Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 September 9

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September 9

Own the fact

What does "own the fact" mean?

Source: Blue Stockings Society (England) It was considered “unbecoming” for them to know Greek or Latin, almost immodest for them to be authors, and certainly indiscreet to own the fact.

Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 02:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Own can mean admit, so in the example above, it would be indiscreet for them to admit to knowing Greek or Latin. DuncanHill (talk) 02:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I see. Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 03:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I've seen "own up to" in that sense of admit; in the U.S. it has the connotation of being somewhat against your will. "At first Mayor Kirkpatrick strongly denied any wrongdoing, but once the text messages were made public, he owned up to an affair with his chief of staff." That seems like the Blue Stocking usage. Lately, I've seen "you own your words," especially on blogs, which has a different sense: you are responsible for what you say. --- 12:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

"Own up to" is current in British English, "own" (as in the original question) is somewhat old-fashioned. DuncanHill (talk) 12:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

American English too. —Angr 13:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Psychotherapists and that ilk talk about "owning one's experience", which sounds a bit dumb at surface level, but it refers to talking about the emotional aspects of your one's own experience in the first person and past tense, and using factual, descriptive language ("When this occurred, I felt betrayed") rather than the 2nd person and present tense, and using general language ("When this sort of thing happens to you, you feel betrayed"). -- JackofOz (talk) 14:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Is that "owning" my experience or yours? The Queen seems to stick to using "one" unassailably. 09:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Touché. One is grateful for that correction. Just give my private secretary a heads up if you'd like a knighthood or something, will you.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 20:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Verb

Trying to find the verb that relates to 'excursion' meaning to go out —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.154.239 (talk) 03:24, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know of a commonly used one - in primary school we would "go on an excursion". I can imagine a theoretical "excourse", but it's not a word I've ever heard used. Steewi (talk) 03:31, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It's excurse, actually. The OED has a few quotes from 1748 to 1891. Algebraist 11:06, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Boy, I hope it doesn't eventuate that people find reasons to excurse with this one. --- OtherDave (talk) 12:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Damn used to be a curse, but it's eventuated that it no longer carries the meaning it once had, so it's now an ex-curse.  :) (Sorry, I tried to bite my tongue, but that course of action didn't eventuate) (Sorry again).  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 14:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Questions of this type can be answered by the use of a thesaurus, by which I mean a thesaurus in the original linguistic sense, with nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and sometimes other words carefully organized in relation to each other. (I do not mean a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms which has been called a "thesaurus" for marketing purposes.) The index to the fourth edition of Roget's Thesaurus lists "excursion" with seven sublisted senses: circuitousness, detour, deviation, digression, journey, obliquity, and sight-seeing. Those senses have some overlap.

Depending on the sense desired, some possible corresponding verbs are as follows.

circuitousness: circulate, go around in circles

detour: detour, make a detour

deviation: deviate, digress, turn aside

digression: digress, wander, excurse (!), maunder

journey: travel, wayfare, journey, jaunt, peregrinate

obliquity: deviate, diverge, divagate

sight-seeing: sight-see, see the sights

The original request did not stipulate that the verb must be a cognate of the word "excursion". However, one verb related in meaning is "excurse", which is also related in etymology. You can see links to definitions of "excurse" at excurse - OneLook Dictionary Search.

-- Wavelength (talk) 18:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

My favorite answer to this question is "exit." DOR (HK) (talk) 07:59, 16 September 2008 (UTC)