Withenay’s Week of Words

Withenay's Wednesday Word, Withenay's Week of Words

Withenay’s Week of Words: decastyle

This week I am celebrating ten years since we arrived in Zambia, so I have planned a week of ‘Ten’ words. Today is the final day, collating some miscellaneous words and some near misses.

decastyle (noun)
An architectural term for a portico with ten columns in front
from Greek deka ten and styles a column

A portico is a fancy porch. We are familiar with the presence of columns (particularly on ancient buildings) to decorate a facade, and porticos are notable at the Pantheon in Rome and the Capitol buildings in Washington. Having ten columns at the front doesn’t happen that often: I think ten is a nice number for a mathematician using arabic digits, but less aesthetically pleasing than (say) five. I know that when presenting a plate of food you should try to have odd numbers (e.g. 5 carrots and 3 tomatoes beside 1 pie), and so I suspect the same applies architecturally.

Still, University College London chose a decastyle portico, presumably back in 1827 when the quadrangle was begun. 168 years later it was finished, and a plaque commemorates its opening in 1985 by HM Queen Elizabeth II – perhaps one of the longest builds in history!

Perhaps the greatest ‘ten’ word – if only for the sheer bravery of attempting the task – is for the decathlon. This Olympic event is the most amazing feat of endurance and skill for any athlete: ten events, spread over two days. The events are: 100m, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400m, 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1500m. During the early 1980’s this was compulsive viewing for me growing up in the UK as Daley Thompson was crowned European, Commonwealth, World and Olympic Champion. I still remember the excitement and anticipation as he edged towards Olympic Gold, and the wonderful smile that spread across his face on winning.

Daley Thompson wins gold (Photograph: BTS, from guardian.co.uk)

To round off my deca- words this week I’m leaving you with a warning. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the following have anything to do with the number ten!

decayed (sounds like decade but isn’t)
decanal (also has nothing to do with the waterways built during the Industrial Revolution, but relates to a dean or deanery)
decaffeinate (just why do it? A normal cup of tea is just fine!)
decennoval (relating to the number 19 – a word to recur in nine years’ time!)

I hope you enjoyed my wander through the words of ten. Next week will be a lot more normal on the blog!

In the Shade of the Mulberry Tree is available for kindle from Amazon for 77p in the UK or $1.17 in the US until 22 June 2013.

Withenay's Wednesday Word, Withenay's Week of Words

Withenay’s Week of Words: decagon

This week I am celebrating ten years since we arrived in Zambia, so I have planned a week of ‘Ten’ words. Today’s words all have a basis in mathematics or measurement.

decagon (noun)
A 2-dimensional shape with ten sides
from Greek deka ten and gonia an angle

At last we reach my love of mathematics! Shapes – 2D and 3D – angles, measurements, quantities and the delight of mixing and matching. Wikipedia has this wonderful graphic to show you how to draw a regular decagon (that is one with equal length sides and angles).

How to construct a regular decagon (c) wikipedia.org

As I read the Wikipedia article on the decagon I got more and more excited. Firstly, the formula for calculating the area is utterly ridiculous… and then it can be simplified to A=2.5dt. Why not start with this? Hmmm. Sometimes mathematicians are too precise for their own good!

Then I read that the length of a side of a regular decagon is related to The Golden Ratio. This is another mathematical concept that pleases me for its aesthetics: generally speaking, when you are looking at a rectangle that is well proportioned, that looks ‘right’ the length of the long side to the short side are nearly always in line with this ratio. It sounds utterly ridiculous, but then most paintings in art galleries fall into its trap.

Furthermore when I go on to read about the decahedron (the 3D version: a shape of ten faces) I begin to read about topology – a topic I studied at university. Then I realised I couldn’t remember much of it. Still, a decahedron has 32,300 topologically different forms, and it is not possible to have a regular decahedron. Probably all you need to know: dodecahedron is a much nicer word, but we’ll have to wait two more years to become engrossed in a 12-sided object!

Confusingly, I note that an Equine decahedron is a twenty-sided object: Why?!

Decalitre (ten litres), decagramme (ten grammes) and decametre (ten metres) bring in all the units of measurement in tens apart from time (which I looked at in Monday’s post). Liquid, weight and length can all allow their standard measures to be counted in tens. For me, I have always thought it amazing that one cubic centimetre is the same volume as a millilitre, and that (as water at room temperature) it weighs one gramme: a lovely interrelation between the measures.

And so the mathematical concepts in chunks of ten are pulled together. Tomorrow is my final day of ‘ten’ words, with a miscellaneous collection of other words.

On Friday: miscellaneous remaining tens!

In the Shade of the Mulberry Tree is available for kindle from Amazon for 77p in the UK or $1.17 in the US until 22 June 2013.

Withenay's Wednesday Word, Withenay's Week of Words

Withenay’s Week of Words: decastitch

This week I am celebrating ten years since we arrived in Zambia, so I have planned a week of ‘Ten’ words. Today’s words all have a literary basis.

decastich (noun)
A poem of ten lines
from Greek deka ten and stitchos a row or verse

I love the sound of this word, not least because I would assume it had something to do with sewing rather than poetry. I found this website that gives you far more information about the various forms that a decastich can take: www.thepoetsgarret.com/decastich.html

In the meantime, here is an example taken from my favourite children’s poetry book: Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls (you’ll see why…)

Oh, No!

Oh no!
‘Tisn’t so!
Papa’s watch
Won’t go?

It must go-
Guess I know!
Last night
I wound it tight,
And greased it nice
With camphor-ice.

(c) Mary Mapes Dodge

There is also decasyllable: a verse-line or a word of ten syllables. I fear a decastich of decasyllables might be impossible, but it was an interesting challenge to my children at breakfast this morning to come up with a word of ten syllables.

“Supercallifragilisticexpi-” said my son, coming to an abrupt halt.

I proposed antidisestablishmentarian. My daughter can’t say that (my son didn’t try).

The decalogue is more commonly known as The Ten Commandments, as given to Moses by God in the bible – set out in Exodus 20. 1-17. It’s derivation logos is the Greek for a discourse, per the dictionary, although I’ve always understood it as ‘word’… so decalogue would be Ten Words.

Ten syllables, ten words and ten lines. I think I should invent decastanza for a poem of ten verses; or decachapitre for a book of ten chapters?

My final offering for today is Decameron. This was Boccaccio’s book of 100 tales written by ten young people and supposed to be told in ten days (from Greek hemera a day). It was written around 1350 and is a frame story. If you wish to read it you can buy it as a Penguin classic here.

On Thursday: tens in a mathematical context

In the Shade of the Mulberry Tree is available for kindle from Amazon for 77p in the UK or $1.17 in the US until 22 June 2013.

Withenay's Wednesday Word, Withenay's Week of Words

Withenay’s Week of Words: Decandria

This week I am celebrating ten years since we arrived in Zambia, so I have planned a week of ‘Ten’ words. Today we have a biological theme.

Decandria (noun)
A class of plants in the Linnaean system with 10 stamens
from Greek deka ten and andros male

This includes plants of the genera Dianthus, Lychnis, Cerastium, Saxifraga, Sedum and Oxalis.

Also there is the related word Decagynia: a class of plants with 10 pistils, such as those from genera neurada or phytolacca.

And, from the animal kingdom, there are Decapoda: an order of higher crustaceans with ten feet, including pincers (includes crabs, lobsters, shrimps and prawns) … or an order of cephalopods with ten arms.

The beauty of our natural world, where ten items create the perfect plant or animal for its environment. It was pointed out to me that most of nature follows the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21…), which (you will note) doesn’t include 10. I suggest that the evolution is either two lots of five (most likely for the 10 stamens) or 8 and 2 (legs + pincers for the crab). Or that Fibonacci does not perfectly mirror nature .

And, finally for today, even chemistry gets its ‘ten’ word: decane, being a hydrocarbon (C10H22) tenth of the methane series.

Or more beautifully:

On Wednesday: tens in a literary context

In the Shade of the Mulberry Tree is available for kindle from Amazon for 77p in the UK or $1.17 in the US until 22 June 2013.

Withenay's Wednesday Word, Withenay's Week of Words

Withenay’s Week of Words: decade

This week I am celebrating ten years since we arrived in Zambia, so I have planned a week of ‘Ten’ words. Clearly I have to start with this:

decade (noun)
A period of ten years
from Greek deka ten

So many of our anniversaries and celebrations are based upon multiples of ten. Of course, with our arabic system of numerals, ten is an easy number to picture and multiply by. We talk about it being a ’round number’, emphasised by the circular zero at the end. On Thursday I plan to share some of the more mathematical ‘ten’ words.

Interestingly, you can turn it into an adjective (decadial) and there is a pretty much obsolete version decad. The prefix deca- is the root of most of our ‘ten’ words, but an alternative for decade is decennary, or decennium. These have their roots in deci– a tenth. They are a tenth of a centenary – 100 years is perhaps an even rounder number?

The other common word that has to do with time and tens is December: the twelfth month of the year. Clearly that has little logic, unless you look into the history. In the original Roman calendar, it was the tenth month of the year, but there was a monthless period in winter (for the Northern hemisphere, and in particular for the Romans whose calendar it is!). In around 713BC this period was divided between the months of January and February, relegating December to twelfth month, though the name remained. September (7th), October (8th) and November (9th) suffered the same fate.

So, a decade since we left the UK and ‘The Noughties’ became my Zambian decade. How quickly time flies!

On Tuesday: tens in a biological context