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Apr 22, 2022
This week’s theme
There’s a verb form for it

This week’s words
travest
anathematize
immiserate
betrump
manuscribe

This week’s comments
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There’s a word for it
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

manuscribe

PRONUNCIATION:
(MAN-yuh-skryb)

MEANING:
verb tr.:
1. To write by hand.
2. To autograph.

ETYMOLOGY:
Back-formation from manuscript, from manus (hand) + scribere (to write). Ultimately from the Indo-European root skribh- (to cut, separate, or sift), which also gave us subscribe, scripture, scribble, describe, circumflex, and circumspect. Earliest documented use: 1649.

USAGE:
“This explains the litany of [letters] ... which he so loved as patricianly to manuscribe after his name.”
James Joyce; Finnegans Wake; Faber and Faber; 1939.

“I dare say it could be made bigger; but I know what 100 pages of copy, bright consummate copy, imply behind the scenes of weary manuscribing.”
Robert Louis Stevenson; The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson to His Family and Friends, Volume 1; Methuen; 1901.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts. -Madame de Stael, writer (22 Apr 1766-1817)

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“Overall, the universe’s apostrophe store stays in balance. It seems our linguistic world was intelligently designed -- for every gratuitous apostrophe there’s an instance where it’s omitted.”

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