Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Today's words

My judgment on today's WOTD: I can now put aside my scorn for those who use the extra "e."
This reminds me of someone with whom I used to read Shakespeare aloud - always with an unabridged dictionary handy, as many of the Bard's usages are no longer considered standard. We would frequently encounter words about which we disagreed on the pronunciation, and every single time it turned out that we were both correct.

silviculture \ˈsil-və-ˌkəl-chər\ - a branch of forestry dealing with the development and care of forests
As I was working out today's Dictionary Devil puzzle, this word fell into place pretty rapidly. I soon recognized the relationship to silvan - variant of sylvan, with which I was familiar, perhaps thanks initially to Tolkein - and the use of culture as in agriculture and horticulture.



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