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Words with unusual combinations of initial consonants
This week's words
sforzando
kvetch
tmesis
svelte
llano
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What to avoid when using words
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AWADmail Issue 440
A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day and Other Tidbits about Words and LanguageThis week's Email of the Week is from Jimmie Carol Ellis (see below), who will stand up a little straighter in her back-to-basics, no-frills, Old's Cool Uppityshirt.
From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: The gift of words
This holiday season, why not make a gift of words? Here are five suggestions:
Books:
A Word A Day
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The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two
"Just the thing if romping with words is what you want to do."
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A.Word.A.Day is now in its seventeenth year.
From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the net
New Zealand wins pavlova debate, thanks to OED
The Daily Telegraph
Can Grammar Win Elections?
Wiley
Analyzing Literature by Words and Numbers
The New York Times
From: Ashlea N Smith (asmithk gmu.edu)
Subject: Re: sforzando
Def: adjective, adverb: With sudden force or strong accent
Interesting that the 's' in the beginning of sforzando does not reverse the meaning root verb 'forzare' meaning 'to force' in Italian like 'sfortunato' does for 'fortunato' (unlucky and lucky respectively).
From: Ken Franklin (franklin.ken gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--sforzando
Like, I daresay, many other piano students, I remembered what the notation "sf" meant on sheet music with the mnemonic "sudden forte". (No extra charge for the second illustration of this week's theme!)
From: Linda Donahue (donahue lschs.org)
Subject: sforzando
Italian is replete with words that begin with consonant combinations not common to English: sb-, sd- ,sf-, sg-, sv-. One that might be familiar to Americans is the chain of fast-food restaurants often located at turnpike stops and in malls: Sbarro
From: Anthony G Morris (anton agmdigital.com)
Subject: kvetch
Def: verb intr.: To complain habitually, whine; gripe. noun: 1. A chronic complainer. 2. A complaint.
Do you know the joke about the Jewish guy lamenting to his friend about his dog going deaf? When asked how he could tell, his friend was amazed to hear that the dog could talk and was complaining verbally about things. Astounded he asked about the deafness and was told that the dog had been asked to fetch, not kvetch.
From: Peretz Rodman (peretz alumni.brandeis.edu)
Subject: kvetch
It should be noted that this word entered English in the United States, where it has taken on a different meaning from its use elsewhere in Yiddish or, for that matter, in contemporary Israeli Hebrew.
The root meaning of "squeeze" or "pinch" noted in your etymology led to the use of the verb to describe a sobbing sound used by cantors in singing many passages of Jewish liturgy. "Pinching" the throat once or twice in mid-note (using internal muscles, of course, not one's hand) yields that sort of sound. From the sobbing came the idea of complaint -- and thus the usage in American English -- and perhaps in Canadian English and around the British Commonwealth as well; I do not know.
In modern Hebrew, the term is used as a noun to describe, among other things, a place at which plumbing narrows or turns -- a very different outgrowth of the same root sense of squeezing or pinching.
Peretz Rodman
Jerusalem, Israel
From: Jesse Levy (jesse jlopen.com)
Subject: kvetch
A shiksa (non-Jewish girl) I dated years ago had a hard time with the double initial consonants of this word and therefore pronounced it kuh-vetch. I always tried to help her get the correct pronunciation by explaining that the "k" sound was shorter, but to no avail.
From: Chris Kent (cxk1 comcast.net)
Subject: kvetch
The cover of the book "Born to Kvetch" by Michael Wex, should remind us all that indoctrinating children into religion before they are of the age of consent is considered by writers like C. Hitchens to be child abuse. I completely agree.
From: Terry Throop (terrythroop gmail.com)
Subject: kvetch
The etymology for kvetch indicates a first recorded use in 1964. I learned the word from my Jewish college friends in 1960 or so. They, in turn had learned it from their grandparents and so on and so on. Maybe it's 1694 or 1496?? Keep up the great work -- there aren't many slip-ups like this.
-Anu Garg
From: Stanley Seiden (Stanleyseiden gmail.com)
Subject: Tmesis
Def: Stuffing a word into the middle of another word.
Tmesis was used much more elegantly in ancient times. In Latin texts, it was actually a pretty classy literary technique, as opposed to a means of sneaking profanities into your words.
This line from Book I of the Aeneid: et multo nebulae circum dea fudit amictu, describes Venus hiding herself with clouds; the word "circumfudit" is split to hide the goddess herself "dea" inside. In-freaking-credible.
From: Michael Sharman (jmsharman tiscali.co.uk)
Subject: tmesis
Tmesis in the shape of the separation of a prefix from a verb was common in Greek literature (particularly Homer). It is like 'pre...this...fer' or 'with...that...hold'. Apart from examples containing expletives (which is itself a tmesis), examples are rare in English, the most familiar being 'to usward' (e.g. Eph 1.19)
From: Jimmie Carol Ellis (msjce1 juno.com)
Subject: tmesis
The word tmesis makes me think of a ship I was on in Agana Harbor, Guam. It was The Proteus and it was a sub-tender. To accommodate the huge missiles that go into submarines, the ship had been cut in half and another section welded in the middle, big enough to hold the missiles. That certainly is inserting another part in the middle, wouldn't you say? Nautically yours,
Chief Jimmie Carol Ellis, USN Retired in Crescent City, California where the redwoods meet the sea!
From: Catherine Bolton (translations bolton.it)
Subject: Svelte
Def: 1. Slender; lithe. 2. Graceful; suave.
In Italian the word "svelto" also means swift, quick, nimble. "Svelto di lingua" means having a quick tongue and "svelto di mano" means nimble-fingered, a talent that has made the career of many a pickpocket around the world.
From: John Miksits (john.miksits dot.state.nj.us)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--sforzando
Check out the link about penguins. There are many places penguins live. Even a desert!
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