posted immediately

"stat", used most frequently by doctors to mean "immediately" comes to us from the Latin word "statim" with the same meaning.

analog(ue)

I had thought that perhaps analog meant the opposite of discrete and analogue was the noun form of analagous (the subject of an analogy) but both spellings are the same word (like colour/color) and both spellings can have either meaning.

[via wiktionary]

sally contracted him to build her seashell stand

I just need to share this amazing (and long) tongue-twister that comes together so elegantly and is reminiscient of buffalo buffalo buffalo in that you need to stress words just right or it would (wood) not make sense.

Esau Wood sawed wood. Esau Wood would saw wood. All the wood Esau Wood saw, Esau Wood would saw. In other words, all the wood Esau saw to saw, Esau sought to saw. Oh, the wood Wood would saw! And, oh the wood-saw with which Wood would saw wood! But one day, Wood's wood-saw would saw no wood, and thus the wood Wood sawed was not the wood Wood would saw if Wood's wood-saw would saw wood. Now, Wood would saw wood with a wood-saw that would saw wood, so Esau sought a saw that would saw wood. One day, Esau saw a saw saw wood as no other wood-saw Wood saw would saw wood. In fact, of all the wood-saws Wood ever saw saw wood, Wood never saw a wood-saw that would saw wood as the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood would saw wood, and I never saw a wood-saw that would saw as the wood-saw Wood saw would saw until I saw Esau Wood saw wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood. Now Wood saws wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood.

[via wikipedia]

ante up

the latin word ante means "before" and is useful by itself but also as a root for many other words and phrases such as:

• ante - by itself a poker term for the small buy-in fee placed before the round starts.
• ante meridian - commonly seen as a.m., ante meridian translates to "before midday." (this leads to post meridian or p.m. which translates to "after midday")
• antemortem - uttered almost daily on cbs (home of c.s.i.), this word means "before death."
• antebellum - in the united states this typically refers to "before the civil war," but the phrase literally just meas before any war.
• many similar "before" words in romance languages: antes (spanish); avant (french); avanti/anti- (italian)

~there's no ekscaping these common mispronunciations

some of these are more common than others, but the words that really get me (in an engineering atmosphere) are 'acrost' and 'heighth'.

invulncerible

when i was little i learned the word invincible from superman comics. when i was a bit older i encountered a green powerup in doom that made you invulnerable and wondered why there was this slightly different word that apparently meant the same thing.

i have now discovered that these two words have subtle differences that are apparent in their latin roots:

• invincible comes from the latin verb vincere, meaning "to conquer."
• invulerable comes from the latin verb vulnerare, meaning "to wound."

so invincible means "unbeatable" - superman at times could be wounded (when kryptonite was present) but was never beaten - and invulnerable means "unwoundable" - in doom even when you were impervious to damage you could still be beaten in other ways.

aibohphobia

great addition at language log to the recent linguisteresis post on palindromes:

the Urban Dictionary claims aibohphobia is a technical term for the irrational fear of palindromicity. The etymology will raise a smile. Just stare at the word for a few seconds, and it will reveal itself to you.

[via language log]