May. 18th, 2017

courgette

May. 18th, 2017 07:51 am
[identity profile] prettygoodword.livejournal.com
If I were British, I'd define this word something like this:


courgette (koor-ZHET) - n., the immature fruit of a vegetable marrow, called zucchini in North America.


However, I am North American, so I define it like this:


courgette (koor-ZHET) - n., (Brit.) zucchini, a green summer squash.


Zucchini being the name used in North America and Australia, courgette in the UK, New Zealand, and the rest of the Anglosphere. The US/UK distinction of squash/marrow is also of note. Borrowed around 1931 from French, of course, from the diminutive of courge, gourd, from Latin cucurbita, gourd/cup. Zucchini, meanwhile, was borrowed around 1929 from Italian, and is also a diminutive, in this case of zucca, gourd/squash, of uncertain origin but possibly from the same Latin root. From a Canadian news report:

A woman successfully fended off a bear attack in Montana with the only weapon she could find: a large zucchini also known as a courgette.

---L.
[identity profile] trellia-chan.livejournal.com
nomophobia:

Noun: The fear of being without one's cellphone.

Origin: Shortened from "no-mobile-phone phobia." The term was coined in 2008 during a study by the UK Post Office who commissioned research looking at anxieties suffered by cellphone users. Anxiety levels experienced by people who suffer from nomophobia when they are triggered by deprivation of access to their phone are said to be on par with that of wedding day jitters or a dentist visit.


New words pop up every day, it seems, and news sources are always happy to share them with their audiences.
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