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What’s In A Word More Than You Realize

June 8th, 2008

What’s in a word?
Apparently more than we might want.

For others, the ability to express yourself in the most meaningful way.

I have written articles before on how bizarre the English language can be and for that matter; many languages have special challenges with interpreting meanings.

There is one word in China that I heard has about 40 different meanings, (one source said the two words have over 80 meanings) depending on usage and emphasis. That word is Wu Li.
Gary Zukav (author of “The Seat of the Soul”) talks about it in his book “The Dancing Wu Li Masters.

For the book “The Dancing Wu Li Masters”, it means patterns of organic energy or physics.
Other more popular meanings are:

My Way
Nonsense
I clutch my ideas
Enlightened

For those who study both metaphysics and quantum physics, like myself, I find it interesting that it carries physics and enlightened as meanings.

In English, we have many words that people will interchange yet have different meanings, which can further confuse the receiver of your message.

Two such words are, effective and efficient.
Effective is doing the right thing, that which you set out to do.
Efficiency is doing whatever you set out to do well.

You can have one without necessarily having the other. Most people understand doing the right thing but not well, yet they get caught up on understanding how you can do the wrong thing well, efficiency without effectiveness.

Imagine you are on a sailboat traveling across the Pacific when you are informed:

We have some good news and bad news. First, we have picked up a great wind and can get back on our time schedule; however, our compass broke and we haven’t the slightest idea where we are.

So, they are traveling very efficiently, but not very effectively.

Even the spelling of words can cause grief and misunderstandings. I remember when I was in elementary school and the teacher would just say, sound it out. However, that doesn’t always work. There is the whole issue of synonyms and homonyms, as well as the issue that we have this habit if breaking the rules in order to have more expression and growth in our language. (Growth by the way is important).

Yet, one of the most enforced rules that I had to remember in schools was:

Use i before e (from here on it gets complicated)
except after c
or when sounded as ‘a’ as in neighbour and weigh.

But does it stop there, noooo.

Some more exceptions that don’t seem to follow any of the above are:

Counterfeit

either

foreign

forfeit

Height

seize

leisure

efficient

(and ironically or suitably) weird

Many more words can be spelling traps for people. They sound similar and many people are not sure where to put them.

Some common ones are:

Affect -a verb -to influence
Effect- a noun - a result, a verb- bring to pass

Allude -refer indirectly to
Elude - slip away

Can -ability
May- permission

Farther -physical distance
Further - abstract relationships of degree

Imply - A speaker implies

Infer - A hearer infers

Such as- examples
Like - resemblances

You can see why good communicators are in a high demand for many corporations and businesses. It is never too late to invest the time and effort into your self and master your ability to communicate on a higher level.

All the Best!
Maria Boomhower
The Master Communicator
To get a free report on Communication Mastery, go to:
http://www.falconfreedom.com
http://www.mariaboomhower.blogspot.com

P.S. If you like what you’re reading in this ezine, you’ll
love the book, “Overcoming Barriers to Communication.”
It’s a manual that helps you overcome the challengers that start with
Intrapersonal to Interpersonal and on to Mass Communication.
Overcoming Barriers to Communication

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One Response to “What’s In A Word More Than You Realize”

  1. Israel "izzy" Cohen Says:
    June 8th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

    My approach to the analysis of idioms is based on determining the etymology of the idiom. It is no better or more accurate than the determination of the
    etymology of any other word or phrase. However, the phonetic aspect is often easier because most idioms have more syllables than most single words.

    To use an idiom properly does not require any knowledge of its etymology. However, this knowledge may help an L2 student remember an idiom and how/when to use it.

    When I was a young kid, all of my friends and I knew the meaning of “escape by the skin of my teeth” and not a single one of us knew it was the translation of B’3or SHinai, a Hebrew pun on the word B’QoSHi (which means barely, hardly, with difficulty) in the biblical book of Job 19:20.

    The majority of idioms are transliterated (not translated) from a foreign language directly into words that look/sound/feel like the target language.
    For English idioms, there are not a lot of foreign languages involved: Germanic languages, Latin, Aramaic (during the 600 years it was a lingua franca), French (1066), Hebrew & Greek (biblical translation), Arabic (7 Crusades, Spanish Armada 1588 => Black Irish), Yiddish (in England prior to the Expulsion in 1290; 1840s from Germany, early 1900s from Eastern Europe), etc.

    A minority of idioms are the translation of foreign idioms. These are more difficult to analyze because one needs to know not only the language of the
    source but also the foreign language into which the transliteration (sic) was made, which may or may not be the same. Additional intermediate translations should not affect the result if they were faithful.

    A cute translation idiom is “count sheep !” to go to sleep. This is probably the translation of a Hebrew pun S’PoR TSo@N on the Latin phrase sopor (as in
    soporific) sond (as in soundly / deeply). This English idiom has been retranslated back into Israeli Hebrew as LiSPoR KeVeS = to count sheep.

    In a few cases, the “original” was a euphemism and not “plain text”. I suspect this is the case with “kick the bucket”. It seems to be the direct
    transliteration of a Semitic euphemism for dying: to make love in Paradise. Using 3 for aiyin with its ancient G/K-sound: 3aGaV = make physical love +
    B’3aiDeN = in Eden. 3G => Kick, vB3Dn => BucKeT.

    In other words, this type of idiom formation represents the target languag-ification of a foreign word or phrase. It can be most easily illustrated with a foreign phrase that did *not* become an idiom: Latin e pluribus unum = out of many, one. This is a motto of the USA. If it had become an idiom, it might have become “a flower bush you name” but would retain its original Latin meaning. It would probably acquire a folk etymology, such as: we could give a flower bush many names, but we usually give it only one.

    Transliteration idioms are most easily formed at a time when most target-language speakers do not read and write. They hear a foreign word/phrase, understand its meaning in context, and convert its sounds into target-language words they do know.

    For a rare modern example, “face the music” is attested in the United States from the 1840s. This “music” is probably from Yiddish MoSKoNeh = inference, deduction, hence, consequences, from Hebrew MaSKaNah with the same meaning.

    Etymology is not an exact science. The 3 etymologies that a non-linguist is most likely to “know” are all false. Muscle is not from Latin musculus = a small mouse. Sabotage is not from French sabot = an old shoe. And cabal is from Hebrew het-bet-lamed = to plot, scheme, not from Hebrew Kabbalah = esoteric knowledge, literally, received (tradition). Porcelain has nothing to do with a porcine vulva, and gossamer is from Latin Gossypium = cotton, not from goose + summer :-). But that is another story.

    For more examples of idiom etymologies, do a Google search for

    Best regards,
    Israel “izzy” Cohen
    http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/

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