The Words of the Week - Mar. 24

‘Tornado’

Tornado spiked in lookups last week, after one of these formed in Los Angeles (a rare occurrence).

An EF1 tornado caused significant damage to over a dozen buildings in the Los Angeles suburb of Montebello Wednesday, less than 24 hours after a weaker tornado damaged mobile homes in the small coastal city of Carpinteria.
— Jan Wesner Childs, The Weather Channel, 23 Mar. 2023

Tornado in this case refers to “a violent destructive whirling wind accompanied by a funnel-shaped cloud that progresses in a narrow path over the land,” although the word is occasionally used loosely to refer simply to a violent windstorm. Tornadoes differ in a number of ways from hurricanes. Although both may have winds that are hundreds of miles an hour, a tornado is restricted to land, and comparatively small (usually traveling 10 or 20 miles); a hurricane forms over water in tropical oceans, and can be as much as a thousand times larger than a tornado.

‘Sanctimonious’

Sanctimonious had a busy week, following an interview with the governor of Florida, who has been given a nickname by Donald Trump in which this word plays a significant part.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said in a recent interview that he “kind of” likes former President Trump’s “Ron DeSanctimonious” nickname for him. “I don’t know how to spell the sanctimonious one. I don’t really know what it means, but I kinda like it, it’s long, it’s got a lot of vowels,” DeSantis told television host Piers Morgan in an interview set to air on Thursday. “We’ll go with that, that’s fine.”
— Julia Shapero, The Hill, 22 Mar. 2023

Our definition of sanctimonious is “hypocritically pious or devout.” The word comes from the Latin sanctus, meaning “holy.” In early English use sanctimonious had this ‘holy’ meaning as well, but it has been pushed out by the ‘hypocritical’ sense.

‘Pornographic’ & ‘Pornography’

Pornographic was also looked up a good deal more than it usually is, when a principal in Florida was removed after students at their school were shown pictures of Michelangelo’s statue of David.

The statue was shown during a sixth grade art history lesson at Tallahassee Classical School, the Tallahassee Democrat first reported. One of the most famous pieces of artwork in the world, the statue shows a chiseled, naked man posing. But while most of the world sees it as art, some parents deemed it “pornographic” and said it “upset” their children.
— Alec Karam, The Daily Beast, 23 Mar. 2023

A considerable amount of time and effort has been devoted to defining exactly what pornography is and is not; for many people the issue is subjective enough to make precision elusive. The following are the ways that we define pornography:

1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction (as in ‘the pornography of violence’)

The word has been in use since the middle of the 19th century, and comes from the Greek pornographos (“writing about prostitutes”), which itself comes from pornē (“prostitute”) and graphein (“to write”). The second of these words (graphein) serves as a root for many English words, such as cacography (“bad handwriting”). The other (pornē) serves as a root for a much smaller number, including such as pornocracy (“government by prostitutes”).

‘Bomb threat’

Bomb threat was also in the news a good deal, after one of these was called in to a courthouse in Manhattan where a hearing for a case involving former president Donald Trump was scheduled to take place.

A bomb threat was called in just as a judge in lower Manhattan was about to start a hearing over a $250 million lawsuit by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Donald Trump.
— Patricia Hurtado, Bloomberg, 21 Mar. 2023

A number of words and phrases associated with bomb have figurative meanings: drop a bomb can mean “to do or say something that is very shocking and unexpected,” a bombshell can be “a very attractive woman,” and bomb itself may carry such meanings as “something that is a complete failure” or “something or someone that is very good” (in which case it is prefaced by the). Bomb threat is devoid of such figurative meanings; we define it simply as “a message saying that a bomb is located in a particular place.” The word came into English use in the early 20th century, and has remained unchanged in meaning over the past 100-odd years.

Reign of Terror Plagues Warsaw - Town Is in a Woeful State with Official Slaughters and Bomb Threats.
— (headline) The Huntington Herald (Huntington, IN), 3 Apr. 1905

Bomb Threat For Flatiron Building - “Black Hand” Tells Banker Unless He Pays $1,000 His Barber Shop Will be Blown Up
— (headline) The Portsmouth Star (Portsmouth, VA), 30 Apr. 1906

Words Worth Knowing: ‘Illaudable’

Our word worth knowing this week is illaudable, defined (rather brusquely) as “deserving no praise.” It’s almost the weekend, and, let’s be honest here, at least a few of you are probably going to do something or other that merits this description.