Editor's Corner

Good morning, peeps! Today is another one of those days, where we had a mid-week holiday, and many people are still out enjoying themselves (or nursing hangovers and cleaning up after messy guests).

I read this article about words related to common New Year’s resolutions, and I found some of them interesting. I’m just giving you my favorites, but you can see them all here: 30 Words For The Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions | Dictionary.com

• wabi-sabi: A Japanese term for a worldview that finds beauty in imperfection. Nobody is perfect, and realizing that fact goes a long way to building stronger relationships.
• amour-propre: A synonym of self-esteem or self-respect. This word reveals whose opinion matters the most when deciding to lose weight: your own!
• pecuniary: An adjective that means something involves or is related to money. [KC – This could be a good one to use if you’re hiding “pecuniary difficulties.” It sounds like maybe your pet bird flew away, or you don’t like the taste of asparagus. Definitely odd enough that people won’t ask for
  details.]
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• Bottom of Form
• nomophobia: An unofficial term for the fear of not having a mobile phone. Many of us have come to depend on our phones, which means a social media update is often just a thumb press away. [KC – I had to look for more details on this term because I know “phobia” is “fear of” but I couldn’t remember any Greek prefix “nomo.” It turns out it stands for “no mobile.”
  Fear of no phone access? I regard that as a glorious time to relax and enjoy the magic of true peace.]
• JOMO: This term, which means “joy of missing out,” refers to being so happy about your own life that you don’t worry about what other people are doing.
• meraki: A Greek word that means to do something with passion and pleasure. [KC – Fascinating! There is a new restaurant/event space in our neighborhood with this name. It’s hosted by a group of Italians, sounds like a Japanese word, but it’s Greek (from Turkish). I wonder what the food is like? It used to be the Moose Lodge!]
• arbejdsglæde: A Danish word that means “happiness at work.” [KC – I’ll take their word for it.]
• crapulous: An adjective that describes something as being related to overindulgence in drinking. Given to or characterized by gross excess in drinking or eating. [KC – I think this sounds like the perfect word for how you feel after a day or night of excessive drinking. “Don’t speak so loudly, Madge, I’m feeling crapulous today.”]

May your resolutions hold true and may your 2025 be spectacular, not crapular!

Happy New Year from Sylvie, too!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

It’s that time of the year: the end! I have a selection of Words of the Year 2024, from three different sites: Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, and Oxford University Press.

Merriam-Webster

polarization

We define polarization as “division into two sharply distinct opposites; especially, a state in which the opinions, beliefs, or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum but become concentrated at opposing extremes.”

Polarization, and the verb polarize, date back to the early 1800s, when they first described light waves. That physical meaning of polarize—“to cause to vibrate in a definite pattern”—led to the political and cultural meaning that helps define the world today.

The polar in polarization is from Latin polaris, which describes the Earth’s poles. Polaris is also a name for the North Star. [KC – That’s a nicer place to end this definition rather than in politics.]

Dictionary.com

demure

The word demure experienced a meteoric rise in usage in 2024. Between January and the end of August, this term saw a nearly 1200% increase in usage in digital web media alone. This sharp rise is mainly attributed to TikToker Jools Lebron’s popularization of the phrase “very demure, very mindful” in a series of videos posted to the platform in early August. [KC – If you go to Dictionary.com, there still may be a copy of Jools’ TikTok video, which I
found sweet and hilarious.]

Though the term demure has traditionally been used to describe those who are reserved, quiet, or modest, a new usage has spread through social media — one used to describe refined and sophisticated appearance or behavior in various contexts, such as at work or on a plane. This increased focus on public appearance and behavior comes at a time when employees are increasingly returning to offices after hybrid remote work following the pandemic.

Oxford University Press

Brain rot

Brain rot is defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration”.

Our experts noticed that ‘brain rot’ gained new prominence this year as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024.

The first recorded use of ‘brain rot’ was found in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden, which reports his experiences of living a simple lifestyle in the natural world.

So, there you have them. A few words of this year to sum up politics, TikTok presence, and the result of watching too much of both. I’m going to go for Jools Lebron’s use of demure as my favorite.

I wish you all a very peaceful, joyful, and happy new year. Since that feels a little dull, I’m going to make an AI card to celebrate.

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Good morning, folks! I accidentally skipped yesterday’s message, so here it is today.

I hope that you got everything you wished for if you are one who exchanges gifts during the holidays. I had just one thing that I wanted, and I got it for myself. My husband and I made a deal a few years ago that we wouldn’t buy a bunch of things and try to guess what the other person wanted. We have what we need and if we don’t, we talk about it and make a plan…or just buy it.

But this year, my sweet husband surprised me. He got me this, and I adore it!

It is a soft capybara night light! You squeeze it and it turns on; you squeeze it again and it gets brighter; you squeeze it once more and it turns off! It is a thing of joy.

I know, I know. It has nothing to do with grammar or English or new words. Trust me, I’m getting to today’s topic. This “gift” is something that my mom asked for. The email went something like this:

Kara,

I find this absolutely fascinating and I want one.

Mom

She attached this photo:

Chatelaine

I’m assuming my mom was referring to the chatelaine the woman is wearing, not the cigarette in her hand. So, what is a chatelaine?

From History Facts:
“Long before pockets became commonplace, humans had other resourceful ways to carry everyday essentials. Wearable pouches such as belt bags date back more than 5,000 years, and as early as ancient Roman times, people wore brooches that had hooks for hanging personal grooming tools. Similar items were used for carrying keys throughout the medieval period and beyond; by the 18th century, the tool had evolved into an elaborate piece that came to be known as a “chatelaine,” a word derived from French, referring to the keeper of a castle.”

Of course, the woman in the photo is also carrying a purse, but you can see she has a bunch of other things on her chatelaine. I see scissors, what looks like a watch, and who knows what else? If that were my mom, one of those would be holding lipstick.

When my husband and I were in Amsterdam, we went to the Museum of Bags and Purses, looking for a time-filler. It was amazing, and I remember many the chatelaines and small purses they had on display. COVID closed the museum, but the preceding link shows some of the collection, including these cool little gadgets. I’ll see what I can do with creating a likeness and sending it to my mom. Here’s what I have so far:

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Good morning!

Is there anybody out there? I hear an echo when I shout, “Happy Holidays!”

I don’t have an official Editor’s Corner today. I have an idea for one, but I think I’ll leave it for next week. Right now, I simply wanted to take a moment to wish each of you joy, peace, and happiness today and in the new year. Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, the winter solstice, or something you made up, I hope you have a lovely holiday.

Thank you for reading, sending in your questions, offering ideas, and being part of our exploration of the English language.

Have a lovely day off tomorrow.

Kara

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Holiday greetings!

The other day, while rummaging around on the internet, I ran across a brief list of weather-related words, some of which I’d never heard before. So, I started looking a little more intentionally and found a few more that I thought I’d share with you. Now that summer is a distant memory, and the autumn leaves are mostly a thing of the past, and winter is upon us, it seems like a good time to talk about the weather.

One of my workmates prefers the long, snowy winters in Michigan to the endless sunny days in Southern California. And my spouse absolutely loves stormy days. While I snuggle up on the couch with my dog and a book, he bundles up and disappears for hours out into the downpour, like it’s some kind of cleansing ritual—and I guess it is, because he comes back happy and renewed. To each their own.

I hope that the following weather words help you appreciate whatever conditions you’re experiencing.

• bombogenesis: the process by which a storm intensifies in a very short amount of time
• derecho: a fast moving line of ferocious thunderstorms
• drouth: the perfect weather during which to dry clothes
• firenado: a tornado made of fire
• haboob: an intense sandstorm
• mizzle: a light or fine rain
• scud: a sudden brief rush of wind
• swullocking: humid
• toad strangler: an extremely heavy downpour of rain that can often lead to flash flooding
• virga: a ghostly precipitation that never makes it to the ground
• williwaws: violent squalls

Whatever your weather, I hope you have a lovely day and the happiest holiday season.

Donna Bradley Burcher |Technical Editor, Advisory | jack henry

Pronouns she/her/hers

Remote – CA

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Editor’s Corner keeps your communication skills sharp by providing information on grammar, punctuation, JHA style, and all things English. As editors, we spend our days reading, researching, and revising other people’s writing. We love to spend a few extra minutes to share what we learn with you and keep it fun while we’re doing it.

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Good morning, folks!

The other day I sat through some AI training. For today’s Editor’s Corner, I’d like to share a couple of things I learned about: heat maps and histograms.

I know, those sound more like something the doctor ordered, but to those out there who are familiar with managing data, they are likely common terms. Let’s have a look at what they are.

From TechTarget:

A heat map is a two-dimensional representation of data in which various values are represented by colors. A simple heat map provides an immediate visual summary of information across two axes, allowing users to quickly grasp the most important or relevant data points. More elaborate heat maps allow the viewer to understand complex data sets.

Maybe a better way to explain is to give you an example. Here’s something I pulled up in an internet search for “heat map.” It’s very generic with the “team members” and undefined skills, but the idea is to get information from the colors. I put a black outline around two different rows to give you an idea of what you can deduce from the colors and a little information.

For example, I’m exploring this data to decide what kind of training the team needs.

• Looking at Skill 2 and the red in that row, you can see that many team members are deficient in Skill 2. Skill 2 might be a good candidate to focus on and teach.
• Looking at Skill 6, you can see that all team members have some competence with knife handling…I mean Skill 6…all the way up to being an expert at that skill. Skill 6 might be a talent that can be put at the bottom of the list for teaching.

The heat map is used for many different types of data analyses, and as you can see, it is pretty easy to make deductions using it.

And now for histograms.

We are all familiar with histograms, I just didn’t recognize the word. Apparently “histo-“ means “upright” or “tissue” in medicine. “Gram” is Greek for something written. I think the “tissue” definition is throwing me off.

From Merriam-Webster:

histogram: a representation of a frequency distribution by means of rectangles whose widths represent class intervals and whose areas are proportional to the corresponding frequencies

Ugh, what a wordy definition! How about this instead? A “graph that shows the distribution of data.” Even better, a screen capture, showing six common types of histograms:

So, welcome to my AI training. I don’t think graphs were the intended target of my learning, but that’s what I got out of it. Enjoy!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Good morning, folks. I hope I haven’t bored you to death with my Editor’s Corner topics that are only slightly related to English and mostly related to new things I learned on vacation. Only one more to go. This last one is about the Allerton and McBryde National Tropical Botanical Gardens, and more specifically about the state tree of Hawaii, the kukui nut tree, or candlenut tree.

Here’s a photo of the kukui nuts up in the tree:

They fall to the ground and look like this:

They are about two inches wide. There is a good reason that the kukui is the state tree of Hawaii. They grow well and provide delicious shade from the sun, but they also provided the original Hawaiians with much more. After gathering these nuts from the ground, you can use a rock to clear the fruit off the nut. It looks something like a baby coconut:

The white part inside the nut is the oily substance used to light torches. Your favorite tiki torch is probably a replica of the original. Each nut provides about 15 minutes of light. The nuts were also used for medicine, cooking, and they were polished to make leis. This is not my photo or my husband, but it is a polished kukui nut lei:

And one more photo from the garden, which is a scene used in many American movies (Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean, 6 Days, 7 Nights, etc.).

I hope you learned a few things during my vacation review. Mahalo for reading!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Good morning!

Today I’m not going to subject you to all of my blathering. Just a short definition of an English word, and maybe one or two photos.

I asked my friend Luna, whose wife is from Kauai, what we had to see on the trip I’ve been telling you about. She sent me a list of things to see, places to eat, and experiences to try. One of the “must see” items was “inner tubing down the flumes.” I had never heard the word “flume,” so I thought I better look it up before I made a reservation for trouble.

According to Wikipedia, a flume is a…

…human-made channel for water, in the form of an open declined gravity chute whose walls are raised above the surrounding terrain, in contrast to a trench or ditch. Flumes are not to be confused with aqueducts, which are built to transport water; flumes use flowing water to transport materials.

Okay, I’m in! I looked it up on the internet and asked my hubby if he was up for it, and he said yes.

The flumes in this area were designed for the sugar cane trade, to carry water and cane down the mountain. We got to the starting point for the adventure, and they fitted us with helmets, gloves, cave lights, and checked that we were wearing Crocs for the water. We had our swimsuits on, and the drive up the mountain began.

Once we got there, we got in the inner tubes, and let’s just say the mountain water was “refreshing.” There were five tunnels, and they looked something like this:

We went spinning and washing down through the tunnels, laughing and screaming; and in one tunnel, we sang happy birthday to my husband. The acoustics were great. There is no such thing as a great photo wearing a helmet, having your butt dunked in cold water, and looking into the sun without glasses, but here you go! Flumes are fun!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Good morning, people!

Today is day two of our Hawaiian discoveries. I think today Ill write a little bit about fruit. Yes, fruit. Kauai is the garden island of Hawaii, and we visited several types of gardens while we were there. The Hawaiians refer to some of these places as plantations, which definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but thats what they call them.

A little history first. Over the years, Hawaiian land was taken over and used for crops such as sugar cane, which requires a lot of work. Just like the contiguous U.S. used slaves, Hawaiis conquerors used Hawaiians. Some were paid with credit that they could only use at the stores owned by their employers. Others were paid 90 cents a day for a full day of back-breaking work. When Hawaii became a state in 1959, those practices stopped, and many the businesses left because they couldnt afford the living wage.

But this is getting depressing. On the plus side: statehood meant no more slavish treatment. And as far as the land, much of it was preserved and protected when the big businesses left. This fruit plantation that we went to is in business because they use the fruit and vegetables they grow for farm to table service in their restaurant. They do train tours and walking tours around the plantation. Oh yes, and they make rum, which has a lot to do with them staying in business.

So, lets check out what we saw on the walking tour! (The walking tour allowed you to take home fruit and vegetables for the road. Avocado lovers wouldve been in heaven.)

First, hua h/b> or star fruit.

If you slice a star fruit sideways, it looks like a star. I know, duh! You might find it at the store, but farmers tend to pick them too early when sending them far away. The fruit on this tree was ripe, crunchy, juicy, and so delicious!

Next, hala kahiki, or pineapple. Apparently, many people think pineapples grow on trees. Nope, they grow on a bush that takes a couple of years to bear fruit. Mmmm.

We walked, we tried tons of citrus fruits, and then we came to the part that blew my mind. Here is a photo of this amazing thing. What is this ugly mug? An apple? Yes, its called a cashew apple, and it tastes awful. And what is that parasitic-looking, cashew-like thing on the bottom?

Well, here are some without the apples:

These are cashews! They are still in their protective coverings, and they must be roasted before you eat them, to get rid of the poison inside them. Who knew? No wonder they are so expensive! I couldnt find a Hawaiian name for these.

The last thing that I have to tell you about is the farm. The farm had a couple of cows, a horse, llamas, and a bazillion wild pigs. The pigs break into the corral because they know theyll get free food. We fed all of them: gluten free tortillas for the pigs and llamas, grass cubes for the cows and horse.

For the sake of size, Ill only include the llama mamma, who has beautiful eyes.

Next time, less history and one word.

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editors Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Aloha!

It’s been a long time since I’ve gone on vacation, but those of you who have spent years with me know that I love to share what I’ve learned when I get home from a trip. This year, we traveled in the United States, to Kauai, Hawaii.

Hawaii is a special place for many reasons, but one is that native Hawaiians have a different language from English. While policies in America’s past aimed to assimilate the Indigenous people by teaching them English, there has been a resurgence of teaching the Hawaiian language to kids in school.

Here is just a short list of common Hawaiian words: Glossary of Common Hawaiian Vocabulary. Though many of the people we met said they were not fluent in Hawaiian, the Indigenous tour guides had great vocabularies. For example, the guide we had at the old sugarcane plantation knew the Hawaiian fruit plant names, the captain of the catamaran knew the mountain and seaside place names, the gardener knew the names of the plants, etc.

What I’m here to talk about today, though, are some of the specific things I learned while on my trip. A few things are about the culture, some about the words I learned, and then there are photos.

I think this might take a few “episodes” of Editor’s Corner. I hope you can enjoy the ride!

I’ll do something common and brief today: the shaka sign. This giant shaka photo is from a roundabout near our hotel:

From Wikipedia: The shaka sign, sometimes known as "hang loose" is a gesture with friendly intent often associated with Hawaii and surf culture. It consists of extending the thumb and smallest finger while holding the three middle fingers curled, and gesturing in salutation while presenting the front or back of the hand; the wrist may be rotated back and forth for emphasis.

This should not be confused with your favorite devil rock hand gesture “the sign of the horns,” which is not about hanging loose.

I’ll have more for you next time, from the different adventures we went on.

Until then, mahalo*!

*thanks, gratitude, respect…what a great word!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/