Questions asked

WHETHER they are being addressed to me or not, I prick up my ears when people ask questions about language matters. Both kinds are assembled today.

Into or in to

Reader One asked: When we set off to work in the morning, do we go into work, or in to work? The question doesn’t arise in talking, but which is correct when written? Both, I think, because I see a slight difference. I would ‘‘go into work on foot’’ rather than biking, but ‘‘not go in

to work while I’m infectious’’. One concerns the physical journey, the other mind, motive, purpose.

Steeple and spire

One also asked about the difference between a steeple and a spire. A spire is a pointed thing mounted on top of a tower or

steeple. A spire could topple over although its steeple still stood firm. But the spire, being on top, is what you see, and use as a landmark. The pointedness is fundamental, because a flame used to be called a spire.

How do I know?

I looked up (besides OED and other dictionaries) the glossary to the Penguin history of buildings in English counties, that majestic series by Nikolaus Pevsner. A spire mounted well within its tower is a needle. I suppose one which rises from ground level is an obelisk, or is that another needle, like

Cleopatra’s Needle on the Thames Embankment?

Billion

How many is one billion?

Reader Two lamented that United States usage has turned the older or United Kingdom sense of a million million (12 noughts) into a paltry thousand million (only 9 noughts). How did this happen? Think of the possible confusion in world trade.

Hissy fit

This reader dislikes hissy fit, also US coinage, but slang this time. OED relates the phrase to

hysterics, which it sounds like, as a joke or pun; maybe to dismiss or tame the dangerous seizure.

Umbrage

Three’s exact words spoke of ‘‘taking umbrage at the uninvited influence of US usage’’. Maybe we do ‘‘invite’’, though, when we hear or see some new usage and try it out for ourselves. Words don’t cost us. We relish novelty. Before we know it, the wordstock absorbs it. Anyhow, I do like umbrage. It meant shade or shadow (umbra,

ombre, ombra), then as transferred to ourselves experiencing it, ‘‘displeasure, offence, resentment’’. Something ‘‘casts a shadow’’ over our spirits.

Buoy, buoyant, buoyancy

Or our buoyancy, the bounce in one’s bungy. Reader Four asked: Why this odd spelling,

buoy? OED doesn’t really say, only that it comes from continental words for ‘‘fetter’’. A buoy is fettered to its spot.

Quidnunc

What is a quidnunc? asked a question on Sporcle. The word means ‘‘what now?’’ in Latin. In English it means, or meant ‘‘a nosy person, eager to hear the latest news or gossip’’. A dismissive expression. Less vivid than stickybeak, which conveys both the collecting and the resultant tattletaling.

Questions

Questions as such get the mind started on a train of thought or inquiry. Mind you, it’s easier to ask a question than to give a good answer. And journalists (‘‘journos’’) must arouse interest somehow. Wordsites like the BBC’s routinely begin with a question: recent instances include <Why should endangered languages be saved?> and <Are lost languages coming back?>.