Word of the Week 03/29/20: Bathos

From Merriam-Webster:

1a. the sudden appearance of the commonplace in otherwise elevated matter or style
1b. anticlimax
2. exceptional commonplaceness
3. insincere or overdone pathos

The English use of the word bathos allegedly originates with the satirical essay "ΠΕΡΙ ΒΑΘΟΥΣ / or Of the Art of Sinking in Poetry / Written in the Year 1727" (first published March, 1728), by "Martinus Scriblerus," a fictional literary hack created by Alexander Pope, John Arbuthnot, Jonathan Swift, and other members of the Scriblerus Club; authorship of the essay is usually ascribed to Pope. The Greek title (Perì báthous, "Concerning depth") echoes the title of the classical treatise "On the Sublime" (Perì hýpsous, literally, "Concerning height"), dated to the 1st century A.D. and formerly attributed to the 3rd century rhetorician Cassius Longinus. In Pope's essay, bathos—which, in the inverted perspective of the hack author, is a favorable quality—is used broadly to characterize literary passages deemed coarse or pedestrian for a genre such as epic poetry. The idea that bathos involves a shift from elevated to low is never stated explicitly—rather, a genre such as epic is by its nature elevated and the poetic execution (ironically praised by Scriblerus) is of low quality.

From LiteraryDevices.net:

Bathos is a literary term derived from a Greek word meaning “depth.” Bathos is the act of a writer or a poet falling into inconsequential and absurd metaphors, descriptions, or ideas in an effort to be increasingly emotional or passionate.

The term was used by Alexander Pope to explain the blunders committed inadvertently by unskilled writers or poets. However, later on, comic writers used it intentionally to create humorous effects. The most commonly used bathos involves a sequence of items that descend from worthiness to silliness.

From LiteraryDevices.com:

Alexander Pope created the term bathos in 1727 originally to criticize bad novelists and poets. The word bathos comes from the Greek word for “depth,” and Pope used this meaning both ironically and to imply a sense of the author “sinking” by using such ridiculous lines. The definition of bathos that he gave then was of attempts at appealing to the reader’s or audience’s emotions (i.e., pathos), but failing at creating a sense of the sublime to such an extent that the attempt becomes amusing. Bathos also has a sense of anticlimax because the reader expects a certain tone to continue—especially a lofty or grandiose tone—which quickly is replaced with a vulgar or common tone. 

ed note: pronounced Bay-thahss

Word of the Week 03/22/20: Bastion

From Dictionary.com:

1. Fortification. a projecting portion of a rampart or fortification that forms an irregular pentagon attached at the base to the main work.
2. a fortified place.
3. anything seen as preserving or protecting some quality, condition, etc
4. a place or system in which something (such as an old-fashioned idea) continues to survive

From Collins Dictionary:

If a system or organization is described as a bastion of a particular way of life, it is seen as being important and effective in defending that way of life. Bastion can be used both when you think that this way of life should be ended and when you think it should be defended.

From Merriam-Webster:

Bastion is constructed of etymological building blocks that are very similar to those of "bastille" (a word now used as a general term for a prison, but best known as the name of the Parisian fortress-turned-prison stormed by an angry mob at the start of the French Revolution). The history of "bastion" can be traced through Middle French to the Italian bastione, from bastia "small quadrangular fortress" (from an Upper Italian counterpart to Tuscan bastita, from feminine past participle of bastire "to build," probably borrowed from Old Occitan bastir "to weave, build," "Bastir" and "bastire" are themselves of Germanic origin and akin to the Old High German word besten, meaning "to patch."

Word of the Week 03/15/20: Ersatz

From Merriam-Webster:

An artificial and inferior substitute or imitation.

Ersatz can be traced back in English to 1875, but it really came into prominence during World War I. Borrowed from German, where ersatz is a noun meaning "substitute," the word was frequently applied as an adjective in English to items like coffee (from acorns) and flour (from potatoes) - ersatz products resulting from the privations of war. By the time World War II came around, bringing with it a resurgence of the word along with more substitute products, ersatz was wholly entrenched in the language. Today, ersatz can be applied to almost anything that seems like an artificial imitation.

From Cambridge Dictionary:

Used instead of something else, usually because the other thing is too expensive or rare.

Word of the Week 03/08/20: Salient

From Merriam-Webster:

1: moving by leaps or springs
2: jetting upward
3a: projecting beyond a line, surface, or level
  b: standing out conspicuously

Salient applies to something of significance that merits the attention given it.

Salient first popped up in English in the mid-17th century, and in its earliest English uses meant "moving by leaps or springs" (as in "a salient cheetah") or "spouting forth" (as in "a salient fountain"). Those senses aren't too much of a jump from the word's parent, the Latin verb salire, which means "to leap." Salire has leaped into many English words; it's also an ancestor of somersault and sally, as well as Salientia, the name for an order of amphibians that includes frogs, toads, and other notable jumpers. Today, salient is usually used to describe things that are physically prominent (such as a salient nose) or that stand out figuratively (such as the salient features of a painting).

From Macmillan Dictionary:

A salient fact, issue, or feature is one that is especially noticeable or relevant.

ed note: pronounced SAIL-ee-uhnt, though related to the verb sally as in 'sally forth'

Word of the Week 03/01/20: Specious

From Dictionary.com:

1. apparently good or right though lacking real merit; superficially pleasing or plausible
2. pleasing to the eye but deceptive

From Wiktionary:

1. Seemingly well-reasoned, plausible or true, but actually fallacious.
2. Employing fallacious but deceptively plausible arguments; deceitful.
3. Having an attractive appearance intended to generate a favorable response; deceptively attractive.
4. (obsolete) Beautiful, pleasing to look at.

From Merriam-Webster:

Specious traces to the Latin word speciosus, meaning "beautiful" or "plausible," and Middle English speakers used it to mean "visually pleasing." But by the 17th century, specious had begun to suggest an attractiveness that was superficial or deceptive, and, subsequently, the word's neutral "pleasing" sense faded into obsolescence.