Topic: Scintillating
A fellow who grew up in Sidney, New York, was familiar with the local manufacturer Scintilla Magneto. He knew the Swiss-based company as the maker of magnetos, alternators with permanent magnets used to generate current for the ignition in an internal combustion engine.
Sidney's Scintilla Magneto is now known as Amphenol, but the multinational company still manufactures small parts of great import in harsh environments. While we doubt this update on businesses in upstate New York will prove scintillating to many folks, it does explain a bit about how we came to examine the question of whether the adjective scintillating has even a scintilla of association with the scintilla once a byword for magneto.
The short answer is: sort of. Scintilla—meaning "barely perceptible manifestation"; "the slightest particle or trace"; "a glittering particle"—comes from the Latin scintilla meaning "spark." The original scintillate meant "to emit sparks"; "to throw off as a spark or as sparkling flashes"; the descriptive scintillating—"brilliantly witty, lively, or stimulating"—followed. And someone with more than a trace of appreciation for language came to name the particular sort of magneto that helps spark an internal combustion engine to life.
Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.
Reality: Resurrection!
relax with us
