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Carrion Luggage #1103223 added December 8, 2025 at 11:13am
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Truer Words
Today, we have Mental Floss with another blurb about how fun English can be.
Well, I bloody well have now. (Or at least seen them type it.)
The English language is certainly bizarre in the best way.
For alternative definitions of "best."
Some of it is totally run-of-the-mill, and some of it is full of words that only seem to appear in one extremely specific situation.
I haven't seen MF try to explain idioms like run-of-the-mill (they might have and I missed it), but nothing about our language is truly ordinary, once you really look at it.
So let’s take a little stroll through eight words that only show up in one weirdly specific context.
You know, there's another way to look at this, too. What we call a "word" is pretty arbitrary. You can take two words and mush them together, like "homework" or "housework" (which are, absurdly, not the same thing at all). So another perspective is that these featured phrases are actually words that just happen to have a space inserted in them somewhere.
Inclement (Weather)
For that matter, no one ever describes the weather, or anything else, as "clement."
Bode (Well/Ill)
Bode is a free agent in theory, but let’s be honest: you’ve only ever seen it next to “well” or “ill.”
Free agent? Nah, it's in a threesome.
Hermetically (Sealed)
Now, this word is a little “underground,” if you will. Hermetically sealed sounds like something out of a sci-fi lab, but it mostly refers to food packaging...
This is where I get to rant: if it's being used for food packaging, that's- well, not wrong, per se, but a distortion of its original intent.
It's a bit complicated, but despite Hermes being the Greek equivalent of Mercury, it has nothing to do with the god Mercury, the planet Mercury, or the element mercury. Instead, it's related to the Egyptian god of wisdom and knowledge, Thoth (I told you language was weird.)
Thoth was said to have invented a magic seal that could keep vessels airtight (presumably useful in certain Egyptian interment procedures). But he's best known for being the mythical founder of certain occult orders, and the adjective "hermetic" originally referred to these spiritual practices, and was basically a synonym for "occult."
So if you use, or see, "hermetically sealed," just remember you're communing with deep, ancient spirits. Treat them with respect.
Pyrrhic (Victory)
There's good reason for this one, which is derived from some ancient general who won a battle, but at too great a cost. It's not like you could have a Pyrrhic loss. Or a Pyrrhic anything else at all.
Contiguous (United States)
I'm going to quibble with this one; I'm pretty sure I've heard the word used in math contexts.
More at the link if you're interested. Mostly I just wanted to rant about the "hermetically" entry. |
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