Tricky Words in this week‘s OVI

Academic. The original Academy was set up by the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato in the year 385 BC. Plato taught his philosophy in a grove (háj) near Athens called Hekademeia, the burial place of Akademos, the legendary hero and savior of the city. This was the origin of the idea of an academy as a place of higher education and study, as in Academy of Sciences, or for specialist training as in Military Academy or Riding Academy, or for maintaining the highest standard of culture as in Academy of Art or Music, or national language as in the Académie Française. A person can be an academic, usually a university or college teacher and researcher, or an academician, meaning a member of an academy. The expression “academic painter” is not used in English; a painter can be a fine artist or a decorator.

Andy’s Wordshop

Rally (the spelling “rallye” is artistic). This originally meant a rapid recovery of strength and regrouping, like an army which appears to be losing the battle, or a boxer in a fight who suddenly finds new strength and wins. The idea of maintaining strength to keep going is behind the “rally” in tennis. Later the sense of regrouping, gathering together took over, because there is strength in numbers, so a political rally is a large gathering of people with the same opinions, and an election rally is a meeting to support a candidate. Rallying also means people teasing each other in a funny conversation. A car rally was first of all a meeting of owners and drivers of similar cars (especially veteran, vintage or sports), and the idea of a competition of on- and off-road driving skills with a co-driver/navigator developed from that.