51吃瓜 of the Day
More about iwis
Iwis is an obsolete, archaic adverb meaning 鈥渃ertainly, surely.鈥� The very many Middle English spellings of the adverb include wisse, iwise, jwis(se), gwisse, ewis, awis, iwesse鈥�, all of which come from the Old English adverb gewis 鈥渃ertainly, indeed, truly.鈥� Old English gewis shows its close kinship with German 驳别飞颈脽 (also spelled gewiss) 鈥渃ertainly, surely鈥� (as in Ja, 驳别飞颈脽! 鈥淵es, certainly!鈥� in lesson 3 of German 101). During the 14th century the spellings i-wis, i-wisse (with other variants) began appearing in manuscripts, and in the second half of the 15th century, I wise appears as well, which shows that the writers or scribes no longer knew exactly what iwis meant, but thought it was a subject pronoun followed by the聽 (nonexistent) verb wis 鈥渒now鈥�; thus I wis was misinterpreted to mean 鈥淚 know.鈥� Iwis entered English before 900.
how is iwis used?
There be fools alive, iwis, / Silver’d o’er; and so was this.
For there by magic skill, iwis, / Form of each thing that living is / Was limned in proper dye.
iwis
soi-disant
adjective
French.
calling oneself thus; self-styled.
More about soi-disant
The adjective soi-disant 鈥渃alling oneself, self-styled, would-be鈥� usually has a whiff of pretense or deception. The phrase is French, pure and simple, formed from the third person reflexive pronoun soi 鈥渙neself, him-, her-, itself,鈥� and disant 鈥渟aying,鈥� the present participle of the verb dire 鈥渢o say.鈥� The pronoun soi comes from Latin 蝉脓, the accusative of the third person singular and plural reflexive pronoun; dire comes from Latin 诲墨肠别谤别 鈥渢o say.鈥� Soi-disant entered English in the mid-18th century.
how is soi-disant used?
Franzen is railing against is not mere tech obsession but, rather, the intellectual and spiritual poverty, the weakness and the obedience, of soi-disant 鈥渃reatives鈥� who buy what they鈥檙e told rather than rage against the machine, who are too infatuated with their wonderful little toys even to look up from them while the world burns.
I know of plenty of聽soi disant聽progressives who don’t really think we have a serious problem here, or else who think it’s a problem that can and should be solved almost entirely through the levers of education policy.
soi-disant
precipitate
verb (used with object)
to hasten the occurrence of; bring about prematurely, hastily, or suddenly: to precipitate an international crisis.
More about precipitate
All the noun, verb, and adjective senses of precipitate developed together in a 25-year period in the middle of the 17th century. Precipitate comes from Latin 辫谤补别肠颈辫颈迟腻迟耻蝉, the past participle of the verb 辫谤补别肠颈辫颈迟腻谤别 鈥渢o cast down headlong, throw overboard,鈥� a derivative of the adjective praeceps (inflectional stem praecipit-) 鈥減lunging headfirst, falling headlong; (of terrain) steep, falling steeply, sheer; (of human age) advanced in years, declining.鈥� Praeceps is a compound of the preposition, adverb, and prefix prae, prae– (the prefix is also spelled 辫谤脓-) 鈥渂efore, in front or advance of鈥� and the combining form –ceps, –cipit-, a reduced form of caput (inflectional stem capit-) 鈥渉ead.鈥� Praeceps (and 辫谤补别肠颈辫颈迟腻谤别) can also convey a notion of abruptness, rashness, or sudden disaster. In the 19th century precipitous in the sense “steep” gave rise to the curious phrase precipitous rise (as in prices or blood pressure), that is, sharply rising prices or blood pressure, not suddenly falling prices or blood pressure.
how is precipitate used?
We face a new reality, precipitated by the pandemic.
He and others also hope this experience may help precipitate a sea change in disaster policy by encouraging the integration of once disparate fields such as emergency management, public health, and economics and steadier funding in those areas.
precipitate