This is from "Word A Day" email for today. I hope you find it interesting. Check out the crazy beards on the link by clicking on the title of this post.
"Over the years we have featured weeks of words about words, we have had
words about birds, and now it's time for, well, words about beards.
Are bearded people irritating? While some find a beard on a man attractive,
it repels others. Like barbed wire, literally speaking. The words barb,
barber, rebarbative, and beard are derived from the same root: Latin barba
(beard). And though many bards have beards, there is no connection between
the two words.
Though most men have only a fleeting interest in pogonotrophy (growing of a
beard, from Greek pogon, beard + -trophy, nourishment or growth), growing
it now, shaving it when the fancy strikes, for some, beards are a serious
business. There's even a biannual championship event for the bearded:
http://worldbeardchampionships.com/
This week we'll see five words having to do with facial hair. They are pure
beard words as the week starts out, and like beards growing slender at the
bottom, as the week ends the connection becomes slender too.
sideburns (SYDE-burnz) plural noun
Hair grown on the sides of a man's face, when worn with an unbearded chin.
[After Ambrose Everett Burnside (1824-1881), who served as a general in the
Union Army in the American Civil War, and who earned more recognition for his
side whiskers than for his military career. Eventually the term burnsides
morphed into sideburns as such a facial pattern was on the sides of a face.]
Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=sideburns
-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
"Queensland paramedics claim they have been threatened with the sack
unless they shave off their beards, moustaches and sideburns."
Darrell Giles; Paramedics' Facial Hair
Threat; The Sunday Mail
If you want to subscribe (free) to Word a Day) here is the address
http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscriber.html
Be sure you click on the beards link:)
4 comments:
Well! Now I know where the name "Barbasol" came from. Thanks for the info, Chancy!
Beards I can do without in my men -- and for myself, too, for that matter.
Interesting info about those words.
I agree joared. I have been receiving "Word A Day" email for sometime now and the daily info about various words is interesting and entertaining.
That was very interesting Chancy. My husband never had a beard...but had a mustache a couple of times when he was very young. Thanks for the info...
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