MYRIAD, CHILIAD, OLYMPIAD
dst...@ducvax.auburn.edu
MYRIAD, from the Greek /myrias/, meaning exactly or around ten thousand.
CHILIAD, from the Greek /khilios/, meaning exactly or around one thousand.
They both were originally nouns, in the same sense that OLYMPIAD is a noun
referring to an interval of four years, or the number of years between
Olympic festivals. I have yet to see CHILIAD used as an adjective, but
certainly phrases such as MYRIAD trees, and OLYMPIAD events have been
written.
Greg Franklin
> Since dictionaries seem to be passe',
Holy cow, this word is actually in my Merkin Heritage Dictionary, even
though I've never seen anyone use it anywhere in text or print! (It must
be rare for a nonscientific word to achieve this honor.)
Come to think of it, chili is so ingrained in U.S. culture now that
"chiliad" would bring to my mind a "chili Olympiad," a "who cooks the
meanest chili in the West" kind of competition. Here the "-ad" of
chiliad is a suffix defining some sort of competition.
Other similar suffixes: thon (marathon, walk-a-thon, telethon)
-o-rama (bowl-o-rama)
Any others?
--
Greg Franklin "Death is everywhere,
f677...@ccit.arizona.edu there are fries on the windscreen."
Ethan Bradford
much because I saw it evolve in my own lifetime (starting with the
original, "Watergate", which was named after the building with the
Democratic headqauarters which were broken into by Nixon's
"plumbers").
Is this international or only US usage?
--
-- Ethan (eth...@u.washington.edu)
James Hall
>Other similar suffixes: thon (marathon, walk-a-thon, telethon)
> -o-rama (bowl-o-rama)
>Any others?
>--
>Greg Franklin "Death is everywhere,
>f677...@ccit.arizona.edu there are fries on the windscreen."
There's always "holic" (alcoholic, workaholic, chocoholic, frolicholic).
"When people start putting pressure on me, even when I agree with them,
I get offended." - Don Bellisario
------------
R.J. Hall rjh...@cie.uoregon.edu
"You'll live to regret it if I have you shot." - Major Neuheim
"Thank you, God! Thank you so bleeding much!" - Basil Fawlty
"REMEMBER, the Human Body is a wonderful thing, and it deserves
a decent-sized suitcase." - Dr. Fegg
"Who needs morality? We have a lawyer! How convenient!" - Church Lady
(: Expression is copyrighted, but ideas are as free as the air *cough*choke* :)
"I am not a number! I am enumerated!" - The Precisioner
Charles Geyer
f677...@violet.ccit.arizona.edu (Greg Franklin) writes:
> Other similar suffixes: thon (marathon, walk-a-thon, telethon)
> -o-rama (bowl-o-rama)
> Any others?
In article <1992Mar29....@nntp.uoregon.edu> rjh...@cie.uoregon.edu
(James Hall) replies:
> There's always "holic" (alcoholic, workaholic, chocoholic, frolicholic).
And lots more
-itis meaning something like an enthusiasm (baseballitis)
-omat and -omatic
-mania and -phobia outside of psychiatry (wrestlemania)
-on outside of particle physics (and even inside, e. g., gluon)
are just a few that come to mind.
--
Charles Geyer
School of Statistics
University of Minnesota
cha...@umnstat.stat.umn.edu
Stan Brown
What twists my shorts in a know is the perfectly good ones that are
given gratuitous hyphens that make them wrong. You know the sort of
thing:
sing-a-long and lay-a-way: In each case, it's a phrasal verb ("To
sing along [with someone]" and "to lay [something] away") made into a
noun and hyphened: sing-along and lay-away. But whence those extra
hyphens? Next we'll be seeing "rip-o-ff"!
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA br...@ncoast.org
"That reminds me of a story. [pause] Thank you; I enjoyed being
reminded of that story."
Mark Brader
> much because I saw it evolve in my own lifetime (starting with the
Well, it's been used at least once in Canada; in fact that was the
first time I saw it used after the original Watergate affair. You
first have to know that the provincially-owned electric utility in
Ontario is called Ontario Hydro. This name arises because it used
to be true that most or all of the electricity that they generated
came from hydroelectric plants... in particular, at Niagara Falls.
People in Ontario actually call electricity "hydro" at times, thus
confusing visitors rather nicely. (The electric utility in Quebec
is similarly called Hydro-Quebec; I don't know whether the "hydro"
for "electricity" usage occurs in their English, or their French.)
(Please change the Subject again, if you follow up about "hydro".)
Anyway, in the mid 1970s Ontario Hydro's new headquarters building
went up in downtown Toronto, and there was some sort of scandal in
connection with the financing. I've happily forgotten the details
--except for the memorable name pinned on the affair by the press.
You guessed it. Hydrogate.
--
Mark Brader "Pleasant dreams!"
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto "I'll dream of Canada."
utzoo!sq!msb, m...@sq.com -- THE SUSPECT
This article is in the public domain.
David Casseres
> > Other similar suffixes: thon (marathon, walk-a-thon, telethon)
> [James Hall responds]
> > There's always "holic" (alcoholic, workaholic, chocoholic, frolicholic).
[Charles Geyer adds]
> -itis meaning something like an enthusiasm (baseballitis)
> -omat and -omatic
> -mania and -phobia outside of psychiatry (wrestlemania)
> -on outside of particle physics (and even inside, e. g., gluon)
I like "rama," and its siblings "orama" and "arama." I guess it begins with
panorama and maybe diorama -- from there we move on to Scout-o-rama,
truck-o-rama, and in Spanish, my all-time favorite: Hogarama, the name of a
furniture store I once spotted in Costa Rica. Hogar means home, so the
translation is "Home-a-rama." But to the Gringo eye and ear, Hogarama has a
certain something that can never be translated.
--
David Casseres
Exclaimer: Wow!