The Words of the Week - July 15

Happy Bastille Day to all who celebrate

’Parity’

The dollar and the euro found themselves on equal footing last week, at least as far as value is concerned, and as a result the word parity was very much in use.

For the first time in 20 years, the exchange rate between the euro (EUU) and the US dollar has reached parity -- meaning the two currencies are worth the same.
— Nicole Goodkind, CNN, 12 Jul. 2022

Parity has a sense that is specific to currency, one that we define as “equivalence of a commodity price expressed in one currency to its price expressed in another.” The word has a number of other meanings, including a broader sense of equal (“the quality or state of being equal or equivalent”) and a number of somewhat technical meanings (such as “the property of oddness or evenness of a quantum mechanical function”).

’Telescope’

Last week also saw a telescope of extraordinary visual acuity begin to transmit images of places far away.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe so far.
— NASA.gov, 12 Jul. 2022

As a noun the most common sense of telescope is “a usually tubular optical instrument for viewing distant objects by means of the refraction of light rays through a lens or the reflection of light rays by a concave mirror.” The word may be traced to the Greek tēleskopos, meaning “farseeing.” Telescope also functions as a verb, with meanings such as “to become forced together lengthwise with one part entering another as the result of collision.” This verb sense has nothing to do with the visualizing aspects of the device, but rather is influenced by the design of some hand-held telescopes, which are constructed to allow several increasingly smaller tubes to slide into each other, as a way of shortening the device for storage or travel.

’Supermoon’

A supermoon, an astronomical body closer to Earth (and viewable without a telescope) was also much in the news last week.

The third supermoon of 2022 rose on Wednesday.
—Wynne Davis, NPR, 14 Jul. 2022

A supermoon is not necessarily better than any other moon; it is “a full moon occurring when the moon is at or near the closest point in its orbit.” This particular moon was widely referred to as a buck supermoon; the descriptor is said to be applied to moons occurring in July because this is the time of year that the antlers of male adult deer (bucks) grow out.

’Coup d’etat’

Coup d’etat was trending in lookups last week, after John Bolton, the former United States National Security Advisor, mentioned in a television appearance that he had, in his younger days, planned a number of these.

John Bolton says he ‘helped plan coups d’etat’ in other countries
— (headline) The Guardian (London, Eng.), 13 Jul. 2022

We define coup d’etat as “a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics. Especially : the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group.” There are a number of ways to pluralize this: coups d’etat (also coups d’état) and _coup d’etats (also coup d’états) are both acceptable. Coup d’état is not generally viewed as correct, but, since the S at the end of the aforementioned coups is silent, this form is occasionally found.

“I disagree with that,” Bolton declared. “As somebody who has helped plan coup d’état—not here, but other places—it takes a lot of work.
— The Daily Beast, 12 Jul. 2022

’Bastille Day’

Bastille Day occurred last week, causing lookups for this entry in the dictionary to spike.

The opening of this year's Bastille Day parade was designed to demonstrate France's commitment to NATO and to European allies touched most closely by the war in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine 20 weeks ago.
— Associated Press, 14 Jul. 2022

Bastille Day is “July 14 observed in France as a national holiday in commemoration of the fall of the Bastille in 1789.” Bastille, when used in English, means “jail” or “prison.” The word comes from French, in which language the meaning is closer to “fortress.” The bastille referenced in Bastille Day was a specific building, the Bastille St. Antoine, a fortress built at an eastern gate of Paris in the late 14th century, and which was used as a prison until the late 18th century.

Words Worth Knowing: ‘Backspang’

Our word worth knowing this week is backspang, defined as “A trick or loophole that enables one to retreat from a bargain.” We hope you have no need of retreating from a bargain anytime soon, but if you do we also hope that you remember this word, and quietly say it to yourself as you renege on your commitment.