by Roseanna White | Sep 2, 2013 | Word of the Week
Leave it to Roseanna to browse through the dictionary for fun on the weekend. 😉 Sunday as I was beginning to think about the Word of the Week, I popped over to
www.etymonline.com and accidentally bumped the O section. Then thought, “Sure, go with it” and browsed through a few pages. Randomly clicked on page 11 and soon was learning something. =)
Operative as an adjective is from the 15th century, meaning “producing the intended effect.” The weakened sense of “important” (i.e., “challenge being the operative word in the speech”) is very new, from 1955. But it’s the noun version that intrigued me. =)
Since 1809 operative has meant “worker; one who operates.” Sure. No problem. But obviously the more interesting is its meaning of “spy.” I’d never looked up this one before, but it’s so right up my alley that I’m kinda surprised I hadn’t, LOL. This meaning came about around 1930, directly from the Pinkerton Agency. They would refer to their detectives as “operatives,” and since much of their work was undercover–spying–it was soon applied to any secret agent. Fun, eh?
by Roseanna White | Aug 26, 2013 | Word of the Week
I looked this up the other day just for the fun of it … and because I had never paused to think why PIs used to be called gumshoes. But according to etymology.com:
“plainclothes detective,” 1906, from the rubber-soled shoes they wore (which were so called from 1863); from gum (n.1) + shoe (n.).
Obvious, yes. But still fun. =) And a nice start to the week I plan on preparing my “History of Spies in Early America” home school group class. 😉 Got the Creative Writing one mostly done yesterday. Yay!
Hope everyone has a great week!
by Roseanna White | Aug 19, 2013 | Word of the Week
It’s the first day of school in our house, and the kids are rather excited. (Don’t worry, it’ll fade, LOL.) Their desks are organized (that won’t last either…), they made their “1st Day of…” signs last night for pictures this morning, picked out their outfits (no reason why homeschoolers shouldn’t have that joy too!), and demanded I wake them up early. Gotta love eager little students. =)
And I thought that today, I’d take a quick look at some school-related words in keeping with the occasion.
Student is an old one, from the 14th century. It comes to us from the French estudient, “one who studies,” which is directly from the Latin studiare, “to study.” No surprises there. Interestingly, student teacher didn’t join in until 1907, which is, I think, more a reflection of the educational and training system than language.
But I wanted to look up pupil too. I think to us, this word has fallen out of fashion and so sounds old-fashioned. So I was intrigued to see that while just as old as student, it didn’t have its current meaning nearly as long. Pupil literally means “orphan child, ward.” This too is taken from French and Latin and is a diminutive of the word for “boy.” It took about 200 years for the “student” meaning to come along. Which, yes, was still way back in 1560, LOL. But I didn’t realize it had ever meant anything else.
Now off to get some work done before my little students arise. 😉
by Roseanna White | Aug 12, 2013 | Word of the Week
I have frequently been accused of optimism. I confess: it’s a malady of mine. Why, after all, should I look at the dark side, when the bright side is right there? I just can’t do it. And so, my critique partners nicknamed me RO. It’s short for Roseanna-Optimist. I claimed once that Optimism was my middle name, and they argued that it was surely my first–at the least, it must be hyphenated, LOL.
So happy words have a permanent place in my vocabulary, and apparently they occasionally sneak into my writing even when they shouldn’t. 😉 I was reading through a proposal the other day and caught myself having used “upbeat” in a story that takes place in 1910. This stood out to me on the re-read like a sore thumb, so I looked it up.
Sure enough, upbeat as “with a positive mood” didn’t join our language until 1947. It had existed since the mid 1800s in its technical sense–the beat of a measure of music where the conductor’s baton is raised. Why did it take on optimistic tones? According to the experts, simply because it sounds happy. =) (That’s my kind of reasoning!)
And speaking of happy things, this is the week of my birthday, so don’t forget that I’m hosting an online Mary Kay party that ends on the day itself, 8/14 (Wednesday). If you’re a fan of MK, do hop on over to http://www.marykay.com/terriharr and put “Roseanna White Hostess” into the memo box when you check out. Mucho appreciated!
by Roseanna White | Aug 5, 2013 | Word of the Week
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Edgar Degas – Ballet at the Paris Opéra
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I have a little ballerina in my family…and also a Fancy Nancy fan. So when she got her hands on Fancy Nancy: Too Many Tutus, you may be able to imagine the results–she had to go through her entire closet and pick out every dress, shirt, and skirt with a tutu in it, and schedule her entire week’s clothing choices accordingly.
It’s a funny word though, and one I’ve often wondered about but never looked up. So here I am, looking it up. =)
Tutu comes from the French word, which is no big surprise, as most ballet terminology does. What I had no clue about is that it’s a variation of cucu…which is baby talk! Who knew, right? Cucu is “intantile repetitiveness” of cul, which means “bottom or backside.”
And I’m sure my daughter won’t give a hoot, LOL. But a bit of fun trivia to begin your week. =)
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| Xoe (on the right) with her best-ballet-friend |
by Roseanna White | Jul 29, 2013 | Giveaways and Contests, Word of the Week
Weekend winners are:
Chaplain Debbie and Meghan Gorecki
Wowy zowy, it’s hard to believe we only have 2 days left! Which means not a whole lot of time to enter for this truly amazing book of prayers.
And of course, only 2 more drawings for Ring of Secrets! Why? Because then Whispers from the Shadows will officially release!! It’s already in stock in all the online retailers, and it should be showing up in your local bookstores any day, if it’s not there already. If anyone spots it on a shelf and wants to send me a picture, I’d be so grateful! We have no Christian bookstore in my town, and I never seem to make it an hour away to look in one…
But anyway. On with the day. =)
Word of the Week – Moot
Many, many moons ago I got my hubby a little book called The Highly Selective Dictionary of the
Extraordinarily Literate. Yes. We’re just that nerdy. 😉 So naturally, we flipped through it, and one of the first words I read the definition of was a word I thought I knew.
Moot. Now, we hear this all the time, right? It’s a moot point. And I always took it mean something rather irrelevant, because it was purely hypothetical at that point.
And sure enough, it has come to mean that–but in fact, that meaning came from law circles. Why? Now that’s where it gets interesting.
The primary definition of moot is “debatable, doubtful.” Not what we usually think when a point is moot. Because that would imply we should debate it–right? But people today use moot to indicate that something should be dropped because it has already been decided.
But a moot point–an undecided, debatable point–is in fact something pretty entertaining to an academic crowd who just loves a good debate. They can spend hours–days–weeks–years!–talking about the same thing. So after a while, it becomes purely hypothetical.
And to the rest of the world, something hypothetical becomes…well…moot. 😉 Something to be dropped. Something about which debate should stop.
Confession: I’ve avoided using this word altogether in the last decade, because I didn’t want to use it incorrectly and knew my point would be missed if I used it as “debatable.” LOL.
My question to you today:
Do you like to debate, or do you shy away from all conflict?
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Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.