{"id":86,"date":"2005-06-26T17:13:00","date_gmt":"2005-06-26T17:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chrisandjanet.net\/blog\/2005\/06\/26\/word-a-day-more-harm-than-good\/"},"modified":"2005-06-26T17:13:00","modified_gmt":"2005-06-26T17:13:00","slug":"word-a-day-more-harm-than-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chrisandjanet.net\/blog\/2005\/06\/26\/word-a-day-more-harm-than-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Word-a-Day… More Harm than Good?"},"content":{"rendered":"

TENSILE<\/p>\n

\nDefinition:<\/b>
\ncapable of withstanding physical stress, capable of being stretched or extended <\/p>\n

Example:<\/b>
\nArchitects construct buildings using only TENSILE materials in areas that are prone to earthquakes. <\/p>\n

Synonyms:<\/b>
\nductile, malleable <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I look at Excite.com everyday for news, stock quotes, TV schedules, etc., and I always glance at the word of the day. Usually, it’s a word I’m familiar with and the definition of say, “Affable,” is about what I expect, but occasionally, there’s an obscure word or a technical term that I don’t<\/em> recognize, and I take “the word” at it’s word.<\/p>\n

So this one today scared me a little. I read that TENSILE<\/a> means “capable of being stretched or extended,” and I thought, “My, that’s odd. Admittedly, I’ve only heard this in the context of ‘tensile strength<\/em>,’ but doesn’t this term refer to how much a material like a wire resists<\/em> being stretched?” And yes, my stream of consciouness internal dialogue does, in fact, sound like a late-19th-century British dandy, or at least one of the Crane brothers from Frazier<\/i> &#151 I just can’t help it.)<\/p>\n

Then I got to the “synonyms” and thought, DUCTILE<\/a> does in fact mean something like “able to be stretched, molded, or worked,” but, doggoneit, MALLEABLE<\/a> comes from the same Latin root as “mallet” and means that you can beat something out into a sheet &#151 think “gold leaf.”<\/p>\n

\nSo bottom line, I was right, they were wrong, and I’ll never trust Excite’s Word of the Day feature again. (The bold words are links to Google definitions.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TENSILE Definition: capable of withstanding physical stress, capable of being stretched or extended Example: Architects construct buildings using only TENSILE materials in areas that are prone to earthquakes. Synonyms: ductile, malleable I look at Excite.com everyday for news, stock quotes, TV schedules, etc., and I always glance at the word of the day. Usually, it’s … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Word-a-Day… More Harm than Good?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chrisandjanet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chrisandjanet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chrisandjanet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chrisandjanet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chrisandjanet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chrisandjanet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chrisandjanet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chrisandjanet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chrisandjanet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}