Welcome

Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC

Word explanations for writers

 


 

Rationale comes from Latin ratio, meaning "reason," and rationalis, "endowed with reason." Ratio is reasonably familiar as an English word for the relationship (in number, quantity, or degree) between things.

 

Congenial.  According to ancient mythology, each person at birth was assigned a guardian spirit. The Latin name for this attendant spirit was genius. Two people who get along well together can be thought of as sharing a similar spirit. They might even be described by a word combining the Latin prefix com- (meaning "with, together") and genius—in English congenial.

 

 Exasperate means "to cause irritation or annoyance to someone" or "to excite the anger of someone."  Exasperate comes from Latin exasperare, whose base, asper, means "rough." A relative of asper is asperity, which can refer to the roughness of a surface or the roughness of someone's temper. Another is spurn, meaning "to reject."