It’s Time To Talk About A Writer’s Ammunition. Again.

May 04, 2011

A few months back, I wrote a post called “Today, I’ll Be Mostly Talking About Words” where I talked about my love for words and provided some explanations and information on some of my favourite words.

After what has been a busy, confusing and simply odd few weeks (over here in the UK, we’ve had four bank / public holidays in the space of two weeks — it’s been great in one sense, but it’s knocked me for six in another), I spent some time earlier today thinking about some more of my favourite words and took a look at where they derived from.

1. Plethora

A word that was mentioned in a comment on my previous post about words, I have a similar affliction with plethora as I do ampersand — it just sounds great to say.

Greek in its origin, plethora is said to have derived from two separate words — ‘plethore’, meaning ‘fullness’ and ‘plethin’, meaning ‘be full’ and somewhat strangely, was originally used primarily as a medical term to describe the ‘excess of bodily fluid’.

2. Pernickety

Another word mentioned in the comments from the last post, I don’t often get to use pernickety much, but when I do, it always puts a smile on my face.

Meaning to be fussy, fastidious and paying an undue amount of attention to detail, like many words, the full etymology of pernickety isn’t known, but it’s agreed that it’s an extended variation of the Scottish word ‘pernicky’ and there are many etymologists who believe it has links to ‘particular’.

And for those of you who are reading this and thinking to yourselves “I’m pretty sure the word is persnickety”, although persnickety is a word, it’s an alteration of pernickety, used first in 1905, around 100 years after the original and is largely considered to be an Americanism.

3. Catafalque

Although catafalque is a slightly morbid word — it’s the platform that a coffin sits upon during a funeral — and I can’t actually think of a time when I’ve used it in my writing, I love the fact that it looks so unusual and that it owes its usage to various different languages.

A French word used first in the middle of the 17th century, it is derived from the Italian word ‘catafalco’, which literally means ‘scaffold’, a term which itself came from a colloquial spoken Latin word, ‘catafalcium’.

Not finishing there, ‘catafalcium’ is a word made up of two Medieval Latin words — ‘kata’, meaning ‘down’ in the sense of being alongside some one or thing and ‘fala’, an originally Etruscan word that was used to describe a a siege tower made of wooden scaffolding.

4. Racial words

You may want to move past this point. I don’t mention any racial words, but I just want to give you the option to skip to the end.

I don’t want to go to deep into this for a variety of reasons and I’m not trying to say in any way, shape or form that I advocate racism, but I find it interesting that a lot of — if not all of — the words that are now considered to be derogatory racial terms were originally used in ways that weren’t harmful in any way and were often used as a way of communicating.

There’s a certain word that’s not used much today in Europe, but which became a derogatory term for Italian’s during the 20th century.

It derives from the word ‘Diego’, which was used in the first half of the 19th century to refer to Spanish and Portuguese sailors on English and American boats, as ‘Diego’ was considered to be a general, non-discriminatory alternative for ‘Spaniard’ and had been since the early 17th century — it wasn’t until the turn of the 20th century when people started using the derivative on land that it became derogatory.

Like I said, I have strong feelings against racism, but I do find it interesting how words to describe a certain race can develop from being acceptable phrases into ones that are completely and utterly unacceptable.

There’s something about words that I find utterly fascinating. From their meanings to simply how they feel when they roll of the tongue, I love everything about them and from the comments I received on my last post, it seems like most writers share this fondness, too.