Preamble: I tried to jam in as many keywords as possible into the title of the thread, so there you have it. If you know a thread similar to this one (which I couldn't find), PM me, and I'll delete it (if no one else posts).

Any interesting (or boring) words that you've discovered or felt you need a refresher on?

Options:

 - You can just put a short annotation next to the word's entry whether it's a discovery or a refresher ... or something else.

 - Feel free to post however you want, a single word or a whole list of words per post, with or without links (though I'm sure some of us would like to see a source for them).

 - We can do "word of the day" here.

 - Don't be shy on the slang.

 - Vulgar words: ... eh ... that's an iffy one. I guess it depends on the word. As long as you can maintain an intelligent discussion on those, I won't mind. Let's see what the higher authority will say here. An admin ruled: no slurs.

 - Feel free to include verbal phrases (as indicated in the thread's title).

 

 

Ok....does this one count? I have always wondered why the phrase:  "Jump the shark".

I know it's origin but I never completely understood the reason why it's used .

 

I will start by asking where does the expression "it's raining cats and dogs" come from.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/rainingcats.html" rel="nofollow - This web-page suggests a rather "blurry" etymological history behind the expression.  There are some Norse roots, some Greek roots. Quite a few theories there.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/raining%20cats%20and%20dogs.html" rel="nofollow - This page repeats some of the same ideas as the one above.

Here's another one I've never heard: http://www.google.com/search?q=ephebophile+definition&oq=ephebophile+definition&aqs=chrome.0.69i59.3226j1j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - ephebophile . Another word underlined with read by the software as if it doesn't exist. Exactly how many -philes are there out there?

As far as age goes, there are in order of age: nepiophilia (infant to toddler), pedophilia (prepubscent children), hebephilia (pubescent children), ephebophilia (postpubscent children), teleiophilia (adults), and gerontophilia (elderly). Ones I put in italics are ones I didn't know of until I looked them up.

One more word from me for today: http://www.google.com/search?q=quixotic+definition&oq=quixotic+definition&aqs=chrome..69i64j0l5.1399j1j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - quixotic . (I've never read Don Quixote, but I'd only guess what its protagonist is like.) I don't want to add "prerogative"; we all should know that one.

Also this website is right up this threads alley  http://www.worldwidewords.org/index.htm" rel="nofollow - http://www.worldwidewords.org/index.htm

Two more based on what I've seen on that page (at this moment): http://www.google.com/search?q=define+stratum&oq=define+stratum&aqs=chrome..69i64j0l5.1282j0j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - s http://www.google.com/search?q=define+stratum&oq=define+stratum&aqs=chrome..69i64j0l5.1282j0j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - tratum and http://www.google.com/search?q=epilimnion+definition&oq=epilimnion+definition&aqs=chrome..69i64j0.1128j0j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - epilimnion . Sometimes my brain functions so poorly that to get an idea of what the word means, I have to go to Google Images:  http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/graphics/photos0506/lakelayers.jpg" rel="nofollow - http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/graphics/photos0506/lakelayers.jpg

copacetic ... it's certainly an odd one (and a word I've never heard before) - the word certainly looks English but acetic means sour or like vinegar and "cop" isn't a negating prefix. Since it is of wholly North American origin my guess is its origin is based in street slang and has no etymological derivation.

I have this book Musicophilia (Tales of Music and the Brain) by neurologist Oliver Sacks, in which he discusses several quite amazing cases of people who's neurological condition has profound effects in their musicality. It's quite some time ago that I read it but I remember for example one man in his 40's who never had any particular interest in music, then was stuck by a lightning and suddenly had an urge to learn playing piano. Or people who after having suffered a seizure or brain damage have musical hallucinations, or become suddenly musical, or the opposite. Or an orquestra conductor who after suffering brain damage suffers severe amnesia and can not remember anything further than 7 seconds except for the music, he can still conduct full symphonies. And stories like that. 

That's curious ... is it used in that Anglicised form or is it used in some form derived from the Spanish spelling of Quijote?

Ah, it's less curious then. I presume that the Catalan word is wholly of Catalan derivation and its similarity to the Anglicised form is just consequence of both Catalan and English using the "-ic" suffix to turn a noun into an adjective.

Indeed

Do you know of any words commonly used in Spanish that were borrowed into English and then taken back in their Anglicised form? 

Ugh... letters are not really my strength... I'l think about it.

Of course many English words have Latin roots so they may be similar to their Spanish counterparts but this does not mean that they were borrowed from Spanish into English, most likely they came directly from Latin or from any other Latin language such as French or Italian. Likewise many anglicisms are used in Spanish, and some of them may have those Latin roots, but again this does not mean that the word was originally borrowed in English from Spanish and then returned in its anglicised form.

An example could be aquarium. It has the Latin root aqua (water, agua in Spanish) and although the proper Spanish word in Spanish is acuario, few people use it anymore and most people will now say or write aquarium or perhapsacuarium. But I don't think it came into English from Spanish, rather it came directly from Latin.

Possibly more clear cases can be found in the States were the Latin-American presence has been and is very important so the direct interplay between Spanish and English has been much stronger than in Europe, but I'm not so familiar with the modern Spanish they talk in the States.

I can't say for sure but I guess they did. We use caldera meaning either cauldron, kettle, boiler, the volcano mouth, the heart piece of a steam locomotive or other steam machines...

And I didn't know " http://www.google.com/search?q=oomph+definition&oq=oomph+definition&aqs=chrome..69i64j0l3.1698j1j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - oomph " became a word ... in slang.

In other news, who around here used a word like " http://www.google.com/search?q=mannerism+definition&oq=mannerism+definition&aqs=chrome..69i64j0l5.1553j1j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - mannerism "/" http://www.google.com/search?q=mannered+definition&oq=mannered+definition&aqs=chrome..69i64j0l5.1610j1j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - mannered " in his music review?

It is not a synonym. When you dismounted from a horse you made its burden lighter and this is where "alight from a train" comes from. Over time this came to mean the act of coming down from the horse rather than the act of making its burden lighter, so was applied to the act of a bird coming down from the air onto a branch or perch even though pedantically the act of alighting on a branch makes it heavier rather than lighter. 

The more-common use of the word 'alight' is similar to Chester's witticism and means something on fire or lit up. "The lamp was alight" or "a discarded match set the forest alight"

I learned how to spell " http://www.google.com/search?q=pizzazz+definition&oq=pizzazz+definition&aqs=chrome..69i64j0l2.1469j1j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - pizzazz " and got a grip on its meaning. Really an ugly-sounding word. It's not even pronounced like "pizza". ... Another new one for me: " http://www.google.com/search?q=gaffe+definition&oq=gaffe+definition&aqs=chrome..69i64j0l5.1429j1j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - gaffe ". ... And that's an interesting one: " http://www.google.com/search?q=ignosticism+definition&oq=ignosticism+definition&aqs=chrome..69i64.1531j0j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - ignosticism " (no, not agnosticism).

Not quite a new word, but I would like to toss in the word aggressiveness and ask about its origins and context, errrm if any, here.  Somehow the word doesn't sound right to me and I can say fairly confidently that I never heard it in my growing up years and have never come across it in any work of fiction (didn't notice if I did, at any rate) that I've read.  What nuance is aggressiveness supposed to convey that the usage aggression doesn't?  I have heard the word mostly on news channels and in tennis commentary so it may well be a crap word, mind. But if it is not, I would be glad to learn more about where I could possibly use it in a sensible way. 

rogerthat wrote: Not quite a new word, but I would like to toss in the word aggressiveness and ask about its origins and context, errrm if any, here.  Somehow the word doesn't sound right to me and I can say fairly confidently that I never heard it in my growing up years and have never come across it in any work of fiction (didn't notice if I did, at any rate) that I've read.  What nuance is aggressiveness supposed to convey that the usage aggression doesn't?  I have heard the word mostly on news channels and in tennis commentary so it may well be a crap word, mind. But if it is not, I would be glad to learn more about where I could possibly use it in a sensible way.

I don't know if you've checked out other sources, but I hope http://grammarist.com/usage/aggression-aggressiveness/" rel="nofollow - this one helps.

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In the wake of the Ferguson shooting, protests, riots, and looting, I've come across a word on  http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/08/14/who-is-antonio-french-the-alderman-providing-updates-from-ferguson/" rel="nofollow - this page  - " http://www.google.com/search?q=alderman+definition&oq=alderman+definition&aqs=chrome..69i64j0l5.1392j1j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8" rel="nofollow - alderman ". It's interesting that within the context of the article, the meaning of "alderman" is more than just some boring "member of a municipal council". It gives more detail. Is this what aldermen/alderwomen usually do? Documenting how the government and the people are doing?

I am still a bit confused about the usage of aggressiveness (most likely because I don't use it).  If it is intended in a positive or even neutral light to indicate an attitude, I would personally prefer to use assertive because an aggressive attitude in interpersonal communication tends to convey a more negative meaning (unless such aggression is warranted or required).  Maybe speakers who use the word want to emphasise a competitive attitude a little more than the word assertive conveys and therefore use aggressiveness.  I've even heard the word used to describe an equity stock on an upward trajectory and that makes no sense.

Never heard the word alderman before, used to think it was the name of an 80s Australian fast bowler.  Thanks man, must look that up.     

Yes, that's what annoys me when I read the word too.  As you said, aggression is already a noun form and aggressive is the adjective derived from it.  To add a 'ness' and convert it back to noun doesn't sound aesthetically appropriate, at least not to me and it seems I am not alone.  I think it belong in the same category as competitiveness which webster lists as a synonym - only fit to be used in wordy business analysis reports.  I don't know how and where sports commentary morphed into getting so jargon-ated, but such is the case.

The one aspect of the English language that I like the most is it is a living language - it evolves and adapts and is forever changing, words like "bad" now mean "good" just as "awful" originally meant "worthy of respect" (literally "full of awe"). Unlike many other languages it is not resistant to change and readily adopts new words and subtle changes in meaning; the English language has such a vast vocabulary because of this and not just from the melding of the Northern European Germanic/Anglo-Saxon with the Romance languages of Southern Europe. 

American English (as odd as it may seem) does not evolve as quickly or as often as British English. This seems counter-intuitive because much play is made of the Americanisation of British English, for all its adaptability and willingness to change nothing raises the hackles of an Englishman more that to hear his native tongue suffer the vandalism of Americanisation, to see colour spelt without a 'u' (or color spelled without a 'u') for example. Yet since the creation of the American nation 400 years ago the two dialects have diverged and it has been British English that has changed more, for example the "u" in colour and favour is an addition into English spelling since Elizabethan times, the lack of  the 'u" in Americanised spelling is not an omission. Neither forms of English would be recognisable to an Elizabethan.

The same is true of pronunciation - words like schedule and controversy have changed in Britain since the 1600s whereas in America they have remained unchanged. Whether "sch" should be pronounced "shh" or "sk" was should ideally be determined by the pronunciation of the root word in the language it was derived from ..."shh" for Germanic words and "sk" for Latin words. But English doesn't do that - the Germanic 'school' is pronounced 'skool' on both sides of the Atlantic whereas the Germanic pronunciation should be 'shhool' (like the German 'schule'). Since schedule has a Latin etymology then "skedule" is the 'correct' pronunciation, it is British English that has given it a Germanic pronunciation. Unfortunately though, that cannot be viewed as a generalisation since 'schism' is usually given a Latin "skism" pronunciation in both dialects but some American's give it the softer "shhism". 

It could be that sem-eye could be an older pronunciation than sem-ee, but in this case I doubt it since every other Romance language seems to pronounce it sem-ee

Like "aggressiveness" makes an unnecessary noun from an adjective that was already derived from a noun, the Americanisation of English that is guaranteed to wind-up a Brit and the one we are most resistant to is the creation of unnecessary verbs from nouns (incentivise) or using nouns as verbs (impact). Applying a rule that converts a noun to a verb for every noun just seems superfluous and nouns as verbs just sounds lazy.

Sorry, but I think you are wrong on every count here.

If an aggressive driver is not driving defensively then he is driving offensively. To go on the offensive is to attack. And aggressive driving style is confrontational, it is not that the driver is taking every opportunity to fill gaps in traffic, he is using aggression to create them. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggressive_driving" rel="nofollow - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggressive_driving ). Aggressive driving is not a positive trait unless it is on the racetrack (and even then it is seen as irresponsible if it endangers the lives of other drivers).

Aggressive really does mean "ready to attack", that's part of http://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Aggressive" rel="nofollow -  the dictionary definition of the word

This is an example where the verb is not the root word in English as the words arrived full-formed in their noun and adjective forms without the accompanying verb. An example of this is "passive" (adj) and "passion" (noun) -  the verb-form "pass" (meaning to suffer) does not exist in English. So Aggress is not the root word, it archaic but not as old as the word Aggression. The verb Aggress is a back-formation from Aggression that appeared much later. Aggressive as an adjective is derived from the noun Aggression, not from the verb Aggress. 

Aggress (verb - archaic) meant "to attack, attack first"

Aggression (noun) means "an attack, unprovoked attack"

Aggressive (adjective) means "likely to attack"

I don't quite follow what you mean by parallel development.

That was very interesting.    I had thought that the 'u' in colour was dropped in America because to spell it color matches the pronunciation better.  Likewise with skedule as opposed to shhedule.  It is interesting to learn that those were in fact accepted usages in England which were modified later, but not in America.  

No, rather I think both myself and Dean have said you cannot use aggression to describe the nature of the tactical approach used, in the sense of a tendency to move forward or tendency to attack.  Since aggressive means "likely to attack", the term (rather than a single word) aggressive tactics conveys it better.  And as I said earlier, the more common usage always was attacking or offensive tennis.  Offensive and attacking are closer antonyms of defensive and make more sense.  Using an adjective to describe the kind of tennis a player is playing makes more sense to me than to use a noun.  So instead of saying "Federer played attacking tennis",  I might substitute it with "Federer was aggressive in his approach".  The latter is less precise but might still be understood in context.  However, if I said, "Federer showed aggression", it would imply that he did stuff like baring his teeth angrily to his opponent or yelled at the umpire. The bald, unqualified statement "Federer was aggressive" could also be easily misinterpreted. 

 As between aggressiveness and aggression, aggressiveness is a better word to use in this context (which is why it has now come into usage) but for aesthetic reasons, I would much rather use aggressive with an appropriate noun following it to describe what was aggressive.  Or, I would much rather not use any word from that family in that context and stick to attacking or offensive.  All of which might explain why I was puzzled when I heard aggressiveness in sports commentary.

I think the confusion here is over whether aggressive implies a confrontational attitude or simply a competitive or driving approach.  The answer is it can mean both depending on the context.  And I think what Hackettfan means when he says attack in sport is a metaphor is that you do not literally attack, as in physically assault, the opponent.  You tactically force yourself on him within the rules of that sport.  So in boxing, attacking does come very close or in fact amounts to an actual physical assault whereas in tennis it would simply mean trying to take the net away and finish the point and in cricket, using the front foot and driving rather than blocking the ball.  In chess, it would mean forcing a move from the opponent that would involve loss of coins for either side.  In all of the last three contexts, there is no actual assault, it's only attacking within the limited context of the game. But since attacking, unlike aggressive, is not used in a behavioural context at all (where aggressive is contrasted in a negative light with assertive), I prefer the former in a sporting context.

Agresion (noun)

Agresividad (noun)

Agresivo (adjective)

(Agredir is the verb but I don't think it's relevant for this)

So we have two nouns linked to the same adjective and verb, and in Spanish the distinction between the two is clear. 

Agresion is a fact, it is the fact of acting against someone or something, or of breaking the rules or the generally accepted correct behaviour.

Agresividad is taking risks, it is showing no fear, it is putting your opponents against the wall, stressing them. It is taking the lead, in a way the opposite of being prudent or conservative. It is an attitude, not a definite act. Depending on the situation such an attitude could result in harm to others but not necessarily. A racing driver may drive with "agresividad" and that means that he is increasing the risks of anything nasty happening, but it does not mean that he has actually caused anything nasty yet. He may drive with "agresividad" and the race ends happily without anything bad having happened.

But the term may also be used for a tennis player who constantly pushes his opponent to the limits, or someone who gambles taking risks and causing his opponents to take risks higher than they would normally do etc, and in these situations if it goes wrong it will not result in any harm to the opponent, only to himself.

 

Agresion implies that something nasty or at least considered incorrect has actually happened, it is not merely taking risks but actually having caused something undesirable.

Because of this distinction in my mother language I tend to equate "aggressiveness" more with "agresividad" and "aggression" with "agresion" even if that's probably not the actual proper use in English.

I see what you are saying but I don't see that 'attacking' (and thus 'aggressive') is figurative (or 'metaphoric') in these contexts just because it isn't a physical attack. When you fall in love the 'fall' is figurative, but when you attack an opponent in a sporting game the 'attack' is not figurative, the meaning does not magically switch from literal to figurative when the action does not involve physical contact, it remains the same. Attacks in war-games and military exercises do not become metaphorical just because non-live ammunition is used. Historically all 'sports' were a non-lethal form of military training and every game has an opponent even when competing against yourself. All the terms and synonyms we have used [in these posts] in those non-physical contexts to describe aggressiveness are related to literal attack: confrontation, offence, force, opposition, [to which we can add assault, assail, pounce, strike, storm, grapple, etc.] ... As Todd said, 'getting in someone's face' is related to that and so is 'advance' and 'push forward', their meaning in these contexts comes from the act of attacking in a literal sense.

That's interesting Gerard. I looked up  http://www.wordreference.com/definicion/agresividad" rel="nofollow - Agresividad in Spanish on WordReference.com  - it gives two definitions...

In any case, seeing the differentiation of the two meanings, I do not see anything inherently wrong with using two different words. Perhaps strictly speaking, "aggression" would be more correct in English no matter what are we actually meaning, but if the use of "aggressiveness" in certain situations can help in making a distinction, clarifying that we do not mean any factual aggression or attack, but more the Spanish interpretation of "agresividad" (being bold, challenging, ready to take risks etc) I don't see it so bad.

Anyone around here in the habit of using foreign phrases in their English writing or speech?

Let's wait for the reply of our British friends but I guess that using French expressions is probably more common in the UK than in the US. For me living in the Flemish part of Belgium it's probably even more common since Flemish frequently mix French expressions in their Dutch, and many such expressions may then get carried into their way of speaking English. But I routinely communicate in English with Europeans from other countries and I see that many do use such French expressions as well, or at least they understand them and are not surprised by their use.

Many from the list you posted are relatively common, some of the most used:

a la carte

amateur

aperitif or apero

cafe (for meaning not the drink but the place)

carte blanche

femme fatale

force majeure

liaison

motif

papier-mache

pret-a-porter

raison d'etre

tete-a-tete

"Ciao" and "A rivederci" are Italian expressions also common here in Europe among non-Italians.

A few anecdotes...

Once in Japan for work we were having dinner among colleagues, all of us European, and our drink during the whole meal was beer (as is usually the case in Japan) and we had had quite a few each of us... When we were done, I ordered "the bill please" in English, as I barely know a couple of words in Japanese. As you know Japanese people have some trouble discerning the sounds of "r" and "l" (if they should talk about Roger Taylor they will pronounce something like Logel Taylol was a gleat drummel). To our surprise the guy came back with one more beer for each of us, he had understood "beer please!" (we did not refuse it )

'tis a good one and another that shows how British English evolves faster than American English. 

It's also an example of a noun used as a verb that the Brits tend to avoid. Orient was originally a noun meaning "East", as a verb it meant to align with the points of a compass, namely 'East', from this we get the noun Orientation. Orientate is a back-formation from this new noun, and since we like to avoid nouns and verbs we made a new verb Orientate to replace Orient, allowing us to keep the original "East" meaning.

It means we can say Orient Express with out thinking it means Alignment Express  

You write 'with out' as two separate words which feels awkward to me (?)

Dean wrote:   For many years I was puzzled by the use of 'C'est la guerre' in English as I was hearing it as 'C'est la garre', which means "this is the station" and not "this is war".

Sorry to be nit picky but since we are in a letters thread, 'C'est la gare' would be written with only one 'r'.

That was a typo - It is awkward, and wrong. 

Gerinski wrote: Dean wrote:   For many years I was puzzled by the use of 'C'est la guerre' in English as I was hearing it as 'C'est la garre', which means "this is the station" and not "this is war". Sorry to be nit picky but since we are in a letters thread, 'C'est la gare' would be written with only one 'r'.

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What?

 Nice one too. I can imagine similar possible situations with, for example, if regarding some work you would say 'Polish please' in a suitable environment with Polish people around.

Well, they are two different words with two slightly different meanings, and one is an adjective while the other is a verb so I'm not sure of the point you are making. 

 

Since as a verb opinionize apparently means to "to express an opinion" if it had an adjective form it would refer to the subject (or topic) of the opinion, not the person having the opinion. Unlike opinionated, which refers to the person and not the subject (the verb opinionate meant "hold the opinion")

But as I said, opinionize is not a real real word and opinionated would be the past tense not the adjective. Searching the internet for examples used in a sentence yields very poor results, even Goolge suggests searching for opinionated instead.

If opinionize is a real real word it would not mean "to express an opinion" it would mean "to cause to become like an opinion" - which is nonsensical. As an example Americanize means "to make [like] American in form, style or culture".

 

 

One more for today:  http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=bailiff%20definition" rel="nofollow - bailiff . Also with that US-vs.-UK difference between two meanings. Never heard anyone use it before.

The English speak real English 

You will find 'Falsifiability' a lot if you read about science and particularly about philosophy of science, it was the criterion demanded by Karl Popper in order for a scientific theory to be considered as truly scientific. The claim that intelligent aliens have visited the Earth during mankind's times is not falsifiable, the fact that no uncontroversial proof has been found or will ever be found of aliens having visited us will probably not be sufficient to convince the aliens-visited-us believers that they are wrong.

In my article about instruments in the Blogs section I used a word which I don't know if it's really used more or less often by British and Americans, but I used it because in my native Spanish is relatively common: 'paraphernalia'. How common is it for English language natives?

For example the statement "pure water boils at 100°C" is falsifiable and can be proved false because we can take a kettle to the top of a mountain and demonstrate that it will boil at a lower temperature. Knowing that the statement has been demonstrated to be false we can modify it to say "pure water boils at 100°C when it is under an atmospheric pressure of one bar" however it remains falsifiable because it is testable. Testability is an indicator of falsifiability but untestability is not always an indicator of unfalsifiability  something can be untestable but still be falsifiable.

All too often the idea that a falsifiable hypothesis can be disproved is taken as proof of an opposing unfalsifiable hypothesis, we see this a lot in pseudo-scientific and belief-based hypothesis where more effort is put into proving all opposing ideas to be wrong than proving that the idea itself is correct. This is fallacy - for example disproof of evolution does not prove creationism. (Sorry about that - it's is difficult to think of examples of indemonstrable fallacy that does not involve a belief)

It is worth clarifying that falsifiability often relates more to the way an hypothesis must be properly stated rather than with the actual idea behind. The sentence 'intelligent aliens have visited the Earth during the epoch where cognitive humans were already inhabiting the Earth' is not falsifiable because we can never prove it wrong. Never finding any proof that they have visited will never prove that they did not visited us. However the statement ''intelligent aliens have NOT visited the Earth during the epoch where cognitive humans were already inhabiting the Earth' is falsifiable. Finding uncontroversial evidence of their visit would falsify it. 

Gerinski wrote: In my article about instruments in the Blogs section I used a word which I don't know if it's really used more or less often by British and Americans, but I used it because in my native Spanish is relatively common: 'paraphernalia'. How common is it for English language natives?

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What?

This is another one which by proximity to France is relatively commonly used in Catalonia (not so sure about other areas of Spain), with the meaning of 'soap opera'.

This is hard to read for how wordy and technical it is:

Other researchers use another definition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb#cite_note-vanNierop-2008-4" rel="nofollow - [4]  referring to opposition-apposition as the transition between flexion-abduction and extension-adduction; the side of the distal thumb phalanx thus approximated to the palm or the hand's radial side (side of index finger) during apposition and the pulp or "palmar" side of the distal thumb phalanx approximated to either the palm or other digits during opposition.