Know your English | The difference between canvas and canvass

The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective. Karnataka Today Your daily dose of news highlights from Karnataka First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming. Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day. Science For All The weekly newsletter from science writers takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in! Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features. For representative purposes. | Photo Credit: iStockphoto The word is a combination of ‘bride’ and ‘Godzilla’. We all know what the word ‘bride’ means. As far as Godzilla is concerned, he is the creation of Toho Studios in Japan. According to the movies, Godzilla is a prehistoric fictional sea monster who looks like a dinosaur; he creates havoc wherever he goes. So, when you call a woman who is about to get married, and is obsessed with the planning of her wedding, a ‘bridezilla’, what you mean is that she is very demanding and rather hard to please. She is constantly under stress because she wants to control every aspect of the big event; being highly irritable, she is not a pleasure to be with. The word is mostly used in informal contexts, and shows disapproval. Her upcoming wedding has turned Renu into a bridezilla. I hope you don’t turn into a bridezilla like your sister did. As for the pronunciation, the first syllable is pronounced like the word ‘bride’; the following ‘zill’ rhymes with ‘pill’, ‘chill’ and ‘hill’. The final ‘a’ is like the ‘a’ in ‘china’. The word is pronounced ‘bride-ZIL-e’ with the stress on the second syllable. In terms of pronunciation, there is no difference between the two words; in terms of meaning, however, there is a big difference. Both words come from the Greek ‘kannabis’ meaning ‘hemp’. The word ‘canvas’ was originally used to refer to a cloth made from hemp; today, it is used to refer to any sturdy, durable material that is used in making tents, ship sails, etc. Artists paint on a canvas. Make sure that the canvas is thick. Otherwise, we’ll freeze where we’re going. The painter spent some time preparing the canvas. While ‘canvas’ is used as a noun, the word ‘canvass’ functions as a verb. The original meaning of this word was ‘to toss in a canvas sheet’. In the past, people used the cloth to sift through things. With the passage of time, ‘canvass’ took on a completely different meaning — sifting through public opinion. When a politician canvasses for votes, he finds out what the public thinks of him, and what his chances of winning are. We should go to every household to canvass support for our candidate. The committee is canvassing students’ opinion on the matter. ‘Deluxe’ consists of two syllables; the vowel in the first, sounds like the ‘i’ in ‘bill’, ‘chill’ and ‘hill’, while the second syllable rhymes with ‘sucks’ and ‘ducks’. One way of pronouncing the word is ‘di-LUCKS’ with the stress on the second syllable; this is how many people pronounce the word. It is also possible to pronounce the second syllable like the word ‘looks’; some people pronounce the word ‘di-LOOKS’. The word comes from the French ‘de luxe’ meaning ‘of luxury’. When you say that you stayed in deluxe hotels during a trip, what you are suggesting is that you stayed in very luxurious hotels; they were expensive, but very comfortable. We couldn’t afford to stay in any of the deluxe hotels in Paris. They were not within our budget. After discussing the matter with his friends, he decided to buy the deluxe model. Text and Context / Know Your English Terms & conditions  |  Institutional Subscriber Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.