A crowning event

“Corona” comes from a Latin word meaning crown.

To an astronomer, a corona means a layer of ionized gas that surrounds the sun.

What does it mean to a botanist, architect and electrician? Answers tomorrow.

The solar corona during a total solar eclipse
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
 

Who cares about when to use whom?

Warriors … or even mensches. (See blog entry of Thursday, May 3.)

“Whom” is correctly used here because it is the object of the preposition “among.”

The same reasoning applies to the title of Earnest Hemingway’s novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, first published in 1940. (“Whom” is the object of the preposition “for.”)

That’s also why we write “To Whom It May Concern” as the salutation in letters we send to strangers. “Whom” is the object of the preposition “to.”  ("To" can also be an infinitive that introduces a verb; see the headline above for an example.)

Who really cares? Educated people who understand the effectiveness of nuanced language care—greatly.

Earnest Hemingway posed for a dust jacket photo for the first edition of For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1939.

Photo by Lloyd Arnold courtesy of Wikipedia
 

A quaint notion about acquaintances

Gee, little do the prospective buyers know how “quaint” the house really is. The real estate agent certainly knows how to think positively.

As used in the cartoon, “quaint” means having an old-fashioned charm. The word can also mean strange in a pleasing way or skillfully or cleverly made. (She wore a quaint wristwatch with an intricate silver band.)

According to Webster’s, the word originally meant “clever or skilled.” Its etymology tells us why. The word comes from the Latin word cognōscere, which meant “known thoroughly.” (The same Latin word has given us cognoscente, “a person with special knowledge in some field … [an] expert,” according to Webster’s.

Also deriving from cognōscere is “acquaint.” We can acquaint ourselves (gain knowledge) of both information and people.

Nowadays, an acquaintance often means someone we have met but do not know well. Many of us, though, probably have Facebook “friends” who are really only acquaintances.

I’d like to spend less time “friending” folks on Facebook and more time getting to know some flesh-and-blood acquaintances here in Grand Junction a little bit better.

I know. I understand. These days that may seem like a quaint notion.

Photo special to the Sentinel
 

Shedding light on opaque

Working on today’s Jumble, I ripped through ANFIT (faint) and MKSIP (skimp) before screeching to a halt at QAOUEP.

Remembering some elementary school lessons, I placed the “u” after the “q.” Two letters down, four to go. Remembering college French, I placed the “e” after the “u.” That left me with the word part “que” and the letters “a,” “o” and “p” to somehow attach to it.

At that point I decided that word had to start with a vowel, so I played around with that idea and—bingo!—hit upon “opaque.”

“Opaque” most commonly means not letting light shine through. Windows for bathrooms, for example, are often made of opaque glass.

Courtesy of Webster’s, below are answers to yesterday’s question:

To a musician, the noun “complement” means “the difference between a given interval and the complete octave.”

To a mathematician, it means ”the number of degrees that must be added to a given angle or arc to make it equal 90 degrees.”

To a ship’s captain, it means “all of the ship’s personnel, including officers, required to operate a ship.”

To an immunologist, it means “any of a group of proteins in the blood plasma that act with specific antibodies to destroy corresponding antigens, as bacteria or foreign proteins.”
 

Free advice on complement vs. compliment

“Complement” is spelled properly in today’s Freshly Squeezed. It means to supplement something or go together nicely with it.

Used as a noun, “compliment” is praise. Used as a verb, it means to give praise.

What would the noun “complement” mean to a:

a) musician
b) mathematician
c) ship’s captain
d) immunologist

Answers tomorrow.