William F. Buckley, Sesquipedalians, and Scrabulous

I never win at Scrabble, often being defeated by students or my own children. Why is this? I have the accoutrements that should make the game my forte, a breeze.  My most exceptional word boasts no more than six letters. It’s because I draw bad letters. I get more than my share of vowels. But I keep playing, usually at Christmas when family are around.

Lexicon, now Scrabble, is the product of an architect, who developed the letter frequencies from the front page of the New York Times.  It took him years to find a publisher. Finally the game, which is a major seller with over a million boards a year, is in the hands of Hasbro and Mattel. Business is good.

But the board game industry has become worried in recent years over the advent of Xbox and Game Boy. Today interest is focused on a youngish pair of brothers in India who have produced an online mimic called Scrabulous with a too-similar board and play procedure. Apparently over a million registered players use the online version for free, often through Facebook, where they play friends and family even keeping multiple games going at the same time. There are worse activities. Hasbro and Mattel may sue for obvious reasons.

Speaking of words, William F. Buckley had the finest vocabulary of anyone I can think of in the media. He flaunted it. His brilliant mind’s medium was words. Long, short, but always appropriate, intelligent, and forceful. And delightful — just to listen to. Buckley could throw out a sesquipedalian (http://dictionary.reference.com/ ) and make you like it.  I ‘ve only read two of his fifty books, both novels, but  I plan to read more. He is greatly missed.

I’m thinking about where Mr. Buckley would stand on the Scrabulous issue. Build a better game board? Let the market decide? Hope for more and stricter laws? We can guess. Ideology aside, I wouldn’t want to play him even on his worst day.

Eponyms — what’s in a name?

We know about synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms. “Eponyms” are words derived from a person’s name, real or fictional. Proprietary eponyms are words that derive from a product and that become common names for the whole of like products. (Aren’t all copies xeroxed?)

A favorite book on my shelf is Dictionary of Word Origins, my being a lover of etymology.  A few examples:

Sadism – Frenchman Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) What a way to be remembered for all time.

Nicotine — French diplomat Jean Nicot (1530- 1600) bought some tobacco seeds from a Flemish trader. Nicot’s efforts to popularize the plant in Europe have ensured he has entered the dictionary.

quixotic — Impractically idealistic or fanciful — The word comes from the eccentric hero Don Quixote, hero of Miguel Cervantes novel by the same name.

ritzy –This term is derived from Swiss hotelier Cesar Ritz (1850-1918) who opened luxury hotels all around the world.

venereal –This word is derived from Venus, the Roman Goddess of love. Hmmmmm. . .

Draconian — (Of laws – excessively harsh and severe) Athenian legislator Draco compiled the first written code of laws in ancient Athens. For almost all crimes, even petty ones, he assigned the death penalty.

Others — Chauvinist, boycott, Bowdlerize, bayonet, guppy, juggernaut, leotard, maverick, mesmerize, sandwich, tantalize
Interesting stories usually accompany the terms’ definition.

The website below lists medical phenomena named for a person along with a biography. According to the site, over 15,000 such eponyms exist.
http://www.whonamedit.com

Source for previous examples  — a good site  www.english-for-students.com/List-of-Eponyms.html

“Downscale?” — a very poor euphemism

Actually it’s probably not meant to be a euphemism at all. Reporters covering the election use the term, I heard it again today, to refer to Clinton’s voters. Downscale? The implications are more than economically negative.

The correct term is “poor. ” Poor, in an economic sense, means not making much money. Cut-offs differ. Still, there should not be any shame or embarrassment in where one falls on the monetary earnings scale. Poor.

But “downscale” adds the conotation of inferiority to the “upscale.” Social inferiority, lack of intellkigence, living in a small, “downscale” town as opposed to an important city. That’s the picture, and a good editor should know better.

And this has nothing to do with politically correct speech. This is plain old demeaning, supercilious, condesending, and rude speech. Those who speak publicly must be responsible in their choice of words that have crept into the language.

BTW, I will not be voting for Clinton, but this term and verbiage like it bother me.