{"id":1863,"date":"2022-11-29T08:38:52","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T13:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=1863"},"modified":"2022-11-29T18:03:08","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T23:03:08","slug":"word-of-the-week-recrudescence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2022\/11\/29\/word-of-the-week-recrudescence\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Recrudescence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Space<\/a>Thanks to Robyn Bradshaw, UR Catering, for wondering about this term. I do not hear it in speech, but it’s not terribly unusual in academic prose, where students may encounter it.<\/p>\n

No one is likely to say that we will “experience a recrudescence of COVID-19 this winter,” even thought that may occur. The first definition given by The OED<\/a> notes our word, borrowed from Latin, can mean a recurrence of a disease, an outbreak. We’ll likely use “new outbreak” or “uptick” to describe that unfortunate possibility.<\/p>\n

Delving a little deeper into The OED entry, a more hopeful second definition appears, for the rediscovery or recovery of something already known to be useful. So if we find an abundance of commercially valuable rare-earth elements<\/a> on the Moon, a possible outcome<\/a> of our current exploration program there, some erudite journalist may indeed use our word to describe such a pleasant surprise.<\/p>\n

Okay, I’m back to riding one of my hobby horses, human-crewed space exploration, about which I’m a zealot. We’d name a spacecraft Discovery<\/em> (and have, with the Space Shuttle of that name pictured). I doubt we’ll ever see a vessel called Recrudescence<\/em> going to the Moon or Mars. That “crud” bit sticks on the tongue. So does the “crude” sound!<\/p>\n

Nominate a word students need to learn by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.<\/p>\n

See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to Robyn Bradshaw, UR Catering, for wondering about this term. I do not hear it in speech, but it’s not terribly unusual in academic prose, where students may encounter it. No one is likely to say that we will “experience a recrudescence of COVID-19 this winter,” even thought that may occur. The first definition … Continue reading Word of the Week! Recrudescence<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2516,40197],"tags":[2522],"class_list":["post-1863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-vocabulary","tag-word-of-the-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-u3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1863"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1869,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions\/1869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}