Miscellaneous Entries.
joust. The traditional view is that this word should be pronounced either /juhst/ or /joost/. See NBC Handbook of Pronunciation 264 (4th ed. 1984) (listing only /juhst/); William H.P. Phyfe, 20,000 Words Often Mispronounced 421 (1937) (listing only /juhst/ and /joost/). But almost all Americans say /jowst/; this pronunciation must be considered not just acceptable, but — because of its overwhelming prevalence, coupled with no good reason for opposing it — preferable. Let the orthoepic jousting cease.
judgeable. So spelled, despite “judgment.”
judgmental; judgmatic. “Judgmental” = (1) judging when uncalled for; or (2) of or relating to judgment. Although the newer sense 1 is now more common {a judgmental critic}, sense 2 still appears — e.g.: “In October 1985, police Chief Sid Klein took away Welch’s summons book and said he couldn’t write any more tickets, citing Welch’s ‘lack of judgmental ability.'” “Officer Saw Discipline as Harassment,” St. Petersburg Times, 2 Apr. 1996, at A4. “Judgmatic,” which H.W. Fowler called a “facetious formation” because of its irregular formation on the analogy of “dogmatic,” is a needless variant of “judicious.”
jujitsu; jujutsu; jiujutsu. Although the Japanese term is closer to “ju-jutsu,” the phonetic spelling “jujitsu” has become the established form in both American and British English. The others are variant forms in English.
For information about the Language-Change Index click here.
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Quotation of the Day: “There is a Truth and Beauty in Rhetorick; but it oftener serves ill Turns than good ones.” William Penn, “Some Fruits of Solitude” (1682), in 1 Harvard Classics 329, 352 (Charles W. Eliot ed., 1909).
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