Editor's Corner

In my last two posts (here and here), I discussed fossil words (words that are not widely used outside of one or two well-known phrases) and gave some examples.

Here are 13 more fossil words, along with the phrases in which you can still find them. The definitions are from Merriam-Webster.

· mettle: vigor and strength of spirit or temperament ("test one’s mettle")

· offing: the near or foreseeable future ("in the offing")

· petard: a case containing an explosive to break down a door or gate or breach a wall ("hoist by one’s petard")

· riddance: deliverance, relief ("good riddance")

· shebang: everything involved in what is under consideration ("the whole shebang")

· shrift: a remission of sins pronounced by a priest in the sacrament of reconciliation ("short shrift")

· sleight: dexterity, skill ("sleight of hand")

· turpitude: inherent baseness; depravity ("moral turpitude")

· ulterior: going beyond what is openly said or shown and especially what is proper ("ulterior motive")

· vim: robust energy and enthusiasm ("vim and vigor")

· wedlock: the state of being married; marriage, matrimony ("out of wedlock")

· wreak: bring about, cause ("wreak havoc")

· yore: time past and especially long past ("days of yore")

Bonus Spelling Tips

This list contains two commonly misspelled phrases: "wreak havoc" (not "wreck havoc") and "sleight of hand" (not "slight of hand").

The Mnemonic Dictionary has several tips for remembering how to spell wreak. This is my favorite:

Tip: Wreak sounds like (and is spelled like) creak. The ship creaked when the pirates wreaked havoc on it.

I couldn’t find a good mnemonic for sleight, so I conjured one up. When magicians perform sleight of hand, they commonly hide things in their sleeves.

Tip: When you’re talking about magic, the word sleight has a silent e hidden in its sleeve.

Ben Ritter | Technical Editor | Symitar®
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Today’s topic is a little bit tricky. I’d like to provide you the etymologies of two words (deprecate and depreciate) and then discuss how one of those words means something a little different in our world of software development.

From my favorite dictionary, the Online Etymology Dictionary:

· deprecate (verb)

1620s, "to pray against or for deliverance from," from Latin deprecatus, past participle of deprecari "to pray (something) away" (see deprecation). Meaning "to express disapproval" is from 1640s.

· depreciate (verb)

mid-15c., from Latin depretiatus, past participle of depretiare "to lower the price of, undervalue," from de– "down" (see de-) + pretium "price".

And from Wikipedia, more etymological information on the word deprecation, and the special meaning of the word in the world of software:

In general English usage, the infinitive "to deprecate" means "to express disapproval of (something)". It derives from the Latin verb deprecare, meaning "to ward off (a disaster) by prayer". Thus, for one to state that a feature is deprecated is merely a recommendation against using it. It is still possible to produce a program or product without heeding the deprecation.

Software Deprecation

While a deprecated software feature remains in the software, its use may raise warning messages recommending alternative practices; deprecated status may also indicate the feature will be removed in the future. Features are deprecated rather than immediately removed, to provide backward compatibility and give programmers time to bring affected code into compliance with the new standard.

Kara Church

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Nope, it’s not time for Lady Gaga, but it is time for some card game terms from page 653 of the book I Never Knew There Was a Word for It, by Adam Jacot de Boinod.

· crimp: to bend one or more cards so that a cheat will be able to cut the deck as he wishes, or to know that an innocent player will be cutting the deck at the same desired card

· flag–flying: to make an overbid that will almost inevitably fail, just to liven up the game

· hop: a secret move made after the cut which puts the card back in the original position and negates that cut for the cheat’s benefit

· motown: a poker hand consisting of “jacks-on-fives”

· pone: the player who cuts the cards

· runt: a poker hand worth less than a pair

· there’s work down: the announcement by one player that someone somehow is cheating

· vole: the winning by one player of all the tricks of a deal: a grand-slam

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

I was talking with a friend recently about my plans to go to England for the new year, and he said, “I wish I was going with you.”

I make it a habit not to correct people’s speech, because we all make mistakes when we are speaking informally. We don’t have time to prepare, and sometimes things just come out wrong. I know—it happens to me a lot.

So, I didn’t correct my friend, but I made a mental note to bring it up here in the Editor’s Corner. My friend, let’s call him Herman Fizzleton, should have used the subjunctive mood. He should have said, “I wish I were going with you.”

According to the Grammarist website, “In English, the subjunctive moodis used to explore conditional or imaginary situations.”

If you are wishing for something, dreaming about something, or imagining something (any kind of hypothetical), you should use the subjunctive. Here are a few examples:

· If I were your boss, I’d give you a raise.

· If you were to hand-knit my holiday present, I would absolutely love it!

· I wish you were here to keep me company.

Understand, though, that getting the subjunctive mood correct does not necessarily mean that your wish comes true. We’re talking about a verb mood, not a genie in a bottle

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

8985 Balboa Ave. | San Diego, CA 92123 | Ph. 619.278.0432 | Extension: 765432

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Are you wondering if there is an apostrophe in Veterans Day?

According to the Office of Public Affairs website, “Veterans Day does not include an apostrophe but does include an ‘s’ at the end of ‘veterans’ because it is not a day that ‘belongs’ to veterans, it is a day for honoring all veterans."

And in honor of Veterans Day, here is a list of words that have military origins (from Merriam-Webster).

ginormous: extremely large

picket: a person posted for a demonstration or protest

jamoke: coffee

umpteen: very many : indefinitely numerous

raunchy: (1) slovenly, dirty (2) obscene, smutty

skedaddle: run away, scram; especially : flee in a panic

skosh: a small amount

clobber: to defeat overwhelmingly

spit and polish: extreme attention to cleanliness, orderliness, smartness of appearance, and ceremony

cannibalize: to make use of (a part taken from one thing) in building, repairing, or creating something else

Thank you to all the brave men and women who serve or have served our country to protect our freedom.

Jackie Solano | Technical Editor | Symitar®

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Dear Editrix,

I see this all of the time: people misuse the words aw and awe. Can you please tell people what these words mean, what part of speech they are, and when each one should be used?

Sincerely,

Thankful in Texas

Dear Thankful,

It would be my pleasure to discuss this!

Let’s start with aw (sometimes spelled aww). Aw is an interjection that is used for a couple of reasons. Sometimes it indicates disappointment or pity, such as “Aw, I’m so sorry that you didn’t get a cookie.” Other times, it indicates that someone thinks something is cute or adorable. For example, “Aw, that is the cutest wagon full of puppies I’ve ever seen!” Surprisingly, this interjection has been around since 1797.

Now, let’s look at awe. Awe is a noun that used to mean dread or terror. Now, Merriam-Webster defines it as “fear mixed with dread, veneration, reverence, or wonder.” I think today it has a more positive feeling associated with it—when someone says something is awesome, they tend to mean it is really fantastic, not really scary. (See more about Awesome and Awful in Ben’s article.)

Awe is also a verb, meaning “to inspire with awe.”

Here are a couple examples of using awe:

· She looked at the playroom in awe; thousands of Legos were covering the floor, except where the children were kneeling.

· The altar of gold and sapphires was created with awe-inspiring craftsmanship, but it was also blinding.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

My first real job many, many years ago, was in a butcher shop. I was 15½ years old, so I didn’t get to do any cutting or chopping—I just got to clean the saws, grinder, and rotisserie; rake up the fallen “parts” in the sawdust; and dance in the dumpster to make room for more garbage.

Anyway, the other day, one of our clients wrote to me about the term “sausage-making.” Oh yeah, that’s its own special kind of fun in the meat department. But she was saying that she heard it being used in conjunction with politics, so I thought I better find out more about this term.

The most lengthy reference I found was on a blog about political terms and clichés, including sausage-making. While I won’t comment on the politics, I will give you the usage and definition of this term by providing some excerpts.

Legislation is like sausage. You want the outcome but you don’t want to see how it’s made.

When the intricacies of one proposed health-care model [KC – Or any political issue and legislation.] get too complicated to discuss any further, the commentator dismisses the line of discussion with, It’s all part of the sausage-making process.

Clearly, sausage-making has become a conventionalized term, a micro-cliché meant to encapsulate both the ugliness of the legislative process as well as the implication that the public would be better off not knowing about this ugliness. Like most clichés, it started with a clever idea but has now become a lazy shorthand, an expression that permits us not to dwell too long on its meaning.

Here’s a word to the wise: never eat anything called ham salad.

Thank you to Mr. Hooper for sending this our way!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Good morning, friends.

Well, the weekend is in the past. I know that I speak for many of you when I say that our two days off passed much too quickly.

Did you notice my use of past and passed in the previous sentences? It’s my clever lead-in to today’s article. You see, a few people have mentioned recently that they have trouble figuring out which word is correct: passed or past. I’m here to help.

Let’s start with passed, which is a verb. It’s the past tense of pass. Regular past tense verbs end in –ed (cleaned, lifted, screamed, loved, etc.). We use the verb pass and all its conjugations (he passes, they passed, we are passing, etc.) to talk about moving on, going on, or proceeding.

On the other hand, the word past can be an adjective (The days of my childhood are past), a noun (We cannot live in the past), or a preposition (The bird flew past my window). Past is typically used to describe time that has elapsed.

Here’s a hint to help you remember which word to use: generally, passed is about movement and past is about time. (Past has the letter t in it and so does time.)

Does that help, or are you past caring?

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

8985 Balboa Ave. | San Diego, CA 92123 | Ph. 619.278.0432 | Extension: 765432

Symitar Technical Publications Writing and Editing Requests

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My fabulous coworker Donna and I were chatting the other day about the local animal shelters and our own “pound puppies.” The second I said pound, I asked myself (since Donna was no longer listening to me), “I wonder why it’s called the pound?” Days later, Ben saw the note I wrote to myself and he said he had a guess. “I bet it’s related to the word impounded.” What a smart man our dear Ben is. He was on the right track, but pound actually came before impound. Here’s what I discovered:

From Wikipedia:

An animal pound was a place where stray livestock such as pigs were impounded in a dedicated enclosure until claimed by their owners or sold to cover the costs of impounding. The terms pinfold and pound are Saxon in origin. Pundfald and pund both mean an enclosure. There appears to be no difference between a pinfold and a village pound. The term pinfold seems to be more popular in the north and east of England, whilst in the south and west the term pound is more popular.

The village pound was a feature of most English medieval villages, and they were also found in the English colonies of North America and in Ireland.

A high-walled and lockable structure served several purposes; the most common use was to hold stray sheep, pigs, and cattle until they were claimed by the owners, usually for the payment of a fine or levy. Early pounds had just briar hedges, but most were built in stone or brick, making them more stock-proof.

From my friends at the Online Etymology Dictionary:

· pound: "enclosed place for animals," late 14c., from a late Old English word attested in compounds (such as pundfald "penfold, pound"), related to pyndan "to dam up, enclose (water)," and thus from the same root as pond. Ultimate origin unknown; some sources indicate a possible root *bend meaning "protruding point" found only in Celtic and Germanic.

· pond: c. 1300 (mid-13c. in compounds), "artificially banked body of water," variant of pound "enclosed place.” Applied locally to natural pools and small lakes from late 15c. Jocular reference to "the Atlantic Ocean" dates from 1640s.

· impound (v.): early 15c., "to shut up in a pen or pound," from assimilated form of in- "into, in" (see in-) + pound (n.). Originally of cattle seized by law.

The town pound of Glocester, Rhode Island, c. 1748

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Here’s a set of words I get mixed up all of the time: a while and awhile. I think I even wrote an article on this years ago, but until I found this information in the Grammarist, I could never remember when to use two words or one.

Awhile vs. A While

Awhileis an adverb meaning for a while, and it only works where it would bear replacement with that three-word phrase. Where for a while wouldn’t work in its place, it is probably not an adverb, so it should be two words: a while.

For instance, in the sentence, “Guests waited awhile for food,” awhile is one word because it is an adverb modifying the verb waited (note also that for a while would work in its place). In the sentences, “We have a while left to wait,” and, “I saw her a while ago,” a while is two words because while functions as a noun.

Awhile has existed in various spellings since the days of Old English, but there is a mistaken belief among some English speakers that the word is a new form and thus questionable. That’s why it is so often unnecessarily rendered as two words. And in fact, if you are not comfortable with the word and are unsure if you’re using it correctly, making it two words is always safe because no one will consider it wrong. But careful writers who understand where to deploy the adverbial awhile need not fear it.

Examples

· But if they give him The Tonight Show back, maybe it ends up all right after a while. [Hollywood.com]

· Starlings foray across the land and rest awhile on the sunlit twigs of ash. [Guardian]

· After a while, Rawls came in to let another set of children have a chance. [Washington
Post]

· Crazy Horse watched this awhile and then rode down the river where some men were going out to repair the talking wires. [Crazy
Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas]

· We’ve been talking for a while when Baroness Campbell of Surbiton suddenly cuts to the chase, and leaves me speechless. [Telegraph]

· Beyond the bar, soft white leather booths beckon you to sit, take off your coat and stay awhile. [In
Arkansas]

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

Symitar Documentation Services

NOTICE: This electronic mail message and any files transmitted with it are intended
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