The Words of the Week - Nov. 4

Dictionary lookups from social media, publishing, and politics

elephant or mastodon tusks protruding from a wall

’Kneecap’

Kneecap spiked in lookups following the arrest of a man who had assaulted Nancy Pelosi’s husband; the assailant stated that he also planned to break Nancy Pelosi’s kneecaps with a hammer.

Prosecutors say David DePape intended to kidnap, ‘kneecap’ Nancy Pelosi
— (headline) Los Angeles Times, 1 Nov. 2022

When employed as a verb kneecap means “to shoot or otherwise maim or cripple the knee of (someone).” It is often used figuratively, with the meaning "severely hindered, by another person, or by some outside factor" (as in ‘they found themselves kneecapped by debt'). As a noun the word has the meaning “a thick flat triangular movable bone that forms the anterior point of the knee and protects the front of the joint.” We are not sure how long people have been intentionally damaging other people’s kneecaps, but our evidence shows that the word has been used in this manner since 1974.

2 Protestants ‘Kneecapped’ By Extremists … A suspected punishment squad shot two Protestant men in the kneecaps on a Belfast street Thursday, apparently on orders of a kangaroo court, police said.
— The Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT), 15 Nov. 1974

’Merger’

Merger was in the news last week, after a federal judge blocked a proposed one of these between two large publishing houses.

A US court has blocked a $2.2bn (£1.9bn) merger between the world's largest book publisher Penguin Random House and its rival Simon & Schuster.
— Annabelle Liang, BBC, 1 Nov. 2022

Merger has a large number of meanings; the one most applicable in this setting is “absorption by one corporation of another; also, any of various methods of combining two or more organizations (as business concerns).”

’Monopoly,’ ‘Oligopsony,’ & ‘Monopsony’

The coverage of the proposed merger brought to light a number of specialized business words, some of which are more well known than others.

The trial was not about whether the deal would create a monopoly, but about whether it would lead to a monopsony, or too much control over suppliers — in this case, top-selling writers.
— Elizabeth A. Harris & Alexandra Alter, The New York Times, 1 Nov. 2022

Here are some words and definitions that may be relevant to this type of situation:

A monopoly is complete control of the entire supply of goods or of a service in a certain area or market

A monopsony is a market situation that is limited to one buyer.

An oligopsony is a market situation in which each of a few buyers exerts a disproportionate influence on the market.

’Advertiser’

The recent acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk has caused a degree of turmoil at that social media site. Much of the coverage of this affair has focussed on the possible actions taken by advertisers.

Elon Musk promised advertisers he would keep Twitter from turning into a "free-for-all hellscape." This week, advertisers are beginning to demand details on how he plans to uphold the commitment.
— Sheila Dang, Reuters, 2 Nov. 2022

An advertiser is, unsurprisingly, one who advertises; the word makes use of such senses of the verb advertise as “to call public attention to, especially by emphasizing desirable qualities so as to arouse a desire to buy or patronize” or “to announce publicly especially by a printed notice or a broadcast.” When advertise first came into English use it was more often used in the sense of “to make known to (someone); to give notice to.” Before advertiser was used to mean “one who promotes or advertises something” it had the meaning of “one who warns or informs of something.”

The Earle of Arrane was in Iedburgh, to whom he opened such news as he had received, and willed them to be of good comfort; for, said he, the advertiser hath never deceived me: It is the same Gentleman that first gave us knowledge of the slaughter of Henry King of France.
— John Knox, The historie of the reformation of the Church of Scotland, 1644

’Mastodon’

Another word that received far more attention than usual, as a result of the ongoing turmoil at Twitter, was mastodon, which happens to be the name of another social media platform.

Decentralized social network Mastodon grows to 655K users in wake of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover
— (headline) TechCrunch, 3 Nov. 2022

Mastodon has a extremely figurative meaning (“one that is unusually large”) and an extremely literal one (“any of various extinct mammals (genus Mammut synonym Mastodon) of the elephant family existing from the Miocene through the Pleistocene that are distinguished from the related mammoths chiefly by molar teeth with cone-shaped cusps”). The word came to English from New Latin, but may be traced further back to the Greek mastós (meaning “breast, nipple”) and the French -odonte. It is thought that the animal is so named because of the nipple-like cusps on the crowns of the molar teeth.

Words Worth Knowing: ‘Outrecuidance’

Our word worth knowing this week is outrecuidance, defined as “extreme self-conceit,” because sometimes you need to make reference to a kind of individual who is more conceited than the average conceited person.