Books Blog: books.elliottback.com

Check out this list of 33 unusual names for plain old nouns, featuring such goodies as:

AGLET - The plain or ornamental covering on the end of a shoelace.

DRAGÉES - Small beadlike pieces of candy, usually silver-coloured, used for decorating cookies, cakes and sundaes.

OCTOTHORPE - The symbol ‘#’ on a telephone handset.

SCROOP - The rustle of silk.

Honestly, I’d never heard of these and I question their use. But they are neat!

A contronym or antagonym is defined as a word which is in itself its own antonym. They are special cases of homographs, different words which share the same spelling. Rinkworks has a long list of them, some highlights of which I will share here with you:

1. apology - admission of fault in what you think, say, or do; formal defense of what you think, say, or do
2. dust - add fine particles, remove fine particles
3. oversight - error, care
4. pitted - with the pit in, with the pit removed
5. rent - buy use of, sell use of
6. table - propose (in the United Kingdom), set aside (in the United States)

There are doubtlessly many many more out there, so leave tons of comments for us in the hopes of acquiring more of these beautiful words!

Now YOU won’t be able to open your brand-new Hip Hop Thug shop:

Seriously, the city of NYC has banned the use of the word “nigger,” thus preventing schools from teaching Huck Finn, and the homies in the hood from saying hello. Reuters has a hilarious quote from Chris Rock on the issue:

“What, is there a fine? Am I going to get a ticket?” Rock mocked in a Reuters interview when asked about the City Council move. “Do judges say, ‘10 years, nigger!’”

As a linguist, I think all words are useful tools for expressing ideas. What if you want to express a distasteful history of slavery and modern linguistic rebellion and rebranding? Then it’s the perfect word.

Update: The hip-hop/rap music link to the revitalization of this word is well known and controversial enough–I’m not interested in discussing it here. What is interesting though, is that I just realized that rapper (unfortunately) Jay-Z calls himself “Jigga Man.” Of course, Jigga is only a slightly more corrupted form of the N-word, and he’s taken it as his name. I’m not going to draw conclusions.

Update 2:  Here are some others’ opinions on the matter:

“I used the word nigger to defuse its negativity,” he told us by phone. “When Puerto Ricans call each other the Spanish word ‘negro,’ it reflects feelings of love. I think New York blacks picked up ‘You my nigger’ from Puerto Ricans.” writes NYMag

“The word word originates from the Latin “niger,” meaning black, to its first documented written use in 1786 as a term slave masters used to label their African slaves.” writes A Welsh View

“Sorry, banning words you don’t approve of is infantile at best and fascist at its worst. Forbidding the use of a word usually only gives it more power. Besides, racism is a complex cultural and historical issue that goes far beyond a two syllable word.” says Cynical-C

“My fantasy is that I could have made a citizens arrest and then tortured him for hours upon hours, tied up in my apartment, by recounting every act of racial hatred and discrimination that I have ever endure…” writes Black Looks

“How would we feel if the city had been Memphis, Tennessee, and the word had been “Jesus Christ!” (when used as an expletive). Most of us here would agree that both expletives are a bad thing, but would we want both of them outlawed?” says World Views

“Perhaps dialogue encouraging the black community to hate using the word ‘nigger’ as much much as they hate other people using it would be far more productive.” notes Amy Proctor who I remind does not need so many italics

Wordie goes by the tagline “Like Flickr, but without the photos” but it’s much more than that.  Until you’ve tried it out, you’d never believe social word-listing could be so fun.  Like shadenfreude?  So do 127 other people, right now.  The interface is clear and intuitive; you make lists of words.  Each word has its own permanent page, with comments, and lists the people who like that word.  You spend time trolling user lists, hunting words related to the ones you like.

Here’s what the interface looks like:

If you want to try it out, the Wordie homepage, my userpage, or my word list feed!

Dictionary.com does the etymology of this fabulous word for us:

Today’s word has taken an amazing journey through many different languages, where it acquired meanings ranging from “churl” to “king.” It originated as Proto-Germanic *karilaz. The Old Norse descendant of this word became karl “old man,” a word which spread throughout the Germanic languages as a man’s name. In Old High German, the ancestor of modern German, it became karal “man, husband” (today Kerl “guy, fellow”) whence it was borrowed into French as “Charles” and Medieval Latin as “Carolus.” Charlemagne [Charles le magne] “Charles the Great” had such an impact on Europe, that the Slavic nations borrowed his name as their general word for “king” (e.g. Serbian kralj, Russian korol’). In Old English, however, the word took a nose dive in the opposite direction: in ceorl the meaning dropped from “old man” to “peasant,” whose behavior the upper classes always considered “churlish.” Since the upper classes have historically determined how we speak, a churl is what he is today.

Churlish (a):  like a churl; rude; boorish.  And it has a fascinating sound.