51吃瓜 of the Day
vajra
noun
the thunderbolt of Indra, the Hindu god of rain and thunder.
More about vajra
Vajra 鈥渢he thunderbolt of Indra鈥� is a borrowing from Sanskrit 惫谩箩谤补- 鈥渢hunderbolt.鈥� The literal sense of 惫谩箩谤补 is anything hard or indestructible, which is why the term also means 鈥渄iamond.鈥� 痴谩箩谤补 comes from a root roughly meaning 鈥渟trong, lively鈥� that also appears in the Latin-origin terms vegetation, vigilant, and vigor. Because Sanskrit v often corresponds to w in English, this same root is visible in English waft, wait, wake, watch, and perhaps even wicked and witch. Vajra was first recorded in English in the 1780s.
how is vajra used?
Lotus is a beautiful flower that grows out of the muck. For us, the lotus translates into the human soul and then there鈥檚 the vajra, which means a thunderbolt, which in tantra is described as latent potential within every soul to attain emancipation.
Indra is a mighty giant, tawny of hair and beard and tawny of aspect …. He rides in a golden chariot drawn by two tawny horses, or many horses, even as many as eleven hundred, and he bears as his chief weapon the vajra, or thunderbolt, sometimes also a bow with arrows, a hook, or a net.
diphthongize
verb (used with object)
to change into or pronounce as one unsegmentable, gliding speech sound, as the oi sound of toy and boil.
More about diphthongize
Diphthongize 鈥渢o change into one gliding speech sound鈥� is a verb based on diphthong, a sound that comprises two vowels merged into one. A sound containing one vowel is a monophthong, containing two is a diphthong, and containing three is a triphthong. Diphthong is equivalent to Ancient Greek di- 鈥渢wo鈥� and 辫丑迟丑贸苍驳辞蝉 鈥渧oice, sound.鈥� The prefix di-, from 诲铆蝉 鈥渢wice, double,鈥� is a distant relative of English two as well as Latin duo 鈥渢wo鈥� and bis (earlier duis) 鈥渢wice,鈥� as in dual and bi-, respectively. 笔丑迟丑贸苍驳辞蝉 may come from a long-lost language that was spoken in Greece long before the Greek language swept in; the consonant cluster phth- is rare (yet not impossible) according to the sound laws of the Indo-European language family. Diphthongize was first recorded in English in the late 1860s.
how is diphthongize used?
Southern speech also has a tendency to 鈥�diphthongize鈥� sounds .鈥� Southern speech has tons of diphthongs, even some triphthongs (that鈥檚 a three-part vowel), way more than other dialects in North America, which is part of the reason why Southerners have a reputation for 鈥渄rawling鈥� or speaking slowly. It鈥檚 not actually slower, Southern vowels just have more stuff crammed into them.
varmint
noun
an objectionable or undesirable animal, usually predatory, as a coyote or bobcat.
More about varmint
Varmint 鈥渁n undesirable animal鈥� is a variant of vermin most common today in Southern and Appalachian English. There are two sound changes at play here: vowel backing and excrescence. Vowel backing is when a vowel sound moves farther back in the mouth, as the front/central vowel e in vermin migrates to become the back vowel a in varmint. A similar shift happened with argal (from ergo) and parson (from person). As we learned from the recent 51吃瓜 of the Day enumerate, excrescence is the addition of a consonant, such as the final t in varmint; compare the evolution of Old English thunor into modern English thunder. Despite its association with dialectal American English, varmint was first recorded in English in the 1530s.
how is varmint used?
When European colonists encountered the [coyote] species, they were of two minds, heralding it as an icon of the expansive West and vilifying it as the ultimate varmint, the bloodthirsty bane of sheep and cattle ranchers.
Back in early February, [the groundhog] Phil said we’d have six more weeks of winter. Well, that deadline has passed, and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office has told the varmint that time’s up… it’s “seeking the apprehension of Punxsutawney Phil for deception.鈥�