Say it again, please.

[kejedo]

Credenza: I worked at a pricey boarding school which had two sideboard type pieces of furniture in the upstairs office area . The CEO (yes, it was that expensive) frequently said, "Put it on or near the credenza." while pointing and saying 'crahdawnza' with lingering. One day he told me that Dr. Seuss had invented the word. Now, my Italian grandmother had a similar piece of furniture in her dining room and called it her buffet. So I finally looked up the word: " Originally in Italian the name meant belief or trust (... connected to the English word "credence"). In the 16th century the act of credenza was the tasting of food and drinks by a servant for a lord or other important person (such as the pope or a cardinal) in order to test for poison." And so it went, from Sicily to Seuss.   Y(loves words and The Word)S

                                                    

[Bek]

Yes, words tend to change radically sometimes losing their original meanings completely. My favourite one is vaccination which comes from the Latin word for cow. That is what I call a lexical metamorphosis. 

 

Quote

vaccination (n.)

1800, used by British physician Edward Jenner (1749-1823) for the technique he devised of preventing smallpox by injecting people with the cowpox virus (variolae vaccinae), from vaccine (adj.) "pertaining to cows, from cows" (1798), from Latin vaccinus "from cows," from vacca "cow," a word of uncertain origin.

I like looking up the etymology of words in various languages.  

 

 

[daydream]

 

buffet credenza. 

[Friends just call me Ross]

I think the word doohickey is cool because it is so versatile.

Quote

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doohickey#learn-more

doohickey: an object or device whose name you do not know or have forgotten

• I need one of those doohickeys [=thingamajigs, whatchamacallits] with the long handles.

Says it was first used waaaaaay back in 1914.

Doohickey doohickey doohickey...It's both versatile and fun to say.   

[kejedo]

Barbiturate: I always wondered why people pronounced barbiturate as barbit-chew-it. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=barbiturate+pronunciation&view=detail&mid=DC8B78E55DEF4D5CB862DC8B78E55DEF4D5CB862&FORM=VIRE I know New Englanders move those r letters around like rawr-eggs, and drawring but this seems more common than local. Y( mispronunciations don't really bring me down)S

Edited October 13, 2019 by kejedo

[kejedo]

Don't throw me under the bus, you blunderbuss.

 

blun·der·buss

/ˈbləndərˌbəs/

noun

• 1.a short-barreled large-bored gun with a flared muzzle, used at short range.historical
• 2.an action or way of doing something regarded as lacking in subtlety and precision

[kejedo]

(Judges 12:6) they would say to him, “Please say Shibʹbo·leth.” But he would say, “Sibʹbo·leth,” as he was unable to say the word correctly. Then they would seize him and slay him at the fords of the Jordan. So 42,000 Eʹphra·im·ites fell at that time.
The pronunciation of this word is interesting to me. The Ephraimites would drop the h in Shibboleth. Of course the alphabet vs words sounds was different, no doubt. In my small experience teaching foreign language students from Southern Asia, the sound slip was just the opposite. Words with a single s were frequently pronounced with the SH sound. One of my students would even call it the invisible "h." It is always fascinating to me that Jehovah can understand prayers in countless languages.

[kejedo]

circumscribe:  draw (a figure) around another, touching it at points but not cutting it:"if a hexagon is circumscribed about a circle the lines joining opposite vertices meet in one point."

Way back in my High School. a Geometry Student was working out quite a detailed proof (on the board) re: a circumscribed shape. As he moved through the statements and reasons, he (mis)spoke the word 'circumscribed' several times. With his back to the class, he could not fathom the waves of giggles and outright laughter emanating from the other students. Someone clued him in later. Not me.