The Sagacious Seventh on Noble Nuances

In an entrance test I had once prudently pointed out that though gravity and gravitation are cognate, levity and levitation aren't. This could be confounding for some but amusing nuances for others. Such quirks make language or vocabulary learning fun. Not only the origin, sometimes the pronunciation is tricky: stifle but stiff, climate but proclivity, libel but liberty, unbridled but brindle, trifling  but triage, and many more.

Then there are those that are often mispronounced like, regime, liaise, genre, lingerie, Grand Prix, avant-garde, awry, agave, and vermicelli. Pronuncing words like enchilada, entourage, entrepreneur, enroute, entombed can be baffling too.

Yet some others like conduct, present, premise, close, etc are worth mentioning since the stress on a syllable for these words varies with their use as noun, verb or adjective. It helps to check the pronunciation and use of a word along with its meaning and part of speech. 

To add to the difficulty there are words that differ in meaning with change in parts of speech. The ones that I can offer off the top of my head are appropriate, deliberate, consummate, impregnate, ferret. 

And again more challenges are brought in by vouchsafe, apprehend, sequester, shanghai that have widely different meanings within the same part of speech, verb in these cases. Trencher 🎓or kip as noun, and aggravated, penurious as adjective top my list in this category. 

On another level, interestingly, an august company or comforting bromide have got nothing to do with the month August 📅 or the element Bromine in Chemistry. ⚗ 

Any discourse on nuance is possibly incomplete with connotations. Slim, humbling, concise have a positive connotation over their counterparts thin, humiliating, and laconic.  

Geographical impact on language is immense. To offer help it's quite acceptable to ask in some places, 'Do you have a problem?' But in other areas it's polite to say 'Do you need help? Is there any issue with that?'

On similar lines, it's necessary to point out these differences: today morning or this morning; yesterday evening or last evening; take rest or get rest or have some rest? 

While trying to meditate, I realize, my mind is never free of exploring these subtle differences. Especially during these quiet sessions I find myself in the middle of a maelstrom of myriad words. Unless I pen down my subliminal thoughts in black and white to save for posterity, I can't relax. And what better way to document them than in a context? Here is a motley assortment of such sentences to remember some useful words.

Can you exhort an exorcist 👻be an extortionist💰 or contortionist?

How are you supposed to eat baklava with your balaclava on?🥷🏽

The honorable judge pounded his gavel 👩🏻‍⚖️ to quieten the grovelling culprit accused of flogging a boy with pebbles and gravel.

The refugees were subject to abject misery but no one objected. 

My son and I have completely opposite views on apposite measures necessary to ace an exam - I feel last minute revision is absolutely necessary but he opposes vehemently; relax before a test is his mantra! 🙄

Who'll flinch at the adorable finches🦜filching seeds from the silo?

Is it bemusing or amusing to indulge in one's musings? Don't forget to appreciate the muse that created an artist.

Can arboreal life survive in the boreal chill?

A gaunt man wielded a gauntlet🥊to ward off any offensive move as he strolled down the dark alleys.

The fractious journalists, though ignorant of fractions, published an impeccable report on the infractions at a local institution, paying no heed to the faction that opposed him bitterly. Yet, when his intrepid colleague went on to write on fracking, his articles on public views and opinions was considered hatchet jobs.

The acclaimed author was overwhelmed at the felicitations showered on him lavishly. A stellar array of writers felicitated him formally during a felicitation ceremony that took place in a ritzy resort whose felicitous view of the fog wrapped snowy peaks was not the only cornerstone of its popularity. Celebrities haunted it for its exotic platter, sumptuous ballrooms, sublime location offering seclusion for hobnobbing, and not to mention the piquant pecadillos that went unnoticed by the rest of the world.

In an edification program held in a fine brownstone edifice🏛️, a social activist expounded the importance of impounding smart devices from children if they flouted the rules of 'unplugged' hours laid by their parents.

A bomb💣 exploded, sending the passers-by scurrying helter-skelter for cover; amidst the pandemonium a decrepit four storied building imploded, spewing detritus and dirt, making it impossible for rescue workers to  succour the wounded.

'Can we explore the Gordon Glen please,' my son implored, his hand steepled. I couldn't turn his request down, could I? We packed our sneakers, strapped our bikes to our SUV, and braced up for a bumpy bicycle ride down the Glen imbued with redolence of summer.

Shenoy feinted fainting to give her swimming  lessons a wide berth.

Armed with apple corer she cored an apple🍎, popped the slices in her mouth along with a couple of pitted dates, unpacked the boned and skinned salmon fillets to marinate in yoghurt and sauce, and headed for the garden to weed and clean the flower bed.

If you found it funny, consider this:

They enjoined her to phrase an apt rejoinder for him as a means of well-deserved retribution.

I've ensured my child has been talked to about the birds and the bees, so he doesn't stumble into uncharted (often misused as unchartered) territories, dangerously ignorant.

A tippler teetered between his lust for alcohol and an urge to relinquish before giving in to his habit.

She stood there in her new pair of espadrilles 🥿🥿mesmerized by the art of espaliers 🎍🌿.

The bony yet bonny brunette whose humility knew no bounds was humiliated by her adversaries for no reason during the annual symposium at Seychelles.

  

It was God's gracious intervention that he agreed upon a suitable gratuity fund with his employer, ignoring the gratuitous advice of his cunning colleagues.

I'll always be grateful to the graceful lady who guided me during my apprenticeship.

A cowboy was gored by a charging bull🦬while he was struggling to goad his livestock   🐄🐂🐃🐐🐑across the farm - who knows what goaded the bull to this gory act!

He gloated about how he floated on the blue waters of the Caribbean during his vacation.

It's possible to achieve the impossible if you set your heart upon it but is it possible to go pale if you are impaled by a needle?

After the war the colonel recapitulated how he saved his men from  being decapitated when his battalion had to capitulate to the enemy forces.

Was it legal to decollate (archaic) somebody for her decolletage (decollete)? 

Watch out for decollate snails 🐌 in your garden!

The teachers overtly discussed the dilemmas the teenagers face in their meeting that was only an overture to a long debate.

Harry invested all his spare time to prepare for the investiture that he was invited to attend by the end of the year.

It was an incredible attempt to preclude the prejudiced politicians from including the alleged insurgents in the commission.

An effusive welcome and unrestrained hospitality  is all I received when I visited my friend. She rolled out a red carpet for me and we painted the town red together! This ineffable feeling of joy that I shared with my affable buddy will indelibly be etched in my heart ❤.

The bespectacled👓lady, known for her sartorial elegance, glided down the steps in an immaculate bespoke suit to address her esteemed guests. She conceded that she had a predilection for printed-silk couture inspite of the convenience of the contemporary trend  of ready-to-wear apparel, considering the ascendancy of malls that are a fount of such apparels. The 'be-s' are indeed troublesome: bemused, beloved, behead, besmirched, and so on.

If the 'be's are confusing, the 'de's can't be far behind. Compare dehydrate with debrief, desecrate or even degenerate to find the catch.

'Amazing,' I murmured while witnessing the shifting shapes of the murmuration.

My 🐕 slavered (slobbered) over the salver 🍽 and all the food had to be binned, he drives me batty at times!

I inherited my mum's asset of silver ashets. 🍽

And here's another one: it was a pure musical decadence to soak in the cadence of the prima donna at the fag end of a fruitful day!

Can a talk on nuances be complete without the sheer thought of a seer meditating in searing heat oblivious to sheep shearing going on in his vicinity?

They didn't show up as witnesses of the crime scene even when the police offered indemnity; they were scared of getting incriminated; impunity couldn't override their fear of the implication in the crime. But when accused of perjury there was anger, recrimination, and protests.

A school of thought within our university premises premised that the virus was transported to our atmosphere through a meteorite.

Then there are names. It's easy to figure out that Gladys (NSW's Premier) originates from gladiolus. JK Rowling's Lupin is quite well known of a character to bear resemblance to the beast. I even feel her character Sybill Trelawny sounds and acts alarmingly close to a sibyl. It's interesting to note that many such names can be used meaningfully everyday, in lower case of course, like: tom, hector, harry, peter, sally in sentences. 

Check this out:
Number of people affected by COVID-19 has ratcheted up globally since the nature  of it has been declared as 'pandemic'. Though the stringent social-distancing rules and sweeping restrictions crafted by political leaders appear to harry us, it is the only way to peter out the spectre of the deadly invisible enemy. Flouting the rules is not anymore a personal hazard; it can lead to a precarious condition that can spread across a community and hence the leaders have been forced to met out harsh penalties if the norms are compromised.

Fray as noun and verb has several different meanings, but 'defray' is in no way opposite to any of them. I picked it up from The Speckled Band - one of Holmes's mysteries. However, the frayed Sorting Hat crafted by JK Rowling does come to my mind with the mention of 'fray'. And then again my patience often frays while haggling over trivial costs incurred by small tasks in big projects. 

They sound similar, no doubt, but verve is not a verb and nonce isn't always a noun. 

Here's an example of nonce as adjective gleaned from the web:

Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem "Jabberwocky" is chock-full of nonce words, but a few of his coinages, such as "chortle" and "galumph," have become established in our language.

It's often used in a phrase like this:

The outbreak of COVID-19 has wreaked havoc and the leaders all over the world are rolling out generous aids to save the day for the nonce.

As noun it refers to a person convicted of inexpiable crime for which he ought to be behind the bars perpetually. 

A more contemporary use is quoted here:

A nonce is a random or semi-random number that is generated for a specific use, typically related to cryptographic communication or information technology. The term itself stands for “number used once” or “number once” and is most commonly referred to specifically as a cryptographic nonce.

These days phone number is asked along with a panoply of other information to confirm one's identity and name. But there was a time when the name came first and people knew each other in the community like they were part of an extended family. There were nicknames, names called out of affection, and names to depict passion or even appearance; liked it or not, everybody accepted the epithet and moniker attributed to them. Knowing Jeffrey Archer, it's anybody's guess how he might use it in his writing. Yes, a lesser-used 'appellation' has been brought up by the eminent author in the vengeful saga of Kane and Abel:

'Abel flushed to hear aloud the appellation he had whispered so often to his shaving mirror during the past few months.'

The others that are worth remembering are bynames, sobriquet (say saub-ri-kay), an honorific. It's prudent to add 'namesake' to the list of related words!

I can't think of anything better than inflections to end this post with. Inflections offer diversity in a language and it can be leveraged to enrich a write-up.

You may have a remedy to a problem or you can be busy remedying a situation.

You may live in a lavish villa or you can indulge in lavishing your wealth on a villa!

You may act like an obstinate imbecile deliberately or you can deliberate over your plan to jump ship to a new workplace.

Faux-meat, space tourism, and space mining are ascendant industries, though their ascendancy in modern times isn't incontrovertible. 

Exalted at your exalted level of language? Remember not to exult at/ over other's incapability; feel exultant by assisting them!

It's a great idea to look for these wonderful inflections and add more to your vocabulary with little extra effort.

Want to explore more? Exposition, disposition, imposition, preposition, and predisposition could do for some good research! 

Though this post looks like a ham-handed effort to boost one's vocab, it's an attempt to use alliteration and inflections to highlight some of my favourite nuances.