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Category: English
Why is using profanity sometimes referred to as “swearing”?
Because there used to be a taboo against swearing oaths by divine figures in Protestant England, and the taboo against oaths got conflated with the taboo against profanity, as Saying Bad Things. In fact, that conflation also applies to oath: the definition of oath 5. an irreverent or blasphemous use of the name of God […]
recidivist
https://www.quora.com/api/mobile… The Magister: True. But should you forgive the recidivist seven times? Nay, verily, seventy times seven. Alfredo Perozo: Recidivist… what a woody-sounding Masiello Mega Word! Recidivism – Wikipedia Recidivism (/rᵻˈsɪdᵻvɪzəm/; from recidive and ism, from Latin recidīvus “recurring”, from re– “back” and cadō “I fall”) is the act of a person repeating an undesirable […]
Is English a fascist language?
Arguendo, let’s accept your premisses: Everybody expects non native speakers to know English and speak it fluently and hate them for not doing so. Also this language is invading all other ones. That wouldn’t make English fascist, and using a loaded term like that inaccurately means people won’t take your argument seriously. (And that’s not […]
What forms the basis of the suffix used when describing which country someone comes from?
There are no rules, but there are trends. -ish is used for country names that the English would have been familiar with in the Middle Ages. -ese is used for country names that the English learned of via the Italians or Spanish. That includes East Asia. -(i)an is used as a default for new-fangled country […]
Which transliterated version of a surname sounds better, Potyomkin or Potemkin?
Yes, English routinely transliterates Cyrillic Ё as E. For that matter, Russian routinely writes Ё as Е. Our transliterations (and your default orthography) aren’t up to date with the last couple of centuries of sound change in Russian. Potemkin is the most familiar version to English-speakers, since “Potemkin village” is a well known expression (and […]
Trenchant
Not as recondite as some of the Magister’s lexical choices, but I just saw it today, and I see that he’s used it against me once: Michael Masiello’s answer to Can someone be intelligent and not agree with your political views? she [Irene Colthurst] is a fierce intellectual who writes trenchant, lucid, well-argued answers supported […]
What English words of Greek origin don’t sound like they come from Greek?
Glamour, as a Scots mutation of Grammar, from the same Education = Witchcraft equation that gave us Grimoire. Diocese. I had no idea until a month ago that this is just dioikēsis “administration”. For more palatalisation catching me unawares: cemetery from koimētērion. Dram, and for that matter Dirham, as derivatives of drachma. Answered 2017-02-07 [Originally […]
Irrefragable
Remember when Dennis Miller was commentating the NFL, and peppering his commentary with obscurity after obscurity, and a panoply of blogs popped up to offer exegesis to the befuddled masses? This here blog may be that for the Magister, and I don’t want the Magister to start getting all self-conscious about his recondite lexis. Don’t […]
What does British English sound like to Australian speaker?
Scottish English? My Scottish personal trainer reports people have difficulty understanding her. I can’t fathom why, and I don’t, but maybe my ear isn’t as tin as I think it is. (FWIW, it’s rare that any Scots creeps in to her speech: cannae only once in a while.) Northern English? I think highly of it, […]
What is the etymology of etymology, and is it good etymology or bad etymology?
I think I get your question. Is the etymology of etymology subject to the Etymological fallacy? The etymological fallacy is a genetic fallacy that holds that the present-day meaning of a word or phrase should necessarily be similar to its historical meaning. This is a linguistic misconception, and is sometimes used as a basis for […]