Well, let’s start with where it doesn’t come from.
It’s not, as you might have heard, an acronym of North, East, West, and South. This is a popular misconception, usually claimed to be based on the idea that news comes from all directions.
While this sounds cute, it’s really not the way words are formed at all. As I’ve pointed out before.
Instead, the truth is a bit stranger.
I’ll just be a minute!
This isn’t just! It’s not fair at all!
Here we can see two very different uses of the word just. How is it that we use it in such different ways?
I had a most shocking experience recently. I’m fortunate to be a part of a lovely bloggers’ group, Blogs in Bloom. People share their blog posts, and social-media links, and everyone is invited to read, share, and comment.
Of course you let the people know that you’ve read, or liked, or shared their post, by commenting under their link. Something simple like Commented! or Read and liked! At first, anyway…
Do you ever see pretentious French terms on menus and wish you knew what they meant without having to look up their meaning? Perhaps you choose a dish in a restaurant which includes sautéd greens, but you have no idea what they exactly are. Well, let me help you with this one at least. And talk about Ancient Greek philosophers and heraldry too, naturally.
A little more Greek mythology for you.
The other day, I wrote about the Furies, and as usual I initially confused them a little with the Fates.
A while back I wondered, considering one can be ruthless, can one also therefore be ruthful. Toaday I considered a similar case: can you be reckful?
The answer is yes, but you’d sound quite old-fashioned. To reck is a now mainly obsolete word meaning to heed/pay attention to. It’s from the 16th century, and derived from the Old English reccan, meaning to take care of/heed of.
As to reck came to be used as a noun as well as a verb, the adjectives reckful and reckless logically followed. Reckful didn’t stand the test of time though, probably for two main reasons. I think it simply doesn’t sound as catchy as reckless. More importantly though, talking about someone being reckful generally isn’t as interesting as talking about someone reckless, so we’re naturally going to talk about the latter more.
So if you want to use the word reckful, you can, but consider that you can also use heedful, attentive, or other similar, more common words. But also consider: wouldn’t it be much more exciting to use reckless instead!?
You may have heard of this book, an insider’s look at Trump’s chaotic White House. I have some doubts about how true all the book’s revelations are, but some of them sound convincing, like Trump going to bed at 6.30pm with a cheeseburger.
You might known that the title comes from a speech earlier this year in which Trump threatened to “unleash fire and fury” on North Korea. Fury was an interesting choice of word. You could tell that it was one of Trump’s scripted speeches, because he normally wouldn’t have the vocabulary to come up with such a word spontaneously.
English-Language Thoughts 