March 18, 2015 - 23:16
1) Hybrid
OED – "The offspring of two animals or plants of different species, or (less strictly) varieties; a half-breed, cross-breed, or mongrel. " "Anything derived from heterogeneous sources, or composed of different or incongruous elements; in Philol. a compound formed of elements belonging to different languages."
Etymology: "Latin hybrida, more correctly hibrida (ibrida), offspring of a tame sow and wild boar; hence, of human parents of different races, half-breed."
Urban dictionary - "To make something of little or no significance sound a tiny bit cooler."
Techdictionary.com - "Combining two different technologies or systems."
2) Green
OED - “Of a colour intermediate between blue and yellow in the spectrum; of the colour of grass, foliage, an emerald, etc.” Also, the color of the sea. With reference to meat, putrid.
Etymology: "Cognate with Old Frisian grēne , grēn green, fresh, Middle Dutch groene , groen , grone , grune green, fresh, youthful, inexperienced, (of food) raw, untreated, also groene , groen , grone , grune (noun) green, greenness, greenery, verdure, grassy ground, vegetables, greens, green fabric (Dutch groen ), Old Saxon grōni green (Middle Low German grȫne green, (as noun) green, greenness, greenery, verdure, grassy ground, fruit, vegetables, greens), Old High German gruoni , gruone , gruani , cruone green (as the colour of plants, some precious stones, the sea), fresh, healthy, (of food) raw, untreated, also gruonī (noun) green, greenness, greenery, verdure, health, vigour (Middle High German grüene , German grün ), Old Icelandic grœnn green (as the colour of verdure, etc.), fresh, hopeful, good, Old Swedish grön green, fresh, new (Swedish grön ), Old Danish grøn green, fresh (Danish grøn ), a derivative formation < the Germanic base of grow v."
Urban Dictionary - "1. adj. noob, unexperienced, 2. n. Money, 3. n. Weed, Marijuana, 4. adj. Good., 5. The Color, Duh."
Visudictionary - http://www.visuwords.com/ Type 'green' into the search bar to see its connections to other words.
3) Understand
OED - "Old English understondan , -standan (under- prefix1 4a(a)), = Old Frisian understonda, Middle Danish understande, Middle Swedish undi(r)standa, Old Icelandic (as a foreign word) undirstanda. Compare Middle Low German understân to understand, to step under, Middle Dutch onderstaen (Dutch -staan), Middle High German understân, -stên (German unterstehen), to take upon oneself, to venture, presume, etc. With a different prefix, the same use of stand appears in Old English forstandan, Old Saxon farstandan, Old High German far-, firstantan (firstân), and Middle High German verstân, -stên (German verstehen), Middle Dutch verstaen (Dutch -staan)."
“To comprehend; to apprehend the meaning or import of; to grasp the idea of.” “To comprehend by knowing the meaning of the words employed; to be acquainted with (a language) to this extent.” Also, to literally stand under.
Urban Dictionary - "that capacity of the intellect(with the aid of the body and the senses), alongside reason(with which it exists in reciprocity) which enables man to have insight and substance to the words and concepts he makes use of. not only that but to see, to perceive. in its essentialy quality of being it is feminine. for simplicity's sake, we may remind ourselves that we have a brain which has two hemispheres, the left hemisphere correlated with the right hand and has to do with rational thought, reason and logic. the right hemishpehre correlated with left hand, and has to do with imagination, originality, 'irrational' feelings so on and so forth. the understanding enables us to add new data to an idea, under a concept, words. and synthesize differnt elements from differnt ideas and concepts. it is creative.reason enables us to analyze, critisize. but the understanding enables us to see immediately when its enough, to have temperamence and ingenuity, what time , continuous strife and practice in themselves cannot give us. it is true, reason is that which makes us differnt from the 'animals' (or our 'lower' nature). but in a way the understanding is that which makes us different from robots. interestinly enough, the term understanding isn't only used in psychology and philosophy, but in our daily regular and subconscious speech.”
Visuwords - http://www.visuwords.com/ Type 'understand' into the search bar to see its connections to other words.
Discussion:
I’m not sure if the word itself made it into my last web event, but I used 'hybrid' to conceptualize some of the ideas I was thinking about (in relation to the ‘cyborg’ concept). I also realized though that we do use hybrid when talking about the environment, when we think of hybrid cars or hybrid plants. I was surprised by the more biological definitions that I found--to be hybrid is related to technology--which is why I was interested in the tech definition. It struck me that hyrbid is defined as cross-species offsping, but that it is humans who define where one species ends and the other beings, which is often a blurry line. 'Green' was defined mostly in relation to other things that we consider green--foliage, the sea--but the etymology, which is retained ins in several definitions today, contains of lot fresh, healthy, hope and good undertones. I was discussing the word green with friend over dinner, and she told that apparently the ancient Greeks did not have a word for green and there is a lot of dicussion over why exactly--possible because it was their 'neutral' color or they simply didn't distinguish it from other colors like blue. I thought that the OED definition for 'understand' was interesting and relevant, as understanding could be defined as knowing because you know the meaning of the words--but as this assignment entails, meanings are varied and slippery. The Visuwords entry for understand also made a connection between understanding and sympathy, as well as belief, which I had not considered--do you have to understand something to sympathize with it? or does understanding gurantee sympathy? I did take a look at what Celeste found with 'egocentric' and was interested in the definition of the philosophical theory that every creates their own private world, as it seemed to tie in nicely with the conundrum of 'understand,' especially looking at the etymology--from German "to take upon oneself, to venture, to presume."
Citations
"hybrid, n. and adj." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 18 March 2015.
"Hybrid." Urban Dictionary. N.p., 5 January 2013. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.
"green, adj. and n.1." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 18 March 2015.
"Green." Urban Dictionary. N.p., 13 December 2004. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.
"underˈstand, v." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 18 March 2015.
"Understand." Urban Dictionary. N.p., 15 June 2008. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.
"Visuwords." Visuwords™ Online. LogicalOctopus, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.