673: invective Oct 11, 2016

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Anyone who didn't recognize that this isn't one, it is good to know that 'invective' has the appearance of an adjective, due the '-ive' suffix, but is a noun. This is perhaps confusing, but not an foolish thing to think, especially as 'invective' once was an adjective, back in Middle English. The definition switched meanings from 'abusive' to 'abusive language', but the transferred meaning wouldn't have been too confusing for any listeners, because even in the word's Old French and Latin roots, the term was most often applied to insulting things, but specifically lexicon and rhetoric.

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