Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Some Words of the Day
A hapax legomenon is a word that appears only once in the entire literature of a language. My learned friend Refik points out that Homer is rich in hapaxes, living as he did so far in advance of other Greek writers. As Fowler says "...in all cases it may be said that a writer should not indulge in these unless he is quite sure he is a good writer."Dynamitard proves how much lexicographers copy from each other. Nearly every online source cites Webster's "a political dynamiter", though Chambers has the rather more elegant "a user of dynamite, esp for political purposes". I picked it up in The Guardian prize crossword as "Explosive character subverts bother! One with lots (500)"(10)If you like these words of the day I quite recommend the Worthless Word of the Day mailing list. They chose avolate, recently which means both "escape", "fly away", and "exhale". Much more poetic than anything I pick.Tags: wotd
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