DOUG'S WORD OF THE WEEK

megillah / meh-GIL-uh / noun: 1. A long, tedious account .

Notes & Etymology: From the Yiddish megile (scroll), from Hebrew megillah, from galal (to roll).
The term alludes to the length of the text in the Book of Esther which is read in its entirety, twice, during Purim, a Jewish festival.

Usage: “But the obvious challenge was to go through the whole megillah -- to
begin with the Andante in C Major, which Mozart wrote when he was five,
and proceed to the bitter end, the Requiem ."
Alex Ross; The Storm of Style; The New Yorker; Jul 24, 2006

DOUG'S WORD OF THE WEEK

diastrophism / dy-AS-truh-fiz-uhm / noun: 1. The process of deformation of the earth's crust that produces continents, mountains, ocean basins, etc.

Notes & Etymology: From the Greek dia- (across) + strophe (turning). Ultimately from the Indo-European root streb(h)- (to wind or turn) that also gave us catastrophe (literally, an overturning) and apostrophe (literally, turning away, referring to the omission of a letter), and boustrophedon.

Usage: “But facing impending disaster is the cost of living in a place blessed by geography and climate, but cursed by the immutable process called diastrophism that lifts mountains, carves coastlines, and moves continents."
Still on Shaky Ground -- 10 Years After Loma Prieta; The San Francisco Chronicle;
Oct 17, 1999.

DOUG'S WORD OF THE WEEK

Cantankerous / kan-tang-ker-uhs / adjective: 1. Ill-tempered and quarrelsome; disagreeable. 2. Difficult to handle .

Notes & Etymology: From the Middle English word conteckour, meaning troublemaker. A cantankerous person is one who is always upset about something and looking for a fight. One of the most cantankerous fictional characters in the history of Literature is Ebeneezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Usage: “Garland found the kitchen's oven to be quite cantankerous, but he and his fellow cooks eventually managed to get it to produce a halfway decent tray of meat turnovers."
Laurie J. Marks; Earth Logic; May 31, 2005.

DOUG'S WORD OF THE WEEK

cacography / kuh-KOG-ruh-fee / noun: 1. Bad handwriting. 2. Incorrect spelling.

Notes & Etymology: From caco- (bad), from Greek kakos (bad) + -graphy (writing). Caco is ultimately from the Indo-European root kakka-/kaka- (to defecate) which also gave us poppycock, cacophony, and cucking stool.

Usage: “They [Nerds Inc.] have taken advantage of cacography in a novel way. ... They registered more than 90 of the most probable misspellings of popular Web addresses afforded by the QWERTY keyboard, for processing by typo.net."
Thomas W. Holcomb Jr.; Nerds Inc. Turns Typos Into On-Line Advertising; The New York Times; Jun 2, 1997.