The Words of the Week - Sept. 15

‘Coco’

Coco was trending over the weekend as Cori Dionne “Coco” Gauff became the youngest American to win the U.S. Open tournament since Serena Williams in 1999.

Coco Gauff won her first Grand Slam title by defeating Aryna Sabalenka in the U.S. Open women’s singles final in three sets on Saturday. Gauff won 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 to become only the third American teen to win the final grand slam of the year, joining the ranks of Serena Williams and Tracy Austin, ABC News reports. The last time an American woman won the tournament was in 2017.
— Melissa Noel, Essence, 10 Sept. 2023

We define coco as a noun referring to the coconut palm tree, as well as to the fruit of that tree. It has been used in English since at least 1555 with those meanings, coming from the Spanish coco and Portuguese côco, meaning “coconut.” This is not how Coco Gauff got her nickname, however. Instead, it arose to avoid confusion with her dad, Corey. As Gauff once explained to Sports Illustrated Kids: “I believe it was my aunt who said, ‘Oh, we should just call her Coco.’ When my dad was growing up, people used to call him Co. … Ever since then, I’ve been going by Coco.”

‘Hurricane’

As a number of tropical storms have been churning in the Atlantic Ocean this week, becoming or on their way to becoming hurricanes, hurricane has seen an uptick in lookups.

Hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin primarily intensifies late August through the month of September. September 10th is the peak of the season and it is also halfway through the season. During a normal season, activity over the Atlantic would slowly begin to come down—though a brief uptick is possible again on October 20th. … NOAA Forecasters updated their season predictions due to the recent interactions between water temperatures and El Niño conditions. They are forecasting that 14 to 21 named storms may occur, with six to 11 of them being hurricanes and two to five being major hurricanes. So far this season, 13 storms have formed with 3 being major hurricane strength (maximum winds over 111 mph).
— Jessica Camuto, CBS-19 WHNT (Huntsville, Alabama), 11 Sept. 2023

Hurricane entered English in the 16th century from the Spanish huracán, and comes ultimately from the Taino hurakán. We define hurricane as “a tropical cyclone with winds of 74 miles (119 kilometers) per hour or greater that is usually accompanied by rain, thunder, and lightning, and that sometimes moves into temperate latitudes.” Although hurricane has traditionally been used especially when naming or referring to storms occurring in the western Atlantic, it is used for storms in the northeastern Pacific as well.

‘Scab’

Scab saw a spike in lookups following the news that a prominent actor is planning to return her talk show to the air in the midst of ongoing strikes by writers and artists.

Drew Barrymore has been branded a “scab” for bringing her talk show back on the air despite the ongoing writers’ strike in Hollywood. Protestors plan to picket the actor’s talk show after she announced The Drew Barrymore Show would be returning to film its fourth season sooner than expected and defended the decision, despite it being a “struck” show. On May 2, the union representing writers in Hollywood, the Writer Guild of America (WGA) went on strike, meaning all people represented by the WGA have halted work over an ongoing stalemate with major studios over pay and conditions. Joined the following month by the actors’ union Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) the strikes have brought Hollywood to a standstill.
— Shannon Power, Newsweek, 11 Sept. 2023

We define several labor-related senses of scab, including “a worker who accepts employment or replaces a union worker during a strike” and “a union member who refuses to strike or returns to work before a strike has ended.” These senses are all related to the meanings of scab that concern diseases of both plants and animals, as well as the kind of scab you get when you scrape your knee. Scab has been in use as a general derogatory term for centuries, but is thought to have been first applied specifically to strike-breakers and such in the late 18th century.

‘Climate’

Lookups for climate have increased this week, possibly in connection to reportage about any of a number of extreme weather events around the world.

Thousands of people have been killed in Libya in the flooding caused by heavy rains that devastated parts of the country this weekend, a disaster exacerbated by the collapse of two dams in the coastal city of Derna, aid agencies said on Tuesday. … Libya is especially vulnerable to climate change and the increasingly intense storms that warmer weather brings. Warming causes the waters of the Mediterranean to expand and sea levels to rise 2.8 millimeters a year, eroding shorelines and contributing to flooding, with low-lying coastal areas of the country at particular risk, according to the United Nations.
— Mohammed Abdusamee and Vivian Nereim, The New York Times, 12 Sept. 2023

We define the relevant sense of climate as “the average course or condition of the weather at a place usually over a period of years as exhibited by temperature, wind velocity, and precipitation,” and climate change as “significant and long-lasting change in the Earth's climate and weather patterns, especially such change associated with global warming.”

Word Worth Knowing: ‘Antithalian’

If you’re someone who feels relieved when social plans are cancelled, content instead to recline on your recamier or chillax on your chesterfield—perhaps with a good dictionary—then you may be antithalian. Be not ashamed! Antithalian, as attested by Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2nd Edition (1934), simply means “opposed to festivities,” and buddy, who among us cannot relate from time to time? Antithalian comes from the combining of the prefix anti-, meaning “opposing,” and Thalia, one of the nine Muses of Greek mythology, and the patron of comedy.