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April 2008March TOP TWENTYCorrect usage seems to have been on the minds of many users of the Online Dictionary this month, since affect took the number one spot and its companion word effect made it up to fourth. Now that dictionary editors can see what words are being looked up online on a daily basis, we are gratified that our efforts to discriminate usage and defining information for these entries are relied upon by many. These words aren't looked up for spelling purposes. As always, we see the words with classical origins and slightly abstract senses such as integrity, pragmatic, pugnacious, and ambiguous in the Top Twenty list. And the pseudo-classical conundrum is still there for good measure. Here's the full list for March. Happy Birthday: 1968In April 1968, 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered after a great deal of hype. The New York Times reviewer categorized the movie somewhere "between hypnotic and boring"; The New Yorker's Pauline Kael dismissed it as "trash masquerading as art." The public loved it, however, and some movie critics ended up reconsidering, renouncing, and revising their reviews. In addition to welcoming a new style of movie, 1968 also ushered in 218 new words, of which more than a few evoke Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece. Interested in checking out the words that first appeared in print in a particular year? Select the Collegiate as your reference, click on Advanced Search, type the year into the Date field and click on Search. Word History of the Month: tawdryL'Affaire Spitzer inspired many commentators to pull out the term tawdry. That sent plenty of folks to the dictionary definition of that ignoble term with a noble history. Notable and Quotable: Washington IrvingApril 3rd marks 225 years since the birth of Washington Irving in 1783. One of the earliest truly American authors, Irving wrote History of New York under the pen name Diedrich Knickerbocker. Over time, knickerbocker became a nickname for a native or resident of the city or state of New York. Irving's effect on the lexicon doesn't end there, and his writing is used to illustrate several entries in the Unabridged. Interested in finding instances of another author in the dictionary? It's easy. Choose the Unabridged as your reference and click on Advanced Search. Type the last name in the Author field and click Search. Just Foolin' AroundAfter Senator Barack Obama used the word divisive three times in his speech on race in America, that adjective jumped onto the Top Twenty List for a day or two. We suspect the searches had less to do with the meaning of divisive than with Obama's pronunciation of it. He said \dih-VISS-iv\, a variant pronunciation which is preceded by the label also. The first pronunciation given at the entry is \dih-VYCE-iv\. Variant pronunciations marked also are considered standard, although they are appreciably less frequent than those not so noted. Although you can't search our online dictionaries for all the words with variant pronunciations, you can get some interesting results by typing the word pronunciation into the Definition field on the Advanced Search page. The search returns over 100 results from Americanize to wharl. From the Mail ServerThis month, editors fielded questions from here, there, and everywhere and they also tackled a usage question that helps explain the typically high rankings of affect and effect (#1 and #4 this month) on the Top Twenty List. While this second inquiry might be termed perennial, the third can properly be described as provisional. Words in the NewsLast month's announcement of Eliot Spitzer's ties to a prostitution ring was followed by a spectacularly rapid fall from power. Media coverage on New York's governor also led to three words spiking on the most-looked-up list during that week: tryst, hubris, and tawdry. Nowadays (and in the case of the former governor), a tryst refers to "an agreement, often between lovers, to meet at a specified time and place." But judging from the full story of tryst, all's fair in love and war and trysting. Puzzle Corner: ShakespeareFor a man credited with adding an estimated 1,500 words to our lexicon, William Shakespeare lived a life whose details remain remarkably mysterious. Scholars do agree he was born in April 1564 and died April 23, 1616; they also (generally) credit him with writing 38 plays and 154 sonnets. But plenty more remains unknown, and four centuries after his death we pass along three challenging questions for those who may think they know the Bard.
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