Most people are all too familiar with the tip-of-the-tongue sensation of trying to express what seems almost inexpressible. Perhaps you’ve felt the frustration of having the perfect word just beyond reach. Whether it’s some quality, sentiment, observation, or emotion, some descriptions are hard to come by.

To help Beyond Words readers overcome this unfortunate quandary, here are a few adjectives for words that pertain to other nouns:

Source:
The Phrontistery

The familiar marks that punctuate text – the periods, commas, semicolons, and so forth – have not always added their pauses and emphases throughout the history of the written word. Many of the texts that we now read with ease gained these marks centuries after being written with no punctuation at all. Additionally, punctuation rules vary from language to language and culture to culture, so that immaculate grammar and stringent rule-following in English does not equate to a good grasp of Russian or Chinese punctuation.

It took centuries for English to acquire its steadfast rules for punctuating texts. Here is just a brief look at some of the steps that led us to our present usage.

Period (.) Comma (,) Semicolon (;)

The period – or full stop – marks the end of a sentence. Though utilized for a variety of different purposes throughout the history of written language, the period gained its present use during the establishment of printing. Aldus Manutius the Elder, an Italian printer and publisher of the 15th century, is commonly credited with standardizing several elements of punctuation. Manutius also created the semicolon to introduce pauses in text and manipulated the already-existing virgule, or slash, into the modern comma, which gets its name from the Greek komma (κόμμα), meaning something that is cut off. Writers and scholars of the 16th- and 17th-centuries like William Tyndale, Ben Jonson, and Francis Bacon further encouraged the standardization of English punctuation by both recommending systematic usage and utilizing it in their own writings.

Exclamation mark (!)

The exclamation mark, which signifies surprise and was originally called the note of admiration, gains its name from the Latin Io, meaning joy. In its original usage, the letter “I” was written above the letter “O”, giving the appearance of a sign that looks like the modern-day exclamation mark.

Question mark (?)

The question mark, or note of interrogation, has a somewhat esoteric history. One version of the story dates the question mark to the 8th century, when it was described as a lightening bolt-shaped punctus interrogative used for similar purposes. Another version dates the question mark to the Middle Ages and the Latin term quaestiō;, meaning question. This word was abbreviated as “Qo” and eventually transformed into the modern symbol, which looks not unlike the cursive letter Q.

Most of us are familiar with the different types of learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. A distinctive sort of style, however, is the hallmark of internet phenomenon Marina Orlova. — she uses sex appeal to teach etymology.

Orlova, a 28-year-old Russian immigrant, is a philologist (a kind of linguist who specializes in the historical development of meaning in texts). In addition to holding two degrees from the State University of Nizhni Novgorod in Moscow, Orlova is a bombshell with a penchant for skimpy outfits and doe-eyed expressions. She has made her mark on the internet by capitalizing both on her education and her looks, introducing a slew of viewers to the field of philology by posing and pouting her way through educational clips.

In 2007, Orlova launched a YouTube channel called HotForWords in which she takes requests from viewers for familiar English words and phrases, then discusses their origins in short clips that typically involve equal parts spunk, sex, and etymology. Last year, Orlova was named World’s Sexiest Geek by the editors of Wired magazine. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that Orlova has acquired the title of #1 most viewed guru on YouTube – her videos receive more than a million views each week.

In her YouTube posts, Orlova explains colloquialisms like “three sheets to the wind” and “in the buff”, as well as rare words such as “mondegreen” and even one of the longest words in the English language –
“Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.”

Love her or hate her, the woman behind HotForWords holds an interesting place in the linguistic community. While sometimes flamboyant, Orlova deserves recognition for encouraging the study of language and raising interest in etymology through her trademark blend of bawdiness and scholarship.

As you might have guessed from the colorful dots and dashes above the Google search bar today, it’s Samuel Morse’s birthday. Morse code was created by the American painter and inventor in the early 19th century. Morse perfected his electromagnetic telegraph, and by 1836 transmitted the first long-distance message from Washington to Baltimore, which playfully read, “What hath God wrought?”

Morse’s telegraph machine was the first device to convey a messages using electricity; the composer coded the message and tapped it in telegraph key. Then, the telegraph converted the dots and dashes used in coding into electrical impulses carried through telegraph wires. Finally, the recipient of the telegraph received those electrical impulses already converted into dots and dashes on a paper tape.

Morse code played a fundamental role in the history of aviation as a form of plane-to-plane and plane-to-controller communication. The code itself may interest language lovers as one of the most useful international systems of writing and communication.

Though other forms of communication have replaced Morse code in aviation, the system of dots and dashes remains popular with amateur radio operators and aviation enthusiasts. For a look at Morse code, check out the alphabet below:

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For people who speak English as a second language, several pitfalls may stand in the way of communicating fluently with native speakers. Even with a firm grasp of English grammar and a full arsenal of vocabulary, correct native-level pronunciation remains an obstacle for many language learners.

For people whose professions demand a very high level of communication with native English speakers (such as healthcare workers, airline employees, public speakers, call-center operators, and IT professionals, to name a few) a heavy accent could become a barrier to success.

For the native English speaker, difficulty understanding someone’s accent often goes unmentioned for fear of making a co-worker, a professor, a doctor, or a customer service representative feel badly. However, those people who consistently hear the words, “I’m sorry, what was that?” or, “Could you please repeat that?” know that despite their hard work in mastering English, something is missing. Enter the field of professional accent reduction.

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VALENTINE
The practice of choosing a special person to be one’s valentine on February 14 began in the mid-14th century as an English and French courtly custom. Valentine cards may have originated with Saint Valentine himself, a Roman priest who purportedly continued to perform marriages in secret after they were outlawed by Emperor Claudius II in order to have a larger pool of unmarried men for military service. After Valentine was arrested and imprisoned, he fell in love with a young woman who visited him during his confinement, sending her cards and letters to relay his feelings.

LOVE
The word love comes to us from the Proto-German lubo and the Gothic liufs, both terms for affection and friendliness, as well as the appellation of a beloved or sweetheart.

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The forbidden fruit of the biblical Garden of Eden has taken on so much significance throughout the centuries that almost all cultures have a wide variety of expressions and sayings that deal with apples.

They may encourage health:

An apple a day keeps the doctor away

Una mela al giorno toglie il medico di torno (Italian)

Mangez les pommes pour avoir la peche (French)

Sano como una manzana (Spanish)

Apple idioms may also suggest the opposite – that something is amiss or smells foul. The French will say, “Il suffit d’une pomme pourrie pour gâter tout le tas” (“One rotten apple is enough to spoil the whole pile”) and the Spanish refer to “la manzana podrida” – the rotten apple.

It is also interesting to note the unusual etymological diversity encompassed in this little word: The German word for apple (Apfel) differs from the French (pomme), which differs from the Italian (mela), which, in turn, differs from the Spanish (manzana).

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They pepper our daily speech and thread themselves through most every conversation, but idiomatic expressions, sayings, and colloquialisms can be the most difficult part of any language to translate.

Because idioms take root in a nation’s customs, history, religion, and even geography, they may become case-specific and their literal definitions seem, oftentimes, nonsensical.

The translator’s job is to extract the figurative meaning of colloquialisms and to find a parallel expression in the target language. Fortunately for translators, all languages contain myriad witty and wise turns of phrase to satisfy speakers of a metaphorical bent. Below are 10 English Idioms and a few of their foreign-language counterparts.

To let the cat out of the bag
Spanish: “levanter la liebre”
French: “vendre la mèche”

Between a rock and a hard place
Spanish: “entre la espada y la pared”
French: “entre le marteau et l’enclume”

When it rains, it pours
Spanish: “llueve sobre mojado”
French: “jamais deux sans trois”

To fit like a glove
Spanish: “ir como anillo al dedo”
German: “das sitzt wie angegossen”

To turn a blind eye
Spanish: “hacer la vista gorda”
French: “fermer les yeux”

It’s a piece of cake
Spanish: “Es pan comido”
French: “C’est du nanan”

Two heads are better than one
Spanish: “Cuatro ojos ven más que dos.”
French: “De la discussion jaillit la lumière.”

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch
German: “Man sollte das Fell des Bären nicht verkaufen, bevor man ihn erlegt hat.”
French: “Il ne faut pas vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué.”

His bark is worse than his bite
German: “Bellende Hunde beißen nicht.”
French: “Chien qui aboie ne mord pas.”

It’s a dog-eat-dog world
Spanish: “mundo de fieras”
French: “L’homme est un loup pour l’homme.”

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photy by Lanamaniac

Many words have gone out of fashion because they have lost their utility and become inapplicable in the 21st century.

We no longer make reference to our baldrics because it would be difficult to find someone who still carries a bag of horns and swords slung over one shoulder.

Other rare or infrequently-used words pertain to fields like psychology – the phobias and philias, for example – as well as biology, astronomy, botany, and many others, and though they intimately describe the more technical aspects of our lives, it is their very specificity that relegates them to colloquial obscurity.

There are some rare words, however, that still tickle the ear and amuse the mind. Though these words are not heard on a regular basis, the list below includes 20 of the most fascinating and useful obscure words of the English language:

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