October 28th, 2007 Words

For me the most difficult part about writing this column is picking a topic.  So I
got to thinking about writing, which is just so many words all strung together in
a way that's comprehensible to all, right?  It can be that simple but the words
you choose and the way you put them together make all the difference.  So
that gave me the idea for my topic today: words!

I know that meanings of words change over time, so how do I go about tracing
the origin of a particular word?  You'll need a good etymological dictionary.
The standard source for this is the Oxford English Dictionary.  This hefty,
multi-volume set is located in the reference departments.  There are numerous
other etymological dictionaries available in the library as well.  The precise
subject term for these is English language -- etymology -- dictionaries.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word "word" has its origins in
Old English.  It's easy enough to look up the meaning of words in a regular
dictionary, but what about expressions like "your name is mud"?  A dictionary
of idioms should be able to help you out.  Try the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms.
A book like The Whole Ball of Wax and Other Colloquial Phrases by Laurence
Urdang is both a fun and educational read.  A site such as
http://www.idiomsite.com has a number of idioms, their meanings and origins.
While it lists a large number idioms, the following site does not provide
the origin of the idiom: http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms

I heard the term "biPodding" the other day which sounds like it's a
newly made up word.  Is there anywhere I can find new words like
this?

New words, or neologisms, pop into our language all the time, however,
whether they get accepted into everyday language is another matter.
One neologism that has stood up is the use of the word "google" as a
verb, derived from the popular search engine Google and meaning to look
up information on the Internet using a search engine.  It's fun to see what
words or phrases people are making up these days so have a look at The
Urban Dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com They have a Word of the
Day section and you can keep up to date with this by subscribing to it
via RSS.  

I read the bestselling book Eats Shoots and Leaves: the Zero Tolerance
Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss. Are there any books like this
about words?

Gotta love those quirky titles!  Yes, check out books like Words Fail Us:
Good English and Other Lost Causes by Bob Blackburn, Wanted Words:  from
Amalgamots to Undercarments: Language Gaps Found and Fixed by Jane
Farrow, ed., and Death Sentences:  How Cliches, Weasel Words, and
 Management Speak are Strangling Public Language by Don Watson.
Browse the shelves at 428, 428.1 and 428.2 to find these and other equally
intriguing books.

Speaking of quirky did you know that there are dictionaries for almost any type
of word application?  For example, there are rhyming dictionaries, crossword
dictionaries, spelling and visual dictionaries, dictionaries of eponyms (words
derived from the name of a person or place), quotations, allusions, foreign
phrases, slang and dictionaries of American and Canadian English.  You'll
find the definition of Thunder Bay's unique pastry, the Persian, in the
Canadian Oxford Dictionary.     

Here's a hint on how to use Google specifically for finding definitions.  Type
"define: the word you're looking for", e.g., define: infrangible, and you'll get
exactly what  you're looking for, without all the other unnecessary stuff a
typical Google search result would throw at you. A site worth bookmarking
is refdesk.com.    You'll find a wealth of information, including all types of
dictionaries, a thesaurus, and much much more.  

We'll have to wait until December to see what the American Dialect Society
decides is the word of the year.  Last year the word was "truthiness", the
Stephen Colbert definition, which, according to the Society, "refers to the
quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than
concepts or facts known to be true�.   

I hope I haven't been too wordy today (sorry, I couldn't resist the pun).  I'll
leave you with this quote by Rudyard Kipling:  "Words are, of course, the
most powerful drug used by mankind" (Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations).

Sylvia Renaud, Head of Reference and Information Services