The Words of the Week - Apr. 28

‘Ethics’

Ethics had a busy week, following a number of stories recently which some have found led them to ask if the Supreme Court should adopt a formal code of these.

Supreme Court draws fire for ethics inaction. The court doubled down on its decision not to adopt a formal code of conduct, prompting a swift response from ethics experts.
— NBC News, 26 Apr. 2023

Ethics in this case can be defined as “the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group.” The word has a variety of related meanings, including “a theory or system of moral values” and “the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.” A similar word, one that is also often used in the plural, is morals; while the two words are sometimes used interchangeably, there are some distinctions you may wish to observe.

Morals often is used in reference to a person’s particular set or values. It would not be wrong to say “It goes against my ethics to steal these cookies,” but it would be more idiomatic to say “it goes against my morals to steal these cookies.” When referring to the way a group might deal with a particular question of rightness it is more common to use ethics, as in “the class stayed late in order to continue debate the ethics of cheating on the test.”

‘Burner account’

Burner account also spiked in lookups, after it appeared that the new owner of Twitter may have been using one of these.

Elon Musk may have accidentally revealed a strange, secret ‘burner’ Twitter account
— (headline) The Telegraph (London), 26 Apr. 2023

A burner account is “an often temporary social media account that is created for the purpose of remaining anonymous.” It is closely related to the burner phone, which is “a prepaid cell phone that is not bound to a contract with a carrier and is usually intended to be disposed of after use.” The use of burner phone (and its shortened form, burner) was greatly popularized by the television show The Wire, which ran on HBO from 2002 to 2008 (the show is a police procedural set in Baltimore). However, both burner account and burner phone were in use before appearing on The Wire: burner phone appears in Kingpin Skinny Pimp’s 1996 song One Life 2 Live (“Talkin’ on the burner phone, bumpin’ hutch”), and burner account shows up in a Google Groups message in 2001, in which a person is reported to be “offline at the moment ... so he won't be receiving any mails sent to his burner account.”

‘Activist’

Activist appeared in scores of obituaries, following the death of Harry Belafonte.

Harry Belafonte, the “King of Calypso” who became one of America's endearing and enduring civil rights activists into his 10th decade, has died. He was 96.
— Maria Puente, USA Today, 25 Apr. 2023

An activist is “one who advocates or practices activism” or “a person who uses or supports strong actions (such as public protests) in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.” Activism is defined as “a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.” Both words came into English in the beginning of the 20th century.

‘Fire’

Fire was in numerous news stories last week, after a popular host of a television show was informed he was no longer employed.

Tucker Carlson breaks his silence without addressing why Fox News fired him
— (headline) CNBC, 26 Apr. 2023

Fire is a word with great semantic reach; it has been with us since Old English (fȳr), and over the centuries has had dozens and dozens of meanings. The one most relevant here is “to dismiss from a position.” This sense of fire appears to have originated as an Americanism, and began to be used in the 1870s. In early use it often was seen as fired out of a job.

The recent tornado damaged the home of Secretary Thompson $2500, and if Old Probs can’t respect government dignitaries any more than that, he’ll get fired out of a job.
— North American (Philadelphia, PA), 3 Dec. 1879

Words Worth Knowing: ‘Cachinnate’

Our word worth knowing this week is cachinnate, defined as “to laugh loudly or immoderately.” We all have that one friend, who may in all other respects be a perfectly nice person, who just laughs a bit louder than they need to.

Jim and I had been skating one day, when by some unaccountable accident, Jim lost his footing and measured his length on the ice. I cachinnated uproariously. “What are you laughing at you skunk? I simply fell by the upsetting of the law of gravity.” “Why, that’s the very reason I laughed.” Jim didn’t see the point.
— Grantham (England) Journal, 29 Aug. 1863