A.W.A.D. - Terms for Earth's Features

Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides... they all make news from time to time. Some see them as the payoff for offending their God. That especially applies to some televangelists here in the US, who pronounce such a verdict after each catastrophe. What a vengeful God they must subscribe to!

Others see these events as evidence of nature's wrath, but lawyer and orator Robert Green Ingersoll put it best when he said, "In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences." We may mess with an ecosystem and then we have to face the consequences. What a pity that often those who make a mess stay far behind, in space and time, to face the consequence.

This week we'll see five terms to describe earth's features, many of which you can use metaphorically.

archipelago
PRONUNCIATION: (ahr-kuh-PEL-uh-go)
MEANING: noun: A large group of islands.

ETYMOLOGY:From Italian arcipelago (the Aegean Sea), from Latin Egeopelagus, from arkhi- (chief) + pelagos (sea). Ultimately from the Indo-European root plak- (to be flat) which is also the source of words such as flake, flaw, placate, plead, please, and plank. Originally the term referred to the Aegean Sea (an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, between Greece and Turkey) that has numerous islands.

monadnock
PRONUNCIATION: (muh-NAD-nok)
MEANING: noun: An isolated hill or mountain that, having resisted erosion, rises above a plain.

ETYMOLOGY: After Mount Monadnock, a peak in New Hampshire, whose name in Algonquian means isolated mountain. Also see peneplain.

shoal
PRONUNCIATION: (shol, rhymes with hole)
MEANING: noun:
1. A shallow area in a body of water
2. A sandbank or sandbar in the bed of a body of water, constituting a navigation hazard

ETYMOLOGY: From Middle English shold, from Old English sceald (shallow). The homonym shoal, referring to a school of fish or a crowd, has a different origin, probably from Dutch schole (band or troop).

col
PRONUNCIATION: (kol, rhymes with doll)
MEANING: noun: A mountain pass

ETYMOLOGY: From French col (neck), from Latin collum (neck). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kwel- (to revolve) that is also the source of words such as colony, cult, culture, cycle, cyclone, chakra, and collar.

isthmus
PRONUNCIATION: (IS-muhs)
MEANING: noun: 1. A narrow strip of land with water on each side, joining two larger land masses, for example, the Isthmus of Panama. 2. A narrow strip of tissue joining two large organs or cavities.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin isthmus, from Greek isthmos (a neck of land).

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