Hanging Words

Hanging Words Hanging Words Hanging Words By Maeve Maddox The Latin verb pendere, â€Å"to hang,† has fostered numerous words that have something to do with the act of hanging. In English, many â€Å"hanging† words have come and gone, but plenty remain in contemporary usage. The most immediately recognizable are pendant, pendent, pendulous, pendulum, pend, and pending. pendant The noun pendant refers to a loosely hanging piece of jewelry worn on a chain around the neck. A pendant can also be the hanging part of an earring. â€Å"Pendant lamps† are designed to hang from the ceiling. An obsolete meaning of pendantin the plural-is testicles: They gird themselves with a piece of raw leather, and fasten a square piece like the back of a glove, to it, which almost hangs so low as their pendants. (1634 example from the OED, spelling modernized) pendent The adjective pendent means hanging or suspended. Something that is hanging is said to be pendent. For example, on old documents like the Magna Carta, a seal is pendent from the parchment. In grammar, an incomplete grammatical structure, such as a dangling participle, is said to be pendent. pendulous Like pendent, the adjective pendulous means â€Å"hanging,† but with the added connotation of drooping or sagging. The word is often applied to jowls; for example, bloodhounds and basset hounds have pendulous jowls. pendulum The pendulum of a clock is a rod with a weight at one end, used to regulate and control the movements of the clock mechanism. It hangs and swings back and forth. pend/pending The verb pend is probably not used as often as its present participle form pending. â€Å"To pend† means â€Å"to await conclusion or resolution.† That’s to say that a matter is hanging in uncertainty. As an adjective, pending is used to mean â€Å"awaiting decision.† As a preposition, pending means â€Å"while awaiting, during, or until,† as in, â€Å"Court of Appeal stays appeal proceedings pending outcome of central amendment applications to the EPO.† In the Roman economy, money was weighed in a scale that had hanging parts. I suppose that explains the fact that the Latin verb pendere, â€Å"to hang,† had the related meaning â€Å"to weigh.† For this reason, some English â€Å"hanging words† have a figurative sense of weighing something, for example, the English word compendium. A compendium is â€Å"an abridgement or condensation of a larger work or treatise, giving the sense and substance, within smaller compass.† Compendium is from the Latin verb compendere, â€Å"to weigh together.† A compendium, in both Latin and in English, is the abridgement of a longer work in which the â€Å"heavier† part has been kept and the â€Å"lighter† part dispensed with. Dispense is another hanging word, from Latin pensare, â€Å"to weigh out.†) The association of weighing with money transactions can also be seen in some of these words. Without further comment, I’ll leave you with a few more words and let you discern the â€Å"hanging† connection in them. append appendage appendix depend dependent dependable dependence expend expenditure impend independent perpendicular suspend suspense suspender Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Idioms About Legs, Feet, and ToesHow to Punctuate with â€Å"However†Show, Don't Tell

Russia Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Russia - Term Paper Example The negative effects of World War 1 were responsible for sparking Russian Revolution in 1917 since the government was experiencing a shortage in food reserves, ammunition, factories and low morale among the soldiers. Corrupt Czarist government and massive treason among the top military ranks created a crisis that paralyzed the normal national life. The peasants and workers in factories experienced poverty and denounced the war and killed the rich peasants in order to seize control of productive agricultural land (Wade 5). Russia was predominantly an agricultural economy and the clergy, nobility and royal families owned much of the agricultural land and controlled much of the agricultural production. The Czarist government did little to improve the economic system and a majority of the peasants in the villages suffered from diseases and extreme poverty. The economic system had created an imbalance in the social structure thus hindering education, public health and medical relief thus occasioning discontent among the masses that were addicted to vodka due to misery and poverty (Wade 6). Workers strikes were considered as the only option to the ruthless and repressive Czarist government in dealing with protesting workers and Russian soldiers fired at the protestors. Subsequently, the heavy losses suffered during the World War 1 undermine the strength and morale of Russian soldiers and many of them deserted their battle fronts to join the factory workers and peasants in the ongoing revolution (Wade 7). Other attributable causes of the Revolution include the increase in politicized urban workforce especially ironworks and factories that associated themselves with industrial society. Although Czarist government had tried to entrench socialist trade unions, such unions were remained neutral during workers protests. The expanding population in Russian cities caused social problems like poor housing, bad wages and disregard for employment rights. The censuring of books, newspapers and unwarranted police swoops on dissenting citizens created mass discontent among the middle class and ultimately led to the demand of freedom of expression (D’Agostino 27). Why Bolsheviks prevailed in Civil War and control of Russia By the end of February 1917, two organisations that include Provisional Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Provisional Committee of the Duma had emerged. The first one represented the social revolutionaries, factory workers, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The Czarist ministers were held under house arrest, and Czar Nicholas II abdicated on at the beginning of March. A provisional coalition government was entrenched and was soon recognized by the allied powers as the legitimate successor of Czarist government (D’Agostino 28). However, a civil war broke in June 1918 with the Whites including the liberals, monarchists and socialists rebelling against the Reds who included the Bolshevik regime. Bolshevik regime was worried that Whites would eventually free Czar and the royal family members thus ultimately leading to restoration of the previous monarchy. However, Czar and his immediate family members were shot dead in July 1918 thus demoralising the efforts of the Whites. Bolsheviks considered themselves as revolutionary working class that was determined at addressing the needs of the peasants and