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Countries RSS Feeds601-1: Feedback, notes and comments - Fescennine Several readers, better informed about the geography of Italy than I am, have pointed out that the Etruscan town Fescinnia that’s the source of this word can’t be in Tuscany, where I put it. Though nobody seems to know its location for certain, it’s usually taken to be near either Civita Castellana or Corchiano, which are in the Lazio region. Sic! Ton Stauttener e-mailed from the Netherlands: “You mentioned the word incinerate in an automatically translated Belgian advertisement. Maybe your readers would like to know what caused this error. Dutch has the word verassen, meaning ‘to incinerate (literally: ‘turn to ashes’), and verrassen, meaning ‘to surprise’. The unfortunate author of the ad probably made a typo, using verassen instead of verrassen.”...Feed Source: www.worldwidewords.org 601-2: Turns of Phrase: Virtual water - During the World Water Week conference held in Stockholm this week (17-23 August), the environmental group WWF released a report that demonstrates the extent to which the UK consumes the water of other countries.
The concept of virtual water was created by Professor John Allan of King’s College, London, who was awarded the 2008 Stockholm Water Prize for it. It measures the amount of water that’s used in food production and in industrial processes such as the manufacture of textiles. The WWF report says 62% of the water consumed in Britain is virtual water from other countries.
Another term for it is embedded water. Other terms environmentalists use when discussing problems of water supply are water footprint, the amount of water, both virtual and visible, used by a country, a business or an individual (a term closely related to carbon footprint), and blue water... 601-3: Weird Words: Dandiprat - A dwarf or small boy; an insignificant or contemptible person.
When the Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth wrote a letter to a friend in April 1795, she commented on her recent reading, “It is a scarce and very ingenious book; some of the phraseology is so much out of the present fashion, that it would make you smile: such as the synonym for a little man, a Dandiprat.”
She was somewhat premature: the word survives to be included in at least a few modern one-volume dictionaries because it does turn up from time to time in historical or fantasy fiction. In evidence of this, I place before you a quotation from Forward the Mage by Eric Flint and Richard Roach of 2002:
Who is so wise as to distinguish, with unerring precision, between a little man, a dwarf, a gnome, a midget, a shrimp, a runt, a pygmy, a Lilliputian, a chit, a fingerling, a pigwidgeon, a mite, a dandiprat, a micromorph, an homunculus, a dapperling, a small ... 601-4: Recently noted - Visuacy If you don’t know this word, don’t worry, that’s because it’s new, one that Christopher Allen, writing in The Australian on 16 August, called a “horrible neologism”. Visuacy is shorthand for “visual literacy” and appeared in a report, the National Review of Visual Education, published that day in Australia. It argues that society is heavily saturated with images, which are words in a visual language that should be taught to young people so that they can navigate and interpret them. Visuacy, the report argues, should be put alongside literacy and numeracy as a foundation skill in compulsory schooling.
Aureolate I came across this word in the obituary of the Queen’s former milliner, Simone Mirman, in the Guardian on 14 August: “The Queen Mother harked back to the aureolate hats of her youth, wide-brimmed and c... 601-5: Questions and Answers: Lukewarm -
[Q] From Jan Pearce: “This question was posed on the US television programme, The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, ‘Who is Luke and why does he have his own temperature?’”
[A] I presume no good answer was given, which is why you’re turning to me? That’s the trouble with these smart lines, they’re fun for a moment but leave you unsatisfied and wanting more. As it happens, it’s an interesting question and I’ve spent a few intrigued minutes delving into the history of lukewarm.
The word has been spelled in all sorts of different ways down the centuries, including lew-warm, loo-warm (a necessity in our house), lewke-warm and luckwarm. The first part was mainly ... 601-6: Sic! - • Kelly went to a gynaecologist in Riverside County, California, for a routine examination, only to encounter this notice: “All pregnant women who expect to have a male baby can arrange for circumcision before delivery!!!” These intrauterine operations are a great medical advance, to be sure.
• Over-heated Olympics language: “Forgive me if the quotation is not exact — I was driving at the time,” e-mailed Chris Church. “But did I really hear a sports reporter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme say, ‘In just one jump, he qualified for the triple jump’?” Terry Dowling swears he heard a reporter on BBC News say of the winner of the 100m sprint, “He has literally exploded onto the athletics scene.”... 601-7: Copyright and contact details - World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 2008. All rights reserved. You may reproduce this newsletter in whole or part in free online newsletters, newsgroups or mailing lists provided that you include this note and the copyright notice above. Reproduction in printed publications or on Web sites or blogs requires prior permission, for which you should contact the editor.
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