True and Habitual Words from A Variety of Sources for Those Who Can't Get Enough

As inveterate readers of this blog may suspect, I am a voracious and eclectic reader. Many of the words for this blog come from my reading.

So today we’ll look at inveterate, voracious, and eclectic before we get to words, beginning next week, from my recent reading.

Inveterate, according to Dictionary.com, means “settled or confirmed in a habit, practice, feeling, or the like.” (And I hope any reader of this blog becomes an inveterate reader.) The word comes directly from the Latin word inveteratus, which means “of long standing, chronic,” according to etymonline.com. It came to English in the late 1300s. The Latin word is formed by combining in- (meaning “in”, of all things), and veterare, a form of the word vetus, which means “old” and from which we also get the word veteran.

Veteran is the word to use of anyone who has long service or experience in any occupation. But veteran didn’t arrive in English until about 1500, through French. It originally meant just “old”, but by the year 1600 had added the current meaning, and shortly after also began to be used as an adjective.

Voracious is the adjective form of voracity, which is not to be confused with veracity, which is related to verity.

Voracious primarily means consuming or craving large quantities of food, but secondarily applies to anything consumed in great quantity. It also means exceedingly eager or avid. Voracity, a noun, arrived in English in the 1520s, from the Middle French word voracité, which came from the Latin word voracitatem, which refers to greediness or ravenousness. The adjective voracious arrived over a century later, in the 1630s, as a formation of the English noun.

Veracity is a noun that came from the same Latin source word (verus) as the noun verity. Verity is truth, while veracity is habitual truthfulness or conforming to a fact. (Veracious is a word, the adjective form of veracity.) Veracity came to English from the French word véracité, which came from the Latin word veracitatem, which means truthfulness and is a form of verus, which means true.

Which brings us to eclectic. Eclectic is an adjective that came to English in the 1680s. It originally was the name given to a group of ancient philosophers (like Panaetius, Posidonius, Carneades, Philo, Cicero and my personal favorite Seneca) who selected their doctrines from various systems. The French called them eclectique, their form of the Greek word eklektikos which literally translated is “picking out.” Now, any time a group of something has great variety it can be called eclectic. That meaning didn’t develop until 1847.

So veracity and veratious refer to truth, voracity and voracious refer to consumption, veteran and inveterate both refer to a length of time, and eclectic means bringing together from various sources, which is what these words have in common. For those of you who can't get enough of this blog.

Ubiquitous Replication Rejoinders are Tantamount to Figments

In June of last year I used a couple of words in a post and indicated there was no post to explain those words - yet. Today we follow up and can provide that post. The words are ubiquitous and rejoinder.

Ubiquitous means “existing everywhere, especially at the same time.” It came to English fairly recently (in 1837) from Modern Latin. There was an earlier word, ubiquitary, that can still be found in the dictionary, but I haven’t seen it used. It meant the same thing, since the 1580s. But the original form of the word was ubiquity, the noun (ubiquitous is an adjective). Ubiquity is the state of being everywhere at one time. It arrived in the 1570s from Middle French, who took their word ubiquité from the Latin word ubique, which was formed by combining the Latin word for “where” (ubi-) with the Latin word for “ever” (que). The word was originally used in Lutheran theology to describe the omnipresence of Christ.

While ubiquitous has a theological background rejoinder has a legal history. It arrived in English in the mid-1400s, from Middle French. The French noun, rejoindre, was the fourth stage in common law proceedings. It referred to the opportunity for the defendant to reply to the plaintiff’s replication. It retains the meaning of answer to a reply or response. In other words, a response to a response is a rejoinder.

Of course, we have to now look at the word replication. While it primarily means reply, answer, or reply to an answer (here we go again), it originated in the third section of French legal proceedings. In that sense it arrived in English in the late 1300s, which means it took a few years for the rejoinder to join replication. The Anglo-French word was replicacioun, from the French replicacion, from the Latin replicationem, formed from the Latin word for repetition, but literally meaning “to fold back.” It has since developed the meaning of a copy or reproduction, but that did not take place until the 1690s.  

While I’m following up and still have space, a recent post on George Carlin’s book, 3x Carlin, on "figment of" reminded me of the words "tantamount to." I have never heard of anything being tantamount, only “tantamount to.” Because tantamount means equivalent in value, force, or significance, it by its nature has a reference to something else. You could say two things are tantamount, but the prevalent usage of tantamount is not an actual equivalence but effective equivalence, or moral equivalence. It is used when suggesting that one action has the equivalent result of something far more serious or dire. A common alternative phrase is “moral equivalent of…” in place of “tantamount to…” It is not exactly, but has a similar effect as the thing to which it is being compared. Tantamount came ashore in the 1640s as a combining of the two words tant and amount. The phrase tant amount was used in the 1620s, and within 20 years became just the one word. We know what amount means, but what is tant? Tant was an Old French word meaning “as much.”  Now you know as much as I do, which is tantamount.

Words from Advise and Consent

I just finished reading Advise and Consent, a great book. But the one thing I found distracting was the consistent use of the word sardonic by the author Allen Drury. Another word that Drury used consistently that always disrupted the flow of my reading was his use of the word allot when allocate would have also worked. So it drove me to the dictionary. What’s the difference between allot and allocate, and sardonic and sarcastic, and what’s the good word to use in what situation?

Let’s begin with sardonic. Sardonic is an adjective that means cynical or mocking; it has a sense of derision or bitterness to it. It came to English in the 1630s from French, where it was spelled sardonique. The French got it from the Latin word sardonius, which came from the Greek word sardonius, which related to “bitter or scornful [laughter]” and was altered from Homer’s sardanios. In case that’s not enough etymology, sardanios was influenced by Sardonios, the Greek word for Sardinian, because they thought a “plant they called sardonion (literally “plant from Sardinia…”) caused facial convulsions resembling those of sardonic laughter, usually followed by death” according to etymonline.com. Think of the laughter of the villain's laughter when the train is coming down the track toward the heroine who is tied up and place across the railroad tracks.

Sarcastic, on the other hand, also has a meaning of derision and bitterness, with the flavoring of irony thrown in as well. If you take a sardonic comment and turn it around to say the opposite thing with derision, it’s sarcastic. While sarcasm (the noun form of sarcastic) arrived in English in the 1570s, the adjective sarcastic took about 120 years to develop. Sarcasm came from the Late Latin word sarcasmos, which came from the Greek word sarkazein. While sarkazein literally translated means “to strip off the flesh” (see excoriate), its meaning in Greek was to sneer or speak bitterly about.

The difference between allot and allocate is not simply shortening by taking the cae out of allocate. While dictionary.com’s definition of allocate is “to set apart for a particular purpose; assign or allot,” its definition of allot is (along with a second definition of “to set apart for a particular purpose”) to divide or distribute by share or portion (which brings to mind the synonym apportion). Apportion means to distribute or allocate proportionally. And the circle is complete. Allocate means to allot, allot means to allocate by portion, and apportion means to allocate proportionally. So we have three words that mean the same thing?

Maybe the etymology can provide some clarification. Allot came to English first, in the late 1400s, from the Old French word aloter, which meant to divide by or into lots. Within a century, in the 1570s, apportion arrived from the Middle French apportionner, which came from the Old French aporcioner (apparently the difference between Old and Middle French is double letters), which meant to divide into portions. The same as allot, it seems.

Allocate showed up in English in another 60 years, from the Medieval Latin allocate. Allocate was “the common first word in writs authorizing payment”, according to etymonline.com, and was formed by combining the two Latin words for “to” and “place”; so to place something in another’s possession is to allocate.

So what’s the difference? Very little. Use allocate when it comes to money, apportion when something is divided up according to some formula. And use allot in a formal assignment to another if it does not have a sense of any portioning or is not a monetary transaction. It’s not much difference, and you likely won’t be excoriated if you use one word when another might be more accurate, but at least now you know.

Be Wrong If You Want To; You're Not Making Me Sick!

In a post last month I mentioned the etymology of the word brook as a verb, and also promised “More on that next month.” Well, next month has arrived, so let’s fulfill the promise.

Brook is most commonly used as a noun, but can be used as a verb, meaning to tolerate, endure, or suffer. As mentioned before, it came from the Old English brucan, which was the word used in Old English for the word use. It also meant possess, enjoy, eat; and cohabit with. So it was a versatile word. (Perhaps too much so.) As brucan in reference to eating developed the meaning of “able to digest,” it developed the meaning of tolerate, which it retains today in a broad sense in the word brook. Other meanings of brucan have not followed brook.

Brook as a noun refers to a small freshwater stream. (While my dictionary provided that information, I couldn’t find a word that refers to a small saltwater stream. Anyone know?) This meaning of the word brook did came from Old English but not from brucan. It came from their word for a flowing stream, broc.  In parts of England (Sussex and Kent) it means “water meadow” and in its plural form “low, marshy ground.”

While we’re catching up, there is another reference I needed to explore. For those of you who enjoy the sitcom Big Bang Theory, you may remember the episode where Leonard says he’s nauseous and Sheldon responds by saying Leonard should not have used the word nauseous, because he was actually nauseated. Which made me wonder “What’s the difference?”

My dictionary has as the definition of nauseous “affected with nausea, nauseated.” While that would make it appear the two are synonymous the section listing synonyms says “see usage note.” So here is what dictionary.com says:

The two literal senses of nauseous, “causing nausea” (a nauseous smell) and “affected with nausea” (to feel nauseous), appeared in English at almost the same time in the early 17^th century, and both senses are in standard use at the present time. Nauseous is more common than nauseated in the sense “affected with nausea,” either literally or figuratively, nauseating has become more common than nauseous: a nauseating smell.

My dictionary does make one firm distinction: nauseous is an adjective, nauseated is the past tense of the verb nauseate.

Let’s see if the etymology sheds any light. Nausea came into English in the early 15^th century from the Latin word for seasickness (nausea), which came from the Ionic Greek word for seasickness, nausia. In Attic Greek it was spelled nautia, and came from the Greek word for ship, naus, from which we get the word naval. (Naval and navel, now there’s another pair. See this post for more.) Interestingly (to me) the word nausea never has been restricted to seasickness in its English usage.

Continuing our hunt: around 1600 the adjective form of nausea, nauseous, came into being. About 30 years later the verb nauseate appeared and by the 1650s came to have the added meaning of creating nausea or causing loathing. Etymonline.com takes it a bit further, explaining that nauseous is used to describe something that causes nausea or squeamishness, while nauseated refers to feeling nausea.

Then etymonline adds the clarifying statement “Careful writers use nauseated for “sick at the stomach” and use nauseous for “sickening to contemplate.” That only adds confusion.

In my continuing search for clarification I found this blog post, which cites a statistic that 72% of the panelists for The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4^th Edition, 2000) say that the use of nauseous to mean “feeling sick” is wrong, that nauseous should be used only to that which “causes nausea,” not the feeling of nausea personally. That helps to clarify.

If you wish to make the distinction, whether you wish to be pedantic or simply accurate, use nauseous when describing something that causes nausea, and nauseated when you feel nausea yourself. But realize that most English speakers don’t understand the difference, even those who make the distinction in their usage.

And while something noxious may cause nausea, there’s no harm in using nauseated and nauseous interchangeably. Be wrong if you want to.