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I'm CJ Cooney, a writer on communication, ideas, culture and history. This blog is a chronicle of my adventures in lexicography.

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If reading were a sin, the average person today would be a saint.  And this dictionary in progress would be blasphemy. More...

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quartan fever
logomachy

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REFERENCEER
REF-ren-sear. Noun. 1. Anyone who enjoys reading or browsing dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, and other sundry reference materials. 2. A publisher of reference material. 3. CJ's book blog adventure.

quartan fever
KWAR-tan FEE-vur
adjective
a fever occurring in 72 hour cycles
1822John Lewis BurckhardtTravels in Syria and the Holy LandHence intermittent fevers, especially those of the quartan form, are very common in the town in that season.1900Arthur Conan DoyleThe Green Flag'Sir Charles is in weak health just now, only clear of a quartan ague, and it is likely he will keep his cabin most of the voyage.1981Mary RenaultFuneral GamesIollas had died soon after he got home from Asia, of a quartan fever picked up in the Babylonian swamps…

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logomachy
lo-GAW-muh-kee
noun
a battle over words; a battle of words
1884Joris-Karl HuysmansAgainst The GrainAnd, in fact, the curiosity, the complicated naivete of the Christian language had also foundered. The balderdash of philosophers and scholars, the logomachy of the Middle Ages, thenceforth held absolute sway. The sooty mass of chronicles and historical books and cartularies accumulated, and the stammering grace, the often exquisite awkwardness of the monks, placing the poetic remains of antiquity in a ragout, were dead.1909Jack LondonRevolution and Other Essays'You are anachronisms. You stand in the way of humanity. To the scrap-heap with you.' To those that protested, and they were many, he said: 'This is no time for logomachy. You can argue for centuries. It is what you have done in the past. I have no time for argument. Get out of the way.'1970Mary RenaultFire From HeavenThe King had forbidden, and the philosopher did not want, the quibbling logomachy of eristics, that science which Sokrates had defined as making the worse cause look the better.

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