The Flynn Effect

 
I'm not sure if this really counts for this blog but as it was a phrase I didn't understand I thought perhaps others might appreciate learning about it...

The Flynn effect is the rise of the average intelligence quotient (IQ) test scores over generations (IQ gains over time). The effect has also been reported for other cognitions such as semantic and episodic memory. The effect occurs in most parts of the world although at greatly varying rates.
The effect increase has been continuous and roughly linear from the earliest days of testing to the present. "Test scores are certainly going up all over the world, but whether intelligence itself has risen remains controversial," psychologist Ulric Neisser wrote in an article in 1997 in The American Scientist. Evidence from standardization samples (Dickens, Flynn; 2006), still show gains between 1972 and 2002.
The Flynn effect is named after James R. Flynn, who did much to document it and promote awareness of its implications. However, the first to coin the term was not Flynn himself but by Richard J. Herrnstein in "The Bell Curve".
 

Ghetto

 
A ghetto (pronounced GETT-oh) was formerly the restricted quarter of many European cities in which Jews were required to live. The first city to have named such a quarter the ghetto was Venice under the Venetian Republic in the fourteenth century and word is Venetian in origin.

Perhaps the most famous ghetto was the Warsaw Ghetto established by the Germans in 1940. It held over half a million people over the next four years and it is estimated 100,000 died of disease and malnutrition and 300,000 were killed by the Nazis on the spot during uprisings or exported to concentration camps and killed there.

Nowadays ghetto refers to any segregated mode of living or working that results from bias or stereotyping; especially a poor densely populated city district occupied by a minority ethnic group linked together by economic hardship and social restrictions.

The history of the word ghetto is one of the most damning of all humanity.
 

Segue

 
Pronounced SEG-way, to segue is to proceed without interruption in music or talk; the act of changing smoothly from one state or situation to another.
 

Procatalepsis

 
Procatalepsis is a figure of speech in which the speaker raises an objection to his own argument and then immediately answers it. By doing so, he hopes to strengthen his argument by dealing with possible counter-arguments before his audience can raise them.
 

Misericord

 


A misericord (sometimes named mercy seat like the Biblical object) is a small wooden shelf underneath folding seats in churches installed to provide some level of comfort for those standing during long periods of prayer.


Prayers in the early medieval church for the daily divine offices (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline) were said standing with uplifted hands. Those who were old or infirm could use crutches or, as time went on, misericordia (literally "act of mercy"). Seating was constructed so that the seats could be turned up, the undersides being provided with a small shelf thus allowing a person a small level of comfort by leaning against it. Like most other medieval woodwork in churches, they were usually carved with skill and often show detailed scenes which belie their hidden position underneath the seats, specially in the choir stalls of the quire around the altar.
 

Bokeh

 
I learned on Kate (aka Country Girl)'s blog the other day what bokeh means. I can't do better than quote her:-

"Bokeh is pronounced bow-kay or bow-keh and it refers to that lovely out-of-focus light and all the different shapes and colors you see in the background of photos taken with a digital camera. It is created by light and and the glass in your lens and distance and wind and focus. It's a Japanese term for the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of a photographic image."
 

Caret

^

A caret is a mark (^) used by an author or editor to indicate where something is to be inserted into a text.

ê
When a similar mark appears above a letter it is termed a circumflex.

Cachexy

 
Cachexy (pronounced Catch-ecksy) is an archaic term which I came across in Dr Johnson’s dictionary. He described it as being “a general word to express a great variety of symptoms, most commonly it denotes such a distemperature of the humours, as hinders nutrition, and weakens the vital and animal functions, proceeding from weakness of the fibres, and an abuse of the non-naturals, and often from severe acute distempers.”
I think that means ‘ill’ !
“I wonder what would be the reaction if I told my fellow bloglings I was suffering from cachexy?”

 

Proscenium

 
The proscenium is the part of a modern theatre stage between the curtain and the orchestra. A Proscenium theatre is a theatre space whose primary feature is a large frame or arch (called the proscenium arch even though it is frequently mistakenly called the prosecnium.) So the word proscenium is often misused by performers, even designers, who refer to the 'proscenium' when they actually mean the proscenium arch.
 

A Word Imp is not Digitigrade

 
I have mentioned before - and will probably mention again - Word Imp a.k.a. Sharon in New Zealand who chooses an obscure dictionary word each day. She invites her readers to invent a wacky meaning and puts 3 invented meanings on the voting poll and lists the true meaning. There are no prizes, just lots of fun! Not only do I enjoy inventing meanings but I also enjoy seeing if I know the true one. I'm running at about 50% most of the time. One one occasion I embarassed myself when I don't know it and my invention turned out to be near the truth! Nowadays I avoid this by looking it up before oposting my invention.

Yesterday's word was digitigrade. I didn't know it. But being interested in natural history I should have done. A digitigrade mammal is one that walks on the toes with the posterior part of the foot raised - such as dogs and cats and horses.