Barbarian (blah, blah) Your Vocabulary VItamin

What did the Greeks hear that they called barbarian, our word of the day?Actually, it should be bar-bar, not blah-blah. That's what it sounded like when the snooty Hellenic Greeks first heard the Egyptians, Persians, Germans, Celts and others babbling away incomprehensibly in foreign languages. Bar-bar babble-babble. They began calling the babblers ba-ba-barbarians, with the connotation of being unrefined and uneducated. So you see ol' Etta Mology has not gone lexiconically loony using a word of the day as common as this Vocabulary Vitamin, barbarian. No doubt you too are finding the origin of barbarian to be etymologically riveting, and you have resolved never to name your daughter "Barbara."
From now on, when we hear random hubbub, it's quite etymologically accurate, if not culturally comprehensible, to call out "barbarians!"
Is barbarian, our Vocabulary Vitamin, onomatopoetic?
If "barbarian" sounds like the babble the Greeks heard, then it is an onomatopoeic word, coming into English by way of Medieval Latin barbarinus, from Latin barbaria, from the ancient Greek word βάρβαρος (bárbaros). The verb βαρβαρίζειν (barbarízein) in ancient Greek actually meant the practice of imitating linguistic sounds and grammatical errors non-Greeks made. Barbarian came to mean a foreigner or group of foreigners whose first language was not Greek, or who spoke Greek crudely. It is about as complimentary as our modern day "redneck," in its pejorative and derisive tone.
Do we care what Plato had to say about barbarian, our Vocabulary Vitamin?
"Plato (Statesman 262de) rejected the Greek-barbarian dichotomy as a logical absurdity on (these) grounds: dividing the world into Greeks and non-Greeks told one nothing about the second group. In Homer's works, the term appeared only once (Iliad 2.867), in the form βάρβαροΦώνος (barbarophonos) ("of incomprehensible speech"), used of the Carians fighting for Troy during the Trojan War." Thank you, Plato and Homer, you may now return to your studies.

Read more here. . . 

Insipid Word of the Day: Jejune, Your Vocabulary Vitamin

And now our Lukewarm Word of the Day, Jejune.

I, Ms. Etta Mology have avoided this particular vocabulary vitamin until now. It seems inherently dishonest for a word to sound so lyrical and lovely and yet mean something so dull and blah. That's right, word junkies, jejune, our tepid word of the day, originally meant lacking nutritive value. How inappropriate to have a vocabulary vitamin that isn't even nutritious! Then jejune came to mean dull, devoid of significance, uninteresting, blah, beige on beige, boring to the nth degree, and even juvenile and childish. If the cognoscenti tell you your work is jejune, they are not complimenting you. Tragic, isn't it, that jejune doesn't sound boring or banal? It's a waste of perfectly good "j's" and "j" is one of my favorite consonants. Jejune sounds slightly French and summery, like a jitterbug with jeweled wings. But not so!

A Vocabulary Vitamin that means boring: Jejune.

If you had to pick a word to describe boring, insipid, meaningless, you would not pick "jejune." But somebody did pick it, and now we're stuck with it. It came from "jejunus" a Latin word for meager and hungry, and did not go far from its origin.

Why not a word that sounds boring? Blothid?

Now couldn't they have come up with a word that sounds boring and insipid? "Blothid" perhaps? (A combo of blah and insipid.) No more beige and blah word than "blothid" could exist, but in fact it does not exist. I just made it up in an effort to give you something to say when your professor puts you to sleep, when a novel isn't novel. . . .
You must read the rest, so click here.

Hot Word of the Day: Immolate, Your Vocabulary Vitamin

How to demonstrate our Word of the Day: Throw yourself across a funeral pyre and set yourself ablaze. Now that's a hot word: Immolate.Hear it here

Today's Vocabulary Vitamin was heard on a talk show. The host said he hoped a certain someone wouldn't be immolated for his views. So your trusty Vocabulary Vitamin Lady immediately yanked open a dictionary and did a word search on immolate, thinking the word meant to deride, or criticize. Well, ratchet that up a notch: The word immolate means sacrifice. Burn at the stake. Kill, destroy. Do unto others as they did unto Joan of Arc.
Read more here:

Uncle Eddy Told Me Stories: a Vocabulary Vitamin
If he gave you presents and told you stories, your kindly Uncle Eddy might be this kind of uncle. A Vocabulary Builder in the Vocabulary Vitamin Series.
Read More

Word of the Day: Uxorial, a Vocabulary Vitamin for the Very Married
Uxorial is a very wifely Word of the Day, while its significant other uxurious is not something he wants to be called.
Read More

When They Babble On (And On)

Ever been around someone who just won't shut up? Doesn't even make sense? Babbles on and on? Spews gibberish? Your Vocabulary Vitamin for today gives you the perfect word for them.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1928830/vocabulary_vitamin_for_july_10_when.html

When Men Were Mere Insects

The Yes Man revisited. If you don't want to be turned into an ant, don't make Athena mad. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2181631/when_men_were_mere_insects_a_vocabulary.html