Word Facts for Mar. 26-April 1, 2011
Word origin for the weekend of Mar. 26-27, 2011: power corrupts - An oft-repeated observation is "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." The author of the sentiment, the British politician and historian Lord Acton, actually wrote "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely" in 1887. Not all power, then, is bad, though Acton added: "Great men are almost always bad men."
Word origin for Mar. 28, 2011: congruous - Something "congruous" congrues - that is, it agrees, which is another Latin-derived way of saying the same thing. We know the word mostly through its negative, "incongruous," which carries the sense of not quite adding up as opposed to merely disagreeing.
Word origin for Mar. 29, 2011: finagle - The word "finagle" comes to us by way of the dialect once spoken on the borderlands of Scotland and England, where it meant "to deceive or hoodwink someone." In American English, "finagle" has a softer meaning; it is often used to suggest charming or outwitting someone, without necessarily intending to do that person any harm in the bargain. Still, it first turns up in political slang, so maybe hoodwinking is the name of the game.
Word origin for Mar. 30, 2011: Netflix - Founded in California in 1997, "Netflix" is the world's largest video-rental company, wedding the U.S. Postal Service to the Internet. Its name is a natural blend; the "Net," of course, refers to the Internet, while the "flix" borrows from an old-fashioned term for the flickering images called motion pictures.
Word origin for Mar. 31, 2011: medieval - At its heart, the word "medieval" (from the Latin medium aevum, and its English kin "Middle Ages") represent a theological construct: the thousand-year period marks the end of antiquity and the beginning of the modern era, which in turn will end with the Second Coming.
Word origin for Apr. 1, 2011: anchorman - The lead broadcaster in a news or talk program is called an "anchorman" (or "anchorwoman," or sometimes just "anchor"), borrowing from the language of track and field, where an "anchorman" is the captain of a relay team. The term in the television sense first appeared in a news piece for the Washington Post in April 1949, referring to TV personality John Cameron Swayze.
Word origin for Mar. 28, 2011: congruous - Something "congruous" congrues - that is, it agrees, which is another Latin-derived way of saying the same thing. We know the word mostly through its negative, "incongruous," which carries the sense of not quite adding up as opposed to merely disagreeing.
Word origin for Mar. 29, 2011: finagle - The word "finagle" comes to us by way of the dialect once spoken on the borderlands of Scotland and England, where it meant "to deceive or hoodwink someone." In American English, "finagle" has a softer meaning; it is often used to suggest charming or outwitting someone, without necessarily intending to do that person any harm in the bargain. Still, it first turns up in political slang, so maybe hoodwinking is the name of the game.
Word origin for Mar. 30, 2011: Netflix - Founded in California in 1997, "Netflix" is the world's largest video-rental company, wedding the U.S. Postal Service to the Internet. Its name is a natural blend; the "Net," of course, refers to the Internet, while the "flix" borrows from an old-fashioned term for the flickering images called motion pictures.
Word origin for Mar. 31, 2011: medieval - At its heart, the word "medieval" (from the Latin medium aevum, and its English kin "Middle Ages") represent a theological construct: the thousand-year period marks the end of antiquity and the beginning of the modern era, which in turn will end with the Second Coming.
Word origin for Apr. 1, 2011: anchorman - The lead broadcaster in a news or talk program is called an "anchorman" (or "anchorwoman," or sometimes just "anchor"), borrowing from the language of track and field, where an "anchorman" is the captain of a relay team. The term in the television sense first appeared in a news piece for the Washington Post in April 1949, referring to TV personality John Cameron Swayze.
Labels: 2011, greg, history, languages, page-a-day, teunis, visitors, words
posted by Flami at 4:10:00 PM
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