Part of Speech: Adjective Meaning: Uncommunicative, reluctant to
speak or express oneself, taciturn. Notes: We bring up this word
because an erroneous usage is creeping into US dictionaries: the
sense of "reluctant to do anything", as in, "I'm reticent to
come in to work today because of all the black ice on the
streets." Most dialects of English do not allow this meaning.
Only time will tell if this new, broader meaning will take over.
Until we are sure, I propose we stick to the original meaning.
The noun, reticence, should be treated the same way. In Play:
The remarkable aspect of this misused term is that it has so
many interesting legitimate uses: "Bill was understandably
reticent about the lipstick on his collar" or "Hillary became
adamantly reticent when asked about the chocolates under the
couch." Let's restore this word to its narrower, more precise
semantic space. Word History: So, what's new? Today's Good Word,
like about half the words in the English language, comes from
Latin. This time the sourc