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The Three Rs: ’Rithmetic

Illustration Friday - Resolution

We’ve brought you words about reading and words about writing. Now it’s time for the last of the three Rs: arithmetic.

Arithmetic, “the theory of numbers; the study of the divisibility of whole numbers, the remainders after division, etc.,” comes from arithmos, the Greek word for “number” (arithmein means “to count”). Arithmos brings us number-related words such as arithmometer, “an instrument for performing multiplication and division”; arithmocracy, “rule or government by a majority”; arithmancy, “divination using numbers that are the equivalent of letters of a name”; and arithmomania, “a morbid impulse to work over mathematical problems, or to count objects or acts, such as buttons, steps, etc.” (which apparently afflicts vampires in particular).

Arithmos also gives us logarithm, “for a number x, the power to which a given base number must be raised in order to obtain x,” “coined by Scottish mathematician John Napier” in the 1610s, with the Greek logos meaning “proportion, ratio, word.” (John Napier was also the inventor of Napier’s bones, “a set of numbered rods used for multiplication and division.”)

A word often mistakenly attributed to arithmos is algorithm, “a precise step-by-step plan for a computational procedure that begins with an input value and yields an output value in a finite number of steps.” Algorithm is actually an alteration of algorism, “the Arabic system of notation; hence, the art of computation with the Arabic figures, now commonly called arithmetic,” which comes from the Middle Latin algorismus, “a mangled transliteration of Arabic al-Khwarizmi ‘native of Khwarazm,’ surname of the mathematician whose works introduced sophisticated mathematics to the West.”

Algebra comes from the Middle Latin algebra, which comes from the Arabic “al jebr ‘reunion of broken parts,’ as in computation,” and was used in the 9th century by Baghdad mathematician, Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, as the title of his famous treatise on equations (‘Kitab al-Jabr w’al-Muqabala’ ‘Rules of Reintegration and Reduction’), which also introduced Arabic numerals to the West. In 15- and 16-century English, algebra was used “to mean ‘bone-setting,’ probably from Arab medical men in Spain.”

Geometry, “that branch of mathematics which deduces the properties of figures in space from their defining conditions, by means of assumed properties of space,” comes from the Greek geōmetrein, “to measure land.” Related to geometry, aside from all those geo- words, is gematria, “a cabalistic system of Hebrew Biblical interpretation, consisting in the substitution for a word of any other the numerical values of whose letters gave the same sum.” Trigonometry, “the branch of mathematics that deals with the relationships between the sides and the angles of triangles and the calculations based on them, particularly the trigonometric functions,” contains the Greek trigōnon, “triangle.”

Calculus, “any highly systematic method of treating a large variety of problems by the use of some peculiar system of algebraic notation,” comes from the Latin calculus, “reckoning, account,” which meant originally “small stone used in reckoning,” and is diminutive of calx, “small stone for gaming” or “limestone.” In pathology, calculus refers to “inorganic concretions of various kinds formed in various parts of the body” while the root calx brings us a number of counting and stone-related words. There’s calcium, calcified, and calcific. There’s chalk and caulk. There’s calculating and calculator.

Speaking of calculators, check out these ancient calculating devices, including the quipu, “a recording device, used by the Incas, consisting of intricate knotted cords”; the abacus, which comes from the Greek abax, “counting board,” which may have come from the Hebrew ‘ābāq, “dust”; and the jetton, “a piece of metal, generally silver, copper, or brass, bearing various devices and inscriptions, formerly used as a counter in card-playing, or in casting up accounts.” Jetton comes from the French jeton, “coin-sized metal disk, slug, counter,” which may have also brought us jitney, a small bus, “perhaps because the buses’ fare was a nickel,” like a jeton.

Want more? Check out this mathematical list, these mathematical delights, and these mathaphors. Or you may like these really really large numbers, these imaginary numbers, or these different ways to say zero.

There’s a positive googolplex of words about math and numbers. These are just a few.

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The Three Rs: Writing

Yesterday we talked about the first R of the three: reading, readers, and books. Today we’re onto the second: [w]riting.

Nowadays many of us write by typing and texting (type comes from the Greek typos, “dent, impression, mark, figure, original form,” while text comes from the Latin texere, “to weave, fabricate”), but what about plain old writing by hand?

The word write comes from the Proto-Germanic writanan, “tear, scratch,” since before paper, writing was scratched on everything from stone to clay to wax. A synonym for write, scribe, comes from the Latin scribere, “to write.” Scribere gives us a slew of writing and describing-related words: scrivener, script, scribble, Scripture and scriptorium, “a writing-room; specifically, the room set apart in a monastery or an abbey for the writing or copying of manuscripts” (manuscript, by the way, originally mean “a book, paper, or instrument written by hand,” and contains the Latin manus, “hand”).

A postscript is a little note written or printed after the fact; superscript means “written over or above the line”; and subscript means “written beneath.” Prescriptions are scribbled by doctors before patients may obtain certain medicines. Circumscribe means to “to write or inscribe around” or “to mark out certain bounds or limits for.” Transcribe means to “to copy out in writing” from one document over to another. Sans-serif, “a printing-type without serifs, or finishing cross-lines at the ends of main strokes,” is made up of sans, French for “without,” and the English serif, which may come from the Dutch schreef, “a line, a stroke.”

Another root meaning “to write” is graphein, which is Greek in origin and gives us scads of writerly and describing words. Graphology is “the study of handwriting regarded as an expression of the character of the writer.” Chirography is “the art of writing; a particular or individual style of handwriting; the art of telling fortunes by examining the hand,” with chiro meaning “hand” in Greek. Calligraphy is the art of beautiful handwriting (calli comes from the Greek kallos, “beauty,” and is related to calliope, literally “beautiful voice”). Typography is “the art of composing types and printing from them” (during which you may make a haplography). Cacography is bad handwriting or spelling, with kakos Greek for “bad, evil,” while orthography is the act or study of correct spelling, with orthos meaning “straight, true, correct, regular” in Greek.

Perhaps you spotted some graffiti (from the Italian graffiare, “to scribble”) on your way to work today as a stenographer (the Greek stenos means “narrow”). Or perhaps you’re famous and had to stop to sign some autographs (from the Greek autographos, “written with one’s own hand”). Or better yet, maybe you’re a famous lexicographer (contains the Greek lexikon, “wordbook”) and are compiling, along with a dictionary, your autobiography or your blogography, if you’re so inclined.

If you’re practicing cryptography (the Greek kryptos means “hidden, concealed, secret”), you may want to use the ancient Greek writing system, boustrophedon, which means literally “turning like an ox while plowing,” due to the way “in which the lines run alternately from right to left and from left to right, as the furrows made in plowing a field, the plow passing alternately backward and forward.” Or perhaps you’d prefer rongorongo, “an early glyphic writing system of Easter Island, written in reverse boustrophedon and as yet undeciphered,” and Rapanuiese for “recite, declaim, chant out.” Or if you want to be understood by all, then a pasigraphy is for you.

You may know pictography (literally, “recording or describing with painting”) and definitely photography (literally, “recording or describing with light”), but how about fauxtography, “misleading presentation of images for propagandistic or otherwise ulterior purposes, involving staging, deceptive modification, and/or the addition or omission of significant context”? Or tomography, taking pictures of the inside of the body? Tomography includes the Greek tomos, “slice, section,” and is part of CAT (computerized axial tomography) scan. Then there’s topography, “the detailed description of a particular locality, as a city, town, estate, parish, or tract of land” (topos is Greek for “place”) and cartography, map-making, carta coming from the Greek khartes, “layer of papyrus.”

The ways to say writer are as myriad as ways to say write, as are writing systems, types and terms about penmanship and other scribblings, and kinds of fonts.

Tomorrow we bring you the third and last R: ‘Rithmetic. We know you’ll be counting the hours.

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Kevin Gessner]

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The Three Rs: Reading

Shock-ed

Continuing with our back-to-school theme (so far we’ve had SAT words and words that are commonly confused), this week we’re featuring the three Rs, reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic. Today it’s all things reading, readers, and books.

The word read comes from the Old English rædan, “to explain, read, rule, advise.” Rædan is also related to riddle, reason, hatred, dread, and kindred. The word book comes from the Old English boc, “book, writing, written document,” which comes from the Proto-Germanic bokiz, “beech” with “the notion being of beechwood tablets on which runes were inscribed, but it may be from the tree itself (people still carve initials in them).”

The root libr- comes from the Latin libri, “book, paper, parchment,” and originally referred to “the inner bark of trees.” It gave us library, from the Latin librarium, “chest for books,” and librarian; libretto, “a book containing the words of an extended musical composition, like an opera or an oratorio,” from the Italita libretto, literally “little book,” and librettist. It gave us ex libris, “a book-plate printed with the name of the owner,” and literally “from the books.”

Another-reading related root, biblio-, meaning “book” and related to Bible, comes from the Greek biblion, “paper, scroll,” and was “originally a diminutive of byblos ‘Egyptian papyrus.'” You’ll find biblio- in many book and reading-related terms. Bibliochresis refers to “the use of books” while a bibliography is “a classified list of authorities or books on any theme,” as well as that branch of library science “which treats of books, their materials, authors, typography, editions, dates, subjects, classification, history, etc.”

A bibliognost is “one versed in bibliography or the history of books,” while a bibliothecary is a fancy way of saying either library or librarian, and contains the Greek thēkē, “receptacle.” (An apothecary is a pharmacy or pharmacist, and comes from the Greek apotheke, “barn, storehouse”.)

Bibliomancy is “a kind of divination performed by means of a book”; stichomancy is “divination by lines or passages in books taken at hazard,” and contains the Greek stikhikos, “of lines, of verses.” Both refer especially to the Bible. Meanwhile, a grimoire is “a book of instructions in the use of magic or alchemy, especially summoning demons,” and is an alteration of the Old French gramaire, meaning “learning” but also “(magic) incantation, spells, mumbo-jumbo” (and which the word grammar comes from too).

A bibliophile is “a lover of books,” bibliobibuli are those who read too much, and a bibliomaniac – or bibliodemon, if you prefer – isn’t just mad for books but has “a rage for collecting and possessing books, especially rare and curious ones.” A bibliophagist is one who devours books (figuratively of course), and contains the Greek phagein, “to eat.” A biliotaph buries or hides his books away, and contains the Greek taphos, “tomb” (as does epitaph, “an inscription on a tomb or monument in honor or memory of the dead”) while a biblioklept is “a book-thief; one who purloins or steals books,” and contains the Greek kleptein, “to steal.”

One with bibliophobia has “a dread or hatred of books” and might also be a biblioclast, “a mutilator or destroyer of books.” Biblioclast contains the Greek klastos, “broken in pieces,” and is related to iconoclast, “a breaker or destroyer of images,” and pyroclastic, “mostly composed of rock fragments of volcanic origin.”

Still haven’t had enough biblio-words? Check out our list of the day. As for what to read, consult this bookish list for book types and parts, this literary one for genres, or this one for one-word book titles (or you could always read all of our summer reading recommendations). Interested in bookmaking? The Bindery is the list for you.

Tomorrow we bring you the second R: ‘Riting! Stay tuned.

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WotD Perfect Tweets Roundup – Giveaway Edition

Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from this week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. In addition, starting this week and for the next three weeks, we’ll be giving away a full set of Pocket Posh Word Power dictionaries to a randomly chosen winner.

This week’s winner? Drumroll please. . .

Congrats to @Kotonosato, aka John Racine!

In addition, here are our favorites from this week.

Thanks to everyone for playing! Next week you’ll have another chance to perfect your word of the day perfect tweets. To get the word of the day, just follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.

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This Week’s Language Blog Roundup

Welcome to our weekly Language Blog Roundup, in which we bring you the highlights from our favorite language blogs and the latest in word news.

In non-word news, things were shaken up quite a bit this week with earthquakes in Colorado, Virginia, California, and Peru. Slate rounded up some jokes from news and media outlets, while xkcd gave its take on seismic waves and Twitter. Meanwhile, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo documented animals’ reactions prior to and during the quake (the red ruffed lemurs: hyper-aware, the giant pandas: not so much).

In other, if not earth-shattering but still saddening news, Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple. You can read his resignation letter here. We at Wordnik wish Steve all the best.

In endangered languages, the Collins Dictionary is compiling a list of nearly-extinct words, while some argue that old words never become extinct. Mexconnect wondered if the Aztecs’ Nahuatl literature was actually a Spanish invention, and a group of New Yorkers are striving to preserve Nahuatl by teaching it to others.

K International pointed out that there is majority support for the preservation of Gaelic in Scotland, and Miller-McCune argued that rescuing endangered languages is also about saving ideas. Meanwhile, in Slate, one writer recounted his summer speaking a dead language, while another wondered why some slang terms stick and some don’t.

Robert Lane Greene at Johnson explored the euphemism of a courtesy call; while at the Macmillan Dictionary blog, Michael Rundell posted part two of his piece on political correctness gone mad, and Stan Carey fought fire with “firefighter.” On his own blog, Mr. Carey discussed words with no letters, such as ♥, @, +1, and obscenicons.

At Language Log, Mark Liberman addressed why Americans don’t say “mate”; Geoff Nunberg gave Kathleen Parker at The Washington Post a dressing down for her implication that public swearing is all right as long as you have the right accent; and Victor Mair discussed the basketbrawl between the Georgetown Hoyas and the Bayi Rockets that was “mostly scrubbed from Chinese media.”

John McIntyre at You Don’t Day wrote about the ever-evolving standards of English grammar, and  what he’d say to you if you were in his copyediting class (in short, leave now or suck it up). Erin McKean parsed robo– versus – bot while Fritinancy cited a notable word of the week, Kinsey gaffe, “a truthful statement told accidentally, usually by a politician” (as opposed to McKean’s inversion?); had some fun with eye dialect and comparing cap’n, captn, and capt’n; and explored twocation, which has nothing do with a vacation for two but with Twitter and location.

From Open Culture, we learned more about forensic linguistics (first introduced to us by Ben Zimmer last month). Book Bench, The New Yorker’s blog, discussed linguistic anachronisms in period dramas such as The Hour, Mad Men, and Deadwood, while The Huffington Post offered up several non-British actors doing “bad” British accents, including Anne Hathaway, also discussed at The Dialect Blog.

In addition, The Dialect Blog considered the Pacific-Northwest accent; the Falkland Islands accent; and what may be a very controversial topic. The Virtual Linguist tangled with tiger kidnapping, so-called because of “the predatory stalking that goes on before the actual crime is committed,” and torches of freedom (cigarettes to you and me).

Sesquiotica took a look at reticent versus reluctant; ajar; it is I versus it’s me; epic; and fail. Arnold Zwicky offered these quickies on Satanic fast food, bromance, and a dreamanteau. The Australians weighed in on irritating Americanisms; the Grammar Monkeys pointed out an unfortunate mistake on some Old Navy tees; and we learned that the 12th edition of the Chambers Dictionary will include “a new miscellany of linguaphile-pleasing lists,” such as one on insults (for additional insulting lists, try this one, this one, this one, or this one).

In things David-Foster-Wallace-related, we have an excellent essay from Maud Newton on his linguistic legacy, and from the Decemberists, an Infinite Jest-inspired song and video.

Like music? Here are some books you can dance to, and books with sound effects and soundtracks. Libraries more your thing? Then check out or this mini bookmobile, or these enviable home libraries of celebrities. Or perhaps it’s famous people’s letters you covet. Then these letters of note are right up your alley.

Or maybe you just want to know how alphabets came to be. Well then watch this video from “Dr James Clackson, senior lecturer in Classics at the University of Cambridge” who “explains about some of the people and places where writing was born.” While you’re at it, take a peek at this delightful “noisy alphabet” postcard.

That’s a wrap! Till next week, we’ll be on twocation – that is, we’ll tweeting from our desks.

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Season of the SATs

Not only is it back-to-school season, it’s the season of the SATs.

The SAT Reasoning Test attempts to measure writing, reading, and math skills, and is required by many colleges and universities. The math section includes multiple choice and open-ended questions, while the writing section includes an essay and multiple-choice questions that ask test takers to “recognize sentence errors,” “choose the best version of a piece of writing,” and “improve paragraphs.”

It’s in the critical reading section that one’s vocab mettle is tested. While the analogies portion of the test has been dropped, the questions still ask test takers to identify main and supporting ideas; understand authors’ purposes; understand the structure and function of sentences; and, our favorite, determine the meaning of words in context.

If you’re a regular Wordnik-user, you’ll know that not only do we provide definitions of words, we provide those words in context through examples from both classic and modern texts. For example, today’s word of the day, laconic, means “expressing much in few words, after the manner of the ancient Laconians; sententious; pithy; short.” Pretty clear, right? However, these examples liven it up:

Eastwood is never showy, but his laconic simplicity has never been so sly. – David Ansen, “Go Ahead, Take My Prez,” Newsweek, July 11, 1993

[The book, I Know How to Cook] been adapted by Clotilde Dusoulier of the blog Chocolate & Zucchini and an unnamed posse of experts who filled in some of Mathiot’s “laconic” instructions, reduced cooking times, and lightened up on the butter. – Mike Sula, “Books for Cooks,” Chicago Reader, December 10, 2009

To the Persian command to give up their weapons, the “laconic” reply was given by Leonidas, “Come and get them.” – George Park Fisher, Outlines of Universal History, 1853

Another way to learn the meaning of a word is to understand its etymology. Laconic comes from the Greek Lakōn, a Spartan, from the idea that Spartans are well-known for their brevity of speech.

Word lists are a great study aid as well, and we have plenty:

We’ve also tagged a whole slew of common SAT words for you.

Finally, if you want to practice using this week’s SAT-themed words of the day (whether or not you’ll actually be taking the test), participate in our Perfect Tweet WotD Challenge for your chance to appear on our blog and to win a set of Pocket Posh Word Power dictionaries.

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WotD Perfect Tweets Roundup – Giveaway Edition

Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from this week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. In addition, starting this week and for the next three weeks, we’ll be giving away a full set of Pocket Posh Word Power dictionaries to a randomly chosen winner.

This week’s winner? Drumroll please. . .

 

You’re a star, @WriterRoss, and the owner of four cute little dictionaries.

In addition, here are our favorites from this week.

Thanks to everyone for playing! Next week you’ll have another chance to perfect your word of the day perfect tweets. To get the word of the day, just follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.