Etymology

The shades of green being displayed in department stores this season are lovely, but I admit they’ve inspired more digging in my dictionary than in my pocketbook. 

green (noun)
1 : a color whose hue is somewhat less yellow than that of growing fresh grass or of the emerald …

Featured Topic: Word Stories

Will the new usage of slash stick around and become acceptable? Why is it a spelling bee? And what’s the story of the literary insult syncophant?

In the Midwest, the dandelions have already gone to seed, their fluff floating across the areas where a week earlier the flowers stood tall and bright and yellow, like lions with perfectly arranged manes. Dandy lions. Are there traces of lion or dandy in the dandelion’s name? Yes and no.

muse, verb: “to reflect, to be absorbed in thought” (mid-14th century); “to ponder, dream, wonder; loiter, waste time” (12th-century Old French)

Writing usually starts with a little musing. Pursuing that musing too far, however, can turn the writer from reflecting to wasting time. That calls to mind a different word. 

Featured Topic: Words, Words, Words

We aim to keep your vocabulary strong, copyeditors. Today, three timely word lessons.

Cinco de Mayo (the fifth of May) is not Mexico’s independence day, which is celebrated in September, but it is a celebration of freedom. It is a Mexican and Mexican-American celebration honoring the Mexican victory over the French at Puebla in 1862. Today, it has widened into a celebration of Mexican culture. Cinco de Mayo celebrations often include family and food, music and dancing, and the colors of the Mexican flag (green, white, and red). 

May 1 is May Day, an ancient European and North American celebration of, well, quite a lot of things, including flowers, warm weather, and, in some countries, workers and the labor movement. Infoplease has a nice summary of the holidays that are observed on May 1, and Wordnik has an interesting read on May Day–related words.

May Day is different from mayday.

Perhaps today’s abdication of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, February’s unexpected resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, or the many undergraduate hours spent reading European history have skewed my understanding of the word abdication. I was surprised to learn recently that it was not originally associated with royalty or political office.

But what care I for words? Yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.

As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 5

Featured Topic: Challenging Words

In today’s News Roundup, we look at some (at best) mediocre corporate writing, Internet words such as hashtag and Copertino, and the problem of nonplussed.