Well, I've been home from my east coast vacation for a full week now ... and I'm still settling in. All the travel was exciting, even if it was a little frenetic.
Frenetic: That rhymes with the word I really want to talk about today, phonetic. Many of you may already know that phonetics is the study of sounds and language. But how many of you study sounds, yourselves?
When we add new words to our vocabulary, it's common that we mispronounce them at first, especially if we've only read them in print and/or gleaned their meaning from usage in a book or an article. So, how do we correct this problem?
The list I linked to in Wednesday's post contains a variety of online dictionaries that sound out the word—either in print or via sound files, and sometimes using both.
One of last month's words of the week was credenza, a beautifully sounding noun with a dark and ominous history to its meaning. I told you about this history, but failed to help you pronounce the word in either its past or present form. (Bad Communications Coach!) Going forward, Beyond Talk will include a pronunciation key for each Monday's weekly word, i.e., foe-NEH-tick for phonetic; krah-DEN-za for credenza (and in Italian, originally, kray-DEN-zha). Better yet, there will be a link to an online dictionary each week that provides a sound file of the word's pronunciation, just to make things crystal clear.
Incidentally, my east coast tour sparked a conversation with my blogging colleague, Mary Beth Haggerty, an interior designer based in the Boston area. Click here to read her take on the word credenza—and see some lovely contemporary furniture photos, too!
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2009
Showing posts with label credenza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label credenza. Show all posts
Aug 7, 2009
Jul 13, 2009
WORD OF THE WEEK: A Beautiful Noun
Here is one of my favorite nouns: credenza. It's beautiful! But, my, what a dark history it has. Here is its etymology, according to Merriam-Webster online and Wikipedia:
Credenza: from the Italian "credenza"; literally, "belief" or "confidence"; from the Medieval Latin "credentia"; anecdotally, the 16th century act of credenza was "the tasting of food or drinks by a servant for a lord or important person (like popes and cardinals). With this taste they [ascertained] the food was not poisoned. The name then passed to the room where the act took place, then to the furniture."
Today, a credenza is most commonly known as a sideboard used in a dining room or restaurant for serving food buffet style and/or storing dishes for food service. It's also "a modern desk form usually placed next to a wall as a secondary work surface to that of another desk ... in a typical executive office." The desk version of a credenza can also be used to store books, files or other work items.
From potentially-poisoned food-tasting to housing the boss's stationery, the credenza has come a long way in the last 500-some years, although the word's spelling and sound primarily remain the same. What's your favorite noun? And do you know its history?
(c) KiKi Productions, Inc. 2009
Credenza: from the Italian "credenza"; literally, "belief" or "confidence"; from the Medieval Latin "credentia"; anecdotally, the 16th century act of credenza was "the tasting of food or drinks by a servant for a lord or important person (like popes and cardinals). With this taste they [ascertained] the food was not poisoned. The name then passed to the room where the act took place, then to the furniture."
Today, a credenza is most commonly known as a sideboard used in a dining room or restaurant for serving food buffet style and/or storing dishes for food service. It's also "a modern desk form usually placed next to a wall as a secondary work surface to that of another desk ... in a typical executive office." The desk version of a credenza can also be used to store books, files or other work items.
From potentially-poisoned food-tasting to housing the boss's stationery, the credenza has come a long way in the last 500-some years, although the word's spelling and sound primarily remain the same. What's your favorite noun? And do you know its history?
(c) KiKi Productions, Inc. 2009
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