• wrought •
Pronunciation: rawt • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Worked, crafted, done.
Notes: Today's Good Word is an archaic but still occasionally encountered past participle of work (see Word History). You will notice that substituting worked for it usually, well, works. Wrought up means "worked up" and overwrought means "worked up too much" (more or less). Handwrought means "hand worked" while wrought iron means "worked iron".
In Play: Today's Good Word is an amazing survivor of times when things came to pass rather than happened: "Since my designs are so traditional, I've decided to call my shop 'Ye Olde Wrought Iron Shoppe' rather than 'Mortimer's Ironworks'." For this reason, today's word fits comfortably only where antiquity is implied: "I'm sure the city fathers were unaware of the damper on population growth they had wrought in passing the ordinance against kissing in buggies. It is way past time to rescind it."
Word History: Today's word was the past participle of Middle English wyrcan "to work" and the origin of work, as well. The same root *werg developed into Greek ergon "work" found in ergonomics. It also went into the making of surgery, a reduction of Latin chirurgia from Greek kheirourgia "hand-work" based on kheir "hand" + erg- "work". The o-grade, *worg-, turns up in Greek organ "tool" and orgia "sacred rite," the source of English orgy, which amounts to quite a bit of work. The agent noun from English wyrcan was wright "worker, crafter", found in several words such as wheelwright, cartwright, and playwright (NOT playwrite!) Playwright is a loan translation of Greek dramaturge, based on dram(at)- "a play" + ergon "work". (Today we thank Christa Hegland for what she has wrought in bringing this Good Word to the attention of our good wordwright, Dr. Goodword.)
WROUGHT
- Dr. Goodword
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WROUGHT
• The Good Dr. Goodword
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Perhaps the most famuous use of wrought in the (American) English Language is its use in the first official telegraph message in the United States, transmitted from Baltimore, MD to Washington, DC by Samuel F. B. Morse. From the Wikipedia article on Telegraphy:
An electrical telegraph was independently developed and patented in the United States in 1837 by Samuel Morse. His assistant, Alfred Vail, developed the Morse code signaling alphabet with Morse. America's first telegram was sent by Morse on January 6, 1838, across two miles of wiring. The message read "A patient waiter is no loser." On May 24, 1844, he sent the message, "What hath God wrought", (quoting Numbers 23:23) from Washington to Baltimore, using repeater technology. This message was chosen by Annie Ellsworth, later Mrs. Roswell Smith (Roswell, NM was named after her husband), the daughter of Patent Commissioner Henry Leavitt Ellsworth. The Morse/Vail telegraph was quickly deployed in the following two decades.
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
Much more elegant than "Mr. Watson. Come here. I need you.".
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
Anonymous
Anonymous
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Yeah, well, doesn't it seem fitting that the first phone call was a primitive form of a 911 call?
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
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