Word of the Day: Riposte
Paul Schleifer
A riposte is a “quick, sharp return in speech or action; a counterstroke,” according to www.dictionary.com. Synonyms would include comeback, quip, and retort.
According to www.etymonline.com, the word comes into English from the French riposte (17th century). It is originally a fencing term, meaning a quick thrust at your opponent after you have parried your opponent’s lunge at you—I guess you’d have to know a little bit about fencing to really understand. It comes from the Italian risposta (“a reply”), which is based upon the verb rispondere (“to respond”), which comes from the Latin respondere (“respond, answer to, promise in return,” from re– “back” (+ spondere “to pledge”). The English word respond also comes from this Latin word, but its entrance into English happened in the 13th century.
The use of riposte in conversation or debate is first attested around 1865, and while it is originally a noun, the use of riposte as a verb happens is first attested around 1851 (when a noun is just adapted for use as a verb with the addition of a derivational suffix, we call it functional shift).
You might wonder what happened to the first s in risposta. In linguistics, this particular sound change is called dissimilation: “the process by which a speech sound becomes different from or less like a neighboring sound, as pilgrim /ˈpɪl grɪm/ from Latin peregrīnus /ˌpɛr ɛˈgri nʊs/ and purple /ˈpɜr pəl/ from Old English purpure /ˈpʊər pʊ rɛ/ or disappears entirely because of a like sound in another syllable, as in the pronunciation /ˈgʌv ə nər/ for governor” (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/dissimilation).
Three birthdays of note for March 19: Sirhan Sirhan (for those of you who aren’t old enough, he was the guy who murdered Robert Kennedy when “Bobby” was running for the presidential nomination for the Democratic Party back in 1968), Casey Anthony (if you don’t remember, she was acquitted for the murder of her 2½-year-old daughter back in 2011, though most of America wondered how), and Harvey Weinstein.
What can you say to someone who has used his position of authority to try to force you women to have sex with him? What kind of community allows such a person to thrive for decades? And then members of that community pretend that they are holier than everyone else! Anyone have a riposte for that?
The image: Sabre duel of German students of about 1900, painting by Georg Mühlberg (1863-1925).
Image shows two members of German student fraternities fighting a sabre duel which is regarded a fighting with deadly weapons and has always been forbidden. A sabre duel was not a “Mensur” in the modern sense of the word. They were practised in Germany until about 1935.