THE “J” MAKES DO

The letter “J” had not been used in the Roman civilization until the 16th Century. In calendars, J can sometimes mean these months: January, June, or July. In a deck of playing cards, J is used to mark each of the jacks. It can also be used as a initial for people with first or middle names such as Jack, James, Jesuit, Jesus, Jerome, John, Jason, the Roman general Julius Caesar, the Roman God Janus, especially the coreligionists Jew. It can appear in some loanwords, including raj, Azerbaijan and Beijing. In English, “j” is the fourth least frequently used letter in words, being more frequent than only “z, q, and x”. In international licence plate codes, J stands for Japan. In the Metric system, J is the symbol for the joule, the SI derived unit for energy.

Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478–1550) was the first to explicitly distinguish I and J as representing separate sounds. He was a Venetian of of a patrician family in Vicenza. When Venice reconquered Vicenza on 12 November 1509, Trissino was punished for his betrayal and sent into exile. He then travelled to Germany and Lombardy and was pardoned by Venice in 1516. He eventually came under the protection of Pope Leo X. The Pope was the ruler of the Papal States since 9 March 1513 until his death in December 1521.

Born into the prominent political and banking Medici family of Florence, Giovanni is associated with granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter’s Basilica, a practice that was soon challenged by Martin Luther’s 95 Theses. His death came just 10 months after he had excommunicated Martin Luther, the seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation.

The first English language books to make a clear distinction in writing between I and J were the King James Bible 1st Revision Cambridge 1629 and an English grammar book published in 1633. Over the 18th century, this version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars. The term Vulgata to describe Jerome’s “new” Latin translation was made by Roger Bacon in the 13th century. The Vulgate is said by the Wikipedia to be a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Vetus Latina Gospels used by the Roman Church.

SYNONYM STUDY

Totttering, teetering, doddering, hobbling, wobbling, toddling, shuffling, shambling, lumbering, staggering, stumbling, fumbling, floundering, muddling, lurching, faltering

 

1. On the eve of the fateful recession, his party was tottering on the brink of disintegration.

Move in a feeble or unsteady way.

2. She stood there a moment longer, teetering on her heels, her stomach lurching and twisting, waiting for him to turn around and see her.

 Rhythmically move back and forth.

3. The leader is a doddering old fool, and his son is so love-struck that he is not fit to be the superviser of a group.

Move in a feeble or unsteady way, especially because of old age.

4. He is also recovering from an operation, hobbling around on crutches with enormous bandages on both feet.

Walk inconveniently because of pain from an injury.

5. With my teeth chattering and my knees wobbling, I somehow managed to climb the steps to a higher floor to break a news.

Move unsteadily from side to side.

6. He pulled her along gracefully and she felt like a child toddling after its mother.

Move with short unsteady steps while learning to walk as a child.

7. Staying for a few drinks, we joined the trail of people shuffling down the road.

Walk by dragging one’s feet along or without lifting them fully from the ground.

8. There was a shambling drunkard passing sometimes on my way to school, lying in a doorway, clutching a bottle.

Move with a slow, shuffling, awkward gait.

9. Late in the evening, freight cars rumble past, lumbering along in the wake of the engine’s distant whistle.

Move in a slow, heavy, awkward way.

10. The guard reeled back, staggering a few steps and struggling to reach to his sentinel.

Walk or move unsteadily as if about to fall.

11. Combatants turned and set off at a stumbling run towards the entrance to the shelter.

Trip or momentarily lose one’s balance; almost fall.

12. The victim’s face was ashen as she fumbling with her helmet, and her life support and backup had been failed.

Use the hands clumsily while doing or handling something

13. The cutbacks are charged so severe that the firm will be left floundering once the market recovers.

Struggle or stagger helplessly or clumsily in a pickle.

14. My brain is frantically muddling through, trying to make sense of what’s happening to me.

Bring into a disordered or confusing state.

15. He had let out an angry bellow before once again leaping to his feet and lurching forward.

Make an abrupt, unsteady, uncontrolled movement or series of movements; stagger.

16. That retail sales are faltering in the midst of a major mortgage boom is an especially noteworthy development.

Start to lose strength or momentum.