Editor's Corner

Happy Friday! Today’s topic, paraporsdokians, is a suggestion from Robert in ImageCenter R&D.

A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech where the end of a sentence or phrase is unexpected and causes the reader to reinterpret the first part.

Some examples are:

If I agreed with you we’d both be wrong.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on the list.

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Some people are like Slinkys®…not really good for anything, but you can’t help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.

Evening news is where they being with “Good evening”, then they proceed to tell you why it isn’t.

When tempted to fight fire, remember that the fire department usually uses water.

Hospitality: Making your guests feel like they’re at home, even when you wish they were.

There’s a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can’t get away.

For more paraprosdokian fun, click the following link:

http://www.paraprosdokianfun.com/

Thanks for the suggestion Robert!

Thank you,

Jackie Solano

Technical Writer, Episys Technical Publications

Symitar®

8985 Balboa Avenue

San Diego, California 92123

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Correction
In yesterday’s Editor’s Corner I thanked two people for sending the list of heteronyms: Ron Harman and Mark. Ron Harman, the Education Manager of Enterprise Payment Solutions (EPS), was the sender. Mark Harmon, actor, was part of my daydream. 🙂 My apologies to those I confused.

Incorrect Pronunciations
I remember when I was a kid, my dad sometimes asked me to read newspaper articles to him. One day, I was sitting on the stairs in our living room with the front page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in my hands. I was reading an article about some crime that had been committed, and I cruised right along through the word indicted—only I pronounced it “in-dik-ted.” He knew exactly what I meant and said, “Actually that word is pronounced ‘in-dite-ed,’ with a hard ‘e’ and silent ‘c.’” I was ticked off! How could there be a silent “c”? The Electric Company and Sesame Street never covered that!

The following list of incorrect pronunciations is part of a list from Daily Writing Tips. I must say that there are several of them that I am guilty of, especially when talking too quickly. You can take these or leave them—I like listening to different accents and regional pronunciations. I also think I might go medieval (MED-EE-EEVAL) on the writer if she told me to say miniature (MIN-I-A-TURE) with four syllables. 🙂

50 Incorrect Pronunciations That You Should Avoid
by Maeve Maddox
Fred Astaire drew laughs back in the Thirties with his song “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” in which the lovers can’t agree on the pronunciation of words like either, neither, and tomato.

On a personal level, I cringe when I hear someone sound the “t” in often or pronounce pecan with a short “a,” but I have to acknowledge that both these pronunciations are widely accepted alternate pronunciations that can be justified by the spelling.

Alternate pronunciations, however, are a different matter from out-and-out mispronunciations. The latter, no matter how common, are incorrect, either because of the spelling that indicates another pronunciation, or because of what is widely agreed upon to be conventional usage. Word of caution: I’m writing from an American perspective.

The list is by no means exhaustive, but provides a good start. [KC – Click here
for the complete article.]

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One of our Editor’s Corner readers, Ron Harman, sent this list of sentences for our viewing pleasure. Outside of proving why English can be hard to learn, the list also demonstrates some of the words we’ve learned recently. For example, the first sentence involves capitonyms (pronunciation and meaning change when polish is capitalized as Polish), but polish and Polish are also heteronyms (different meanings, different pronunciation, same spelling). There’s a color chart of these terms here, though it might confuse more than enlighten.

Now, without further ado:

Read the statements below out loud.

• We must polish the Polish furniture.
• He could lead if he would get the lead out.
• The farm was used to produce produce.
• The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
• The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
• This was a good time to present the present.
• A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
• When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
• I did not object to the object.
• The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
• The bandage was wound around the wound.
• There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
• They were too close to the door to close it.
• The buck does funny things when the does are present.
• They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
• To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
• The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
• After a number of injections my jaw got number.
• Upon seeing the tear in my clothes I shed a tear.
• I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
• How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Thank you for the contribution, Mark!

Kara Church
Senior Technical Editor
619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773
www.symitar.com

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I was going to introduce this as today’s “quick and dirty tip,” but I guess it’s not really quick, nor is it dirty. Goodness gracious, it isn’t all Greek, either! The word capitonym is a combination of capit– (English capital, from Latin caput meaning head) + nym (Greek for name, word). A capitonym is a word that changes its meaning (and sometimes pronunciation) when it is capitalized. For more information and an unedited chart of capitonyms, see Wikipedia. For the abbreviated version, see the table below.

Kara Church
Senior Technical Editor
619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773
www.symitar.com

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Good morning, guys and dolls! It seems like an accomplishment to be near the end of the list of Spelling, Vocabulary, and Confusing Words.

Here is one of the last groups of homonyms:

From F in Exams, by Richard Benson

Kara Church
Senior Technical Editor

Today we have a couple more of those “nym” words. Who knew there were so many words for other words?

• caconym: (Greek) kakos bad + (Greek) nym name, word
• cryptonym: (Greek) kryptos hidden + nym name, word

caconym
noun
a : a taxonomic name that is objectionable for linguistic reasons
b : a misnomer
c : a bad word

First Known Use: 1887

Example: The ballerina changed her stage name to “Eva”; at birth, her parents saddled her with the caconym “Millicent Hurdygurdy Applebottom.”

cryptonym
noun
a : a secret name
b : a code name for a place, activity, or person

First Known Use: 1876

Example: The plan to illegally extract the overbred dogs from the puppy mill was given the cryptonym Operation Yapper.

Kara Church
Senior Technical Editor
619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773
www.symitar.com

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Good morning, hello, and welcome to a new week. Today we have a more recently coined term (1980s) from the “nym” family: backronym. It’s recent enough that my search of Merriam-Webster did not turn up anything, so I collected the following information from a Wikipedia article. (For the full text see Wikipedia.)

Backronym(also bacronym) a phrase specially constructed so that an acronym fits an existing word. Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology. Backronyms can be constructed for educational purposes, too, such as forming mnemonics.

Combination of “backward” + “acronym”

Examples:

• The United States Department of Justice assigns to their Amber Alert program the meaning "America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response." The term originally referred to Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old abducted and murdered in Texas in 1996.
• An example of an educational mnemonic is the backronym APGAR, the score used to assess the health of newborn babies. The rating system was devised by and named after Virginia Apgar, but ten years after the initial publication, the bacronym APGAR was coined in the US as a mnemonic learning aid: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration.
• The name of the restaurant chain Arby’s is a play on "RB" referring to "roast beef" as well as the company’s founders, the Raffel brothers.
• The official title of the USA PATRIOT Act, a 2001 Act of the U.S. Congress, is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act of 2001".

My personal backronym recipe:

1 small meeting room
4-10 word lovers
2 cups boredom
¾ cup frustration
1 tablespoon lofty ideas
2 dashes smart aleck (or to taste)

Mix and bake for 1-3 hours. Makes 1 soufflé of creative backronyms that will have you in tears of laughter. Enjoy!

Kara

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I know some of you used the terms from yesterday’s list of words meaning “that certain something.” I particularly enjoyed an e-mail from someone who was “departing work with gusto.” As far as gumption, am I the only person who hears that word and immediately pictures some dirty old miner without teeth saying “He’s got gumption”? No? Okay. Here is the second half of yesterday’s list from DailyWritingTips.com.
[The Other 10] Words for That Certain Something

• Je ne sais quoi: a quality not easily described or expressed (a French phrase that means literally “I know not what”)
• Knack: intuitive capacity or knowledge (originally meant “trick”; perhaps from the onomatopoeic word akin to knock)
• Mettle: vigor, stamina (from an alternate spelling of metal)
• Moxie: energy, enthusiasm, courage (from the brand name of a soft drink; early on, such beverages were often touted, long before the advent of energy drinks, as providing pep)
• Panache: flamboyance; originally, a decorative plume of feathers on a helmet (from the Latin term pinnaculum, meaning “small wing,” by way of Italian and French)
• Pizzazz: glamour, vitality (unknown etymology)
• Savoir faire: self-assuredness, talent for knowing how to conduct oneself (from the French term savoir-faire, meaning “knowing how to do,” from the Latin words sapere, meaning “know,” and facere, meaning “do”)
• Savoir vivre: knowledge of appropriate behavior (from the French word savoir-vivre, “knowing how to live,” from the Latin terms sapere, meaning “know,” and vivre, meaning “live”)
• Spunk: courage, pluck (from the Gaelic word spong, meaning “tinder,” ultimately derived from the Latin term spongia, from which sponge is also derived)
• Verve: vivacity, energy, enthusiasm (ultimately from the Latin term verbum, meaning “word,” because of the early sense of “flair for speaking or writing”)

Gabby Hayes Had Gumption

Kara Church
Senior Technical Editor

Good afternoon! Today’s fare includes a turkey sandwich and half of an article from DailyWritingTips.com. I’ll send the other ten tomorrow, after you’ve tried to use each of the words below in conversation.

20 Words for That Certain Something

Some people have it, and some people don’t. But what, exactly, is it? Here’s a list of words describing a special quality that sets certain people apart from others, and their meanings:

· Brio: vivaciousness (Italian, “fire, life,” perhaps from the word for vigor from a form of French)

· Charisma: charm or personal magnetism (from the Greek word meaning “favor”)

· Chutzpah: admirable or excessive self-confidence; this word and ginger are the only ones on this list that have both positive and negative connotations (from Hebrew by way of Yiddish; several other spellings are used, but this one is the most common)

· Duende: charm (from Spanish dialect, meaning “ghost”)

· Élan: enthusiasm (from the French word eslan, meaning “rush,” with the same Latin root from which lance is derived) [KC – I do not recommend rushing into a lance.]

· Esprit: vivacious wit (French, from the Latin term spiritus, “spirit”)

· Flair: style, or talent or tendency (from the French word meaning “odor” or “scent,” ultimately from Latin flagrare, an alteration of fragrare, from which fragrance is derived) [KC – Looking at the etymology, I’m suddenly thinking it’s not such a compliment.]

· Ginger: spirit, or temper (from the Latin term zingiberis, for the root used as a spice and a medicine, derived from the Sanskrit word srngaveram)

· Gumption: initiative (from a Scottish word meaning “shrewdness,” perhaps from a Germanic term meaning “attention”)

· Gusto: enthusiasm (the Italian word for “taste,” from the Latin term gustus)

From F in Exams, by Richard Benson

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

Portmanteaux (or Portmanteaus)
If you took French in school, you probably learned this word in the “travel vocabulary” part of class, but most English classes cover this word, too. Here’s how Merriam-Webster describes a portmanteau:

1: a large suitcase
2: a word or morpheme whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms (as smog from smoke and fog)

Middle French portemanteau, from porter to carry + manteau mantle [KC – “something that covers, enfolds, or envelops] from Latin mantellum

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