A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1171

A.Word.A.Day

Home

AWADmail Issue 1171

A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day and Other Tidbits about Words and Language

Sponsor’s Message: “Way better than Wordle.” One Up! is the wickedest word game in the (real) world. “Brilliant. Again, brilliant!” A fabulous holiday gift. Shop now.

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the Net

The Economist’s Word of the Year for 2024
The Economist
Permalink

The Search for Plural “You”
The Web of Language
Permalink

From: William Graessle (bill wsgraessle.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--mimetic

I cannot thank you enough for introducing me to Leah some years ago. I have several of her pieces that were done for you, framed and hanging in my home. Your description of what she does is so, so spot on. Thank you for the daily dose of insight, information, and joy.

William S. Graessle, Jacksonville, Florida

From: Alexander Randall 5th (alexrandall5 gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--mimetic

In the 1950s, the word that was used for the class of mind-altering drugs including mescaline, psilocybin, etc. was “psychotomimetic”: mimicking a psychosis. After Dr. Humphry Osmond gave a dose of mescaline to Aldous Huxley, they engaged in a poetical debate to see if they could invent a word better describing these substances.

Huxley wrote: “To make this mundane world sublime/Take half a gram of phanerothyme.” His word, “phanerothyme” was a combination of the Greek words for manifest (phaneros) and spirit (thumos).

Osmond wrote: “To sink to hell or soar angelic, take half a gram of psychedelic.” This was also from Greek, psyche (mind or soul) and delein (to manifest).

No more mimicking psychosis. Osmond was my professor in the 1970s.

Dr. Alexander Randall 5th, Professor of Communication, University of the Virgin Islands, St Thomas, Virgin Islands

Email of the Week -- Brought to you buy One Up! -- “Guaranteed to ruin Christmas.”

From: Robert Varipapa (robert varipapa.com)
Subject: Mimetics

Mimetics (and scapegoating) are interesting philosophical terms which have been extensively explored by philosopher René Girard.

A simple example of mimetics would be how many people emulate others. This clearly explains the fascination with celebrities like Kim Kardashian.

More importantly, right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel is a big proponent of mimetics and scapegoating (note what happened with the Salem witch trials and more recently, our aversion to trans people, immigrants, and others who we can blame for all our troubles.)

I highly recommend Girard’s work to get a deeper understanding of our current culture and politics. Not good!

Robert Varipapa, Camden, Delaware

From: Stacie Tibbetts (sltibbet ad.uci.edu)
Subject: gobbledygook

In the world of Harry Potter, gobbledygook is the language spoken by goblins.

Stacie Tibbetts, Tustin, California

From: Curtis Reeves (creeves alumni.usc.edu)
Subject: gobbledygook

Whenever I see or hear the word gobbledygook, I fondly recall the video (2 min.) explaining the turbo encabulator for automobiles. It is a parody, and I find it amusing each time I view it.

Curtis Reeves, Fresno, California

From: Alice Kintisch (amkintisch verizon.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--gobbledygook

I was a technical writer for IBM in the 1970s. Each writer was given a copy of the book Gobbledygook Has Gotta Go (pdf). We were encouraged to read it, absorb its message and NOT use gobbledygook in our writing. I still have the copy given to me then.

Alice Moshan Kintisch, Upper Nyack, New York

From: Henry M. Willis (hmw ssdslaw.com)
Subject: Re: Gobbledygook

The word gobbledygook was most likely invented by Maury Maverick, a Texas Congressman of the 1930s, who lost his seat in Congress after he voted for the Anti-Lynching Bill of 1937. He was later mayor of San Antonio, but lost that position after LBJ made a deal with some of his political enemies to defeat him.

Then he resurfaced during World War II as chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, in which capacity he sent his staff a memo telling them “Stay off gobbledygook language.” According to Maverick, the word must have come to him in a vision because the pompous jargon used by bureaucrats and politicians reminded him of the gobbling of a turkey strutting in the yard. Sounds about right.

German speakers have a similar word, Papierdeutsch, literally “German paper”, for the bureaucratic euphemisms and evasions that German lends itself to. The most famous example is Endlösung, usually translated into English as “the final solution”, a completely disembodied word for the murder of millions of Jews by the Nazιs and their allies. As Orwell said about similar abuses of the English language, this sort of language serves “to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”

Henry Willis, Los Angeles, California

From: Frances Glica (fhrg comcast.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--kindler

Back in my college days (Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, in the late 1940s), a kindler was also used for social gatherings between male and female colleges before they all went co-ed.

Fran Glica, Lansdale, Pennsylvania

From: Steve Benko (stevebenko1 gmail.com)
Subject: Sports heroes

USAGE:
“But sport gives a nation heroes and role models and exhilaration. It is a source of health and fitness. It moves youth from the streets to the soccer fields and the baseball diamonds. It is a kindler of dreams.” Lawrence Martin; The Politicization of Professional Sports Is a Home Run for Society; The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Apr 15, 2021.

Heaven forfend that some of today’s professional athletes be looked upon as heroes and role models, given the prevalence of scandals involving substance abuse, domestic violence, greed, general moral turpitude, etc., and their lack of a decent education in most cases. And as to health and fitness, there are the crippling brain, spinal, and joint injuries plaguing many in some sports later in life.

Perhaps we should use politicians instead. Oh wait, no.

Steve Benko, New York, New York

From: Wendy Dickerman (windleo aol.com)
Subject: Turkish proverb

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them. -Turkish proverb

If that Turkish proverb doesn’t just put it all in a nutshell, my friend -- I don’t know what does! Thanks for your great work every single day!

Wendy Dickerman, Vancouver, Washington

Anagrams


This week’s theme: Illustrated words 1. Mimetic 2. Gobbledygook 3. Berserk 4. Kindler 5. Fairy-tale	=	1. Fake 2. Knowledge-based kookily termed else uttermost gibberish 3. Wild 4. Stirrer 5. Mythical	=	1. Mock, hokey 2. Bilge, twaddle 3. Wild, go mad 4. Rebel, stirrer, trouble seeker 5. Insist it’s fake, myth
		-Robert Jordan, Lampang, Thailand (alfiesdad ymail.com))		-Julian Lofts, Auckland, New Zealand (jalofts xtra.co.nz)

	=	1. Mimics, looks like 2. Key Webster argot 3. Mad burst 4. Lighter 5. They drew fable like, storied end	=	1. Mock 2. Glib balderdash 3. Demented, i.e. ruler 4. Wee twigs start fires 5. Myth-like, storybook-like
		-Shyamal Mukherji, Mumbai, India (mukherjis hotmail.com)		-Dharam Khalsa, Burlington, North Carolina (dharamkk2 gmail.com)

Make your own anagrams and animations.

Limericks

mimetic

Of Nureyev, I was mimetic;
My dancing, I thought, was balletic.
But still to this day
I can’t do a plié,
And my pirouette’s truly pathetic.
-Rudy Landesman, New York, New York (ydur36 hotmail.com)

A toddler’s a creature mimetic,
So don’t be a model pathetic!
If you use a bad word,
He’ll repeat what he’s heard,
And that wouldn’t be copacetic.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

No one actually taught me my job,
(To steal and to lie and to rob).
Everything’s copacetic,
My life is mimetic;
Dad, too, was a lawbreaking slob!
-Bindy Bitterman, Chicago, Illinois (bindy eurekaevanston.com)

When all of those who surround you
Reflect monkey see, monkey do,
The problem’s systemic.
Don’t be so mimetic,
And to thy own self, be thee true.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

No part of his act was phonetic;
His performance was strictly kinetic.
Whether smiling or frowning,
He’d always be clowning:
Marcel Marceau, ever mimetic.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

gobbledegook

Some people find Donald disarming;
They feel that his speeches are charming.
But I’m horribly shook
By his gobbledygook
And think his election’s alarming.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

“I’ll take office by hook or by crook,
Spewing hatred and gobbledegook,”
Said Donald. “To win,
I’ll tell lies with a grin;
It’s like selling a rug in a suq.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

berserk

I can’t help it, but I have to smirk
When I see some kid act like a jεrk,
Losing all self-control,
As he hears rock ‘n’ roll,
And totally going berserk.
-Rudy Landesman, New York, New York (ydur36 hotmail.com)

Because of some corporate jεrk,
One teller does two people’s work.
That exec we can thank
For long lines at the bank,
And customers going berserk.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

I once knew a fellow called Kirk,
Who warned, “Do not call me at work.
For any such action,
Could cause a distraction,
And surely would drive me berserk!”
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

Said the Greek, “At the sight of a Turk,
I tend to go rather berserk.
They’re not part of our group,
So to violence we stoop;
All humanity’s plagued with this quirk.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

kindler

The kindler they used in their day
For igniting an auto-da-fé
In the unholy mission
Of Spain’s Inquisition,
Was a faggοt of wood sticks, they say.
-Rudy Landesman, New York, New York (ydur36 hotmail.com)

Each Chanukah night you will see
A kindler of light I will be.
For it is my mission
To keep the tradition
My ancestors passed down to me.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

There was no one quite like Oskar Schindler;
He inspires our awe. What a kindler!
Besides saving Jews
He made guns with boo-boos;
To the Nazιs, he thus was a swindler.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

fairy-tale

She dreamt of a fairy-tale ending;
A life with her “prince” she’d be spending.
But alack and alas!
It did not come to pass,
Because her divorce is now pending.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

Can you grasp that she’s no longer poor?
And got all of that dough from that boor?
Who’da thunk it, not I;
What a fairy-tale guy!
No manners, but knew how to woo ’er!
-Bindy Bitterman, Chicago, Illinois (bindy eurekaevanston.com)

When it looked like Joe Biden would fail,
We hoped for an end fairy-tale.
For he said, “I won’t run,”
And we thought, “Donald’s done!”
But November arrived -- and we’re pale.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

Puns

“Me like clean cave. Mimetic-ulous,” warned Oog’s fiancée before the wedding.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“Americans should not gobbledegook zey eat all day. Zey should try some nice French cuisine instead,” the French chef chided.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“I will gobbledegook-ause it’s delicious,” said the oil-spill-eating microbe.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“Remem-berserk-ses when you are studying great Persian rulers,” the Ancient History professor lectured his class.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“It looks like the em-berserk-atching fire again,” worried the forest ranger.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“Y’all think y’all kin kindler interest in kin?” Abner and Daisy Mae asked the family therapist about their estranged daughter.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“You’re buying just one, not a whole truckload. I’m giving you a fairy-tale price,” said the exasperated sales clerk.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Hundreds of hysterical persons must confuse these phenomena with messages from the beyond and take their glory to the bishop rather than the eye doctor. -James Thurber, writer and cartoonist (8 Dec 1894-1961)

We need your help

Help us continue to spread the magic of words to readers everywhere

Donate

Subscriber Services
Awards | Stats | Links | Privacy Policy
Contribute | Advertise