Reflux

Someone just thought me a new word and solved a mystery at the same time. To me (two parts deaf, one part hairless, three part Jack Daniels) the words reflux and reflex sound the same, especially since I didn’t know that reflux existed.

Reflux, obviously has to do with the word flux that we know from phrases such as “a state of flux,” and it means flow. A reflux is a back-flowing.

Here’s where I learned it:

http://www.healthmad.com/Conditions-and-Diseases/Heartburn-Acid-Reflux-and-GERD.141991

Undulation

The marvelously shaped word undulation looks like it is the opposite of dulation, but there’s no such word. As a matter of fact, undulation comes from the Latin word unda, which means wave. An undulation is a wave or wavelike motion. Undulous means of an undulating nature.

Logophile

The word logophile comes from two roots, both Greek, all the more sophisticated. The first root is the word logos, which literally means ‘word’ but practically covers a much larger, formal message. Logos often lives in bigger words that denote some kind of body of knowledge, like psychology (the logos of the psyche) or sociology (the logos of society).

The second part of logophile is the word philos, meaning loving or dear. It always turns up in words that describe someone’s passion for some specific subject or issue or category, like theophile (lover of God), ailurophile (lover of cats), or xenophile (lover of other, strange or foreign things).

Few, less, much and many

The same difference between much and many separates less and fewer. And what you say has to do with whether the stuff you’re talking about visibly consists of little bits (like peas: many peas) or not (like water: much water). If you don’t have as many or much as you first figured, you say fewer for the bits (fewer peas) and less for the not-bits (less water).

Something that consists of little bits is said to be quantified. A quantum is a little bit of something. The plural of quantum is quanta. But that’s kind of silly because in English the plural of museum is museums. In Dutch people still say musea, which is proper Latin, proper Dutch but not proper English. Which proves once again that English is a strange language. English is also the biggest language ever in the history of talking. One is actually supposed to say ‘largest’ language, but I’m taking poetic license.

My very second entree

Vitreous: resembling glass, or pertaining to glass. You can also say vitric, which I think is way more cool. Big words usually sound like they’re supposed to be unheard of, which in turn makes the exclaimer of the word sound kind of arrogant, but small words usually sound like everybody is supposed to know about them. And when your Word spelling checker paints a little red wavy line under it, you know you got a totally obnoxious word.

Vitreous comes from the Latin word vitrum, which means glass (no really). Come to think of it, I’m sure that the Dutch word vitrage (that’s a sleek see-through curtain) comes from the same root. And the word vitrine (that’s both English and Dutch) too.

The verb that goes with all this is vitrify, which obviously denotes the process of turning something into glass or a glassy (vitric) substance.

Next time your teacher asks you a question that you absolutely certainly surely know the answer to, say kinda haughtily: Ew, that’s really rather vitric, wouldn’t you say?

Let us know if you got yelled at for that.

My very first entree

Some say some words are funny
Some say some words are cool
Some are in words for money
And I wonder how they off that pull