Leave it to Linda to ask the pertinent, pressing questions of the day. Like, “Should I wear the Manolo Blahniks or the Jimmy Choos?”
Today it was something I could actually answer: “Is there such a thing as gurgitating?”
It stands to reason that, according to the rules of root words and prefixes, to regurgitate is to simply gurgitate again, right? Well…not necessarily:
re- pref. 1. Again; anew: rebuild. 2. Backward; back: react. 3. Used as an intensive: refine. [Middle English, from Old French, from Latin.]
My dictionary tells me that regurgitate comes from the Medieval Latin regurgitare; re- + gurgitare, which means to engulf or flood. That brings us to gurgitation. Yes, it’s a word:
gurgitation n. A whirling or surging motion, as of water. [Late Latin gurgitare, to engulf (from Latin gurges, gurgit-, whirlpool) + -ATION.]
So where does that leave us? Hell if I know. So I checked with Courtney, who assures me that, after a night of tequila shots, all three definitions of re- apply to gurgitation. The tequila reappears again and again—backward from the direction it originally went in—and boy, is it ever intense.
Got a question for Aaron? Contact him directly at helveticka world headquarters. The higher the denomination of the accompanying bills, the more quickly you can expect an answer.
by Linda Anderson