Tendentious

 
I came across the word tendentious in a book the other day. I thought it meant argumentative but that didn't quite fit the context so I looked it up.

Tendentious means trying to influence opinion; written or spoken with personal bias in order to promote a cause or support a viewpoint.

Some synonyms include provocative, opinionated, biased, partisan, subjective, argumentative, prejudiced, one-sided, questionable, doubtful, and partial.
 

Off to a T

 
The expression 'Down to a tee', 'Down to a T' or 'Off to a T' means to the finest detail or to perfection; as in 'He could copy her accent off to a T."

The saying is said to have originated as a shortened form of "to a tittle", an expression in use in English by the early 17th century, with the meaning "to the smallest detail." The variation appears by the late 17th century.

The word "tittle" means a tiny shred; a tiny or scarcely detectable amount; or the dot on the letter i.


The word also oocurs in the phrase 'jot and tttle'. A jot being an iota; a point; the dot on the letter i; the smallest particle. The phrase 'jot and tittle' is therefore tautological and means to the smallest degree. It was first rceorded in English vin William Tindale's translation of the New Testament in 1526. It appears there in Matthew 5:18:
One iott or one tytle of the lawe shall not scape.

 

Tendentious

 
Tendentious means trying to influence opinion; written or spoken with personal bias in order to promote a cause or support a viewpoint.
Some synonyms include provocative, opinionated, biased, partisan, subjective, argumentative, prejudiced, one-sided, questionable, doubtful, and partial.
 

Chiffonier

 
There are some words which one comes across occasionally, usually when reading, of which one does not know the exact meaning but because the context makes it obvious what it is in broad terms ne doesn't bother looking it up. Such a word - for me - was chiffonier. I knew it was a piece of furniture but did not know what exactly.

However, when I looked up the definition I was left not much wiser - A chiffonier is either a side cabinet with or without a drawer and with one or more shelves above or a tall and narrow chest of drawers normally used for storing undergarments and lingerie. So it is a piece of furniture and it may or may not have shelves and drawers and it may or may not store undergarments. Mmmm. Didn't get me very far.

I decided to check images to see what they looked like.



Both these were described as chiffoniers so that didn't make me any wiser.

I sometimes wonder why I bother...
 

While or Whilst

 
It will not surprise Heather to know that a day or so before she made a comment about the word 'whilst' GB and I had been talking about it - and about the difference between 'while' and 'whilst'. In fact I had made a note - "While I think on, I shall do a note to myself that whilst I am at GB's I must check when it is appropriate to use while and when whilst is more suitable."

There are some circumstances in which GB and I find it natural to use 'while' and some where 'whilst' seems the appropriate word. But could we explain to ourselves what those circumstances were? No! So we turned to Eric Partridge's 'Usage and Abusage'. That didn't help.

It informed us that the 'st' forms of words like 'whilst' and 'amongst' are becoming outdated - partly because they are less easy to pronounce and partly because they are less euphonious (pleasant-sounding or agreeable to the ear). I don't agree with either statement.

I read a lengthy number of contributions about the subject on a website and whilst they were interesting they didn't really inform the debate. It seems that in North America the natural form is 'while' and the comment was also made that in the UK 'whilst' is only used by 'people of a certain age'. Thanks - I really needed to hear that on a day when my bones were creaking!
 

Rood or rude

 



A rood is a representation of the cross on which Jesus died and the term is usually used to refer to a cross erected at the entry to the chancel in a church. A rood screen is a common feature in late medieval parish church architecture. It is typically an ornate screen, constructed of wood, stone or, very occasionally, wrought iron.

Rude means impolite, crude, ill-mannered, tending towards the pornographic, lacking in refinement or socially incorrect.



In a blog posting the other day I showed these pictures. The carvings are to be found on the rood screen in the Cathedral at Dunblane. A rood screen is not normally rude as well!
 

Potager

 
Cowirl mentioned a potager in her posting the other day. What, I wondered, was a potager. The answer is a traditional kitchen garden; a seasonally used space separate from the rest of the residential garden; a kitchen garden usually taken to mean a formal, decorative kitchen garden.
So now I know!


This is the potager at the Chateau de Villandry near Tours.

 

Protagonism

 
This is a new word to me - I came across it in relation to a website called protagonize.

Protagonism means advocacy; active support of an idea or cause etc.; especially the act of pleading or arguing for something.
 

Insouciance

 
Insouciance is defined as carefreeness; the cheerful feeling you have when nothing is troubling you. The adjective - insouciant - meaning casual or marked by blithe unconcern - is just how I felt when I wrote this post...
 

Quiver

 
To quiver is to shake with fast, tremulous movements; to flicker: to move back and forth very rapidly; to vibrate. So when your Victorian girl had her frisson she might have quivered as well!


As a noun it can not only mean a shaking but it is also a case for holding arrows.