George Bernard Shaw once quipped, "I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation."  https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_bernard_shaw_100030   

Shortened words are those that are in such widespread use that most dictionaries list them without the ending period that indicates they are an abbreviation.  Through frequent use, both in informal writing and speech, these shortened words have become acceptable words in their own right.  While they may not have inherited all the meanings of their long-form counterpart, in at least one sense of the word they carry the same meaning.   For example, rev can be used as substitute for revolution when it refers to the revolutions of an engine, but not when revolution refers to the overthrow of a government or system.  Bus for omnibus, wig for periwig, and blog for weblog, the original long word form is so rarely used today that it has become dated.  Find a list of shortened words at https://shortenedwords.com/   

With more than 70 million inhabitants, Guangzhou, China, is far and away the world’s largest city. But, what defines a city?  When you are comparing developments with tens of millions of people located in countries across the globe, a unified definition is tricky—one needs to consider a variety of population groupings, including urban populations, consolidated urban areas, agglomerations, and conglomerations.  However, all these groupings have one thing in common: they feature a central city surrounded by contiguous settlements of people.  Find a list representing the world’s 25 largest such groupings.  Two of the cities are in the United States.   https://www.britannica.com/topic/list-of-the-worlds-largest-cities-by-population    

Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia all share the distinction of being known as commonwealths.   Does this name come with any unique attributes that set these four states apart from the rest? In short, no, there is no difference between these commonwealths and the other 46 U.S. states.  By examining their state constitutional histories, however, we can learn why these states (or commonwealths) may have officially adopted this name.  During the English Civil War, England became a commonwealth after the office of the King and the House of Lords were abolished in 1649.   During the English Civil War, England became a commonwealth after the office of the King and the House of Lords were abolished in 1649.  According to the Hornbook of Virginia History, Virginia also adopted the commonwealth designation until it became a royal colony again in 1660 when the English monarchy was re-established.  The term was reintroduced when Virginia adopted its constitution on June 29, 1776.  Massachusetts was the next commonwealth to adopt its constitution, drafted by John Adams, in 1780.  According to the official website of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Adams may have chosen the word commonwealth, which was preferred by some political writers and may have carried “some anti-monarchial sentiment,” to emphasize that the state was a “representative democracy.”   

At first glance, Kentucky, the last state to call itself a commonwealth, appears to be an outlier among the four commonwealths.  Unlike Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, Kentucky was not one of the original thirteen colonies.  However, looking at Kentucky’s connections to the other commonwealth states helps to explain why it may have adopted the commonwealth moniker.  Kentucky was part of Virginia until 1792 when Virginia ceded the district of Kentucky to the United States. Kentucky’s first constitution was also based on Pennsylvania’s 1790 Constitution.  Curiously, even though Kentucky first adopted its constitution in 1792, it was the state’s fourth constitution, adopted in 1891, that formally declared in the preamble that the official name would be “The Commonwealth of Kentucky.”  Earlier constitutions used state and commonwealth interchangeably throughout the documents, but the preambles of the 1792, 1799, and 1850 constitutions referred to the “State of Kentucky.” https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2023/08/whats-in-a-name-the-four-u-s-states-that-are-technically-commonwealths/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2867 October 21, 2024