{"id":741,"date":"2019-02-22T12:09:48","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T17:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=741"},"modified":"2019-02-22T12:16:13","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T17:16:13","slug":"word-of-the-week-torpor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2019\/02\/22\/word-of-the-week-torpor\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Torpor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2019\/02\/IMG_7413.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-743\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2019\/02\/IMG_7413-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Gray February Sky\" width=\"411\" height=\"308\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2019\/02\/IMG_7413-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2019\/02\/IMG_7413-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2019\/02\/IMG_7413-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 411px) 100vw, 411px\" \/><\/a>Torpor, torpid: they describe the mood and setting of a gloomy late-February day. The ground is muddy, the buds not quite ready to open. A few daffodils are in bloom, but, really? April seems a year away. We will see a bit more snow and ice.<\/p>\n<p>If a prior Word of the Week,\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2018\/07\/19\/word-of-the-week-doldrum\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">doldrum<\/a>, fit the late-summer mood last year, our word today provides the right February descriptor: listlessness, dullness of mood, or &#8220;spiritual lethargy,&#8221; as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oed.com\/view\/Entry\/203613?redirectedFrom=Torpor&amp;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the OED&#8217;s entry<\/a> puts it. That was my sense of it as a word-hungry undergrad who sometimes felt a bit torpid, for various existential or self-inflicted reasons.<\/p>\n<p>The term seems to date to at least the 13th Century, probably earlier given its unaltered Latin origin. It&#8217;s also fun for me to see a Latin term come down to us basically unchanged, without sounding very Latin. An obsolete usage applies to physics, specifically, inertia.\u00a0 The OED provides a noun form, too, &#8220;torpidity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Shake off your torpidity and take a brisk walk. Spring will arrive.<\/p>\n<p>Please nominate a word or metaphor useful in academic writing by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.<\/p>\n<p>See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/metaphor-of-the-month\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/word-of-the-week\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo by the author.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Torpor, torpid: they describe the mood and setting of a gloomy late-February day. The ground is muddy, the buds not quite ready to open. A few daffodils are in bloom, but, really? April seems a year away. We will see a bit more snow and ice. If a prior Word of the Week,\u00a0 doldrum, fit &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2019\/02\/22\/word-of-the-week-torpor\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Word of the Week! Torpor<\/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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2516,87405,40197],"tags":[2522],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-etymology","category-vocabulary","tag-word-of-the-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-bX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","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=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}