I love that: "Skunked term" Thanks Jim. Will send it on to my wordsmith frends. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim McKenney" <jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com> To: "'Pacific Bulb Society'" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 8:32 AM Subject: [pbs] skunked term; was RE: Define Epigeal and Hypogeal Those of you who had the patience to read through the posts dealing with the meanings of the terms epigeal and hypogeal deserve a bonus. As it turns out, it's not unusual for terms to acquire meanings which vary among different usage groups; sometimes these variant meanings are mutually contradictory. The word clone provides a good example. For writers, such terms pose a big potential problem: if several meanings are attached to a term, how will readers know which of the several meanings is intended? As a result, careful writers either avoid such terms or use them with enough supporting material to make the intended meaning clear. Some of you perhaps think I overdid the "supporting material" in my posts on this topic. Well, now you know why. There is a name for such a term: skunked term. You can read about it here: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/… Scroll down to "Skunked Terms". Enjoy! Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone 7 My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/ _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/