{"id":2040,"date":"2023-10-26T21:22:37","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T01:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=2040"},"modified":"2023-10-26T21:22:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T01:22:37","slug":"halloween-word-of-the-week-skeleton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2023\/10\/26\/halloween-word-of-the-week-skeleton\/","title":{"rendered":"Halloween Word of the Week! Skeleton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Me<\/p>\n

I’ve featured Halloween adjectives<\/a>\u00a0 here before, but not one of my favorite words. As pronounced in England, it’s “skeluhton<\/a>.” I hear “skellington”or “skellinton,” which I often say just to get a chuckle. Funny bone! Halloween skeletons are not scary by the standards of 2023.<\/p>\n

We all know what a skeleton is and in fact, we carry one around with us (well, inside us) daily. Where did this bony word come from? The OED fact-sheet<\/a> abounds with information, beyond the UK and US pronunciations. We have the Latin sceleton<\/em>, and I learned that the metaphor “skeleton in the closet” first appeared in the mid-19th Century. I like the contemporaneous metaphor “skeleton at the feast,” for something that ruins a moment of enjoyment.<\/p>\n

We use our word metaphorically all the time, in calling things “skeletal” or referring to something wasted away as a “skeleton.”<\/p>\n

Carry those bones with you as you consider ways to vary your vocabulary.<\/p>\n

If you have a word or metaphor you enjoy, send them by e-mail (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

Image: Selfie with “Bucky,” the skeleton at Glenmore Yoga Studio. Boo!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve featured Halloween adjectives\u00a0 here before, but not one of my favorite words. As pronounced in England, it’s “skeluhton.” I hear “skellington”or “skellinton,” which I often say just to get a chuckle. Funny bone! Halloween skeletons are not scary by the standards of 2023. We all know what a skeleton is and in fact, we … Continue reading Halloween Word of the Week! Skeleton<\/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":[87405,87399,40197],"tags":[2522],"class_list":["post-2040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-etymology","category-metaphor","category-vocabulary","tag-word-of-the-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-wU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040","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=2040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2042,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040\/revisions\/2042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}