The Words of the Week - Mar. 31

‘Verify’

The past participle of the verb verify (which is verified) has been seen a considerable amount lately, as the owner of Twitter recently announced that soon a portion of that site will only display content from accounts that are verified.

Elon Musk Says Only Verified Twitter Accounts Will Appear in For You Timeline Starting in April
— (headline) Variety, 27 Mar. 2023

It should be noted that Musk and Twitter appear to be using verified in a sense that we do not yet enter, which is “having committed to pay a monthly fee” (it’s roughly equivalent to the word subscribed). The senses that we enter for verified (as an adjective) are “authenticated by affidavit” and “substantiated by competent proof.” We define verify (as a verb) as “to establish the truth, accuracy, or reality of” or “to confirm or substantiate in law by oath.” If you need a word that means “having the appearance of truth” you should use verisimilar.

‘Rule against Perpetuities’

It’s a day that ends with a Y, which means that, as expected, the legal phrase Rule against Perpetuities is once again spiking in lookups. Actually, we just made that up; not the part about Rule against Perpetuities spiking in lookups (that is happening), but the part about this being a regular occurrence (it has never happened before). The phrase has been in the news as a result of legal wrangling between Disney and political appointees of the governor of Florida.

Basically, the board loses “the majority of its ability to do anything beyond maintain the roads and maintain basic infrastructure,” as board member Ron Peri put it, according to local news outlet Click Orlando. And, in an extra detail that the internet is devouring, the term of the agreement was set using the “Rule Against Perpetuities”—which states that a policy will continue until after a certain person dies.
— Emily Olson, NPR, 30 Mar. 2023

We define Rule against Perpetuities as “a rule at common law that makes void any estate so limited that it will not necessarily take effect or vest within a life or lives in being at the time of the creation of the estate and 21 years thereafter with the addition of the period of gestation in the case of a person entitled to the estate being conceived but unborn.” In this case, the Rule Against Perpetuities appears to provide Disney with final say in proposed changes to its property so long as any of King Charles III's currently living descendants (the youngest of whom is a year old) are alive. The phrase is often written with Rule and Perpetuities both capitalized.

Perpetuity is often found in a non-legal sense, in which case it most often carries the meaning of “infinite time.” However, perpetuity also has a specific legal sense: it can refer, for example, to an arrangement in a will rendering land forever incapable of being surrendered or transferred (or at least, for a period longer than is set by rules against such arrangements) or to an annuity that is payable forever.

‘Geomagnetic’

A geomagnetic storm caused spikes in lookups for this atmospheric disturbance.

The geomagnetic storm peaked as a severe G4 on the 5-grade scale used by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to assess the severity of space weather events. The storm's unexpected ferocity not only made auroras visible as far south as New Mexico in the U.S., but it also forced spaceflight company Rocket Lab to delay a launch by 90 minutes.
— Daisy Dobrijevic, Space.com, 24 Mar. 2023

A geomagnetic storm (also known as a magnetic storm) is “a marked temporary disturbance of the earth's magnetic field held to be related to sunspots.” Geomagnetic on its own means “of or relating to terrestrial magnetism.”

‘Espionage’

Espionage was also in the news, after Russia arrested a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and accused him of spying.

Russia's FSB security service said earlier on Thursday it had opened a criminal case against U.S. national Evan Gershkovich on suspicion of espionage, and the Kremlin said he had been “caught red-handed.”
— Andrew Osborn and Felix Light, Reuters, 30 Mar. 2023

We define espionage as “the practice of spying or using spies to obtain information about the plans and activities especially of a foreign government or a competing company.” The word may be further defined as “such spying by special agents upon people of a foreign country or upon their activities or enterprises (such as war production or scientific advancement in military fields) and the accumulation of information about such people, activities, and enterprises for political or military uses.” Espionage came to English from French in the late 1700s, and may be traced to the word espion, meaning “spy.”

‘Indict’

Indict also spiked dramatically in lookups, following reports that Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, had been indicted by a grand jury in New York.

For the first time in American history, a former president of the United States has been indicted on criminal charges.
— Peter Baker, The New York Times, 31 Mar. 2023

Our legal definition of indict is “to charge with a crime by the finding or presentment of a grand jury in due form of law.” The word may also be used in a general sense, with the meaning of “to charge with a fault or offense, to criticize or accuse.” Indict came to English from the Anglo-French enditer (“to write”), and for hundreds of years we spelled the word as endite, a reflection of this history. At some point, however, scholars pushed for the spelling to be changed to indict, including the C in order to better show the word’s earlier Latin roots (it can be traced to the Latin indicere, meaning “to proclaim “).

Words Worth Knowing: ‘Primaveral’

This week’s word worth knowing is primaveral, defined as “of or relating to early spring.” We are drawing your attention to this word because, as you may have noticed, it is early spring right now, and so the word may be of some utility. You might find yourself walking down the street, and as you pass by someone you can now say something such as ‘nice primaveral weather we’re having, isn’t it?’ Most people likely do not know this word, and so may look at you as though you are a bit odd, but you won’t care, and can continue on your merry way, enjoying the primaveral day.