Dictionary.com has a great opt-in, which is to receive an email with their word of the day. It’s an American site, which means that sometimes the definitions they send are slightly off target compared to their “proper” English use. For example, it defined prevaricate as to deliberately depart from the truth. A flurry of emails between me and similarly minded English pedants later and we concluded that this must be the US meaning, which is more sinister than the UK meaning. The same is true of the word scheme, which in the UK is often something as benevolent as a pension but in American English almost certainly refers to criminality and conspiracy. Perhaps this says something about the more twitchy and suspicious nature of US society?
One word that came from word of the day is “bloviate”, which is rare in America and virtually non-existent in England. This is a shame, as it’s a fabulous word. The Americans have done such violence to the English language but we should encourage them when they invent good words by using them. To bloviate means to speak loudly, pompously and at length. I’m currently having lunch in my favourite coffee shop in Manchester and listening to a solicitor bloviate to his more junior colleague. Simply listening in has given me much information about their business, their colleagues and potentially sensitive information about their corporate clients. Surely no profession has the same tendency to bloviate as lawyers? As a chartered accountant, I’d recognise that bloviating in a public place is also a breach of confidentiality ethics.
I’m so glad to be out of law.
7 comments:
Bloviate sounds like something more violent to me; "group of school children bloviated by ten ton truck", that sort of thing.
It is impolite, not to say impossible, to bloviate and masticate at the same time.
One thing I've always wanted to do is to oxjhrrak, which just happens to be the word we are required to verify when posting on your esteemed organ.
Bolton Bitch - did you post on his organ? Ooh er, that's a bit racy. I hope you didn't masticate it too.
Thanks to BBITS and TB for posting comments that made me literally laugh out loud. "LOL" is a much use hateful teenage affectation but it's true here. Keep the comments coming please!
There are words like bloviate and masticate that sound rude but aren't. But there is a word that is rude but doesn't sound rude. That word is ... merkin.
The word merkin is a joy. It's also something of a surprise that these days it's Brazilians for women and general shaving for men (well, gay men anyway), yet in days of yore there was sufficient demand to produce and sell merkins.
Also, one "David Merkin" is the producer or something of the Simpsons. Watch the credits next time.
Err...what is merkin? My excuse for not knowing this is that I've been thousands of miles from British slang for a few years now.
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