No, I did not abandon my quest. Rather, my wife had a child. There was absolutely no reading during November and December. I may be disappointed to a minor degree but barely, because family comes first. With the new year, I am renewing my quest to complete the dictionary.There were a few interesting words in September and October (which we’ll get to in a minute) but first, I want to share something that I am very proud of. I found a spelling mistake in the dictionary. That’s right, a spelling mistake. I did a lot of checking around to make sure it actually was a mistake and lo and behold it is.
The mistake I found was not the spelling of a word being defined or a word within the definition of another word. The mistake I found was a synonymous cross-reference (in other words, it’s a word in all caps appearing within a definition, indicating that the definition of the capitalized word can be substituted interchangeably with the word presently being defined). Under the third definition for the word ‘phony,’ it listed ‘conterfeit’ as a synonymous cross-reference. It should have listed ‘counterfeit’ instead.
It stood out to me immediately and I went back to the C-words to make sure that I hadn’t overlooked some archaic word. There was only one word beginning ‘conter-’ and that is ‘conterminous.’ Still not fully satisfied, I checked MW online to make sure they hadn’t left ‘conterfeit’ out of my dictionary by accident. Once again, I received more evidence suggesting I had found a mistake. Finally, I ran a Google search for ‘conterfeit’ and I was finally able to accept that I had indeed found a mistake.
It’s pretty minor but it is a cross-reference to nowhere. It doesn’t hurt the usefulness of the dictionary but it does show that even the mighty MW editors are fallible. Other than some sketchy grammar and definitions that include the word being defined, this is the first true mistake in the dictionary and I’m over halfway through. I’ll let you know if I find any more in 2016.
Now for September and October’s interesting words:
PARESTHESIA- This is the technical term for that pins and needles sensation in your hands and feet. Sometimes it’s just due to the return of full blood circulation after cutting off the flow or it can be caused by damage to the peripheral nerves. It’s a very interesting word and a very interesting concept.
PASSION- It’s interesting that a word that originally meant suffering has come to be mostly associated with emotion and love. I’d love to know where the meaning of the word splintered off.
PECKING ORDER- We all know that this term means hierarchy but it comes from a literal hierarchy among certain types of birds. In some bird species, primarily chickens, social strata develop where more dominant members of a group can assault other birds of lower standing (usually displayed through pecking) without fear of reprisal or even the lower bird defending itself. The fact that bully birds exist just goes to show you that nature can be a cruel and nasty place.
PEEPING TOM- I never knew that the term Peeping Tom came from the legend of Lady Godiva. For the record, I never read the legend of Lady Godiva but I knew the basics. I didn’t know the one person who saw her naked was from then on called Peeping Tom. He was struck blind by God for his indiscretions. Apparently the Peeping Tom part was added later and historians doubt the real Lady Godiva even rode through town naked, so modern-day pervs don’t have to fear a repeat of Peeping Tom’s punishment.
PENINSULA- The literal translation from Latin means ‘almost island.’ How fitting and direct.
PHENOMENOLOGY- This is an interesting field- the study of the development of human consciousness. I’m going to look into this someday to see if it’s really as interesting as it sounds or if it is a bunch of conjectural hooey.
PHILISTINE- The first definition of this word is obvious, referring to the people mentioned in the Bible and history. The second definition, however, is very interesting. “A person who is guided by materialism and is usually disdainful of intellectual or artistic values.” My, oh my- how many people these days fall under that definition! I can think of one or two people in my weekly life that qualify. How many do you know? I wonder if this definition arose as a description of how the historical Philistines were perceived by other cultures.
PIC- While you may be tempted to write this off as more recently-developed slang, this truncation of the word picture goes all the way back to 1884!
PILTDOWN MAN- This is the name of a skull of a supposed early human found in England in 1908 that turned out to be a hoax. Instead of the real McCoy, it was the jawbone of an orangutan, the teeth of a chimp, and the skull of a medieval-era human. To this day, no one knows who planted the forgery but it derailed research on human evolution for a few decades before it was scientifically proven to be a hoax in 1953.
PIMP- While it doesn’t surprise me that this word is of unknown origin, I am dumbfounded by its age. The word pimp dates back to 1701. My outdated dictionary placed it in deeper in history at 1600 but I guess they found reason to disregard that older supposed documentation. Still, this word is older than I would ever have guessed.
PIMPMOBILE- Yes, this word is actually in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. My jaw hit the floor when I saw it too.
PINK- My dictionary had five separate definitions for this word- three nouns, one adjective, and a verb. That’s a pretty impressive resume for such an unassuming word.
PLUS SIGN-My dictionary only dates this word to 1907 but MW online now dates it to 1841. I previously ranted about the age of the term ‘multiplication sign’ but I don’t have as much to complain about here. Apparently the western world used to place a P between two numbers to signify addition and an M between them to signify subtraction (P for plus and M for minus). Somewhere along the line, someone probably decided that all the higher level mathematics involving numbers were complicating matters and formally adopted a symbol for the operations. The actual plus sign is older than 1841, so the question must be asked again- what did they call it before they settled on plus sign?
POINSETTIA- These lovely flowers are named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, who was at one time the US ambassador to Mexico and amateur botanist. He first saw the popular Christmastime flower on a trip south of Mexico City. In Mexico it is called the Christmas Eve flower. It is a winter blooming plant. That and its native habitat of Central America helps explain why these flowers are so popular at Christmas and why greenhouses need to be so warm in order to grow them.
Page Count: 937/1600 (58.56%)
Countdown to the Letter Q: 54 pages
