READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 24- Pressboard – Read-Only Memory

There is the desire to read and the will to read. While I am still full of desire to read (who wouldn’t desire completing the task I was silly enough to take on first in my reading mission?), the first half of 2016 saw very little will to read.

I finally passed the 1,000 page mark but it feels like a hollow victory considering how little I’ve read since then. With fewer than 600 pages to go, I want to really rev up the page count per day but we’ll see if that becomes a reality. Summer should be a good time to crank out the pages but I’ve been wrong about my ability to get through the dictionary so many times before now. We’ll see where I’m at by the end of July.

Interesting words from March, April, May, and June:

PRESTIGE- I’ve been fascinated several times by words like this, where they have or had opposite meanings throughout their history. Prestige can mean either a trick or honor. Context in using this word makes all the difference.

PRETEND- How many of you pronounce this word with a hard E from time to time? If you do, you’re wrong. I was expecting to see two pronunciations listed for this word but there was just one: pri-tend. I even checked MW online just to make sure the hard E hadn’t become acceptable in the 20 years since my dictionary was published. Nope.

PROTON- In only four more years, this word will turn 100. I thought it should be older than that but I guess microscopes and chemists hadn’t gone that far yet to discuss the building blocks of matter.

PROVOST- I’m most familiar with this word meaning an administrator at a college or university. I was amused to learn that it also means a prison keeper. I’m sure plenty of college students would argue that they their provosts have the mindset of the latter.

PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM- This is an evolutionary theory that I will have to read more about in the future. Rather than slow, incremental change, this evolutionary theory sees rapid periods of change coming after long periods of stability marked by little to no change whatsoever. I wonder if it can explain the evolution of the woodpecker better than Darwin.

PUNK- It’s origin is unknown, making it one of the cooler words classified as such. It is much older than I would have thought. First appearing in 1596 as another term for a prostitute, the word ‘punk’ has evolved quite a bit over the centuries.

PUNK ROCK- What’s interesting about this term is that it’s earliest use is dated to 1971, a few years before the bands that would be most famous for their contributions to punk rock hit the big time.

QUANDARY- As few words begin with Q, I’m surprised that there are any of unknown origins. Shouldn’t most Q-words be traceable? It’s origin is unknown but it hit the scene in 1579. Maybe quandary gets together with punk every now and again to ponder why they both apparently are made-up words.

QUARANTINE- This word comes from French and is a derivative of the Old French word for forty. It’s use came about because ships suspected of carrying contagious passengers were held in isolation for 40 days until the disease was believed to have passed. If you are ever held in quarantine and get out before the 40-day mark, you can at least take comfort in knowing you beat the original detention duration.

QUESTION MARK and QUOTATION MARK- These terms are traced back to 1869 and 1859 respectively. I’ve pondered this before with other punctuation marks but I have to ask again. What were these symbols called before these terms came about? This symbol was refined into what we know over the course of centuries. Why did modern English fail to come up with a name for it until the mid-19th Century?

QUICK- You can bash Scandinavia all you like for whatever reasons you like but the region has produced some cool and unexpected words. This one stems from a 12th Century Old Norse word meaning alive. That helps the line in the Apostle’s Creed about Jesus judging the quick and the dead make more sense doesn’t it?

RAMJET- I don’t know much about airplanes but this type of jet engine sounds fascinating. Words like these get noted in these posts so I can come back later for interesting concepts to read about.

RAPSCALLION- This most excellent name for a rascal or troublemaker is also aged quite nicely. Dating back to 1699, this word is due for a comeback.

RASTAFARIAN- Here is another word I never knew was rooted in a person’s name. Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974 was born Tafari Makonnen Woldemikael. Before becoming Emperor, he held a rank akin to duke called a ras. So he was officially known as Ras Tafari. See it now? A few Jamaicans viewed him as a deity who fulfilled biblical prophesies and a religious movement was born.


Page Count: 1010/1600 (63.13%)
Countdown to the Letter S: 55 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 23- Poker Face – Press Agent

January came and went without any reading but February saw a few pages turned. Sadly, progress was slow and uneventful. I find myself tiring of ‘pr-‘ words already. Too bad I have around 20 more pages of them to slog through.

On a positive note, I am nearing another milestone. That 1,000th page is on the horizon and I am going to try my hardest to reach that mark by the end of March. Beyond that, it is too early yet to tell if my slow start to the year will prevent me from finishing the dictionary by the end of the year.

February’s interesting words:

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS- It took over half a century for the adjective below to develop a noun form. MW can trace this term back to a few fleeting uses in the 1980s but it achieved critical mass in the 1990s. Now it runs amok. Isn’t it just a bit Orwellian to advocate the elimination of language and practices that might offend someone somewhere? I think this concept has come full circle on its early advocates. Just look at the spate of colleges where students are demanding ‘safe spaces’ where their opinions are protected from critical examination.

POLITICALLY CORRECT- MW traces this term back to 1936. Having been exposed to the term and concept for the entirety of my life that I can remember, I never wondered when the term came to prominence. Its relevance and usage certainly increased during my lifetime.

PREMENSTRUAL SYNDROME- I included this term because my dictionary (20 years old mind you) dated this term back to 1982. I was shocked, so I checked MW online to see if there was an earlier date for its origin. MW online now dates it to medical journals dating to 1944. A little further research revealed that most of the early medical journal articles proposing PMS as a legitimate medical condition were largely ignored until the late 1970s and early 1980s. Isn’t it interesting that the condition only got taken seriously when more women entered the workplace? I think there is a connection there.


Page Count: 960/1600 (60.00%)
Countdown to the Letter Q: 31 pages

READING UPDATE: The Dictionary- Part 22- Paramagnet – Poker

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