internecine

Use this forum to suggest Good Words for Professor Beard.
Apoclima
Senior Lexiterian
Posts: 555
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:00 pm

internecine

Postby Apoclima » Wed Nov 30, 2005 5:30 am

internecine
in·ter·nec·ine adj.

1. Of or relating to struggle within a nation, organization, or group.
2. Mutually destructive; ruinous or fatal to both sides.
3. Characterized by bloodshed or carnage.

[Latin internecīnus, destructive, variant of internecīvus, from internecāre, to slaughter : inter-, intensive pref.; see inter– + nex, nec-, death.]
Sitran Apoclima
'Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.' -Max Planck

User avatar
gailr
Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 1945
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2005 11:40 am
Contact:

Postby gailr » Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:05 pm

I don't remember ever seeing "internecine" without its journalistic tagalong "warfare".
Johnson was not taken to task for this error. On the contrary, his dictionary was so popular and considered so authoritative that this error became widely adopted as correct usage. The error was further compounded when internecine acquired the sense “relating to internal struggle.”
That's an interesting note in the link you provided, Sitran. Thus mutually destructive antagonism within the city (or school) could more properly be "intranecine" and aggression with clear outsiders as "extranecine". Unless one group really, really wanted the others eliminated at all costs, which becomes a teen video game or "reality" program along the lines of "XtremeNecine".
-gailr

M. Henri Day
Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 1141
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:24 am
Location: Stockholm, SVERIGE

Postby M. Henri Day » Sun Dec 04, 2005 1:57 pm

It's a real pity that the first meaning given by Apo, supra, and which is based on an erroneous reading of the «inter-» morpheme, dominates the usage of this word completely, so that journalists who find «internal» too pedestrian use this word instead. Warfare is almost always internecine, whether or not it occurs within the confines of a single state or a single people....

Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?


Return to “Good Word Suggestions”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Semrush [Bot] and 26 guests