me, which I'd like to do some more digging into, is the word "atrocious." My dictionary states that it comes from the Latin "atrox", meaning "dark-looking" and extended to imply "horrible" and "cruel." (So a mention of "atrocious blond jokes" might be considered an obscure sort of pun?  )
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| | Posted 7/26/2007 11:47 PM - 5 views - 0 comments
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