Barline

[pat]

Rejected by the inoperable puzzle.

Although often spelt hyphenated or as two words I think it's spelt often enough as just one word to warrant inclusion. My music software shows it as barline.

[Alan W]

I couldn't find barline written as a single word in any general dictionary, but as you say, pat, it is sometimes written that way. An example is the article Why do we have barlines? on the BBC website classical-music.com. This article uses the phrase "tyranny of the barline", which a few people seem to have written about, usually with barline as a single word. So it will be added as a rare word.

One thing I learned from looking this up in dictionaries is that the word bar in music originally meant this vertical line dividing the music into short segments of equal duration. Over time the word came to be used for the music between the bars, and so the term bar line (or barline or bar-line) was introduced to refer specifically to the vertical line. As the 3rd edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music put it, in 1927, "A bar ... is, literally, the straight line drawn across the stave to mark the metrical accent... In ordinary parlance that is now called the 'bar-line'."

[pat]

Thanks, Alan. If you retain the information you acquire when researching our requests for word inclusions you must be a veritable mine of information!

[Les303]

When I first started playing this wonderful game, I was surprised to see that the creator & administrator was not the one at the top of the score board. ( some other chap is consistently in that position, i just can't recall his name at the moment but i think it might be Alfred or Fonzie or something similar.)

More surprisingly, you rarely see Alan W in the top ten & it is not too often that you see a rosette next to his name.

What a great leveller this game is, despite his " mine of information " even an idiot like me can manage to just occassionally surpass him on the scoreboard?

[Alan W]

Pat, as you can imagine, my company is eagerly sought out at social gatherings on account of my vast repertoire of fun facts about the origins and usage of words.

Les, you are right in thinking that my performance as a Chihuahua player is a long way behind the highest scorers. But one reason you don't often see "Alan W" near the top of the scoreboard - or anywhere else on the scoreboard - is that I usually play under the name "vizal". This is actually a two-person team, so I can't take all the credit for whatever success we do manage to achieve. (Actually in the last couple of weeks we've managed to do quite well by our standards, and have scored a few flowers.)

[anonsi]

Plus you have to take into account all the time he spends researching our requests! I'm surprised he finds any time to play at all. 

[Les303]

Pat, as you can imagine, my company is eagerly sought out at social gatherings on account of my vast repertoire of fun facts about the origins and usage of words.

Les, you are right in thinking that my performance as a Chihuahua player is a long way behind the highest scorers. But one reason you don't often see "Alan W" near the top of the scoreboard - or anywhere else on the scoreboard - is that I usually play under the name "vizal". This is actually a two-person team, so I can't take all the credit for whatever success we do manage to achieve. (Actually in the last couple of weeks we've managed to do quite well by our standards, and have scored a few flowers.)

I had noticed the absence of Alan W from the scoreboard which was part of the reason that I submitted that post.
I had also noticed the sudden appearance of vizal who is always prominent on the scoreboard but I just never made the connection to yourself so thanks very much for that explanation, of course I will now be monitoring the performance of vizal much more closely.

I have managed to work out who the " al " is short for but now you must share with us, who is the " viz " short for?

[TRex]

I have managed to work out who the " al " is short for but now you must share with us, who is the " viz " short for?

Virtual

[Les303]

I don't get it.

To quote one of our " infamous " politicians, please explain?

[Alan W]

My Chihuahua team-mate is called Viz. Viz + Al = vizal.

TRex may be thinking of the name "viral" that some of the hags used to address me by. It was apparently a contraction of Virtual Al, the reason for which is lost in the mists of time.

[Les303]

I actually thought that viz was a computer term that meant virtual.

Anyway, I have confirmation that Viz is the actual teammate but I am still left wondering what name Viz is short for.
The answer is probably " none of your business " which is fair enough.

[Calilasseia]

I actually thought that viz was a computer term that meant virtual.

Anyway, I have confirmation that Viz is the actual teammate but I am still left wondering what name Viz is short for.
The answer is probably " none of your business " which is fair enough.

Viz is actually a contraction of videlicet, which itself is a contraction of videre licet, "it is permitted to see". Originally used to denote in print a revelation from a confidential source, its meaning has shifted to denote any explanatory exposition, with the inference that said exposition provides evidence for a postulate being advanced. Hence its frequent use in, for example, older generation mathematics textbooks, prior to the presentation of a proof.

Merriam-Webster is unusually informative with respect to the matter of the "z" appearing in viz. Originally, in mediaeval manuscripts, a special symbol was used to denote contraction of Latin words ending in -et, and this special symbol bore some resemblance to the letter 'z', and was thus eventually morphed into a 'z' over time. The symbol in question appears in this Unicode chart, in the form of two variations, given the Unicode code numbers 0xA76A and 0xA76B (note: hexadecimal notation! The decimal codes are 42858 and 42859 respectively). The symbol was originally an Arabic '3', but which morphed over time to resemble 0x0292 (decimal 658) from this character chart, which sees modern use in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

More on this subject can be derived by reading this article on scribal abbreviations, which cause no end of headaches for scholars deciphering mediaeval manuscripts, as use of these was frequent, but not subject to any consensus standardisation. A fairly lengthy tome devoted to this subject can be downloaded for free from here, for those who wish to delve into this voluminous subject matter further. An insight into the Byzantine nature of the subject can be obtained from here.