betwixt

[email protected] 10 Oct 2007 10:03:59 -0000
Newsgroups gmane.culture.language.word-of-the-day
Message-ID <[email protected]>
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The Word of the Day for October 10 is:=20

betwixt   \bih-TWIKST\   adverb or preposition
     : between=20

Example sentence:
          =E2=80=9CA relative newbie as satellites go will glide betwixt=
 a crescent moon and the Red Planet tonight on its way to the Little Dip=
per.=E2=80=9D (Thomas Stauffer, _Arizona Daily Star_, March 2, 2006)=20

Did you know?
          =E2=80=9CJack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no le=
an; and so betwixt the two of them, they licked the platter clean.=E2=80=
=9D Perhaps you've always said "and so between the two of them" when rec=
iting the tale of Jack Sprat and his wife. That's fine. =E2=80=9CBetwixt=
=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Cbetween=E2=80=9D have similar origins: they both =
come from a combination of =E2=80=9Cbe-=E2=80=9D and related Old English=
 roots. Both words appeared before the 12th century, but use of =E2=80=9C=
betwixt=E2=80=9D dropped off considerably toward the end of the 1600s. I=
t survived in the phrase "betwixt and between" (=E2=80=9Cneither one thi=
ng nor the other=E2=80=9D), which took on a life of its own in the 18th =
century. Nowadays =E2=80=9Cbetwixt=E2=80=9D is uncommon, but it isn=E2=80=
=99t archaic; it's simply used more consciously than "between."





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