atavistic

Homo erectus.

adj.

[at'-a-VIS'-tic]

In psychology, showing primitive forms of behavior

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atavism

noun

[AT'-i-viz'-um]

The Random House Webster's College Dictionary (2000) recounts these definitions of atavism:

1. a. the reappearance in an individual of characteristics of some remote ancestor that have been absent in intervening generations.

b. an individual embodying such a reversion.

2. reversion to an earlier type; throwback.

IN USE

We need to stop Supreme Court confirmation hearings. . . . . The game (and it is one) becomes an atavistic search for an emotional gotcha moment, a test more appropriate to a hockey goalie than a Supreme Court justice.

Fineman, Howard. The Take. "Advise and Shut up Already: Let's End Confirmation hearings." Newsweek, 27 July 2009: 28.

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COMMENT

Taking the long ancestral view, we could say that Fineman is suggests archly that certain Judiciary Committee members seem to be acting less like members of the generation of homo sapiens, but more like members of the next ancestral generation behind us, homo erectus. Bob Holms of New Scientist (1 August, 2009, 6) tells us that the average brain volume of homo sapiens is 1500 cubic centimeters and that that of homo erectus is smaller by a third, at only 1000 cubic centimeters. In a sense, Fineman is telling each perceived atavist on the committee: "Grow your brain!"

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ORIGIN

From the Latin atavas, meaning ancestor

OTHER FORMS

at'a-vis'ti-cal-ly (adverb)

at'a-vist (noun)

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dweeb

albertalter.com

noun

A person held in contempt, esp. one ridiculed as studious, puny, or unfashionable; a fool.

That definition comes from the OED,

which also likens dweeb to

nerd:

an insignificant, foolish, or socially inept person; a person who is boringly conventional or studious.

Now also: spec. a person who pursues an unfashionable or highly technical interest with obsessive or exclusive dedication.

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SYNONYMS

Keying off the word nerd, the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus (2003) offers bore as a standard usage synonym; the terms dork, (our word) dweeb, nimrod, geek, drip, and loser as informal usage choices; and techie as a job-specific descriptor.

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IN USE

Of course, Chief Justice John Roberts portrayed himself four years ago as a cautious and judicially modest dweeb.

— Fineman, Howard. The Take. Advise and Shut Up Already: Let's end confirmation hearings. Newsweek 27 July 2009: 28.

The optional noun phrase "a cautious and judicially modest nerd" would fail here because nerd tends to carry a higher pejorative quotient than does the more endearing dweeb. I think this is so because of the associations of the sound projected by each word. Nerd sounds more aggressive, rhyming with grrr and seems more fulfilled when braced with an exclamation mark: "Nerd!" Dweeb does not exclaim. It simply states itself, with the necessarily deliberate enunciations of the consonants.

Dweeb in Chief

Justice John Roberts

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COMMENTS

Dweeb appears on Words Worth quite simply because I find it fun to pronounce. Dweeb: opens with an assertive dental d, flings itself into a childlike wee, and closes with a firm puff, almost a pop!, of a b.

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If you agree that dweeb speaking is fun, put your voice around the even more playful adjective, dweeby, and you'll enjoy all of the fun of dweeb, plus bee as a closing rhyme. The OED sample sentence carries a third ee-rhyme with the proper name Reeve:

As the dweeby, narcissistic Blaine, Reeve is male-model handsome and bland —just what the role calls for; 1988 Washington Post 4 Mar. D7/2

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ORIGIN

But of what stuff is such an odd word made? For a succinct answer, we turn to the New Oxford American Dictionary (2nd Ed.), which, first of all, states that the word's earliest appearance occurred in the 1980s and, then, suggests that it is "perhaps a blend of dwarf and early 20th century feeb, "a feebleminded person' (from feeble)."

Learning that dweeb may have sprung in part from dwarf prompts a degree of PC discomfort, if we imagine the original coiner of the term to be a person who thought of dwarves as lesser humans. But we will take the more charitable view and suggest that mating dwarf with feeb was no more than a dual trope that transfers smallness in size (mass) to a perceived smallness of mental acumen in the person deemed dweeby or, with a bit of literary sniff, dweebish.

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In one sense, a word made of five characters shaped into a single syllable makes for a mere mite of a word. But considering its sound effects and its likely devious origins, dweeb makes for one feisty bantam of a word.

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cashier t.v.

/ca•sheer/

Cashier, as a transitive verb, means to "dismiss from a position of command or authority, esp. with disgrace."* Late 16th C.

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary cites this example from W. S. Maugham:

He'd been kicked out of the Officer's Club at Warsaw and cashiered because he he'd been caught cheating at cards.

The word recently made an apt appearance in a Time magazine movie review of Joel and Ethan Coen's 2008 film, "Burn After Reading":

In the suburbs of Washington — the city of spies — lust, greed and chance trip up a cashiered CIA analysis (John Malkovich), his doctor wife (Tilda Swinton), a federal marshal (George Clooney), a lovelorn gym employee (Frances McDormand) and her oafish accomplice (Brad Pitt, in the sharpest, sweetest comic role of his career." ("The Coen Brothers' Post-Oscar Thriller," Movies, Sept. 8,2008.)

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Synonyms for cashiered include dismiss, boot, bounce, can, discharge, drop, free, sack, eject, expel, oust.**

Common command verbs that do the authoritative work of cashiering a subordinate are scram, beat it, piss off (mainly British), f--- off, and my favorite, a nautical term from the early 17th century: Avast!

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As a noun, cashier means something else entirely. It refers to a person, "one who has charge of cash or money, esp. one who superintends monetary transactions, as in a bank."**

The noun phrase cashier's check designates "a check drawn by a bank upon its own funds and signed by its cashier."**

Since the noun and verb share the same spelling, one might wonder whether these cashiers derive from the same source and thus share some sort of affinity? The answer is "No," as phrase etymologists William and Mary Morris explain in their usual clear, simple, personable style:

The two words are not the same, since they come from different routes into English. The first cashier — the one you'll see at your friendly local supermarket, where she's more likely to be called a "check-out clerk"— gets her name from the French cassier, meaning "money box." The second cashier — ("As the result of the court-martial, the colonel was cashiered from the service") comes from Old French casser, "to discharge or annul," and that came from the Latin quassare, "to shake or break into pieces. (115-116)***

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The noun version of cashier is cashierment, as in "Mr. Trump makes all decisions concerning staff: recruitment, development, retirement, cashierment."

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Sources:

* Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Fifth Edition, 2002.

** The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000.

*** Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, New York: Harper & Row, 1977.

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mewl

☛ From The Shorter OED, 5th Ed.

mewl

Imitative

A. Intrans. verb

1 Especially of an infant: cry feebly, whimper — Late Mid. E.

2 mew verb (as from a cat)

B. Noun

A thin cry, a whimper — Mid 19 C.

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☛ From The New Century Dictionary (1940)

mewl: To cry as a young child: as, "The infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms" (Shakespeare's "As You Like It," ii. 7. 144).

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Recent Use:

[Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Norm Coleman] lost to a man who starred in the movie "Stuart Saves His Family," as the simpering self-help guru who mewled the daily affirmation "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!"

From "Enter Laughing: Senator Franken's long journey," — John Colapinto, The Political Scene, The New Yorker, July 20, 2009, 28.

Al Franken on SNL, as

Stewart Smalley

Fans of "Saturday Night Live" know that the hero of the film "Stuart Saves Family" is Stuart Smalley, the

"simpering self-help guru"confected by Al Franken during his days as a comedian but who is now the junior senator from Minnesota. He defeated defeating Norm Coleman by 312 votes, finally, after a number of recounts, on June 30th. of this year.

The word is frequently used the participial form, as in Shakespeare's memorable rhyme mewling and puking.

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What about mewler? Is that a word?

I got to wondering if the OED referenced a derivative noun mewler, which I would understand to mean an annoying person who tends to whine and pule (the latter of which is mewl in its "literary" mode). The OED does cite mewler but marks it as obsolete and rare.

I say we rise up to revive mewler, using it to describe whiny political commentators on cable news programs: "Did you hear those crooning mewlers from the old Wall Street complaining on Fox News about Obama's reform proposals?"

As noted in other postings, a word invented for a specific occasion or situation, such as my mewler, is known among word mavins as a nonce term.

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entr' acte

noun

[an•TRACT']

1. The interval between two acts of a play, or

2. A dance, piece of music, or interlude performed between two acts of a play. (Webster 3)

Synonyms: interlude, intermezzo (Italian)

In Use:

[Film director Christian Nolan's] Caped Crusader, Christian Bale (who also starred in Mr. Nolan's entr'acte between the Batman films, "The Prestige"), recalls how "people would kind of laugh" when they heard that he and Mr. Nolan were taking Batman seriously.

The sentence comes from an article by David M. Halbfinger in the Film section of the New York Times of March 9, 2008 titled "Batman's Burden: Darkness and Death."

The article describes the swift rise of film director Christian Nolan into the "top tier of mainstream filmmakers." His work includes two Batman films,"Batman Begins," which appeared in 2005 to moderate success at the box office but to critical acclaim for the director, and Mr. Nolan's follow-up to that film, "The Dark Knight," which opened on July 18, 2008.

Stated simply, between Mr.Nolan's "Batman Begins" and its sequel "Batman's Burden: Darkness and Death," he directed a sans-Batman entr'acte titled "The Prestige."

Film Director Christian Nolan

The New York Times Company

Copyright 2007

Given the syntax Halbfinger has initiated, it is hard for this writer to imagine a word or phrase other than entr'acte to satisfy the needs of the clause containing it. One could hardly substitute with grace and economy such phrases as "non-Batman film." "film interrupting the Batman series," "film devoid of the Caped Crusader," "departure from Batmania." Perhaps the reader knows of a suitable substitute.

Besides fitting into the syntactical need of Halbfinger's subordinate clause, entr'acte — a term of dramatistic and cinematic jargon — rises to support the global persuasive intent of the essay, namely, to invite readers to think of Nolan's films not just as popular entertainment, but most assuredly as high cinematic art as well.

Post Script:

This posting is dedicated to my friend and former colleague Ann H., who sought me out and found me on Facebook. Good to be back in touch with one who loves English and teaching! May she and all of my readers benefit from Words Worth as it resumes publication (with a word a week).

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