Make Your Point > Archived Issues > VENDETTA

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pronounce VENDETTA: Say it "ven DED uh." To hear it, click here. connect this word to others: Our word vendetta is cousins with v__, meaning "force, energy, or vigor." Could you recall that one? It often pairs--alliteratively but redundantly--with vigor, as in "The players took the field, full of v__ and vigor." (To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)     definition: We took "vendetta" from Italian. It traces back to the Latin vindicta or vim dicare, meaning "vengeance or revenge," or more literally, "proclaiming force, or proclaiming authority."  "Vendetta" showed up in English around 1855. It means "a bitter, hateful, violent fight--usually between two families, involving lots of murders, and continuing on for years or even generations." That's the strict meaning that we still use today. And more loosely, we can call something a vendetta if it just seems like a bitter, longstanding hatred that someone has toward something or someone in particular. grammatical bits: Part of speech: Noun, the countable kind: "It's the story of their vendetta;" "We won't take part in a vendetta." Very rarely, the uncountable kind. Here's the New York Times: "blood spilled and vendetta advanced." And the Guardian: "A shadowed place, in whose air vendetta hangs heavy." Other forms:  The plural is simply "vendettas." It's not "vendetti," like you might guess as you think of other Italian words like "confetti" and "graffiti." ("Vendetti," the Italian last name, comes from the name "Benedict," meaning "blessed," or more literally "spoken well of.") how to use it: "Vendetta" is a semi-common word: familiar enough to be clear to most people, and exotic enough to sound particularly exciting. You might pick it to give your description a little more spice compared to synonyms like "feud," "grudge," "rancor," and "hostility." Talk about someone's vendetta, or the vendetta between two people or groups, or someone's vendetta against someone or something. You might talk about people engaging or taking part in a vendetta, pursuing a vendetta, or ending a vendetta. Here's Salon: "I didn't want to become one of those angry people, clinging to an endless vendetta." I'll caution you against picking the word "vendetta" purposefully to describe Italian people. It could be offensive, or at least cringey. examples: "The Cimmerian warrior slashes his way across Hyboria on a mission that begins as a personal vendetta but turns into an epic battle against a supernatural evil."     — Ed Stockly, Los Angeles Times, 3 January 2020 "Mark Twain vs. Bret Harte: ...Even after Harte's death in 1902, Mark Twain pursued the vendetta. In a volume of autobiography, he recalled: 'In the early days I liked Bret Harte... but by and by I got over it.'"    — Graham Tarrant, For the Love of Books: Stories of Literary Lives, Banned Books, Author Feuds, Extraordinary Characters, and More, 2019; as excerpted in Salon, 23 June 2019 has this page helped you understand "vendetta"? Awesome, I'm glad it helped! Thanks for letting me know! If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. study it: Explain the meaning of "vendetta" without saying "blood feud" or "ancient grudge." try it out: Fill in the blanks: "(Someone) holds a vicious vendetta against _____." Serious example: "The feud escalates, building to a conflict orchestrated by a nefarious merchant ruler named Billy Kingery, who holds a vicious vendetta against the protagonist."  — Lydia Peelle, New York Times, 16 November 2018 Silly example: "He holds a vicious vendetta against Legoland, having been denied entry as an adult unaccompanied by a child." If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.) before you review, play: Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out. Our game for September is "Four Quick Ways to Wreck a Sentence: From Professionally Polished to Strategically Sabotaged." In each issue this month, compare two versions of a description of a popular movie. See if you can determine which is the real one (the professionally polished version from IMDB.com) and which is the fake one (the strategically sabotaged version from yours truly). The fake one will demonstrate one of the four quick ways to wreck a sentence, listed below. So, for an extra challenge, see if you can identify which of these four has been employed in the act of sabotage. Here are the four quick ways to wreck a sentence: 1. Make the details fuzzier or fewer. 2. Jumble the order of information, forcing the reader to slow down or back up. 3. Ruin the rhythm by breaking a pattern in a pair or list. 4. Make the whole thing a chore to read by swapping in a subject that's long or abstract, and/or a verb that's vague or passive. Make it even worse by pushing the subject and the verb really far away from each other. (Naturally, if you invert each item above, you get Four Quick Ways to Strengthen a Sentence.) Here's an example: Version A: "The Shawshank Redemption: Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency." Version B: "The Shawshank Redemption: Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding eventual redemption and solace through acts of common decency." Which is real, and which is fake? And in the fake one, which of the four quick ways to wreck a sentence have I employed? Answer: A is real; B is fake. The fake was created with #2, "Jumble the order of information." Readers find it easier to process information when it's in a logical or chronological order, and when they can start with the shorter, simpler words and phrases before moving on to the longer, more complex ones. Here, it's better to write "solace and eventual redemption" instead of "eventual redemption and solace," for three reasons. One, the characters in the story probably achieve solace before they achieve redemption; two, solace as a concept is less intense and less abstract than redemption; and three, "solace" is many syllables shorter than "eventual redemption." Try this one today: Version A: "Saving Private Ryan: Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action." Version B: "Saving Private Ryan: Following the Normandy Landings, after a paratrooper’s brothers are killed in action, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve him." Which is real, and which is fake? And in the fake one, which of the four quick ways to wreck a sentence have I employed? To see the answers, scroll all the way down. review this word: 1. The opposite of a VENDETTA could be A. an AMITY (a longstanding peaceful friendliness). B. a FECUNDITY (a state of health, prosperity, or abundance). C. a VELLEITY (a passive wish or desire to do something, without any actual effort to make it happen). 2. Joking in the wake of a massive oil spill, the Onion described an oil-covered sea otter with "_____." A. a desperate vendetta for human attention B. some weird, personal vendetta against Shell Oil C. innocent eyes and a natural vendetta for playing the victim Answers to review questions: 1. A 2. B Answers to the game questions: A is real; B is fake. The fake was created with #2, "Jumble the order of information." The real version concludes with the most surprising, most relevant, most touching detail: that the paratrooper's brothers have all been killed. The fake version shoves that detail into the middle, spoiling the surprise and the impact. a final word: I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog: On vocabulary...       36 ways to study words.       Why we forget words, & how to remember them.       How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. On writing...       How to improve any sentence.       How to motivate our kids to write.       How to stop procrastinating and start writing.       How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count. To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.