... including [sigh]
Date: Sun Jan 9 00:19:27 EST 2000
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--hyoid
X-Bonus: Dictionary: A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work. -Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), [The Devil's Dictionary, 1906]
hyoid (HIE-oid) adjective
Of or relating to the hyoid bone, a U-shaped bone at the base of the
tongue that supports the muscles of the tongue.
noun
The hyoid bone.
[New Latin hyoides, the hyoid bone, from Greek huoeides, shaped like the
letter upsilon : hu, name of the letter upsilon + -oeides, -oid.]
"Even the discovery in Israel a decade ago of a Neanderthal skeleton
with a large hyoid bone, which is in the throat and associated with
speech, had not settled the issue of Neanderthal speech."
John Noble Wilford, Early man had the ability to speak,
The Dallas Morning News, 4 May 1998.
This week's theme: words for miscellany.
Bingley
