Word O’ Day

Hello there, and welcome to THE definitive Word O’ Day!

It’s nice of you to drop by. I hope you enjoyed all the change this past week. Obama’s pretty cool, and so is today’s WOD: Oleaginous.

Oleaginous is a French word derived from Latin. It’s pronounced oh-lee-aj-uh-nuhs. An adjective, it means – literally – of, covered with, or exuding oil. Figuratively, it means overly aggrandizing or complementary (much like a presidential candidate during a debate). See if you can determine which definition I used in the Usage!

If you like it then you should’ve put a Usage on it: Even though Ronald really did appreciate Henrietta’s efforts to repent, in his ever-childish disposition, he launched into an oleaginous diatribe full of blatantly exaggerated flattery and compliments, sending her out of the kitchen and into a cloudburst of potentially endless tears.

Poor Henrietta. What are they going to DO?

Love as always (to most, not all – I am nothing if not exclusive),

-Erock

Hello.

As someone who has only recently turned the corner to middle-age, I thought it a good time to demonstrate my newfound maturity with a somewhat self-deprecating observation:

Here at Word O’ Day, we tend to favor lengthier words, and while I won’t go into the many possible reasons for this oversight, it is important to realize that the assumption that only long, complicated words are worthy of exploitation is simply baseless. It is with this realization, along with a timely suggestion from my father, that I bring you today’s elegantly compact WOD: Sapid.

Sapid, a word composed of a mere five letters, is an adjective that means having a strong, flavorful, even mouth-watering taste. While it is largely used to refer to food and drink, it can also describe speech or writing that is enjoyable, interesting, and pleasant to the mind. One example is this delightful site. It is pronounced sap-id, and has a Latin root.

Fool me Once, Shame on Usage: Ronald was no buffoon, and while he knew that Henrietta’s extravagant cooking was intended to further distract him from her despicable behavior, his mounting resolve was no match for the sapid fixings she presented to him, and so her efforts again delayed what Ronald now viewed as an inevitable confrontation.

It just never stops with these two!

Love to most,

-Eric

Time to hop on the train to Wordtown, making stops in Grammarsville and Linguaburry.

Today’s WOD is, as usual, incredible. Those of you lucky enough to know and interact with me on a regular basis should probably have heard this several trillion times by now, but the fact that its repetition has not diminished its luster in the least only emphasizes its considerable fortitude. Yikes, so here it is: Portmanteau.

Portmanteau, a Spanish word (I’m just kidding, it’s really quite French), is a noun meaning one of two things: 1) a word formed by joining two other words and combining their meanings. This is my preferred definition, and to help, I have provided some examples here. Brunch, smog, motel, and my personal favorite, disastrophe (while it is admittedly not a “real” word, it should be), are all portmanteau words (except for disastrophe, which, as I noted previously, is not a word). 2) A large travel case that hinges open into two compartments (boring). If you don’t know already, it’s pronounced pohrt-man-toh.

Deep in the Hundred Acre Usage:  Henrietta, regretting her malapropos vulgarity with Ronald, decided that the best way to distract him was to challenge him to think of a proper word that could also be a portmanteau constructed of two obscenities, to which Ronald responded, after a time, ”Shuck.”

Happy New Year! Also it seems relevant to wish everyone a belated Chrismukkah.

Yours,

-Eric