Editor's Corner

Happy Tuesday, my friends. We’re getting toward the end of the colors I’ve been talking about over the past few weeks, from Merriam-Webster’s color quiz. I’m going to skip teal and tangerine, since teal is common (blue-green) and tangerine is the color of the fruit, which most of us are familiar with. (It looks like a baby orange.)

I’ll start with the definitions from M-W, a little color swatch from the quiz, the etymologies from the Online Etymology Dictionary, and maybe a photo of the color in the real world.

Okay, from my least favorite to most favorite.

puce

A dark red.

Okay, a few things before the etymology. 1) M-W created this quiz and provided the swatches, yet they define this as a dark red? 2) Puce is the ugliest name for a color I’ve heard. I don’t want to remember it, but my friend Jane taught me how to relate the ugly word to a tolerable color: puce is pink. Not according to Merriam-Webster, but I think Jane is right about it being pink, not dark red.

Now the etymology:

"brownish-purple," literally "flea-color," 1787, from French puce "flea-color; flea," from Latin pucilem (nominative pulex) "flea.”

Perhaps so called as the color of the scab or stain that marked a flea-bite; flea-bitten was a color word in English to describe whiter or gray spotted over with dark-reddish spots (by 1620s, often of the skins of horses, dogs, etc.). That it could be generally recognized as a color seems a testimony to our ancestors’ intimacy with vermin.

Great! A color named after a flea bite. Let’s paint a wall that color! Here’s a color card of puce from my internet search:

And another image for the color puce:

claret

1: a red Bordeaux wine

2: a dark purplish red

Okay, no arguments there. Etymology?

mid-15c., "light-colored wine," from Old French (vin) claret "clear (wine), light-colored red wine" (also "sweetened wine," a sense in English from late 14c.), from Latin clarus "clear" (see clear (adj.)). Narrowed English meaning "red wine of Bordeaux" (excluding burgundy) first attested 1700. Used in pugilistic slang for "blood" from c. 1600.

And voilá!

wisteria

: any of a genus (Wisteria) of mostly woody leguminous vines of China, Japan, and the southeastern U.S. [KC – We had them in Seattle and have them down here in San Diego, too. They don’t seem to have many boundaries. They are beautiful and smell so delicious!]

also Wistaria, genus of woody vines, 1819, formed by Thomas Nuttall, English botanist, and named in recognition of American anatomist Caspar Wistar (1761-1818) of Philadelphia + abstract noun ending -ia. The form in -e- apparently is a misprint.

I hope your day smells as good as wisteria does!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

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Hey folks! I hope you’re enjoying the short week. I’m back with a few more colors from the Merriam-Webster color quiz. Today I picked what I call the “calm” or “dull” colors. I think of these as wall colors (though if you saw some of my walls, you would know that I like a lot of color for those, too).

Sepia brings to mind old photography, but more on that later. First the M-W definition, the color swatch from the quiz, and then etymological information from the Online Etymology Dictionary.

greige (pronounced like beige)

1 : being in an unbleached undyed state as taken from a loom—used of textiles

2 : of a color that blends gray and beige : of the color greige

Greige is not in the etymology list. Judging by the Google™ responses, it’s all about paint colors. There was one response that said is from grège, the word for unbleached, raw silk in France. I don’t think I’m a fan.

Now, the next gray is more my style. It is more blue-gray than yellow-gray (or beige-gray or greige).

manatee

: any of a genus (Trichechus of the family Trichechidae) of large, herbivorous, aquatic mammals that inhabit warm coastal and inland waters of the southeastern U.S., West Indies, northern South America, and West Africa and have a rounded body, a small head with a squarish snout, paddle-shaped flippers usually with vestigial nails, and a flattened, rounded tail used for propulsion

Manatee doesn’t even get the label “color” according to the dictionary. The color is named for the creature! I’ve never seen one in the wild, but I haven’t been to the right places. Here is a picture of a mamma manatee and her chubby little trooper, sporting beautiful manatee-gray skin.

And finally, sepia.

sepia

1a: a brown melanin-containing pigment from the ink of cuttlefishes

b: the inky secretion of a cuttlefish

2: a print or photograph of a brown color resembling sepia

3: a brownish-gray to dark olive-brown color

"rich brown pigment," 1815, from Italian seppia "cuttlefish," from Latin sepia "cuttlefish," from Greek sēpia "cuttlefish," a word of uncertain origin.

First, the common cuttlefish:

And second, why did I associate the color sepia with photos? Well, I remembered that was the color used to describe old photos, such as this:

I thought that was just how old photos aged: black and white, or sepia. But there’s more to it than that. As some of you know, silver is a primary component of analog photos, as part of the film.

There were different mixes of silver involved in developing film, and eventually sepia was found to be more stable than silver. Sepia was also more resistant to pollutants, so people started using cuttlefish goo to develop film because the photos lasted longer.

Now we don’t even need to carry a camera…just a phone. Amazing.

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

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Good morning, everyone! I hope you had a nice three-day weekend, whether you honored fallen soldiers or honored hot dogs and hamburgers at a barbecue, or both.

Today I’m here to talk about more colors! Not red, blue, or white. Today I have the two funky greens from the Merriam-Webster colorquiz a couple of weeks ago. As with blues and reds, I’m going to provide the definitions from M-W, the color swatch from the quiz, and additional etymological information from the Online Etymology Dictionary.

viridian

a chrome green pigment that is a hydrated oxide of chromium

Shade of green, 1882, from the paint color name (1862), coined from Latin virid-, stem of viridis "green, blooming, vigorous" (see verdure) + -ian.

English earlier had viridity (early 15c.) "greenery, greenishness, verdure;" virid (adj.) "green, blooming" (c. 1600). Viridescent "greenish" is attested from 1788 in mineralogy; viridescence (n.) by 1830 in botany.

I was hoping to find a classic car in viridian green, but the closest I could come to viridian was this lovely bouquet of bird feathers:

And some lovely yarn, which is a little lighter.

The other green mentioned in the quiz was chartreuse, a color that burns my eyes like pepper spray and gasolene. Still, my mom loves it and I love her, so let’s have a look.

chartreuse

: a variable color averaging a brilliant yellow green

: a French liqueur

Esteemed type of liqueur, 1866, from la Grande-Chartreuse, chief monastery of the Carthusian order, which was founded 11c. and named for the massif de la Chartreuse (Medieval Latin Carthusianus) mountain group in the French Alps, where its first monastery was built. The liqueur recipe dates from early 17c.; the original now is marketed as Les Pères Chartreux. The color name (1884) is from the pale apple-green hue of the best type of the liqueur.

Now that’s interesting! The liqueur was first, and the color was named after the drink. Here are the bottles of a couple of versions. The one on the right is stronger (so that’s the one I need to take a swig of, next time my mom come’s home in a chartreuse outfit).

That’s all I have today! Cheers!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

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

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

Hello folks!

Today I am exploring some of the other colors from the Merriam-Webster quiz. This time, I’m going for the blues. I thought I’d start with turquoise, which my mom always calls “turquoise blue,” but when you look at it next to other blues, it looks almost greenish.

Sarah K. sent me a link to an article about this very topic from the Guardian, and she also sent another color test, specifically about greens and blues.

I know that the color tests aren’t really fair if you are colorblind (though one of the best scores was from someone colorblind who guessed the answers based on etymology and smartness). 😊Just like last time, I’m looking at the meaning and origins of the words, from Merriam-Webster and the Online Etymology Dictionary.

turquoise

1: a mineral that is a blue, bluish-green, or greenish-gray hydrous basic phosphate of copper and aluminum, takes a high polish, and is valued as a gem when sky blue

2: a light greenish blue

And the etymology:

opaque greenish-blue precious stone, 1560s, from French, replacing Middle English turkeis, turtogis (late 14c.), from Old French fem. adjective turqueise "Turkish," in pierre turqueise "Turkish stone." So called for being brought to Europe first from Turkestan or via Turkish Ottoman lands.

Okay, that’s enough. I want to see some jewelry! This is a good photo of the variety of colors that turquoise encompasses.

cyan

a greenish-blue color

That’s it? That doesn’t look at all green to me. You may recognize cyan as one of the colors in your printer. That particular color screams printer ink to me. Well, do we have anything more interesting in the etymology department?

"greenish-blue color," 1889, short for cyan blue (1879), from Greek kyanos "dark blue, dark blue enamel, lapis lazuli,"

Well, that gets us even farther away from greenish-blue. Dark blue enamel? Lapis lazuli? I love Lapis, but let me show you how that looks compared to the cyan color block above.

I give the color creators or dictionary definition divas an F on that. Greenish-blue? I think not.

azure

Here’s one with varied definitions from the dictionary:
1a: the blue color of the clear sky

b: the heraldic color blue

2: the unclouded sky

3: archaic : lapis lazuli

Hmm…I think of the sky as much lighter than that, but I suppose it could be that color. Let’s see if the etymology gives us any further information.

"sky-blue color; pigment or paint made of powdered lapis lazuli"

A couple examples for my search of “sky blue images”:

And here are the different colors of the sky according to a color chart, so I guess azure gets a pass:

Am I blue? Nope! Have a great day!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

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

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

The other day I was in quite a rush to get something interesting to you, and I raided Merriam-Webster’s webpage. I sent out their color quiz, after quickly trying it myself. I missed a few, and I heard I was not the only one. It only takes one trip to the Home Depot paint section to see the creative (and a kooky) names they invent. I thought it would be interesting to see the stories behind these colors.

Today, let’s look at a couple of the “reds.” The definitions are from M-W, with a few edits from me. The square color samples are from the quiz and additional photos are from a general image search.

madder

1: a Eurasian herb (Rubia tinctorum) with whorled leaves and small yellowish flowers

2: a moderate to strong red

The madder root is the part of the plant the color “red” comes from. Here are some different types of fabric and how bright or light madder root dye can make them.

sanguine

1: marked by eager hopefulness : confidently optimistic

2: bloodred

3a: consisting of or relating to blood

b: bloodthirsty, sanguinary

c: accompanied by, involving, or relating to bloodshed : bloody

d: of the complexion : ruddy

I can always remember sanguine being related to blood because in Spanish the word for blood is sangre, and in French it is sang. But I’ve never understood the first definition “eagerly hopeful” or “confidently optimistic.” Usually when I see blood dripping down a part of my body, the last thing I feel is “eagerly hopeful.” It’s more like, “What kind of antibacterial do I have, and how big of a bandage do I need?”

I thought maybe the etymology might help, and indeed it did! From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

sanguine:

The meaning "cheerful, hopeful, vivacious, confident" is attested by c. 1500, because these qualities were thought in old medicine to spring from an excess or predominance of blood as one of the four humors. [KC
– The four humors of Medieval medicine being blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm.
⁠]

That makes so much more sense! It’s amazing to me that what stands as the definition of sanguine is from Medieval medicine.

Enjoy your day!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

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

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

Hello readers,

Today is another day that I apologize for not having time to write an article for you. I do have something fun from Merriam-Webster, though: a color quiz. It looks like this:

If you don’t want the timer, click the toggle button to turn it off. Enjoy!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

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

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

Good morning, folks! We are swamped in editing, so I’m sharing part of a Richard Lederer article with you today, from his column in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

It is as hard to correct a typographical error as it is to unring a bell, put toothpaste back in a tube, put a genie back in a bottle, or stuff lava back into an erupted volcano. The typographical terrors that follow turn newspaper editors into typochondriacs:

A baby announcement concluded with an unfortunate misspelling that demonstrated how the inadvertent substitution of a single letter can totally reverse meaning: “The happy parents have the congratulations of all on this suspicious event.”

Ah, the difference a letter or two can make:

• He received his graduate degree in unclear physics.
• The defendant was charged with carless driving.
• Taylor Frey led the Cougars with eight tickles.
• Diane’s wedding drew a terrific crowd, including Sally Bates, who everybody thought was a broad.
• Walter and Rebecca Hill announce the coming marriage of their daughter Helene. No mate has been selected for the wedding.
• Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and place the foot in it. It will be ready in one hour.
• If you feel strongly about any particular subject, why not write to the Gazette about it? We prefer discussion about local, rather than rational, topics.

Even when a newspaper staff discovers that it has splattered egg on its pages, the cleanup operation can be embarrassingly messy, as witness these so-called corrections:

• Our paper carried the notice last week that Mr. Oscar Hoffnagle is a defective on the police force. This was a typographical error. Mr. Hoffnagle is, of course, a detective on the police farce.
• It was incorrectly reported last Friday that today is T-shirt Appreciation Week. It is actually Teacher Appreciation Week.
• In a recent edition we referred to the chairman of Chrysler Corporation as Lee Iacooccoo. His real name is Lee Iacacca. The Gazette regrets the error.
• The marriage of Freda Van Amburg and William Branton, which was announced in this paper a few weeks ago, was a mistake we wish to correct.

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

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

Hello all!

I was looking around for something interesting to share with you when I stumbled on this page of Most Searched-for Word Definitions in every country. I’m a sucker for words, maps, and learning more about other countries, so I thought this was something really cool. Since we’re in North America, I thought I’d start there. Here’s the map of North and Central America.

As I read through the different words for each country, I thought a few things:

• Demure? Why demure? It appears as the most popular word in several countries. (I later discovered people were curious about demure because there’s a TikTok video in which the star uses the word demure many times with a lot of emphasis. They are talking about makeup, clothes, how they dress for work, then they use some Spanish slang for body parts. They are hilarious, but they are not using the traditional definition of demure.)
• Love? Come on Panama. I wanna know what love is, and I want you to show me…but I’m not sure why you’re looking for it in the dictionary.
• Gaslighting, resilience, integrity—I recognize these from the news and current goings-on, so they make sense. But these are “heavy” words. Gaslighting is “a form of psychological manipulation that occurs when someone is intentionally made to doubt their own sanity, memory, or perceptions of reality.” Resilience is the ability to stand up against difficulty and recover quickly. Integrity is having strong principles and morality. Here are some assorted facts from the article:

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>Demure, fascism and resilience are the most searched-for word definitions in six countries each.

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>The most searched-for definition in the U.S. is gaslighting, which has 110,000 monthly searches.

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>The UK’s most searched-for definition is diversity (9,900 monthly searches).

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>Integrity is Canada’s most searched-for definition (8,100 monthly searches).

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>In Australia, genocide is the most searched-for definition, with 4,400 monthly searches.

Yikes! Genocide? I decided I stop there, right after checking my cousin’s country, Greece. Ah, well Greece’s word made me laugh because it is a little different. The top word looked up there is dank.

It’s interesting to see what’s on the minds of people around the world, I just can’t handle so much potential misery today. I think it’s time for a puppy or two (or nine).

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

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

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

Recently, I was planning to go on a magical, fantastical trip to Ireland with my husband, brother, and sister-in-law. I look forward to trips to foreign countries because they are so eye-opening and educational but also (usually) fun and relaxing.

Unfortunately, our 5-year-old dog had a stroke. I will spare you the details and tell you that she’s walking, eating, doing physical therapy, and she’s doing great. We just planned the trip for later so that she is up for entertaining house guests. 😊

But this means that I haven’t gone on the invigorating travels that keep me curious about language.

I received an email the other day about something that renewed my vigor. One of you was writing to me about the word: shenanigan. I love this word, and I thought, “Yay, something Irish!” Here’s what I found out from the Online Etymology Dictionary:

shenanigan (noun)

"nonsense; deceit, humbug," 1855, American English slang, of uncertain origin. Earliest records of it are in California (San Francisco and Sacramento). Suggestions include Spanish chanada, a shortened form of charranada "trick, deceit;" or, less likely, German Schenigelei, peddler’s argot for "work, craft," or the related German slang verb schinäglen. Another guess centers on Irish sionnach "fox," and the form is perhaps conformed to an Irish surname.

Surprise, surprise! This word cannot be nailed down. The history of it is not certain, so I have to look elsewhere for a fix of Irishness. I found some Irish words on this website The Irish Roadtrip. I’m not going to lowercase the words or change any of the spelling, like centre. And the author was kind enough to share the pronunciations of the words with us!

Bóithrín

(One) of the more beautiful Irish words, ‘Bóithrín’ (or ‘Boreen’ in English’) is a word used to describe a rural road or lane that’s usually unpaved and that often has grass growing up the centre of it.

Pronunciation: ‘Boh-reen’

Cara

Often used as an Irish girls name, the word ‘Cara’ means ‘Friend’ in Irish. It’s easily pronounced ‘Car-ah’.

Teaghlach

‘Teaghlach’ is used to describe ‘A family/household’.

Pronunciation: ‘Chai-lach’

Leannán

One of the more popular Irish language words amongst courting couples, ‘Leannán’ means ‘Sweetheart/lover’.

Pronunciation: ‘Lan-awn’

Póirín

One of my favourite short Irish words, ‘Póirín’ means ‘Small potato’.

Pronunciation: ‘Pour-een’

Oíche

‘Oíche’ is the Irish word for ‘Night’. If you wanted to say ‘Good night’ to someone in Irish, you’d say ‘Oíche mhaith’.

Pronunciation: ‘Ee-hah’

Saoirse

Although many will know ‘Saoirse’ as one of the trickier-to-pronounce Irish girls names, it’s actually the Irish gaelic word for ‘Freedom’.

Pronunciation: ‘Sur-sha’

Well, I can see that I’m not going to be able to pronounce anything or figure out the meanings of these words. It should be exciting when we finally make the voyage!

Here’s a funny clip with some pronunciation lessons: Saoirse.

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

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

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

Good morning, everyone! I know this isn’t the right day for Editor’s Corner, but it’s been a busy week. Busy enough that I’m going to give you material that I didn’t write, but I grabbed from Mental Floss. It’s about creating words in the recent and not-so-recent past. I have selected bits and pieces of the article for you, but you can read the complete list by clicking the preceding link.

Happy Friday!

People love coining new words. And they love making good use of them—for a while anyway. Adultescence and Frankenstorm are just a couple of the creative blends that have once made it big but didn’t really stick around.

Sometimes, however, a coinage is so apt and useful that it does stick. When that happens, we sometimes get more than just one new word; we get a new kind of word ending, one that goes on to a long, productive career in word formation. Bookmobile was born in the 1920s and went on to spawn the likes of bloodmobile, Wienermobile, and pimpmobile. Workaholic is a creation of the 1940s that led to everything from chocoholic to sleepaholic to Tweetaholic. But not all of these creative endings have staying power. We don’t hear much today from the bootlegger-inspired -leggers of the 1940s—the foodleggers, gasleggers, tireleggers, and meatleggers who were circumventing the law to deal in valuable rationed goods.

[KC – Here are a few of the suffixes.]

-athon

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this one was taken from marathon back in the late 1920s or early 1930s, and it has proved its staying power since. Whether for a good cause or for no cause at all, our telethons, danceathons, bakeathons, drinkathons, complainathons, and assorted other verbathons have made this past century something of an athonathon.

-splaining

Mansplaining, nerdsplaining, vegansplaining, catsplaining—seems like everybody’s got some ’splaining to do these days.

-tastic

It’s cheesetastic! It’s craft-tastic! It’s awesometastic! Almost anything can be made fantastic with this ending. It can even bring out the unrecognized positive qualities of that which is grosstastic, sadtastic, or craptastic. Beware the -tastic meaning drift, however. Craptastic wavers between “so crappy it’s great” and just “super crappy.”

-licious

Babelicious, bootylicious, funalicious, partylicious, biblicious, yogalicious, mathalicious—if you like it, celebrate it with a -licious!

-pocalypse

Snowpocalypse! Heatpocalypse! Will the world end in firepocalypse or icepocalypse? This suffix seems to have begun in the domain of weather reports, but hysterical exaggeration has proved useful elsewhere. Did you not hear of the e-reader’s bringing of the bookpocalypse?

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

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

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