Word of the Day

Decalcomania, “the art of transferring pictures from paper to another medium,” is adapted from French décalcomanie, equivalent to décalquer, “to transfer a tracing of,” plus English -mania. The verb décalquer is based on Italian calcare, “to stomp, trample,” ultimately from Latin calx, “heel.” From this same source comes calque, also known as a loan translation. One common example of a calque is brainwashing (from Mandarin Chinese xǐ nǎo “to wash the brain”). For other words descended from Latin calx, check out the Words of the Day cantrip and inculcate. Decalcomania was first recorded in English in the early 1860s. EXAMPLE OF DECALCOMANIA USED IN A SENTENCE With the right materials, decalcomania can make images leap off the page and onto a variety of other surfaces.

Netsuke “a small figure used on a man’s sash” is a loanword from Japanese that is equivalent to ne, “root,” combined with tsukeru, “to attach.” In English, the Hepburn system is widely used for transliterating Japanese into the Roman alphabet, and one feature of this system is that it romanizes Japanese vowels using their counterparts in Romance languages such as Italian and Spanish. The one Japanese vowel that differs substantially from its closest Romance equivalent is u; Japanese u is pronounced as “oo” in boot but with the lips unrounded—similar to English “oo,” as in book. In certain syllables, the u is voiceless, which sounds in English as if there is no vowel at all. This is why Japanese netsuke is typically pronounced in English variously as “net-skey,” “net-suh-key,” “net-soo-key,” or “net-soo-key.” Netsuke was first recorded in English in the early 1880s. EXAMPLE OF NETSUKE USED IN A SENTENCE He had left behind his favorite sash with a two-horned dragon netsuke on it, making everyone worry about his swift departure.

Ganymede is named for a teenage boy in Greek mythology whom the gods chose, because of his beauty, to be their cup-bearer. One possibility is that Ganymede comes from the Greek words gánymai, “to be glad,” and mḗdea, “art, counsel, plans.” The second of these elements is also the origin of numerous names of Greek origin that contain med-, such as Archimedes and Medea. Ganymede was first recorded in English in the 1550s. EXAMPLE OF GANYMEDE USED IN A SENTENCE Though Galileo discovered Ganymede, his telescope was far too weak to detect the craters and ice that cover the moon’s surface.

Xeriscaping, “environmental design based on minimal water use,” is based on xeric, “of a dry environment,” on the pattern of landscaping. Xeric comes from Ancient Greek xērós, “dry,” which resembles English sere, “dry,” and the Word of the Day rizzar, but this resemblance is purely coincidental. Though landscape comes from the Dutch equivalents of land and -ship, landscaping was falsely analyzed as land compounded with “scaping,” with a sense roughly like “aesthetic improvement of a space,” and combined with xeri- to form today’s word. A similar phenomenon happened with hamburger, which literally means “of Hamburg” but was falsely analyzed as ham compounded with “burger,” with a sense roughly like “patty on a bun,” and combined with cheese to form cheeseburger. Xeriscaping was first recorded in English in the early 1980s. EXAMPLE OF XERISCAPING USED IN A SENTENCE Xeriscaping transformed their rugged yard into an oasis.

Roentgenize, “to subject to the action of X-rays,” is named for Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845–1923), who discovered X-rays in 1895. As we learned from the Word of the Day foehn, oe is an alternative way of representing ö in German when the umlaut (the horizontal pair of dots, also known as a dieresis) is not readily available. The same applies to German ä and ü, which may be written as ae and ue; compare the Word of the Day gemütlich. The surname Röntgen is, unfortunately for us language detectives, of uncertain origin. Roentgenize was first recorded in English in the late 1890s. EXAMPLE OF ROENTGENIZE USED IN A SENTENCE After Wilhelm Röngten roentgenized the hand of his wife, Anna, she examined her finger bones in the resulting image and chillingly remarked, “I have seen my death.”