Astounded, Shocked, Astonished, Confounded and Stupefied

That is how I felt when I learned that a Yahoo survey found one of the top ten most searched terms for 18- to 35-year-olds is:

What is a synonym?

Survey info via The Week magazine, September 13, 2013

Image credit: bogglesworldesl.com

DARE - Michigan

Speaking of the Dictionary of American Regional English (as I did here recently and here), their website has a state-by-state index that allows users to look up commonly used regional synonyms by state. My favorite part of this feature is that each state's page begins with a paragraph that includes examples of some of the regionally-distinctive words in use.

Here is Michigan's:

A lawyer doesn’t have to be someone who wears a suit and goes to court. For that matter, a long john isn’t underwear and a sewing needle can fly. If you’re headed to a covered-dish meal, consider making pasties with hamburg for hot dish. Up in Norway pine-country, you may see some people headlighting or trying to shining deer, which doesn’t seem too fair for the deer.

To see the definitions of these Michigan synonyms and to look up other state's synonyms, here is a link to DARE: State-By-State. Have fun.

Aptly, Fitly, Timely Words

I received a belated birthday gift from a dear friend last week. It was a hand-crafted sign with the above pictured phrase. She purchased it for me because she knows I love words. I don't think either of us knew it was from a Bible verse. Upon looking up the proverb, I learned about some of the various translations.

"A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." - King James Bible
"Timely advice is lovely, like golden apples in a silver basket." - New Living Translation
"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver." - English Standard Version
"Like apples of gold in settings of silver Is a word spoken in right circumstances." - New Am. Std. Bible
"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." -  King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.) 
"He that speaks the word is an apple of gold in a vessel of beaten silver." - Aramaic Bible
"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." - American King James Version 
"A word fitly spoken Is like apples of gold in network of silver." -  American Standard Version 
"To speak a word in due time, is like apples of gold on beds of silver." - Douay-Rheims Bible
"As apples of gold in pictures of silver, is a word spoken in season." - Darby Bible Translation
"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in baskets of silver." - English Revised Version 
"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." - World English Bible
"Apples of gold in imagery of silver, Is the word spoken at its fit times." - Young's Literal Translation

Image credit 
Bible verse translation credits

Words in "The Week" - Wiegle, Booty and Spoils

From the March 18 issue of The Week magazine -

Wiegle: The name of a young bald eagle that recovered from crashing through the windshield of a semi truck travelling over 60 mph. A portmanteau of "window eagle".

Booty: A connotation for "a portion of the body often shaken in time to music, rather than the spoils of war" according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Spoils: A euphemistic synonym for the word "booty" as used in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' new translation of the Bible.

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Also of note - A book with 200 blank pages became a best-seller in Great Britain based solely upon the book's title. The title: What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex

Is a Linguist always a Polyglot?

I am sorry to say that yesterday's daily Match Up word game from the "Free Dictionary" included a misleading and inaccurate synonym. The word in the left column was polyglot and the answer in the right column was linguist. While polyglots are generally considered linguists, linguists are not necessarily polyglots and for a pair of words to be true synonyms they should be interchangeable; that is not the case here. The definitions found on the "Free Dictionary" website don't even support the synonymity of linguist and polyglot. These definitions are as follows:

Synonym: A word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in a language.

Linguist: A person skilled in the science of language. Also linguistician.
Polyglot: A person having a speaking, reading, or writing knowledge of several languages.

In sum, as these definitions indicate, a person can be skilled in the science of language without speaking many languages (or even two languages for that matter). Semantically this is called lack of entailment because being a linguist does NOT entail being a polyglot.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Synonyms

Word Play and Crosswords

If I haven't yet mentioned it, the topic of crossword puzzles is one of my favorites. I actually wrote a paper about the semantics of crossword puzzles while working on my master's degree. Additionally, I thoroughly enjoy doing the daily crossword puzzles, mainly because of the word play involved. As is the case with many things, some puzzles are better than others when it comes to the creativeness of the word play.

Last week my daily newspaper ran a crossword puzzle with a very clever theme . The theme involved creative word play with the use of synonyms to describe how a person would steal different items in different venues (not that I condone stealing, I don't).

The clues and answers are as follows:

Steal books? palm readers

Steal produce? bag groceries

Steal coins? pinch pennies

Steal gym equipment? lift weights

For the clue steal coins?, my first thought was, pocket change (which actually did fit the spaces and would have worked semantically, to).

This was one of the better thematic crosswords involving word play I have seen in quite a while. If you are interested in seeing the puzzle in its entirety, it is a Tribune Crossword that was printed in the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday, June 4.