{"id":6632,"date":"2024-03-22T20:39:59","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T20:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=6632"},"modified":"2024-03-22T20:41:30","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T20:41:30","slug":"word-of-the-day-mendacity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2024\/03\/22\/word-of-the-day-mendacity\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Mendacity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to the Dictionary Project, is mendacity<\/em>. Mendacity<\/em> is a noun which means \u201cthe quality of being mendacious; untruthfulness; tendency to lie\u201d or \u201can instance of lying; falsehood\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/mendacity<\/a>). We have here another one of those circular definitions, so what does mendacious<\/em> mean? It\u2019s an adjective that means \u201ctelling lies, especially habitually; dishonest; lying; untruthful\u201d when referring to a person or \u201cfalse or untrue\u201d when referring to a thing, like a report or a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mendacity<\/em> appears in English in the \u201c1640s, from French mendacit\u00e9<\/em> and directly from Late Latin mendacitas<\/em> \u2018falsehood, mendacity<\/em>,\u2019 from Latin mendax<\/em> \u2018lying; a liar\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=mendacity<\/a>). Mendacious entered English in the \u201c1610s, from French mendacieux<\/em> and directly from Latin mendacium<\/em> \u2018a lie, untruth, falsehood, fiction,\u2019 from mendax<\/em> (genitive mendacis<\/em>) \u2018lying, deceitful,\u2019 from menda<\/em> \u2018fault, defect, carelessness in writing,\u2019 from PIE root *mend-<\/em> \u2018physical defect, fault\u2019 (see amend<\/a> (v.)). The sense evolution of Latin mendax<\/em> was influenced by mentiri<\/em> \u2018to speak falsely, lie, deceive\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/word\/mendacious<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first time I came across the word mendacity was when I was in college. I majored in Dramatic Literature and Theater, and in at least one of my classes we read\/watched Tennessee Williams\u2019s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof<\/em>. The play won the Pulitzer Prize for 1955. It\u2019s about a family on the Mississippi delta:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event in the play is the birthday of the family patriarch, \u201cBig Daddy\u201d Pollitt. He and Big Mama begin the play in a celebratory mood since Big Daddy has just received a clean bill of health, they think, from a medical clinic. However, the truth is that Big Daddy is dying of cancer. The couple have two boys, Brick and Gooper, and they are each married, Brick to Maggie and Gooper to Mae. Gooper and Mae have children, but Brick and Maggie do not, and they haven\u2019t slept together in a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trouble between Brick and Maggie relates to Brick\u2019s best friend, Skipper, who committed suicide. Skipper was attracted to Brick, but before he died, he tried to seduce Maggie to prove that he was not gay. However, he was unable to go through with it. Another source of trouble in the family is the aggressive way in which Gooper and Mae are trying to secure a larger share of Big Daddy\u2019s estate. Maggie is trying to frustrate their efforts, but Brick obviously couldn\u2019t care less even though he is the favorite son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t go into any more details in case you decide to read or see the play. It was, apparently, Williams\u2019s favorite of his plays. Personally, I prefer The Glass Menagerie<\/em>. But what connects it to the word of the day is that mendacity appears in it a number of times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Act 2, Brick says, \u201cHave you ever heard the word ‘mendacity’?
BIG DADDY: Sure. Mendacity is one of them five-dollar words that cheap politicians throw back and forth at each other.
BRICK: You know what it means?
BIG DADDY: Don’t it mean lying and liars?
BRICK: Yes, sir, lying and liars.
BIG DADDY: Has someone been lying to you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been two movie versions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In 1958, Richard Brooks directed it with Paul Newman as Brick, Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie, and Burl Ives as Big Daddy. Even though I haven\u2019t seen that movie in years, I can still hear Burl Ives saying, \u201cWhat’s that smell in this room? Didn’t you notice it, Brick? Didn’t you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?\u201d This 1958 production was MGM\u2019s third highest grossing movie of the year as well as being a critical success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second was a 1984 made-for-TV movie starring Jessica Lange, Tommie Lee Jones, and Rip Torn as Big Daddy, directed by Jack Hofsiss. This version was based on a 1974 revival that included some revisions by the playwright. If you have never seen it, watching either version would be worthwhile. And that\u2019s no lie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is from The Film Experience<\/em> (http:\/\/thefilmexperience.net\/blog\/2020\/8\/4\/almost-there-burl-ives-in-cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof.html<\/a>). It\u2019s of Burl Ives as Big Daddy in the 1958 movie version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a role that got Ives an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to the Dictionary Project, is mendacity. Mendacity is a noun which means \u201cthe quality of being mendacious; untruthfulness; tendency to lie\u201d or \u201can instance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[627,238,284,628],"class_list":["post-6632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof","tag-dictionary","tag-linguistics","tag-mendacity","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6634,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6632\/revisions\/6634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}