Content tagged with “language”

There are 9 item(s) tagged with “language” on this site.

Other tags used by these items: french, geography, latin, idiom, dutch, philosophy, psychology, linguistics

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book

“This is supposed to be an examination of how language can contribute to ‘cultiness.’ It does touch on that, but it really just becomes a dicussion of ‘cult-ish’ things in general. For this, it’s very interesting. It spends some time on the Jonestown Massacre , in which is goes fairly deep into how…”

-cum-
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
April 15, 2022

“ This is a prepositional phrase from Latin which means ‘with.’ So ‘X-cum-Y’ means ‘X with Y.’ Incidentally, this is where the degree honors come from: cum laude: ‘with praise’ magna cum laude: ‘with great praise’ summa cum laude: ‘with highest praise’ ”

Diacritic
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
March 7, 2023

“ This is an accented character, which you mostly see in languages other than U.S. English. French, for example, uses several diacritics, like in ‘façade’ and ‘café’. Vietnamese uses accented characters in almost every word. ”

Diphthong
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
February 27, 2023

“ This is the phonetic sound that results when two vowels are next to each other: ‘ai’ and ‘ea’ and ‘ou,’ for example. It’s pronounced ‘diff-thong.’ ”

Geographic Metonym
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
December 28, 2021

“For example, if often takes the form of a place name being used to refer to (1) a significant event that happened at that place; or (2) an organization, institution, industry, or concept associated with that place. Examples: ‘The White House’ to refer to a presidential administration ‘Wall Street’…”

“Je Ne Sais Quoi”
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
January 15, 2022

“ French for ‘I don’t know what.’ It means some quality that you find appealing, but cannot describe in words. ”

Kill
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
October 1, 2024

“‘Kill’ is a borrowed word from Dutch. In that language it means ‘body of water’ or, more often, ‘creek.’ Thus, names like Fresh Kills, West Kill, Peeksill, Fishkill, usually refer to a nearby body of water. This usage is common in Upstate New York. Oddly, the Catskill Mountains might be a…”

-ville
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
September 8, 2021

“It’s a French suffix meaning ‘city,’ ‘town,’ or ‘farm.’ The French were allies during the American Revolution. From Wikipedia : France’s help was a major and decisive contribution towards the United States’ eventual victory and independence in the war. This led to positive French sentiment after…”