Surly
/adjective/
(16th-century alteration of sirly)
: irritated, bad-tempered, unfriendly
: threatening, menacing, gloomy
"The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, [...] and surly."
simile
/noun/
: a figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by like or as
(as in cheeks like roses)
infallible
/adjective/
a : incapable of error : unerring
b : not liable to mislead, deceive, or disappoint : certain
c : incapable of error in defining doctrines touching faith or morals
"[...] and this idea that he’s infallible." he said.
A great post! Articles like this are often a bit dodgy, but Drs Turton and Lennon are doing fantastic, solid work, so it is great to see this news report about it in non-technical language.
#GeoffreyChaucer fans, #medievalists , #EnglishLanguage and #linguists
Around 10 years ago, a Geoffrey Chaucer parody account on ye olde Twitter (Chaucer Doth Tweet) promoted “Whan That Aprille Day” on April 1st (but it perhaps should be 17th?)
“On the first daye of Aprille, lat us make tyme to take joye yn alle langages that are yclept ‘old,’ or ‘middel,’ or ‘auncient,’ or ‘archaic,’ or, alas, even ‘dead.’ ...
Yn thys celebracioun we shal reade of oold bokes yn sondrye oold tonges. We shal singe olde songes. We shal playe olde playes. Eny oold tonge will do, and eny maner of readinge. All are welcome. We shal make merrye yn the magical dreamscape of 'social media,' and eke, yf ye kan do yt, yn the 'real worlde' too. ... ”
https://houseoffame.blogspot.com/2015/03/maken-melodye-on-whan-that-aprille-day.html?m=1
#WhanThatAprilleDay 2025 anyone?
facetious
/adjective/
a : joking or jesting often inappropriately
| "just being facetious"
b : meant to be humorous or funny : not serious
| "a facetious remark"
via Merriam-Webster
secularism
/noun/
a : Religious skepticism or indifference.
b : The view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public education.
via Wordnik
#WordOfTheDay #Words #Writing #WritingCommunity #EnglishLanguage
Why the **** do Americans keep saying "town hall" when they don't mean the building, they mean a community meeting (such as might take place within an actual town hall)! 
#englishlanguage #us #uk #townhall
"My Baby You" is a song written and performed by #MarcAnthony, and was released as the fourth single of his first #Englishlanguage album Marc Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3lbmgyp18o
resuscitate
/verb/
a : to revive from apparent death or from unconsciousness
also: revitalize
Sainsbury's, I don't know where the 'draw' of a washing machine is located. How did this get past any sort of check?! #EnglishLanguage
vicarious
/adjective/
a : Experienced or felt by empathy with or imaginary participation in the life of another person.
"read about mountain climbing and experienced vicarious thrills."
b : Endured or done by one person substituting for another.
"vicarious punishment."
c : Committed or entrusted to another, as powers or authority; delegated.
The earliest that I found with a 30 second Google Books trawl was 1882, in a book by Frank Hugh Foster.
The title of the book?
"The Doctrine of the Transcendent Use of the Principle of Causality in Kant, Herbart and Lotze."
Ah, Kant.
So you can guess why it used "in and of itself". The whole sentence was "Yet it is what it is in and of itself, as every other principle or thing is."
So a double-word score for managing to have "it is what it is" in the sentence as well.
Later on the same page: "Similarly, it is true of the passive power, that it is as passive the same, and not the same with itself."
Philosophers and theologians: giving LLMs a run for their money for nigh on 3 millennia.
And the LLMs are almost certainly trained on this stuff. Frank Hugh Foster is out of copyright. There's a happy thought for the day.
Sometimes I learn something about the English language that makes me irrationally upset.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trapezoid
So in US/CA English, a trapezoid is a quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides, and a trapezium is a quadrilateral with no parallel sides. But in UK/AU/NZ English, a trapezoid is a quadrilateral with no parallel sides, and a trapezium is a quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides.
How does this even happen? And in the (probably common for somebody, although not me) case that someone needs to discuss quadrilaterals, how are they supposed to make it clear what they're talking about?
#TIL that the two forms of the indefinite article, ‘a’ and ‘an’, which are used depending on whether the succeeding noun starts with a vowel sound, also happens with the definite article, ‘the’, via differing pronunciations.
“the start“ → /ðəstɑɹt/
“the end” → /ðiɛnd/ or /ði:ɛnd/
Why are cars always asking, "why?"
Because they go vroom vroom (pronounced varum varum).
surmount
/verb/
a : to prevail over : overcome
surmount an obstacle
b : to get to the top of : climb
c : to stand or lie at the top of
d : obsolete : to surpass in quality or attainment : excel
"[...] the gods need no companions and they surmount death" he explained.
#WordOfTheDay #Words #Writing #WritingCommunity #EnglishLanguage
Quote is from video by Prof. Sam Vaknin, reflecting on the rise of narcissism and the recent passing of Gene Heckman and his wife:
‘Serving Kant’ no more: Malta’s Eurovision entry faces censorship over ‘C-word’ controversy https://www.byteseu.com/806660/ #EBU #EnglishLanguage #EurovisionSongContest #Languages #Malta #music #PopMusic
