One-Letter Words, a Dictionary (8 page)
Read One-Letter Words, a Dictionary Online
Authors: Craig Conley
Tags: #Social Science, #Popular Culture, #Reference, #General
H IN PRINT AND PROVERB
1. (in literature)
“Beatrice: Heigh-ho! Margaret: For a hawk, a horse, or a husband? Beatrice: For the letter that begins them all, H.”
—William Shakespeare,
Much Ado About Nothing,
III.iv.54–56. There is a pun here on
ache,
which in Shakespeare’s day was pronounced
aitch.
2. (in literature)
“I had a wound here that was like a T, but now ’tis made an H.”
—William Shakespeare,
Antony and Cleopatra,
IV.vii.8. There is a pun here on
ache,
which in Shakespeare’s day was pronounced
aitch.
3. (in literature)
“H is a facade with two towers.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in
ABZ
by Mel Gooding
4.
n.
A written representation of the letter.
With relief he fixed his eyes on some symbols pencilled on the wall inside: the letter H, and under it a row of figures.
—Graham Greene,
The Heart of the Matter
The pencil moved beneath the painstaking coaxing of her fingers. She drew the letter h. Her hand was shaking so badly, she dropped the pencil…. Tate went after it…. He replaced the pencil in her hand and guided it back onto the tablet. “H what?”
—Sandra Brown,
Mirror Image
5.
n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.
MUSIC
6.
n.
In music, the German name for the note B-natural.
7.
n.
The eighth section in a piece of music.
Only in the final section H [of Mozart’s
Le nozze di Figaro
] does the music build up to the torrent of noise described by Da Ponte.
—Andrew Steptoe,
The Mozart–Da Ponte Operas: The Cultural and
Musical Background to “Le Nozze Di Figaro,” “Don Giovanni,” and “Cosi Fan Tutte”
PEOPLE, PLACES, AND THINGS
8.
n.
Something arbitrarily designated H
(e.g., a person, place, or other thing).
9.
n.
Someone called H.
How bad is he, Miss H?
—Iain Banks,
The Business
10.
n.
The eighth in a series.
The defense of the city had been organized into eight sectors, designated by the letters A to H.
—Antony Beevor,
The Fall of Berlin 1945
11.
n.
Something having the shape of an H,
such as a grooved wooden plank.
12.
n.
A designated location.
He escorted her into room H, which was behind his office.
—Brooks Hansen,
Perlman’s Ordeal
MISCELLANEOUS
13.
n.
The eighth letter of the alphabet.
Governali…believes in History with the great H (indeed, in greatness itself with a great G).
—William H. Gass,
The Tunnel
Think about it: one man’s personal obsession with a more or less arbitrary letter of the alphabet has spread to the point where several generations of Canadian poets have internalized it as their own. H is the shiniest toy in the box, and everybody wants it.
—Darren Wershler-Henry,
Nickolodeon
[N]o computer can handle the letter H by itself. It can only handle numbers, so we have a convention that the letter H will be represented by some number, such as 72.
—Peter Gulutzan,
SQL-99 Complete, Really
14.
n.
H beam:
a metal beam whose cross-section is H-shaped.
The [Santa Barbara, California] pier was supported by 340 H-beam steel pilings.
—Nelson G. Hairston,
Ecological Experiments: Purpose, Design, and Execution
15.
n.
H block:
the H-shaped buildings in Maze Prison (Ireland).
You’ll see lots of green Hs attached to lamp posts (in memory of the H-blocks at the Maze prison where the hunger strikers were incarcerated.
—Tom Downs,
Lonely Planet: Ireland
16.
n.
H budding:
“plate budding in which cuts in the bark of the stock are made in the form of an H.”—Dr. John Burkardt
17.
n.
A Roman numeral for 200.
18.
n.
H hinge:
a hinge with H-shaped leaves.
The earliest…[Shaker] interior doors featured handwrought H-hinges screwed directly to the face of the door and the face of the adjacent frame.
—Christian Becksvoort,
The Shaker Legacy: Perspectives on an Enduring Furniture Style
19.
n.
Any spoken sound represented by the letter.
The sound vibration of the consonant H means
“stepladder to the heavenly planes, beyond the beyond.”
—Joseph E. Rael,
Tracks of Dancing Light:
A Native American Approach to Understanding
Your Name
That “orrible” omission of the letter h from places where it ought to be, that aspiration of the h until you exasperate it altogether—you cannot tell what harm such mistakes may cause.
—C. H. Spurgeon,
The Soulwinner
When the teacher called, “H-h-h-h,” only the letter H came back.
—Jean Feldman,
Teaching Tunes Audiotape and Mini-Books Set: Early Phonics
20.
n.
H stretcher:
“a bar supporting two other bars and forming an H; often seen in chair legs.”—Dr. John Burkardt
SCIENTIFICALLY SPEAKING
21.
n.
A vitamin (biotin).
Found in every cell in the body, biotin is an essential growth factor. It is involved in the enzyme action that enables protein and carbohydrate metabolism, the breakdown of fatty acids, and the synthesis of DNA in cells…. Foods rich in biotin include oats, organ meats, yeast, and eggs (cooked); smaller amounts are found in whole-wheat products, dairy products, fish, and tomatoes.
—American Medical Association
And it doesn’t really matter, anyway, because we’ll soon fatten him up again. All we’ll have to do is give him a triple dosage of my wonderful Supervitamin Chocolate. Supervitamin Chocolate contains huge amounts of vitamin A and vitamin B. It also contains vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin F, vitamin G, vitamin I, vitamin J, vitamin K, vitamin L, vitamin M, vitamin N, vitamin O, vitamin P, vitamin Q, vitamin R, vitamin T, vitamin U, vitamin V, vitamin W, vitamin X, vitamin Y, and, believe it or not, vitamin Z! The only two vitamins it doesn’t have in it are vitamin S, because it makes you sick, and vitamin H, because it makes you grow horns on the top of your head, like a bull. But it does have a very small amount of the rarest and most magical vitamin of them all—vitamin Wonka.
—Roald Dahl,
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
22.
n.
The horizontal component of the total intensity of a magnetic field, measured in units of nanoTesla.
The Earth’s magnetic field intensity is roughly between 25,000 and 65,000 nT.
23.
n.
The cosmic property of a substance without relation to the force manifesting itself through it.
When a substance is taken without relation to the force manifesting itself through it, it is called
“hydrogen,” and, like the hydrogen of chemistry, it is designated by the letter H.
—P. D. Uspenskii,
In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an
Unknown Teaching
24.
n.
(physics)
The Planck constant
h
is the proportion between the total energy and frequency of a photon
(a single quantum unit of electromagnetic energy such as light or heat radiation).
25.
n.
(thermodynamics)
Enthalpy.
The internal energy of a system can be divided into two parts: the capacity to do pressure-volume work and the capacity to transfer heat, known as enthalpy
H.
26.
n.
(chemistry)
The symbol for the element hydrogen in the periodic table.
“Think you could swim in heavy water?” “H two O two?
Very buoyantly, I imagine.”
—Iain Banks,
The Business
27.
n.
(anatomy)
The gray matter in the center of the spinal cord.
The posterior (dorsal) horns are gray matter areas at the rear of each side of the H…. The lateral horns are small projections of gray matter at the sides of H.
—Phillip E. Pack,
Anatomy and Physiology
FOREIGN MEANINGS
28.
n.
(French)
Zero,
as in
L’heure H,
“zero hour.”
I IN PRINT AND PROVERB
1. (phrase)
I per se:
the letter I by itself makes a word.
2. (phrase)
“I came, I saw, I conquered.”
—Julius Caesar
3. (chiefly obsolete)
Aye.
4. (in literature)
“Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but ay, and that bare vowel I shall poison more than the death-darting eye of cockatrice. I am not I, if there be such an ay, or those eyes shut, that makes thee answer ay.”
—William Shakespeare,
Romeo and Juliet,
III.ii.45–49. The wordplay here is on
I, ay,
and
eye.
5. (in literature)
“I, deep reds, spit blood, laughter of beautiful lips/In anger or in drunkenness and penitence.”
—Arthur Rimbaud, “Vowels”
6. (in literature)
“I is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language, the first thought of the mind, the first object of affection.”
—Ambrose Bierce,
Collected Writings
7. (in literature)
“And now I see the face of god, and I raised this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: ‘I.’”
—Ayn Rand,
Anthem
8. (in literature)
“I…how huge a word in that small
English mark, the shape of a Grecian pillar.”
—William H. Gass,
The Tunnel
9. (in literature)
“I is the war machine launching a projectile.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in
ABZ
by Mel Gooding
10.
n.
A written representation of the letter.
If a one letter word is found for a ciphertext of a formal English message, it is obvious that the letter is either an I or an A.
—Al Court,
An Introduction to Cryptography.
In fact, this claim is false, as this dictionary proves.
When a schoolteacher writes “I” on a blackboard and asks the students what they see, most of them will answer that they see the word “I.” It’s rare for someone to say “I see a blackboard with ‘I’ written on it.”
Just as the relatively huge blackboard is ignored in favor of a single letter, we ignore the Awareness that is the permanent background to all phenomena.”
—Leo Hartong,
Awakening to the Dream
11.
n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.
LOOKING OUT FOR NUMBER ONE
12.
n.
The ego, self.
The ego, that whole construct we so easily name
“I,” also has its less than appealing needs.
—Thomas Moore,
Care of the Soul
The words that really matter in the English language are the little words, and the shorter the word the greater its significance, it seems. The most important word in our language is a one-letter word. I is the supreme example of the importance of short words. Not only is it a single letter, but it is always a capital letter.
It stands symmetrical and alone, head and shoulders above almost all other words in a written sentence. I is the most commonly used word in everyday speech. I is the point from which we see and experience the world.
It is the subject of the sentence, and me, the objective case of I, is a two-letter word that is not far behind in significance.
—Dr. Michael Houseley,
Medical Post
13.
n.
An especially egotistic person who uses the first person pronoun excessively.
He’s just a big
I.
14.
n.
A dichotomous part of one’s self.
the other
I
What a lot of phenomenological ambitions would be necessary to uncover the “I” of different states corresponding to different narcotics! At the very least, it would be necessary to classify these “I’s” in three species: the “I” of sleep—if it exists; the “I” of the narcosis—if it retains any value as individuality; the “I” of reverie, maintained in such vigilance that it can permit itself the happiness of writing…. Is there an
“I” which assumes these multiple “I’s”? An “I” of all these “I’s” which has the mastery of our whole being, of all our intimate beings? Novalis writes: [“The supreme task of culture is to take possession of its transcendental self, to be at once the I of its I.”] If the
“I’s” vary in tonality of being, where is the dominant
“I”? In looking for the “I” of the “I’s” won’t we find, by dreaming like Novalis, the “I” of the “I,” the transcendental “I”?
—Gaston Bachelard,
The Poetics of
Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos
15.
n.
A Roman numeral for one.
(See
J.
)
16.
n.
something arbitrarily designated I
(e.g., a person, place, or other thing).
17.
pronoun.
Nominative singular pronoun.
Our practice of capitalizing the first person singular pronoun—I—is also bizarrely tied in with the badly understood conventions of when to write
Roman I with a tail and when to leave well enough alone.
—Alexander Humez,
A B C Et Cetera
18.
pronoun.
Narrator of a literary work written in the first person singular.
I started performing on the world stage with a borrowed silver spoon in my mouth.
—Michael York,
Accidentally on Purpose
MISCELLANEOUS
19.
n.
The ninth letter of the alphabet.
Colossal edifice denoted by one-letter word:
/Remove “I” from pain and become Pan.
—K.P. Kaligari, “Moina, My Reflection”
20.
n.
Something having the shape of an I.
21.
n.
I beam:
a steel joist or girder whose cross-section is I-shaped.
Imagine that you and I are standing in a room at opposite ends of a 120-foot steel I-beam, the type that’s used in construction. I pull a hundred-dollar bill from my wallet and shout—120 feet is a long way—“Hey, you down at the end! If you’ll walk the length of this I-beam in two minutes without stepping off the other side, I’ll give you a hundred dollars!” Would you come? It’s your own choice, of course, but I’ll bet you’re already on that beam.
—Hyrum W. Smith,
Priorities Magazine
22.
n.
Any spoken sound represented by the letter.
The sound vibration of the vowel I means “awareness.”
—Joseph E. Rael,
Tracks of Dancing Light: A Native
American Approach to Understanding Your Name
23.
n.
A grade in school indicating a student’s work is incomplete.
Although we tried a variety of strategies to promote greater success…many students still had grades of D or F or took an incomplete (I) in at least one of their classes
—Ruth Schoenbach,
Reading for
Understanding
24.
n.
The ninth in a series.
25.
n.
The ninth section in a piece of music.
26.
n.
I bar:
a steel beam whose cross-section is I-shaped.
27.
n.
I girder:
a steel beam whose cross-section is I-shaped, used as a structural support in buildings or bridges.
An investigation uncovered improper reinforcement in the flanges of precast concrete I-girders that supported the double-tee roof deck.
—Jacob Feld,
Construction Failure
28.
n.
I hat:
a cap with a floppy brim.
29.
n.
I iron:
a steel beam whose cross-section is I-shaped.
30.
n.
I ring:
a metal band encircling a metal drum.
31.
n.
I formation:
“an offensive football play in which the quarterback, a half back, the full back, and the tail back line up behind the center.”—Dr. John Burkardt
SCIENTIFIC MATTERS
32.
n.
Electrical current.
Before WW2 acceptable symbols for current had been C for obvious reasons, and sometimes A for amperage. After the war the Electrotechnical Commission was set up to standardise the symbols used in Electronics…. They decided that current would be called I. The reason is that in French current is known as “intensité de courant.”
—Phil Picton
33.
n.
(mathematics)
Imaginary number (equal to the square root of -1).
i for the imaginary unit was first used by Leonhard
Euler (1707–1783) in a memoir presented in 1777 but not published until 1794 in his “Institutionum calculi integralis.”
—Jeff Miller, “Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols”
34.
n.
(astronomy)
The inclination of an orbit to the ecliptic.
35.
n.
(chemistry)
The symbol for the element iodine in the periodic table.
36.
n.
(logic)
The notation of a particular affirmative statement,
such as “some humans are men.” In categorical logic, the square of opposition describes the relationship between the universal affirmative
A,
the universal negative
E,
the particular affirmative
I,
and the particular negative
O.
37.
n.
A unit vector parallel to the x-axis.
38.
n.
Candlepower.
The term candlepower is based on a measurement of the light produced by a pure spermaceti candle weighing one sixth of a pound, burning at a rate of 120 grams per hour. Spermaceti is found in the head of Sperm Whales, and once was used to make candles.
—Bob Sherman,
Candle History
FOREIGN MEANINGS
39.
interj.
(German)
“What next?!”
40.
interj.
(German)
“Nonsense! rubbish!”
41.
interj.
(German)
“Certainly not!”
42.
conj.
(Polish)
also, too.
FACTS AND FIGURES
43.
Lowercase
i
earned the right to a dot owing to its small size.
However, the Turkish capital
I
is sometimes dotted.
44.
Most of Emily Dickinson’s poems (over 150 of them) begin with the word
I.
For example, “I heard a Fly Buzz When I Died.”
45.
American Health
has reported that the less one uses the first-person pronoun, the less one’s risk of coronary heart disease.