Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Word of the Day -- Hiatus

Because of a recent knee injury, that's exactly what has happened to the word of the day.  But I'm doing better and the wotd should become more regular once again.  --TB

Hiatus is a break in or as if in a material object or a gap or passage in an anatomical part or organ
an interruption in time or continuity : break; especially : a period when something (as a program or activity) is suspended or interrupted b : the occurrence of two vowel sounds without pause or intervening consonantal sound.  Basically though, we tend to use it as a gap in time, such as when something is missing.  Case in point, the Word of the Day.  Because I blew out my knee, the usual publishing of the word was gone, i.e. on hiatus.  

"Hiatus" comes from "hiare," a Latin verb meaning "to gape" or "to yawn," and first appeared in English in the middle of the 16th century. Originally, the word referred to a gap or opening in something, such as a cave opening in a cliff. In the 18th century, Laurence Sterne used the word humorously in his novel Tristram Shandy, writing of "the hiatus in Phutatorius's breeches." But as mentioned before, these days "hiatus" is usually used in a temporal sense to refer to a pause or interruption (as in a song), or a period during which an activity is temporarily suspended (such as a hiatus from teaching).

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