Well, Family Feud is actually a classic game that traces back wayback in the 80’s i guess. It is a nice game anyway.*;`
Rob Bowdery:
April 14th, 2022 at 6:08 am
Interesting development of a word’s meaning and good to learn from my wanderings in online dictionaries about the different meanings of the Latin-derived prefix ‘inter’ (‘complete/total’ and ‘among’) in the word ‘internecine’. Am I right in thinking that beyond ‘savage’ and ‘mutually destructive’ ‘internecine’ has now also generally come to mean ‘a terrible conflict within a particular group, eg a family, a group of cheerleaders (as in your example) or a nation of people? Might Putin’s violent invasion of Ukraine be considered an ‘internecine war’ in that it is both savage and total and taking place within a territory that appears to contain very similar people, most of whom, one would hope, would like to avoid such pitiful bloodshed and associated atrocities?
Leave a comment
Search us!
Search The Word Detective and our family of websites:
This is the easiest way to find a column on a particular word or phrase.
To search for a specific phrase, put it between quotation marks. (note: JavaScript must be turned on in your browser to view results.)
Ask a Question!
Puzzled by Posh?
Confounded by Cattycorner?
Baffled by Balderdash?
Flummoxed by Flabbergast?
Perplexed by Pandemonium?
Nonplussed by... Nonplussed?
Annoyed by Alliteration?
Michael Williams:
May 12th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Well, Family Feud is actually a classic game that traces back wayback in the 80’s i guess. It is a nice game anyway.*;`
Rob Bowdery:
April 14th, 2022 at 6:08 am
Interesting development of a word’s meaning and good to learn from my wanderings in online dictionaries about the different meanings of the Latin-derived prefix ‘inter’ (‘complete/total’ and ‘among’) in the word ‘internecine’. Am I right in thinking that beyond ‘savage’ and ‘mutually destructive’ ‘internecine’ has now also generally come to mean ‘a terrible conflict within a particular group, eg a family, a group of cheerleaders (as in your example) or a nation of people? Might Putin’s violent invasion of Ukraine be considered an ‘internecine war’ in that it is both savage and total and taking place within a territory that appears to contain very similar people, most of whom, one would hope, would like to avoid such pitiful bloodshed and associated atrocities?