Question: I heard on the radio another word for "millennium," but I forgot it. Can you tell me what the word is?Answer: The word you're looking for is "chilead," which is pronounced something like "KILL-ee-ad" or "KILL-ee-ud." "Chilead" can mean either "a group of 1,000" or, like "millennium," it can mean "a period of 1,000 years." Although its meaning deals with numbers, "chiliad" owes much to poetry. It derives from the Greek word "chilioi," which means "thousand," a root that Byzantine poet John Tzetzes (c. 1110-1180) used in naming his historical poem "Chileades" (literally "Thousands"). That monumental work, which includes more than 12,000 lines and quotes more than 400 authors, introduced much information about the ancient world to English speakers, and its title likely encouraged them to use "chiliad" when they wanted to make learned reference to 1,000.
Question: Could you explain the origin of the expression "put the cart before the horse"?
Answer: The idea of "putting the cart before the horse" is literally ancient history. The Greeks and Romans had their own versions of this age-old classic; the Romans spoke of putting the plow before the oxen. The idea appeared in English as early as 1340, and within the next 200 years became the expression we know today.
Several perhaps overly ingenious explanations exist for the origin of the phrase. According to one, "put the cart before the horse" did not initially imply attaching the cart at the front rather than at the rear of the horse. Rather, "put" meant arrange as a priority, and the expression denoted the foolhardy act of attending to the vehicle while neglecting the all-important horse. Another theory holds that the modern use of this phrase refers to the act of reversing the positions of the horse and cart in coal mining in order to prevent the cart from racing out of control. This latter explanation fails to account for the negative connotations of the expression, and therefore is not very convincing. More likely, no actual practice was involved, and the idea of expecting a horse to push rather than pull a cart simply struck our ancestors as the perfect type of foolish futility.
Question: Here is a word that's not in any dictionaries and my co-workers and I are in disagreement about _ "planful." Can you comment?
Answer: "Planful" sometimes gets derided as jargon, the kind of word to avoid (one commentator gives it "a wince factor of three," along with "empowerment," "proactive" and "interface"). And while it's true that the modern business world has shown a propensity for using the term, it can be said that it arrives at this new application with respectable credentials.
Maybe those who cringe at "planful" will be appeased somewhat by knowing that its origin is literary, and that it's over 100 years old. Its first known use was by John Stuart Blackie, a Scottish scholar and professor of Greek, who wrote of "planful wisdom" back in 1877. It is from this context that the Oxford English Dictionary defines "planful" as "full of plans, devices or schemes."
"Planful" remained rare and academic all the way through the 1970s. It was a sociologist's and psychologist's word _ used in pet phrases such as "planful imagination," "planful competence" and "planful intervention." Their "planful" focused on self-confidence, dependability and intellectual inquisitiveness. Nowadays, the word is more likely to be seen in phrases like "planful problem solving" or "planful opportunism," emphasizing the importance of vision and careful planning in achieving success.
For a word to get into the dictionary, it has to enjoy consistent use over a reasonable period of time. For now, lexicographers are keeping a planful watch on "planful."
This column was prepared by the editors of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition. Send questions to: Merriam-Webster's Wordwatch, P.O. Box 281, 47 Federal St., Springfield, MA 01102.)