Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Welcome to my abode!

To begin, let me say that I am far...far...from linguistics. I have always been more a scientist, with a background in conducting quantitative research in nursing. I have researched energy expenditure in critically ill patients on ventilators, the use of nebulized morphine to improve dyspnea in terminally ill patients, and conducted a systematic review of nursing education outcomes, so I am hardly the one to start a Blog on epicaricacy.

Yet...since learning about the word on wordcraft, I have been intrigued: http://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/756604565/m/5616010661?r=4206074281#4206074281 Take a look at the rest of those words in that thread on Wordcraft. There are some of my favorites there! I really like the German language.

Later on Wordcraft Ammon Shea, the one who introduced me to the word, explains it. Here is his post: http://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/932607094/m/7886078523?r=8396042033#8396042033

More on the word latter (or I'll be finished with this whole Blog in one post!). By the way, I see that Seanahan has talked about epicaricacy on his Blog here: http://seanahan.blogspot.com/ How exciting is that! Thanks, Sean!

If anybody finds a legitimate use of epicaricacy, please let me know. We are trying to convince John Simpson, of the OED, to include the word in his fine dictionary. I am afraid it will take a lot of convincing though. The last time we asked him, he just smiled and looked amused. That's the Brits for you!

11 comments:

goofy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
goofy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
goofy said...

Linguistics is science!

Kalleh said...

Is everything science, goofy? Literature? Humanities? Being an academic, I have always considered literature/humanities/linguistics as the arts, so to speak, whereas the sciences are disciplines like physics, biology or the like. But I see your point.

goofy said...

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Summer_2004/ling001/lecture1.html

First, linguistics is a rigorous discipline with established methods which strives to follow the scientific method. Our success at being "scientific" is variable and to a large extent a matter for debate, but it is important that competing theories and approaches can be compared, at least in principle, on the basis of how well they satisfy criteria of scientific rigor.

Bob Hale said...

I'll just pop down to the bookies. I had a fiver riding on the subject of your first post and must go and get my winnings. Shame I got such poor odds.

Welcome to the world of blogs.

Kalleh said...

A "fiver," huh? That's why I like Wordcraft. I learn so much from my British friends.

I am completely expecting this Blog will disappear into cyberspace because, let's face it, there is hardly a lot to write about this subject. But Sean had said it only took 10 minutes to start a Blog, so I thought I'd try. I was surprised as to how easy it is!

Kalleh said...

Makes sense, goofy...more so than those in literature or humanities, for example. But I must ask (and I think we've discussed this on Wordcraft at some point), who is considered to be a "linguist?" Are there set standards, or is it like a "nutritionist?" Just wondering.

goofy said...

I think a linguist is someone working in a university linguistics department.

You could ask!

Cat Herself said...

Just because the blog is called "friends of epicaricacy" doesn't mean that you have to make every post about the word. Heck, you can just do like most of us do and post on whatever strikes your fancy at the time!

Welcome to the blogosphere.

Kalleh said...

Well, thanks, Cat. You've saved my day because I don't even want to write about "epicaricacy" every day!

Okay, goofy. That's what I thought, but not sure that all agree.