#4- It (kinda) all makes sense now! (CW/EE)

Yo! Quentin is here and is actually pretty busy at the moment (and all surrounding moments), but I had to take a sec and mention a word that is endlessly interesting to me: denouement. 

I would normally give you my take on this very cool word, but instead here is a great description of the word that I would like to share. It is from the twelfth book in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, titled The Penultimate Peril. I'm keeping it free of spoilers for anyone interested in reading or in the process of reading this fantastic series. Enjoy!

"Denouement" comes from the French, who use the word to describe the act of untying a knot, and it refers to the unraveling of a confusing or mysterious story, such as the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, or anyone else you know whose life is filled with unanswered questions. The denouement is the moment when all the knots of a story are untied, and all the threads are unraveled, and everything is laid out clearly for the world to see. But the denouement should not be confused with the end of a story. The denouement of "Snow White," for instance, occurs at the moment when Ms. White wakes up from her enchanted sleep, and decides to leave the dwarves behind and marry the handsome prince, and the mysterious old woman who gave her an apple has been exposed as the treacherous queen, but the end of "Snow White" occurs many years later, when a horseback riding accident plunges Ms. White into a fever from which she never recovers. The denouement of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" occurs at the moment when the bears return home to find Goldilocks napping on their private property, and either chase her away from the premises, or eat her, depending on which version you have in your library, but the end of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" occurs when a troop of young scouts neglect to extinguish their campfire and even the efforts of a volunteer fire department cannot save most of the wildlife from certain death. There are some stories in which the denouement and the end occur simultaneously, such as La Forza del Destino, in which the characters recognize and destroy one another over the course of a single song, but usually the denouement of a story is not the last event in the heroes' lives, or the last trouble that befalls them. It is often the second-to-last event, or the penultimate peril.

The series is full of wonderful passages like that one, dealing with words, phrases, and idioms as such. And even though it is advertised mostly as a children's series, as you can see, it can be full of delightfully dark humor and packs a literary punch to just about anyone.

Conclusions: read! words are fun! (did you notice the denouement of this post came right before the end?)

Have a great week,

Quentin

#3- Why the Long Phrase? (MV)

(Shira says hello! She's also trying something she doesn't do very well with HTML, so can you mouse over and then click the little 'comic' text you see below? She will get the hang of this eventually...)

Hey, it's Shira. Undeniably, liquorice is a hard snack to follow. At this time, Quentin is probably occupied with eXtremely important Quentannic activities. I'll bare my grandiloquent heart and soul to you, and discuss just what goes into making words words.

So what is Manifest Vocabulary? The truth is, I just made up a cool phrase to define a phenomenon that already exists- the coining of neologisms. My lifestyle is eXtreme enough to require new and exciting phrases- I'm always just surviving explosions, leaping off of buildings, and kicking away tribal natives on my way to fantastic ancient treasures in sealed temples and/or crypts.

Neologism breaks down easily (new, word) so you know that is means any new word created to describe a concept or invention which no term currently in use can define. But when Quentin or I do it, we will be manifesting vocabulary. Hardcore vocabulary. Vocabulary the likes of which the world has never before experienced. You use a lot of neologisms all the time, especially if you go on the computer, or watch the telly, or use appliances. Look around you, and you will probably see at least five objects for which there were no words two centuries ago.

Manifested vocabulary comes most frequently in some of these forms:
Portmanteau/Blending- creating blog from web log. This is not to be confused with compunding, which gives us words like blogosphere.
Derivation- creating blogger by agglutination, the addition of suffixes.
Zero Derivation- creating the verb to blog in order to describe the action of blog posting.
Alteration of the Lemma- enough screwing around in speech or message boards can change the core word into something like blag.

I think we can get to backronyms, retronyms, and back-formation in a bit.

My favorite form of manifest vocabulary, however, is Word Theft. This is when we take a word from another language and twist it to fit our own insidious needs. This can occur through calques, loanwords, or hybrid words, which are special and scientifically engineered in super-secret underground labs. German in particular, with its extremely sexy philisophical nature, is a big victim of word purloinment. We get really long and unpronouncable words that existentialism majors like to use, such as Weltanschauung, and also words that find their way more easily into conversation, like kindergarten or sauerkraut. On the other hand, we calqued in the word pineapple from wallflower dialect Dutch, which just goes to show that there is no accounting for taste. (I think?)

My deity! I just can't stop talking! Before I crush everyone with the wall of words (perhaps it is too late), let's dish up today's piping hot Manifest Vocabulary.

nookish (adj) prn nʊkɪʃ. Nookish, not to be confused with bookish or nookie, describes the state of chips or crackers if you leave them out for a couple of hours and they lose all their crispy-crunchiness. It is as if they have become air soggy. As if, in fact, they have become nookish.

"Wait!" you cry out. "That was far too mundane for such an exotic lead-in!" Mundane the word may be, but it fills a slot previously vacant. If you ever leave corn chips open and come back in three hours or so, you now have the perfect thing to say!

Thanks for reading. That was quite an eyeful, wasn't it? Many apologies. Hope you enjoy and keep reading us! Shira shalom.

#2 - For Those with a Sweet Tooth (EE)

Hey y'all. Quentin here with my first post on the Atlas. Let's jump right into some eXtreme etymology! Why? So we can talk about candy and words! A delectable combination!

The word licorice originates from Middle English, originally coming from the Greek roots glukus (sweet) and rhiza (root). As a result, when a true etymologist would like to get a taste from the licorice tray, he politely asks his butler, "Could I trouble you for bit of sweet root?"

Actually, I'm lying...... licorice doesn't come in trays. It comes in brightly colored bags!! (It also apparently comes in the different colors of the rainbow.) *shrugs*

I imagine a conversation such as this one:

"Here's your sweet root, sir, at your command."

"Thank you Jeeves, but I am sorry to point out that there are no indigo licorices here."

"This one is purple, sir; it's just about indigo."

"NO IT'S NOT! I wasn't even going to point out the lack of violet twists, but now I'll have to. And purple isn't even in the rainbow!"

Then he runs into his conservatory and cries all over his boomerang collection... good times.

Oh those etymologists...

Anyway, here's the rough idea of the different metamorphoses the word licorice has undergone:

glukurrhiza (Greek)

liquiritia (Latin)

licoresse (Old French)

licorice (now)

Also, this is an exciting day because it is the first of a new segment that will occasionally show up in the blog! Introducing Awesome British Spellings Which Are Not The Same As Mine! (Acronym: ABSWANTSAM, pronounced Abs Want Sam)

ABSWANTSAM:

Licorice is spelled liquorice in the United Kingdom, as our UK friends enjoy their words best when they are truest to their Latin roots. Their spelling is much cooler and makes a lot more sense than ours here in the US. I'm jealous.

C U Around,

Quentin

#1 - A Goodbye Hello (EE)

(Shira in.)

So maybe I'll say hello with goodbye. This is eXtreme etymology, coming at you. Since it's my first venture into the world of Bloggy McBloggerson, though, don't expect razor wit just yet.

The word 'goodbye' in English comes from an Middle English phrase, namely "God be with ye[you]". While that has become truncated into the meaningless "goodbye" and even further to "bye," the word in other languages retains its original form. Spanish-- adios, literally "to God". French, for a final farewell-- adieu. Portuguese-- adeus. You can see where this is going. So why did English crunch up its heavenly farewell? I can't seem to imagine, although English has a tendency of abbreviating where possible. The great thing about this is that if you ask Spanish speakers about adios, they don't realize it's two words smashed into one. Then again, we English speakers mostly have no inkling of the conception of goodbye, so maybe I should apologize.

Also, if they play Hello Goodbye for that Target advert one more time, I might choke someone.

(Shira out.)

Post Number Zero

Both Quentin and Shira are here talking to you... now.

*S So we decided to make a blog about words because they are pretty awesome. Wouldn't you agree? I like the idea of Manifest Vocabulary- the practice- nay, art- of inventing new words to suit phenomena as they arise. These new words can be portmanteaux of existing words, e.g. Apple Laptop --> Apptop (isn't it cool that portmanteau pluralizes with an x) or just new words entirely.

*Q Shira, don't forget that some words that already exist can be pretty awesome too, e.g. dragoman - an Arabic interpreter or guide. I mean, just look at it.... DRAGOMAN!! It's so cool!

*S I also like the ways words have come about- like extreme etymology. Etymology so extreme, in fact, that the extreme is spelled eXtreme. (Henceforth, all appearances of the word eXtreme will be spelled so.)

*Q Thanks for that, Shira.

*S While Quentin is being a branch in the swamp, I think we've pretty much wrapped it up for the exciting introduction. Have your eyeballs melted yet?

*Q Yes... yes they have. Also, sorry for making you seem hyper, Shira, and I will join you in christening this very eXtreme blog. I hope all of you (if any) out there will join us in our endeavor to understand, play with, stretch, and squash the English language. Please, if you wish to make a comment, make said comment immediately. We promise we won't make fun of you and give you a silly hat to wear in the corner of the room while everyone around you points and laughs and says, "My, that is a silly hat."

*S Well, now they're not going to. Way to go, Captain Gymshorts.

*Q Bye for now, but see you soon. Also, that is only my name on Wednesday evenings after 9.

Au Revoir Mes Amis,

Q&S