We’re back moving forward with page 51 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition! There wasn’t a lot to choose from, but I do like today’s word: choli.

Three Big Roots

I knew almost every word on page 51. It shows the power of knowing roots. The first of this was chloro–. It comes from the Greek word for green, khlōros. And so you get words like “chlorophyll,” which I’m sure you know means “the green coloring substance of plants and leaves associated with the production of carbohydrates by photosynthesis.” Although I bet you would have described it differently. More like, “Well, it’s the stuff, uh, that makes, you know, plants green.” At least that’s what I would have said.

Next were the chore– words. These are based on the Greek word khoreia, which means “dancing in unison” and is derived from the earlier Greek word khoros, which means “chorus.” And so we get words like “choreography,” which again, I expect you know is “the art of composing and arranging techniques, movements, etc, for dances, especially ballet.”

Finally, we have the Christo– words, which of course are words about Jesus. The only one that was even vaguely new to me was “Christophany.” It is “an appearance of Christ on Earth after the time of his resurrection.” So you know, those couple of times right after he died that were reported by no one outside a tiny cult. Not that I’m making any judgments! It could absolutely have happened — just like there might be a china teapot orbiting the Sun between Earth and Mars. Who am I to say?

Other Words

The other words were pretty specialized. There was “chitin” for example. It is “a horny, organic substance forming part of the outer integument of some insects and crustaceans.” See: even after reading the definition, I don’t really know what it is.

I suffer from nausea a lot. So I was interested to see the word “chlorpromazine.” According to the dictionary, it is “a drug used to depress the central nervous system and prevent nausea and vomiting.” But when I checked online, Google told me it was an antipsychotic. Maybe I could use that too!

I’ll leave you with a word that I feel like I ought to have known: “choragus.” It is “one who officiates at an entertainment, festival, etc.” It appears to derive from the leader of a Greek chorus, which may explain why I don’t know it. Ancient Greek theater does have its interests, but I’m not that into it.

Choli

Even though page 51 didn’t offer many options, it did contain one that I liked. It is similar to yesterday’s word, but this time from the east: choli.

Today we do page 49 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition! I know what you’re thinking, “Didn’t we do page 49 yesterday?!” Well, we did. But not anymore. If you go back and look, you will see that I changed it to page 50.

You see, as I do this series, I pull out the page I’m working on. The book is falling apart anyway. And it is just more convenient to deal with a single page. But with the discolored pages, it is kind of hard to read and so yesterday, I read the wrong side. So we are doing page 49 today. And the word is: chemisette.

Chemical Reactions

Well over half of page 49 was made up of chemi– and chemo– words. They are such that even if you have never seen them, you can figure out what they mean. So there are words like “chemoreflex,” which is not surprisingly “a reflex brought about by a chemical stimulus.”

I was interested to see that “chemiculture” is another word for “hydroponics.” But then it occurred to me that I don’t actually know what “hydroponics” is. I just know it because people use it to grow cannabis. It is a way of growing things without soil — in rocks, generally. But when I looked it up, I found out that I was right. Sometimes, you don’t need to look up a word.

There are two words related to the atmosphere. First is “chemosphere”: “a stratum of the atmosphere in which the most intense chemical activity takes place.” No one uses the word anymore. It is really just the upper stratosphere — from about 30 km to 50 km. A related word is “chemopause”: “the stratum or boundary lying between the chemosphere and the ionosphere.

There are lots of –pause words. What it actually indicates is where a temperature trend change takes place. For example, as you go up in the lowest part of the atmosphere (troposphere), the temperature gets colder and colder. But at the tropopause, the temperature gets warmer as you go up. Then you are in the stratosphere. At the stratopause (also the chemopause), the temperature again starts going down.

When I was in graduate school, my thesis adviser was the editor of the scientific journal Chemosphere. I published my best work there — the permafrost stuff.

Other Words

Outside of the words related to chemical reactions, the pickings were limited. Some were interesting though. For example, “chela.” It is “a nipper- or pincer-like organ of certain crustaceans. This reminds me of David Foster Wallace’s essay “Consider the Lobster.” In it, he talks about how lobsters are loners and they have to have their chelas taped shut or they would harm each other. It is but one part of the horror that we put these creatures through.

I hate cigars. It’s nothing about cigars themselves. It’s just that cigars are so linked to jerks. You have reached the pinnacle of vileness when you’ve made the cover of Cigar Aficionado. Anyway, there is a specialized cigar word, “cheroot.” It is “a cigar cut square at each end.”

Chemisette

Today’s word is quite far away from everything else we’ve considered. It’s actually quite interesting — at least to me, since I like women’s fashion.

Today we do page 50 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition! As I went through the page, I was struck by how many words seemed pretty useless. But I decided to feature a word that I’m shocked I didn’t know: “cheval glass.”

Some Words I Knew

Page 50 had more interesting words that I knew than ones I didn’t. For example, there is the word “chez” as in “at or to the home of.” There was a certain period of my life when I hung out with a lot of, well, my mother would call them “artsy-fartsy” types. And they loved using this word. Or anything French, to be honest.

Of more interest is “chicanery.” It is “trickery by the use of subterfuge or sophistry.” It’s a word that I associate with magic. Indeed, I’m sure that’s how it first entered my vocabulary. Of course, now I associate it with the current administration. But the truth is that there isn’t much trickery. A small-time con man would never make any money if they were as bad as Trump and company.

A word I don’t think I’ve heard since childhood is “chinchy.” It means “miserly, stingy, or cheap.” But when I was young, I used the word a lot. Or I heard it a lot. Or both. It does seem like a child’s word. When you are an adult, you are too busy trying to survive to talk about other’s cheapness.

A related word is “chintzy.” It means “tawdry; cheap; gaudy.” The two words sound very similar. I should start using it. It too reminds me of Trump.

A Thousand…

There were two words that come to us via the Greek word khiliastēs, which means “a thousand years.” First is “chiliarch,” which is “(in ancient Greece and Rome) an officer in charge of a thousand men.” The second is “chiliasm,” which is “the doctrine that Christ will return to reign on Earth for a thousand years.”

This last word is interesting because it shows how limited the time scales were for people in the past. It has only been the last couple hundred years that we’ve known just how old the Earth, solar system, and universe are. The idea that Christ will reign for just a thousand years is pathetic. Of course, it isn’t if you believe the universe is only 6,000 years old.

Cheval Glass

There were other words, of course. But none were that interesting. I was interested to see that “chirography” is “handwriting or penmanship.” But otherwise… So that brings us to the word (or phrase) of the day: “cheval glass.”