It's the Word of the Day podcast for September 18th.
Today's word is rationale, spelled R-A-T-I-O-N-A-L-E.
Rationale is a noun.
It refers to an explanation or reason for something said or done.
It's often used with for, behind, or of.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Smithsonian Magazine.
There is a rationale for commercializing seagrass production,
but ecologically sustainable production needs to be at the heart of that business model and the numbers
for doing that simply don't add up at the moment.
If someone asserts that the word rationale refers to a ration of ale, They are wrong,
but that doesn't mean they don't have an actual rationale,
a reason, explanation, or basis for such a claim.
The word rationale looks like the words ration and ale jammed together they could offer,
and while that is true, you'd be justified in responding, appearances can be deceiving.
Rationale is a direct borrowing of the Latin word rationale,
with which it shares the meaning and explanation of controlling principles of opinion-belief practice or phenomena.
The Latin rationale comes from a form of the adjective, meaning rational,
which traces back to the noun ratio, like our English word ratio, meaning reason.
While the Latin ratio is also the forebear of the English noun ration,
referring to a share of something,