GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

[Algot Runeman]

adret

Pronunciation /ˈadreɪ/
noun
A mountain slope which faces the sun.
Compare with ubac

Origin
From French, from dialect variants of à ‘to’ and droit ‘straight’.

ubac

Pronunciation /ˈjuːbak/
noun
Geography
A mountain slope which receives little sunshine, especially one facing north.

Origin
1920s from French, apparently from Latin opacus ‘shady’.

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Spring skiers contend with diminishing snow on adret slopes or the lingering chill of runs on ubac terrain.



[[It isn't often that we get to involve short words in this topic. We fear the chance of word repetition, our cardinal sin. It is also fun to follow the direction of the dictionary entry to "refer to" a second term. Embedding it here as a second term overcomes the "short word problem" as the same time. Whoo Boy!]]

[voralfred]

Some people reject vaccination, event though it might well be the sesame to a less restricted life.

Did I understand you correctly, Algot and EPS, you were both vaccinated on the same day, March 15th ?
Curiously, I almost got vaccinated on that day, too. Alas, my appointment was not on the 15th but on the 16th, and that was precisely when they stopped using Astrazeneca in France. So now I am in limbo...

See my post "En même temps" in the Soapbox

Re: adret/ubac
When learning geography in school, decades ago, I indeed learned the meaning of these two words. The word "adret" did sound like a proper french word, but I never did consider "ubac" as french. To me it sounded like a foreign word "immigrated" into french language like chewing-gum, ersatz, flamenco, spaghetti, ginseng, and so on. I am rather surprised that, as an word in the english language, it is considered as coming from french rather than from some obscure different language.

[Algot Runeman]

parallelism

Pronunciation /ˈparəlɛlɪzəm/
noun
mass noun
1 The state of being parallel or of corresponding in some way.
1.1 The use of successive verbal constructions in poetry or prose which correspond in grammatical structure, sound, metre, meaning, etc.
1.2 Computing The use of parallel processing.

==========

Parallelism is possibly well illustrated by the side-by-side lower case Ls in three words of this sentence.

[Algot Runeman]

Cultellation
(originally posted with wrong spelling "cutellation", sorry)

1 approaching the complicated, in small steps
1.1 the act of dealing with an overwhelming or difficult task by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable parts. (@HaggardHawks@twitter.com May 1, 2020)

(This is potentially a neologism for English. It isn't listed at Lexico.com or elsewhere as an English word.)

From Larousse, the French dictionary:

"Cultellation - Chaînage opéré sur un terrain très en pente à l'aide d'une fiche plombée qu'on laisse tomber de l'extrémité de la chaîne tendue horizontalement."

Chaining operated on a very sloping ground using a leaded plug which is dropped from the end of the chain stretched horizontally.

=========

Today, I had the opportunity to apply this term, cultellation, while explaining some concepts in electronics...amazingly, just before encountering the word in a poem on social media. I was immediately down the rabbit hole of Internet research to chase down the term and understand how I might fit it into my life...not to mention here in the WotD forum!



[Some people are prone to complain about social media, but maturity (maybe just old age) has provided me the tools (which I don't always use) to filter the dreck from the value as the stream flows by.]

[[voralfred, yes, EPS and I both had our vaccinations "together" in spite of the distance between us. No complaints, and speaking of neologisms, I am still considering how to hide/reveal the "borealopithecine" connection you sent along some time back, but I doubt they did much to survey their slopes, not having invented chain, so today is just a teaser.]]

[[[Today's word, illustration, etc. do not represent the effort involved in every post. This one occupied overlapping efforts which involved almost four cumulative hours. Some days, with re-use of part of an older illustration, it may be a 20 minute process.]]]

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Cultellation

(Update: cultellation spelling correction, see Algot's post)

I presume that, in the 19th century, the team of surveyors, starting in India, used cultellation to survey the height of Mount Everest.

Back in the 19th century, when Sir George Everest – a Briton – was the Surveyor General of India, under colonial rule, they used trigonometry to measure mountains, with machines called theodolites. They're optical instruments – sort of a cross between a telescope and a compass – that are used to measure angles between visible points on the horizon, and vertical planes. Municipal surveyors still use tripod versions of them.

It was painstaking work – hauling theodolites out to plains around the Himalayas, waiting for clouds to clear — but surprisingly accurate.

In 1856, the Survey of India calculated the peak's height as 29,002 feet above sea level. That measurement held for nearly a century, until an Indian survey in 1955 concluded it was 29,029 feet – a height that's been the consensus ever since.

Sir George Everest, after he retired and moved back to Britain, got his name on the peak he helped measure. But it was actually an Indian mathematician and surveyor, Radhanath Sikdar, who did much of the work, and was first to discover it was the highest mountain in the world.

(And while Everest is now the peak's English name, the Nepalese have long called it Sagarmatha, and Tibetans call it Chomolungma – "Mother Goddess of the World.")

quote from https://text.npr.org/938736955

I seem to remember a little bit of this from a TV documentary I once saw. Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI6OJACISgg

[Algot Runeman]

The minutia (which I did not realize was a plural of minutiae) of both language and the efforts made to do accurate surveys is weird.

According to Wikipedia, the British standard for a chain length is 66 feet, though the chain was made up of 100 links. Did the "History Guy" do careless research when he said the measurement chain was 100 feet long? Would the surveyors in India have abandoned the sanctioned length?

I cannot be the arbiter of this discussion. When I did my brief stint of land survey work in a college course, we used a simple, standard roll-up metal tape measure for our distances. Our goal was understanding the surveyors' technique more than it was to do accurate validated measurements.

I very much enjoy the confluence of so many moments of my own experience which happened because of seeing the word cultellation. Since I don't even have access to a proper dictionary definition, I'm using what I "presume" to be a reasonable pronunciation koolt-uh-lay'-shun. I think that also sounds closer to the French than cult-e-lay'-shun. I had not thought that through enough to commit it to the top of my WotD post.

Do you, EPS or voralfred, have a recommendation?

I don't think I am expert at the IPA pronunciation guides which Lexico uses, but here's my best shot: /ko͞olt ə lāSH' (ə)n/

(spelling and pronunciation efforts updated)

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

I don't think I am expert at the IPA pronunciation guides which Lexico uses, but here's my best shot: /ko͞olt ə lāSH' (ə)n/
(spelling and pronunciation efforts updated)

At first I thought: "Is there anything cute about cutellation?"
Spelling corrected, I now see an impossibly weird connection between cultellation and (the French rude word) "cul".

My English-style pronunciation would be cul like in culture, tell like in automatic teller machine and ation like in vaccination.

Though https://ttsdemo.com/ seems to agree with you.

[voralfred]

(...)
Since I don't even have access to a proper dictionary definition, I'm using what I "presume" to be a reasonable pronunciation koolt-uh-lay'-shun. I think that also sounds closer to the French than cult-e-lay'-shun. I had not thought that through enough to commit it to the top of my WotD post.

Do you, EPS or voralfred, have a recommendation?

I don't think I am expert at the IPA pronunciation guides which Lexico uses, but here's my best shot: /ko͞olt ə lāSH' (ə)n/

(spelling and pronunciation efforts updated)

I am not sure of what you mean by -e- in cult-e-lay'-shun but I agree with EPS that if you indeed mean by cult-e-lay'-shun
cul like in culture, tell like in automatic teller machine and ation like in vaccination, it is closer to the french pronunciation than koolt-uh-lay'-shun.

Sure the french u is not the first vowel of the english word culture, but it is closer to it than to "oo" of loose. There is really no english sound that exactly matches it. And in french before a double consonant, as is the case here, the letter E is not sounded -uh- (as it would often be before a single consonant) but as in automatic teller machine , as EPS wrote.

[Algot Runeman]

After the day-long slog down the slope of the cultellation ravine, caused by overlooking the first letter L, it seems I am doomed to be a cult member for pronunciation. Thanks to both EPS and voralfred for their kind efforts to accept my faulty spelling.

[Algot Runeman]

meddle

Pronunciation /ˈmɛd(ə)l/
verb
[no object]
1 Interfere in something that is not one's concern.
1.1 meddle with Touch or handle (something) without permission.

Origin
Middle English (in the sense ‘mingle, mix’): from Old French medler, variant of mesler, based on Latin miscere ‘to mix’.

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Mark remarked that he tried to avoid meddling in other people's business because it generally muddled things up and muddied the waters.

[Algot Runeman]

include

Pronunciation /ɪnˈkluːd/
verb
[with object]
1 Comprise or contain as part of a whole.
2 Make part of a whole or set.
2.1 Allow (someone) to share in an activity or privilege.

Origin
Late Middle English (also in the sense ‘shut in’): from Latin includere, from in- ‘into’ + claudere ‘to shut’.

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Let us conclude that it is better to include than exclude, in order not to be rude.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

include

I'm always glad when I see: "VAT included" and/or "Batteries included".

[Algot Runeman]

I'm always glad when I see: "VAT included" and/or "Batteries included".

You must be especially happy when the price of a vat includes the VAT in the price...though you might prefer that it also contains a good vintage of wine.

[Algot Runeman]

kinfolk

(also kinsfolk) (US kinfolks)
Pronunciation /ˈkɪnfəʊk/
plural noun
1 (in anthropological or formal use) a person's blood relations, regarded collectively.
1.1 A group of people related by blood.

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Having a really small family limits the reasons to use the word kinfolk. Distant cousins exist, but are out of touch. The result is having a "family shrub" instead of a significant tree.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

kinfolk
(also kinsfolk) (US kinfolks)

Kinfolk ... kinsfolk ... kinfolks ... skinfolk .... they all look the same to me ...

[voralfred]

Having received your vaccination on the same day gave the two of you a parallellism, a kind of kinship, even though you are not kin(s)folk(s). But now that I have been vaccinated too, yesterday (YES !!! ), maybe I can get included ?

[Algot Runeman]

Having received your vaccination on the same day gave the two of you a parallellism, a kind of kinship, even though you are not kin(s)folk(s). But now that I have been vaccinated too, yesterday (YES !!! ), maybe I can get included ?

Hoorah! Siblings of the soul; we have kincanoe if not kinship.

[Algot Runeman]

muckraking

Pronunciation /ˈmʌkreɪkɪŋ/
noun
mass noun
The action of searching out and publicizing scandal about famous people.
---as modifier ‘a muckraking journalist’

Origin
Coined by President Theodore Roosevelt in a speech (1906) alluding to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and the man with the muck rake.

==========

Prominent personalities are perpetually prone to muckraking and pointed, powerful propaganda.



[It remains important to remove the soggy leaves covering the storm drains to deal with torrential spring rains.]

[Algot Runeman]

malapert

Pronunciation /ˈmaləpəːt/
adjective
archaic
Boldly disrespectful; impudent.
noun
archaic
An impudent person.

Origin
Middle English from mal-‘improperly’ + archaic apert ‘insolent’.

==========

*Impudent Opinion*

Being malapert,
I must assert,
Is out of date,
And best retired, mate.

[voralfred]

Even though everyone on this thread is extremely civil, we perforce include a salvo of words like malapert, muckraking, dastardly, outhouse or larcener.

The price to pay for literacy...

[Algot Runeman]

worksite

Pronunciation /ˈwəːksʌɪt/
noun
An area where an industry is located or where work takes place.

===========

John is industrious at his worksite, except during morning coffee break.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

worksite

I now by far prefer worksit.

[Algot Runeman]

gristle

noun
mass noun
Cartilage, especially when found as tough inedible tissue in meat.

Origin
Old English, of unknown origin.

==========

After chewing on the gristle
He threw it like a missile,
And the monitor of lunch
Got her knickers in a bunch.

[Algot Runeman]

pluralism

Pronunciation /ˈplʊər(ə)lɪz(ə)m/
noun
mass noun
1 A condition or system in which two or more states, groups, principles, sources of authority, etc., coexist.
1.1 A political theory or system of power-sharing among a number of political parties.
1.2 A theory or system of devolution and autonomy for individual bodies in preference to monolithic state control.
1.3 A form of society in which the members of minority groups maintain their independent cultural traditions.

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I am mildly surprised that "pluralism" does not also mean a discussion of the proper endings used to make a noun plural: -s, -es, -ae, -i, etc.

[Algot Runeman]

autonomy

Pronunciation /ɔːˈtɒnəmi/
noun autonomies
mass noun
1 The right or condition of self-government.
1.1 count noun A self-governing country or region.
1.2 Freedom from external control or influence; independence.
2 (in Kantian moral philosophy) the capacity of an agent to act in accordance with objective morality rather than under the influence of desires.

Origin
Early 17th century from Greek autonomia, from autonomos ‘having its own laws’, from autos ‘self’ + nomos ‘law’.

==========

Earl exerted his autonomy by walking clockwise inside the inner lane of the high school track, leaving the official lanes for those who preferred the standard direction. Of course, the majority of other early exercise nuts considered him a contrarian, if not a total pain in the patootie.