Language
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During my lifetime, the word "outing" has mutated beyond recognition. It first entered my youthful vocabulary (as did so many other words) through the medium of baseball. An "outing" — in the old days –meant to me only a stint on the mound. "Podres has had a good "outing" today." The more general meaning of…
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"Bottom" is another of the many words that came into my life through the medium of baseball. As soon as I was able to walk and talk, I learned that an inning has both a "top" and a "bottom." "Bottom of the ninth" was an optimistic phrase because there was always the Ebbets Field hope…
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It's humiliating for me to confess that until a few weeks ago I had never heard of the Piacenza Liver, which is a life-size bronze Etruscan replica of the liver of a sheep, and unquestionably European civilization's most heralded metal liver. How could I not have known? The PL was unearthed in 1877 and dates…
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I have just finished reading Sybille Haynes comprehensive study, Etruscan Civilization, A Cultural History (2000). It's not only a window into a remarkable extinct world, but also a trove of exciting words new to me. And as readers of this blague are well aware, vocabulary excites Dr. Metablog. For example: a skyphos is a two-handled cup…
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"Joint" is a word that in the course of my lifetime has engaged in some serious shape-shifting. When I first encountered the word, joint (derived from the Latin jungere, to join) was simply a place where two pieces of wood were glued together or where one's bones were articulated to produce a wrist, elbow, or…
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I first encountered the word "provider" in its positive sense as a virtual synonym for "mensch": "he was a good provider; he took care of his wife and his kids and his aged parents and even his employees" (if he had any). But nowadays the word has been stripped of its warm associations and has…
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"Roux" is word that everyone seems to know but me. To the best of my recollection, "roux" had never crossed my personal threshold until last week — perhaps because I have never taken any special interest in fine cuisine. I've now enlightened myself, but at the cost of blundering into a bewildering etymological thicket. "Roux,"…
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Here on Walnut Street, we're trying to make more and better use of locatives — words that have long been underemployed and undervalued. We think that the language (and therefore the world) would be richer and more commodious if others would join with us in this endeavor. But we're not evangelizing, heck no! We honor…
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Is there another common English word that exhibits such varied meanings as "boot?" Or one that has shown such continual transformation during my brief years on the planet? Like much of my early vocabulary, "boot" entered my life through the medium of radio baseball . In my mind's ear, I can hear the voice of…
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"Troll" is a word that has strangely metamorphosized in the course of my lifetime. While It once had warm associations; now, not so much. "Troll" came into my life in the late 1940s at Makamah Beach on the Long Island Sound. My grandmother Sonia taught me how to "troll" for bluefish or sunfish. Here's how…