verbicide doré
Always wanted to know what “jeuness dorée” originally meant? Et voilà :
“French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre and his allies, the Jacobins, gained many enemies for their role in the Reign of Terror. One of their fiercest opponents was Louis Freron, a former Jacobin who played a key role in overthrowing their government. On July 27, 1794, counter-revolutionaries toppled the Jacobin regime and had Robespierre arrested and executed. In the midst of the chaos that followed, Louis Freron organized gangs of fashionably dressed young toughs to terrorize the remaining Jacobins. French speakers called those stylish young thugs the “jeunesse dorée,” literally the “gilded youth.” By the time the term “jeunesse dorée” was adopted into English in the 1830s, it had lost its association with violent street gangs and simply referred to any wealthy young socialites.”
daily linguistic entertainment per e-mail.
here’s another one:
“”Verbicide” describes the metaphorical “killing” of a word by the distortion or destruction of its meaning (and these murderous tendencies are not limited to verbs—one can commit verbicide upon any part of speech). It can be applied to wordplay or punning, or to language distortions that are intentionally deceptive or euphemistic. It has also developed a second sense referring to the person who creates such distortions.”
Still collecting all these daily snips in my mailbox to get a grip on the mind of the cunning, verbicidal jeune personne dorée who writes and distributes them.