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Today's Word "Vernacular"

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vernacular \vehr-NAE-kyeh-lehr\ (noun) - 1 : The colloquial spoken language as distinguished from the literary written language; 2 : a local regional or professional dialect, such as the vernacular of Yorkshire or the medical vernacular; 3 : the style of a particular locality, group, or organization, as a building vernacular that responds to the extreme cold of a region.

"Obsequious familiarity is the vernacular of our department but it does not interfere with the back-stabbing and rumor-mongering you would expect in any workplace."

 

"Vernacular" is an English adaptation of the Latin vernaculus "domestic, native, indigenous" from verna "native slave," a word probably borrowed from Etruscan. It doesn't seem to be related to ver "spring," whence our "vernal equinox."


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