Word of the Day
white hole
noun
a theoretical celestial object into which matter is funneled from a black hole.
Why the Museum of Science chose white hole
Most people have heard of black holes, but white holes are theorized to be their lesser-known opposite. Watch the video below to hear more about white holes from award-winning science communicator Maynard Okereke, better known as the Hip Hop M.D.
More about white hole
White hole is named by analogy after black hole. White is related to German weiß and Swedish vit, while the words for “white” in many Romance languages (including French blanc, Italian bianco, Portuguese branco, and Spanish blanco) are related to English blank. Russian astrophysicist Igor Novikov first presented his theory about white holes in the mid-1960s.
EXAMPLE OF WHITE HOLE USED IN A SENTENCE
While black holes are known for swallowing all energy and matter nearby, white holes are essentially their Bizarro World counterparts and do the opposite.
FUN FACT ABOUT WHITE HOLE
White holes are theorized to be the exit point of a wormhole—matter would enter a black hole at one point in the universe, move through a tunnel, and exit at a completely different point in the universe through a white hole. Learn more fun facts at the Museum of Science.
pharyngeal
adjective
(of a speech sound) articulated with retraction of the root of the tongue and constriction of the pharynx.
More about pharyngeal
Pharyngeal, “articulated with the tongue root and the pharynx,” ultimately comes from Ancient Greek phárynx (stem pháryng-), “throat.” Easily confused with pharyngeal is laryngeal, “articulated in the larynx,” which comes from Ancient Greek lárynx (stem láryng-), “upper windpipe.” Though the pharynx and the larynx are nearly adjacent parts of the esophagus and bear names that have rhymed since Ancient Greek was a living language, it is unclear whether they share any deeper connection. One faction of the linguistic community believes that the -ynx portion of both words suggests that they are of a pre-Greek origin (see obelize earlier this week for more), while another links phárynx to Latin frūmen, “gruel; throat.” Pharyngeal was first recorded in English in the 1820s.
how is pharyngeal used?
English does not use pharyngeal consonants, which are fairly rare in the world’s languages …. Pharyngealization is different from pharyngeal consonants: A pharyngealized consonant involves a consonant not normally produced with a tightened pharynx.
The name [Muammar] has four letters. (Short vowels aren’t usually written in Arabic.) The first “m” is straightforward. The second is the hardest: it’s called ‘ayn in Arabic, and a “voiced pharyngeal fricative” by linguists. The best nontechnical description I’ve heard is imagine the sound hip-hoppers make when saying “a’ight’.
umpteenth
adjective
of an indefinitely large number in succession.
More about umpteenth
Umpteenth, “of an indefinitely large number,” is the ordinal form of the cardinal number umpteen, which itself is based on umpty, a term for an indeterminate number, and the combining form -teen, a variant of ten. Umpty originated as a slang word to refer to the dash (—) in Morse code, with the ump- part a fanciful designation and the -ty part inspired by numbers such as twenty and thirty. Because the elements -ty and -teen are both related to ten, the change from umpty to umpteen essentially swaps one “ten” for another. Umpteenth was first recorded in English in the late 1910s.
how is umpteenth used?
Maybe you’ve already finished the umpteenth binge-watch of your favorite show, or you’re just in a very different headspace than you were a few months ago.
One of gaming’s greatest heroes, Super Mario, must rescue Princess Peach for the umpteenth time in New Super Mario Bros. 2, a fresh game from the Japanese developers at Nintendo who have been creating interactive adventures for their plumber protagonist for more than a generation.