I'm new here, so this might be totally presumptuous, but I love the idea of doing a themed role. The one that sprang immediately to mind that I'd love to contribute would be "words with deeper meaning than you realize".
I'm a huge word nerd who actually spends a lot of time on dictionary sites. One of the things I'm often doing when I'm looking up a word (besides going, "hmm, have I actually been using that word correctly all along...?") is reading about its origins or the definitions that have fallen out of use. It's fascinating-- well, to me anyway. =)
As an example-- "janitor" derives from Janus, and once referred to the guardian at the gateway.
So my words wouldn't necessarily be as obscure as a lot of the ones that get posted here, but they'd focus on the obscure origin/definition. The format could be Word, What We Think It Means, What It Also Means/What It Used to Mean.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-05 04:48 pm (UTC)I'm a huge word nerd who actually spends a lot of time on dictionary sites. One of the things I'm often doing when I'm looking up a word (besides going, "hmm, have I actually been using that word correctly all along...?") is reading about its origins or the definitions that have fallen out of use. It's fascinating-- well, to me anyway. =)
As an example-- "janitor" derives from Janus, and once referred to the guardian at the gateway.
So my words wouldn't necessarily be as obscure as a lot of the ones that get posted here, but they'd focus on the obscure origin/definition. The format could be Word, What We Think It Means, What It Also Means/What It Used to Mean.