Share your new words

[Paul Beardsley]

I am currently near the end of Open University module S187: Elements of forensic science. This morning I learnt a completely new word, and a new meaning for a familiar word, in the material.

The familiar word is the noun phase. I'm used to seeing it used in the sense of a period of time in which changes are occurring: "It's just a phase he's going through." Also, two light beams might have the same wavelength but a different phase - we get constructive interference when they are in phase, and destructive interference when they are out of phase.

But in the module, a "solid phase" can also refer to a flat plate made of silica, alumina or paper on which chromotography takes place.

The unfamiliar word is the verb adsorb. At first I thought it was a misprint for "absorb", especially as the noun form is "adsorption". It is explained as meaning, "The ability of a substance to adhere to the surface of a solid."

[Perikles]

I take it you mean 'new' not in the sense of a neologism but an established but obscure one. I find English full of weird and wonderful words which are correct but for some reason never used. Communicating with a foreigner learning English can be enlightening when they have looked up an English word in a dictionary and used it correctly, without knowing the word is very uncommon. The other day, a Mexican woman was correcting a Spanish sentence of mine and wrote "The sentence is amphibolous". This seems to be a synonym for ambiguous which her dictionary gave as a translation of ambiguo. I had never heard of it.

[Paul Beardsley]

I take it you mean 'new' not in the sense of a neologism but an established but obscure one.

New to you.

This seems to be a synonym for ambiguous which her dictionary gave as a translation of ambiguo. I had never heard of it.

This is a good example of why I discourage my students from using translators in class.

[Swift]

Happens to be two words I use, the first one particularly.

"Phase" is a common term in solid state chemistry. A substance of a particular phase has a particular composition and a particular molecular or crystal structure. So quartz and silica glass are different phases, even though both are SiO2, since they have different structures.

[mike alexander]

One also speaks of different phases of a material, as when water can exhibit solid, liquid and gaseous phases.

Adsorption is also a physical-chemical noun. I think it was introduced by Langmuir to describe adhesion of liquids to solids by specific physical processes, such as van der Walls interactions.

In classical chromatography, compounds are separated by differential adsorption in the stationary and mobile phases.

[Paul Beardsley]

One also speaks of different phases of a material, as when water can exhibit solid, liquid and gaseous phases.

Yes, I forgot about that. When I was first at school, we were taught that these were the three states of matter, but later we were told they were actually the three phases, and that a change of state could simply be a change of temperature.

[mike alexander]

We will not go far into this. As an example, a mixture of oil and water comprises two materials in different phases but the same state. And a supercritical fluid is... well, it's a different state as well.

[publiusr]

In McNeil's "Do You Speak American?"--a fine PBS program, we learn about Prince Charles distaste for Americans turning nouns into verbs. I think MacNeil himself had experience with a waitress who asked him if he had been 'beveraged' yet.

http://www.pbs.org/speak/
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/am...s/map/map.html

[Perikles]

In McNeil's "Do You Speak American?"--a fine PBS program, we learn about Prince Charles distaste for Americans turning nouns into verbs. I think MacNeil himself had experience with a waitress who asked him if he had been 'beveraged' yet.

I find this very irritating as well. Verbing weirds language.

[Gillianren]

"Phase" crops up a lot in early childhood education and psychology, for what I think are obvious reasons.

[Solfe]

In McNeil's "Do You Speak American?"--a fine PBS program, we learn about Prince Charles distaste for Americans turning nouns into verbs. I think MacNeil himself had experience with a waitress who asked him if he had been 'beveraged' yet.

http://www.pbs.org/speak/
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/am...s/map/map.html

Beveraged? That sounds vaguely threatening.

[Van Rijn]

Beveraged? That sounds vaguely threatening.

"Did you hear? Judy was beveraged!" Yes, that could work.

[HenrikOlsen]

Sounds related to being glassed.

Which is British English for getting cut with a broken pint glass or glass bottle. Normally happens in pubs.

Which incidentally shows that Prince Charles' objection to American English is a load of rubbish as British English speakers are perfectly capable of, and willing to, verbing nouns.

They'll also quite happily split infinitives just like they're supposed to be.

[Paul Beardsley]

Sounds related to being glassed.

Which is British English for getting cut with a broken pint glass or glass bottle. Normally happens in pubs.

(My bold.) I prefer the additional wording, When it happens at all, it normally happens in pubs.

Which incidentally shows that Prince Charles' objection to American English is a load of rubbish as British English speakers are perfectly capable of, and willing to, verbing nouns.

Absolutely true, but we know which verbed nouns are tasteful and which are not.

[Jens]

Yesterday I came across the word "catadromous," which means a fish that lives part of its life in salt water and part in freshwater. Apparently there are even more complex classifications, but I'm not a "ichthyologist" (yeah, I had to look that one up), I'll never remember them.

[Gillianren]

I wouldn't have to look up ichthyologist, because my mother has a membership to the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. There's an annual open house for members; I've been in their ichthyology department. But yeah, every field has words which aren't familiar to the general public. Sometimes, that's a shame, because they are fun words. Sometimes, not so much.

[Jens]

Sometimes, not so much.

For catadromous, that's my reaction. I suppose it could be interesting if it was a mixture of a cat and a one-humped camel.

[Luckmeister]

When I was in my mid-teens, my brother came home from college with a word he and his roommate came up with while trying to invent the world's longest word.
It was -- velocipedestrianichthyolistrianaerionologist -- meaning one who studies travel by land, sea and air. I never saw it in print so I had to guess at the spelling and I'm not sure of the -- listrian -- part. It may have been spelled (or even pronounced) a little differently and I'm not sure of the derivation. I'm dredging my memory from many years ago. But I thought it was a pretty cool word that was fun to say.

[swampyankee]

In McNeil's "Do You Speak American?"--a fine PBS program, we learn about Prince Charles distaste for Americans turning nouns into verbs. I think MacNeil himself had experience with a waitress who asked him if he had been 'beveraged' yet.

http://www.pbs.org/speak/
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/am...s/map/map.html

Of course, the British never did that. William Leben has a course on iTunesU where Charles' accusation is revealed as the nasty canard that it is: it's been common in the English language for centuries.