The Words of the Week - Nov. 22

‘Pasteurization’

Pasteurization has been in the news a lot lately in relation to debates about the safety of consuming raw milk, leading to a rise in lookups for pasteurization.

Debate over raw milk has been heating up in recent years, and especially the past few months. Raw milk sales are rising, despite emerging concerns over live avian flu in unpasteurized dairy, and it’s increasingly a political talking point. Advocates of raw milk consumption claim that pasteurization reduces milk’s nutritional value and removes health benefits, despite lack of scientific support for the vast majority of these claims. At the same time, experts agree that forgoing pasteurization carries unnecessary health risks.
— Lauren Leffer, Popular Science, 18 Nov. 2024

Pasteurization is the partial sterilization of a substance and especially a liquid (such as milk) at a temperature and for a period of exposure that destroys objectionable organisms without major chemical alteration of the substance. The process is named after French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur, who in the 1860s demonstrated that abnormal fermentation of wine and beer could be prevented by heating the beverages to about 57 °C (135 °F) for a few minutes.

‘Woke’

The adjective woke is often one of the top lookups of any given day, week, month, etc. It is used so frequently these days in so many forms of communication, that it’s difficult to pinpoint a specific use that may be responsible. A headline published online earlier this week by a British tabloid, however, did produce some robust conversation on social media about the word’s looser applications.

Now Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches! How younger Brits are ditching English classics like ham and mustard in favour of fancy woke fillings
— (headline), The Daily Mail (London, England), 18 Nov. 2024

We define the oldest sense of woke as “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” It originated in African American English and gained more widespread use beginning in 2014 as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. This sense has seen increasing use in recent years in contexts that suggest someone’s expressed beliefs about such matters are not backed with genuine concern or action. Woke is also sometimes used in a disapproving way to mean “politically liberal or progressive in matters of racial or social justice, especially in a way that is considerable unreasonable or extreme.” We do not, as yet, define woke in such a way as can be applied to sandwich fillings, fancy or otherwise.

‘Deus vult’

The Latin phrase Deus vult has seen increased lookups since the presidential election earlier this month.

Pete Hegseth, the Army National Guard veteran and Fox News host nominated by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Defense, was flagged as a possible “Insider Threat” by a fellow service member due to a tattoo on his bicep that’s associated with white supremacist groups. … He’s said he was unfairly identified as an extremist due to a cross tattoo on his chest. This week, however, a fellow Guard member who was the unit’s security manager and on an anti-terrorism team at the time, shared with The Associated Press an email he sent to the unit’s leadership flagging a different tattoo reading “Deus Vult” that’s been used by white supremacists, concerned it was an indication of an “Insider Threat.”
— Tara Copp, et al., The Associated Press, 16 Nov. 2024

The Latin phrase Deus vult, a rallying cry of the First Crusade, translates as “God wills it.”

‘Bomb cyclone’

Bomb cyclone saw a bump in lookups due to severe weather forecast for the western United States.

Wintry conditions are hitting hard in various parts of the U.S., but the National Weather Service (NWS) has issued winter storm warnings for six states in particular. Parts of North Dakota, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho, Washington, and California are all included in the string of alerts issued by the government agency on Tuesday. The news comes as two powerful weather systems are due to collide and combine forces this week, when an “atmospheric river” and a “bomb cyclone” meet in the Northwest. The atmospheric river (water vapor in the sky) will dump rain and snow, while the bomb cyclone (a rapid drop in pressure) will crank up the storm’s intensity.
— Chloe Mayer, Newsweek, 19 Nov. 2024

Bomb cyclone is a meteorological term meaning “a powerful, rapidly intensifying storm associated with a sudden and significant drop in atmospheric pressure.” Its first-known use occurred in 1987.

Word Worth Knowing: ‘Strubbly’

Strubbly, meaning “untidy, unkempt,” comes to English by way of Pennsylvania Dutch, a dialect of German spoken mainly in Amish communities primarily in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. (Pennsylvania Dutch is also called “Pennsylvania German”; the “Dutch” in the former was influenced by deitsch, meaning “German.”) The immediate ancestor of strubbly isn’t pronounceable to the uninitiated speaker of English: schtruwwlich. It has a somewhat more comprehensible relative in the Old High German strūben, meaning “to stand on end.” Like strūben, strubbly is most often used specifically of hair.