Thursday, April 14, 2005
Phantasmagorical words
Today in 1828 the 1st edition of Noah Webster's dictionary was published. Which provides me the opportunity to mention three of my favorite words: specious and languor and acuity. I have no idea why I like them so much, but they make my heart go pitter-patter. What are yours?

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Permalink | | posted by jau at 4:21 PM


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Blogger Curtis Gale Weeks — at 7:20 PM, April 16, 2005:
How odd to be reading this post just now! I had only this morning looked up "specious" in my American Heritage Talking Dictionary, and found this usage note which had never occurred to me before:

USAGE NOTE: A specious argument is not simply a false one but one that has the ring of truth. Those aware of the specialized use of the word may therefore sense a certain contradiction in hearing an argument described as obviously specious or specious on the face of things; if the fallaciousness is apparent, the argument was probably not plausible-sounding to begin with.
 

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