4 ms·

I am not a native speaker, but I thought some definitions were questionable. - internecine has a strong connotation of "amongst themselves", which is borne out

I am not a native speaker, but I thought some definitions were questionable. - internecine has a strong connotation of "amongst themselves", which is borne out by the example but not in the definition; - the definition of Kristallnacht is useless if you don't know what it's referring to, and you will likely know the term if you do know what it is referring to. A link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht or "the prelude to the holocaust" would be better; - similarly, I think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#Theology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#Theology (which highlights the split in a powerful-but-not-omnipotent good force and an also powerful evil force) should be linked. I stopped trying to verify things at this point; no doubt a native speaker can improve on this list.

davidw 16y ago
I am a native speaker, and wanted to write the same thing about 'internecine'. Indeed, wordnet says: adj 1: (of conflict) within a group or organization "an internecine feud among proxy holders" Manichean, as I understand it, refers more to a very strong binary view of things as either good or bad. For instance, from The Economist: "President George Bush's Manichean worldview—“you are either with us or against us”—is now echoed in Bangkok ..." They did the same thing with 'sclerotic', too by describing it in terms of the body, but not underlining how often it's used for things like organizations.
- doty 16y ago
  It's interesting; for internecine that's what I had always used as the definition as well. However, the OED only lists two definitions: 1. orig. Deadly, destructive, characterized by great slaughter. internecine war, war for the sake of slaughter, war of extermination, war to the death. 2. esp. (In modern use.) Mutually destructive, aiming at the slaughter or destruction of each other. And a non-obvious etymology: [ad. L. internecn-us murderous, destructive, f. internecium slaughter, destruction, f. internecre: see next. App. first used as a rendering of L. internecnum bellum, in Butler's Hudibras (to which also is due the unetymological pronunciation, instead of interncine). On this authority entered by Johnson in his Dictionary, with an incorrect explanation, due to association with words like interchange, intercommunion, etc. in which inter- has the force of ‘mutual’, ‘each other’. From J. the word has come into later dictionaries and 19th c. use, generally in the Johnsonian sense.] (And 'baldenfreud' is a bit out of place on a list like this; a neologism if I've ever heard one.)
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jerf 16y ago
The list as a whole was strong on denotations, but weak on connotations. It doesn't answer the general question of why you would use "jejune" rather than "naive". Then again, it is very hard to capture these subtle word connotations by using more words. These words aren't just a great way to capture a particular idea and look sophisticated, they're also a great way to expose yourself as a poser not just by misusing a word entirely, but by using the word where the denotation holds but the connotation is off.
julius_geezer 16y ago
Having looked at the Latin dictionaries, I blush to see how wrong I was about internecine. Check out Lewis & Short's Latin dictionary at perseus.tufts.edu, under internecine, internecio, interneco. But indeed if I wanted to know about Kristallnacht, I don't think that I really would need the etymology of "Nacht".

davidw 16y ago

I am a native speaker, and wanted to write the same thing about 'internecine'. Indeed, wordnet says: adj 1: (of conflict) within a group or organization "an internecine feud among proxy holders" Manichean, as I understand it, refers more to a very strong binary view of things as either good or bad. For instance, from The Economist: "President George Bush's Manichean worldview—“you are either with us or against us”—is now echoed in Bangkok ..." They did the same thing with 'sclerotic', too by describing it in terms of the body, but not underlining how often it's used for things like organizations.

doty 16y ago
It's interesting; for internecine that's what I had always used as the definition as well. However, the OED only lists two definitions: 1. orig. Deadly, destructive, characterized by great slaughter. internecine war, war for the sake of slaughter, war of extermination, war to the death. 2. esp. (In modern use.) Mutually destructive, aiming at the slaughter or destruction of each other. And a non-obvious etymology: [ad. L. internecn-us murderous, destructive, f. internecium slaughter, destruction, f. internecre: see next. App. first used as a rendering of L. internecnum bellum, in Butler's Hudibras (to which also is due the unetymological pronunciation, instead of interncine). On this authority entered by Johnson in his Dictionary, with an incorrect explanation, due to association with words like interchange, intercommunion, etc. in which inter- has the force of ‘mutual’, ‘each other’. From J. the word has come into later dictionaries and 19th c. use, generally in the Johnsonian sense.] (And 'baldenfreud' is a bit out of place on a list like this; a neologism if I've ever heard one.)

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jerf 16y ago

The list as a whole was strong on denotations, but weak on connotations. It doesn't answer the general question of why you would use "jejune" rather than "naive". Then again, it is very hard to capture these subtle word connotations by using more words. These words aren't just a great way to capture a particular idea and look sophisticated, they're also a great way to expose yourself as a poser not just by misusing a word entirely, but by using the word where the denotation holds but the connotation is off.

julius_geezer 16y ago

Having looked at the Latin dictionaries, I blush to see how wrong I was about internecine. Check out Lewis & Short's Latin dictionary at perseus.tufts.edu, under internecine, internecio, interneco. But indeed if I wanted to know about Kristallnacht, I don't think that I really would need the etymology of "Nacht".