mashedradish.bsky.social
I get to the bottom of words on the top of our minds.
Mashedradish.com is etymology at the intersection of news, life, and everyday language.
Previously headed up content at Dictionary.com.
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Totally get it! đ I have been told by at least one other person that the occasional word stuff offers some welcome variety from the algorithm, shall we say, haha!
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Aw, thanks! (They are silly and drawn super offhand; feel like that can help just break up the self-seriousness of things online.)
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Letâs barter: they get a retconned apostrophe if I get a deleted âwho,â lol.
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Love this distinction. Content is just ambient anymore.
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Love the continued water theme. Terrific organized principle. Do earth, wind, and fire next!
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Merriam-Webster: www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/eig...
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Greenâs Dictionary: greensdictofslang.com/entry/eaw7fwy
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James is back! John is gone! To be fair, there once whole villages of people named just John back in the day.
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Great piece!
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It also drives home for me an urgent moral conclusion familiar to the ancients: a happier life must necessarily be a virtuous one.
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This topic, to me, raises a fundamental existential question of whether or not we can actually be happier with social media at all. (Irony and hypocrisy noted.) I ultimately believe not, as much as it helped my (ultimately bought-and-sold) dictionary career.
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I also strongly believe that one can deprive him of ceaseless breathless attention and still do right and good. I am, of course, fully guilty of failing at this.
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Not a novel thought. There has to be a way to live an authentic life that acknowledges and addresses the urgency of the crisis without giving our entire existence over to each second of news. Logging off and volunteering if you can is a start. Being in enfleshed community.
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Love âbelief that the world can still be moved by goodnessââand locating it that liminal period. Beautifully observed. (Also appreciate note on surrender of identity; nods to pope as Vicar of Christ, which, as you know, Catholic theology understands as quite literally the agent of Christ on Earth.)
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[...] opposing both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. With that encyclical, he became popularly titled as the "Social Pope" and the "Pope of the Workers." 3/3
For more: findingaids.bc.edu/agents/peopl...
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From Boston College's Burns Library Archival Collections:
His 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum outlined the rights of workers to a fair wage, safe working conditions, and the formation of trade unions, while affirming the rights to property and free enterprise ... 2/3
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He's not wrong lol
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Here's a little curmudgeonly gem from the old OED on the etymology. (Samuel Rogers was a prominent English poet of his day.)
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Very interesting! Vowels definitely change. Low-Back Merger Shift (aka California aka Canadian) underway in NAmE! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-Bac...
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Fascinating, especially the recent/ongoing shifting. What was the CanE vowel on that âdramaâ?
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A pattern that fascinates me (and has to deal with particular food loanwords): In much of BrE, an 'a' is an /É/ (like 'father') where AmE has an /ĂŚ/ (like cat). But it's precisely flipped in 'tomato,' 'pasta,' 'taco' and others!
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Thanks, Mignon! Papal news is good for etymology bloggers lol.
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Literal lol
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Beautifully put.
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While he leaves the ultimate origin unknown, he suggests an expressive DAND- meaning "active, mobile; quick, nimble."