2022-01-30
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน - Set – C - crescendo & climax
แนะนำการใช้ ตามที่ส่วนใหญ่ใช้ แต่ละท้องถิ่น
ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ตาม ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค
Dictionary.com:
ออกเสียง crescendo = “kri-SHEN-doh” or “-sen-doh”
Italian = “kre-SHEN-daw
ออกเสียง climax = “KLAHY-maks”
Common Errors in English Usage Dictionary:
crescendo & climax
When something is growing louder or more intense,
it is going through a crescendo (from an Italian word meaning “growing”).
Traditionalists object to its use when you mean “climax.”
A crescendo of cheers by an enthusiastic audience
grows until it reaches a climax, or peak.
“Crescendo” as a verb is common,
but also disapproved by many authorities.
Instead of “the orchestra crescendos,”
write “the orchestra plays a crescendo.”
Dictionary.com:
17 Italian Musical Terms That Will Strike A Chord With You
Published November 2, 2021
If you take a cursory glance at almost any sheet music,
particularly for classical music,
you will see a hodgepodge of Italian terms
such as piano, staccato, crescendo, just to name a few.
How did the Italian language come to dominate musical notation?
To answer this question,
we need to know a little bit about the history of music.
The music staff (a set of five horizontal lines with four spaces)
used in sheet music was created by Guido d’Arezzo,
a Benedictine monk in Arezzo, Italy, in the 11th century.
Later, during the Renaissance,
Italy became an important site of polyphonic musical notation.
Finally, during the Baroque period (from the 17th to the mid-18th century), new musical forms
such as the sonata, concerto, and opera were invented in Italy.
With such a long history of musical innovation
in what is today known as classical music,
it is little surprise that the Italian language dominates musical notation.
Read on for a list of some of the many musical terms
that come from Italian.
Some of these have 696974filtered into everyday usage,
like crescendo.
Others have stuck firmly to their musical roots.
piano
The word piano in Italian literally means “soft.”
But most English speakers associate it with the musical instrument.
The name for this instrument comes from the Italian piano e forte, meaning “soft and loud,”
a description of the two volumes this harpsichord could make.
In musical notation, however,
piano does not refer to the instrument,
but literally means “soft,” “subdued,” or “softly.”
When a little p, indicating piano appears on sheet music,
that is an instruction to play softly.
allegro
In music, allegro [ uh–LEY-groh ] means “brisk or rapid in tempo.”
It can also refer to a movement, or
“a principal division or section of a sonata, symphony, or the like,
” that uses allegro tempo.
While an Italian word, allegro ultimately comes from
the Latin alacer, meaning “brisk.”
adagio
The notation adagio [ uh–DAH-zhee-oh ] is another tempo notation, meaning “in a leisurely manner; slowly.”
It comes from the Italian expression ad agio, which means “at ease.”
crescendo
Crescendo [ kri-SHEN-doh ] is one of the musical terms
that has come to be used outside of notation.
It means “a gradual, steady increase in loudness or force.”
Crescendo comes from Italian meaning “growing.”
rondo
The term rondo is a technical term for
the overall composition of a piece of music.
It refers to “a work or movement,
often the last movement of a sonata,
” having one principal subject that is stated
at least three times in the same key
and to which return is made after
the introduction of each subordinate theme.
Rondo is the Italian version of the French word rondeau, “little round.” (Round in this case refers to a piece of music with repeated elements.)
vibrato
One Italian music term whose meaning is relatively clear to English speakers is vibrato, “a pulsating effect.”
Vibrato comes from the Italian for “vibrate,”
which is precisely the desired effect.
alto
The different divisions in range are typically named in Italian.
One of those is alto, a term for
“the second highest instrument in a family of musical instruments,
as the viola in the violin family.”
The term is also used to describe voices in music,
either the lowest female voice or the highest male voice.
The word alto in Italian means “high,”
a reference to it being higher than a tenor.
soprano
Another range name that comes from Italian is soprano,
“the uppermost part or voice.”
The word soprano is Italian for “above” or “high.”
fermata
The fermata [ fer-MAH-tuh ], also known as a pause in English,
indicates that a note, chord, or rest should be held
“for a duration longer than the indicated time value.”
The fermata symbol is 𝄐. Fermata in Italian means “stop” or “pause.”
giocoso
A piece of fun, happy music is known as giocoso [ juh–kKOH-soh ], meaning “merry; playful.”
It can also be used occasionally to describe aparticular tempo.
Giocoso in Italian literally means “playful.”
ostinato
An Italian term that is a close cognate with its English cousin
is ostinato [ os-ti-NAH-toh ], which literally means “obstinate.”
In music, ostinato refers to “a constantly recurring musical fragment.”
pizzicato
One musical term that may make you think of
a favorite Italian dish is pizzicato [ pit-si-KAH-toh ],
which means “played by plucking the strings with the finger
instead of using the bow, as on a violin.” Pizzicato comes from the Italian verb pizzicare, “to pluck, pick, twang (a stringed instrument).”
solfeggio
At some point, you likely learned
the musical tones do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and ti.
What you may not know is that this scale is known as sol-fa,
and it was created by our old friend the monk Guido d’Arezzo.
Putting this scale to use is known as solfeggio [ sol-FEJ-oh ],
“a vocal exercise in which the sol-fa syllables are used.”
staccato
You may have encountered the term staccato—much like crescendo
—outside of the world of music,
most often to describe someone’s pattern of speech.
In music, staccato [ stuh–KAH-toh ] indicates notes that are
“shortened and detached when played or sung” or
“characterized by performance in which the notes are abruptly disconnected.”
Staccato in Italian means “disconnected,”
from the Italian verb staccare.
Bottom of Form
glissando
The term glissando [ gli-SAHN-doh ] describes something
that is a polar opposite of staccato.
Glissando comes from a combination of French and Italian—glisser
from French meaning “to slide” and -ando,
a gerund ending in Italian.
Glissando, then, means literally “sliding,”
and in music means
“performed with a gliding effect by sliding one or more fingers
rapidly over the keys of a piano or strings of a harp.”
rubato
One of the sneakiest musical terms that come from Italian
is rubato [ roo-BAH-toh ], from the Italian expression tempo rubato, meaning “stolen time.”
In music, rubato means
“having certain notes arbitrarily lengthened
while others are correspondingly shortened, or vice-versa.”
Bonus: cello
You are likely familiar with the cello [ CHEL-oh ],
“the second largest member of the violin family.”
One of the most famous cellists of the contemporary era is Yo-Yo Ma.
What you may not already know is that
the word cello is a shortening of violoncello [ vee-uh-luhn-CHEL-oh ]. The violon- part of the word refers to a violone,
also known as a double bass.
The suffix -cello is a diminutive in Italian, meaning “small.”
Violoncello, then, means “small violone.”
Ironically, for such a big instrument, cello literally means “small.”
Did these Italian musical terms make your head spin?
You can brush up on their meanings at our word list here.
To test your knowledge of these terms, take our musical terms from Italian quiz.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language:
Usage Note:
Crescendo is sometimes used to refer to a climax or peak,
as in noise level, rather than an increase.
The Usage Panel has mixed feelings about this usage,
though the evidence suggests that acceptance of it is slowly increasing.
In our 1988 survey, 55 percent of the Usage Panel rejected it
in the sentence
When the guard sank a three-pointer to tie the game, the noise of the crowd reached a crescendo.
In 2006, 55 percent accepted this same sentence.
Dictionary.com:
ABOUT THIS WORD
What does climax mean?
A climax is the most intense, decisive point of something,
especially in a story or film.
Where does climax come from?
Content warning: this article contains language about sex.
We can ultimately thank Greek for the word climax,
which literally means “ladder.”
The word is recorded in English as early as the 1530s
and originally referred to a rhetorical device
where ideas are arranged in a way
that increase in intensity or importance.
By the 1640s, climax was referring to the culmination of something,
such as a competition or story.
Many literature students will know climax
as the peak or pivotal moment in plays,
as modeled by 19th-century German dramatist
Gustav Freytag in his namesake, Rook Reading
Climax lent itself to sex by the 1870s,
used in scientific literature for the orgasm of a person.
The opposite of a climax is an anticlimax,
when something is far less important, powerful, or striking than expected—a letdown.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Choose the Right Synonym for climax
Noun
Summit, Peak, Pinnacle, Climax, Apex, Acme, Culmination
mean the highest point attained or attainable.
Summit implies the topmost level attainable.
at the summit of the Victorian social scene
Peak suggests the highest among other high points.
an artist working at the peak of her powers
Pinnacle suggests a dizzying and often insecure height.
the pinnacle of worldly success
Climax implies the highest point in an ascending series.
the war was the climax to a series of hostile actions
Apex implies the point where all ascending lines converge.
the apex of Dutch culture
Acme implies a level of quality representing the perfection of a thing.
a statue that was once deemed the acme of beauty
Culmination suggests the outcome of a growth or development representing an attained objective.
the culmination of years of effort
Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Usage Notes
On ‘Climatic’ and ‘Climactic’
One letter makes all the difference.
What is the difference between the adjectives climatic and climactic?
Climatic means “of or relating to climate.”
It can describe things that pertain to the climate patterns of a place
or to events attributed to climate change.
Climactic means “of, relating to, or constituting a climax.”
It describes things that amount to the high point of something
or the point of greatest tension (such as within a narrative).
Climatic and climactic might arguably fall into the category
of words you don’t even realize are two different words
until you see them printed next to each other
(or, perhaps, read an article about their usage on the internet).
One factor that causes people to overlook their distinction
might be that they share the same origin.
The nouns on which they are based,
climate and climax, both ultimately derive from the same
Greek noun, klima, meaning “inclination, latitude, climate.”
It’s not unusual to see climatic used in instances
where “amounting to a climax” is clearly what is meant.
Nor is it strange to see the reverse.
For one thing,
climactic is more likely to occur in prose pertaining to any subject,
'while climatic is (logically) more or less restricted to science writing,
and writers whose subject is climate science are likely
to be alert to the difference.
For the most part, confusion between climactic and climatic
is limited to spelling or typing and rarely reflected in speech.
Oh yeah, uh, we forgot to mention we've been defusing a bomb
this entire time! Red wire or green wire? Which do we snip?
Phew. Now that was an action-packed ending.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Word History
'Climate' Change
The evolution of the word's meaning can't be denied
What do we mean when we speak of climate?
Well, as with so many words that are found in the polysemous mess
that we call English, it depends.
We may be referring to
specific weather-related conditions in a particular area,
or to one of a number of more figurative definitions.
Climate came into our language through a traditional route:
our Middle English borrowed it from the Middle French
(promising that we’d pay them back sometime in the 20th century).
The Middle French took it from Late Latin (Late Latin was probably
having an argument with Middle Latin, and got distracted);
Late Latin won it off Greek in a game of dice
(cheating, as Late Latin always does).
The Greek word that we trace climate from was klima,
which means “inclination,” “slope,” or “latitude” and klima can be traced further still, to the Greek klinein, “to lean”.
There was a theory in antiquity that
the world could be divided into seven distinct zones called climates,
which were designated based on the slope
or inclination of the northern celestial pole
changing as one moved north from the equator.
Climate was in use in English for well over a hundred years
before we began to use the word in the 16th century
to refer to weather conditions.
Once climate was applied to weather,
it did not take very long before we began to employ the word
in a figurative fashion.
From the middle of the 17th century on we have considerable evidence
of people using climate as a synonym of atmosphere
(in the non-literal sense of that word).
In modern use climate is often found paired with change.
This compound noun (climate change) may be defined, in brief,
as “a change in the climate of the earth; specifically: global warming.”
Our use of climate change is not particularly new
(the Oxford English Dictionary has citations for its use
since the middle of the 19th century),
although it has seen considerably more use in recent decades.
In case you were wondering, yes,
climate and climax do share origins,
the aforementioned Greek word klinein.
Since one of the English meanings of climax is
“the point of highest dramatic tension
or a major turning point in the action
of a play, story, or other literary composition,”
we will declare this sentence to be the climax of the story of climate,
and end on a note of dramatic tension.
