Building a Better Vocabulary

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PDUNHWDW%LOOLQJVJDWHLQ/RQGRQZKHUHWKHIHPDOH¿VKPRQJHUV


spewed forth harsh but creative profanity.

z Another toponym with an interesting history is tuxedo. This
word originally came from a Native American Delaware word
meaning “wolf.”
ż The word was anglicized and given to the name of Tuxedo
village in southeastern New York. Tuxedo Park, an area on
Tuxedo Lake and near the village of Tuxedo, developed into a
fashionable resort in the 1880s.

ż By the turn of the century, a few of the young men in the area
became disenchanted with the current style of formal dress that
was in fashion and started a new trend: wearing dress jackets
without tails. Thus, the tuxedo was born.

z It’s interesting to note that you could eat an entire meal consisting
solely of culinary toponyms. For the main meal, you’d have your
choice of frankfurters or hamburgers (Frankfurt and Hamburg,
Germany). For condiments, you could choose Worcestershire sauce
(Worcestershire, England) or Dijon mustard (Dijon, France). And
for a side dish, you might have Boston baked beans. You could
wash the meal down with any number of beverage toponyms,
such as Bordeaux wine, a Manhattan, a Long Island Iced Tea, or a
Singapore Sling.

Acronym (noun)


A word or abbreviation formed from the initial letters of each of the
successive or major parts of a compound term.

z Acronyms are created by taking the initial letters of a set of words
and combining them into a single word or phrase. Acro comes
from the Greek word DNURV, which can mean “topmost or highest”
but can also refer to the “tip” of something. You can think of an
acronym as consisting of the “tips” of several words.
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