| Date: Mon Feb 3 00:01:07 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Daycingular X-Bonus: It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted. -Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher and writer (c. 3 BCE - CE 65) cingular (SING-gyuh-luhr) adjective 1. Of or pertaining to a cingulum, an anatomical band or girdle on an animal or plant. 2. Encircling, girdling, surrounding. [From Latin cingulum (girdle), from cingere (to gird). Other words that are derived from the same roots are cincture, precinct, shingles, and succinct.] "Differs ... in the greater degree of cingular development on cheek teeth, especially molars." Daniel L Gebo, et al; A Hominoid Genus; Science (Washington, DC); Apr 18, 1997. When you see someone sporting a shirt with the manufacturer's name inscribed in bold letters across the chest, it's hard to ignore the irony. Here the apparel wearer is paying the company to promote its name, rather than vice versa. For the privilege of being a walking billboard, one forks over many times what one would normally pay for the same product. So next time you wear a pair of shoes with that logo, or a pair of pants with some large initials stitched on them, or a shirt with a brightly painted name, remember, you're inadvertently advertising the company. The word "advertise" comes to us from Latin advertere meaning "to turn toward" or "to pay attention". The word "inadvertently" derives from the same source. In other words, by not paying attention, we ARE paying attention. Do you ever wonder about the meaning of all those company names on billboards, taxis, supermarket floors, movies, clothing, and in your children's school books? While some of these are coined names (Sony, Novartis, Intel), many of them are bona fide words from the dictionary. This week we feature five such words. And no, none of them is an AWAD sponsor. -Anu anu@wordsmith.org Date: Tue Feb 4 00:01:07 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Daylucent X-Bonus: It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward. -Lewis Carroll, mathematician and writer (1832-1898) lucent (LOO-suhnt) adjective 1. Luminous; shining. 2. Translucent; clear. [From Latin lucent, from lucere (to shine). Other words derived from the same root are elucidate, lucid, and translucent.] "Now I am nestling on the sofa, antique crystal glass in one hand, elegant bottle of lucent amber in the other." Victoria Moore; Sweet Surrender; New Statesman (London); Dec 18, 1998. "Fair Hope with lucent light in her glad eyes, Fleet as Diana, through the meadow speeds;" Henrietta Cordelia Ray; The Quest of the Ideal; 1893. This week's theme: what does that company name mean? Date: Wed Feb 5 00:01:06 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Dayprudential X-Bonus: There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other. -Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983) prudential (proo-DEN-shuhl) adjective 1. Of or relating to prudence. 2. Exercising good judgment, common sense, forethought, caution, etc. [From Middle English prudence, from Middle French, from Latin prudentia, contraction of providentia, from provident-, present participle stem of providere (to provide). The words improvise, provide, provident, proviso, purvey, all derive from the same root.] "When every artless bosom throbs with truth, Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign And check each impulse with prudential rein." George Gordon Byron; Childish Recollections. "Prudential reasons can be mounted on either side of the argument, although there are persuasive reasons not to go to war against Iraq: breaking the coalition, generating dissent in America, sidelining Israel/Palestine peace efforts, destabilizing several governments in the Middle East, undertaking a difficult and costly military campaign." Richard Falk; In Defense of 'Just War' Thinking; The Nation (New York); Dec 24, 2001. This week's theme: what does that company name mean? Date: Thu Feb 6 00:01:07 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Dayvanguard X-Bonus: In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep. -Socrates, philosopher (469?-399 BCE) vanguard (VAN-gard) noun 1. The forefront of an army. 2. The leading position in a movement; people at the head of a movement. [From shortening of French avant-garde, from avant (before) + garde (guard).] "Similarly, the 101st airborne division, likely to be at the vanguard of a northern offensive, has not received deployment orders, mainly because their launching pad in Turkey has not yet been established." Julian Borger; Threat of War; The Guardian (London); Feb 1, 2003. "Boeing began to view its Russian staff as the vanguard of a new push into the European market, and in 1998 it opened its Moscow Design Center, which a year ago boasted nearly 700 engineers." Stanley Holmes and Simon Ostrovsky; The New Cold War at Boeing; BusinessWeek (New York); Feb 3, 2003. This week's theme: what does that company name mean? Date: Fri Feb 7 00:01:08 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Daysuppurate X-Bonus: I never vote for anyone; I always vote against. -W.C. Fields, comedian (1880-1946) suppurate (SUHP-yuh-rayt) verb intr. To produce or secrete pus. [From Latin suppuratus, past participle of suppurare, from sub- + pur- (pus).] "From one perspective, a certain irony attends the publication of any good new book on American usage. It is that the people who are going to be interested in such a book are also the people who are least going to need it. ... The sorts of people who feel that special blend of wincing despair and sneering superiority when they see EXPRESS LANE - 10 ITEMS OR LESS or hear dialogue used as a verb or realize that the founders of the Super 8 motel chain must surely have been ignorant of the meaning of suppurate." David Foster Wallace; Tense Present: Democracy, English, And the Wars Over Usage; Harper's Magazine (New York); Apr 2001. "We do not expect the son of the England football team captain to follow him in the job or John Major's son to be Prime Minister. So why do we exalt the law of succession in the case of kings and queens? Because THEY want to keep it that way. They rather enjoy the ruling biz. It beats emptying bedpans in an NHS hospital. Simple Sophie has brought this suppurating carbuncle on the face of public life to the boil." Paul Routledge; Why We Must Axe the Royals; The Mirror (London); Apr 10, 2001. This week's theme: what does that company name mean? Date: Mon Feb 10 01:10:05 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.DayCanossa X-Bonus: Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626) Canossa (kuh-NOS-uh, Italian: kah-NOS-sah) noun A place of humiliation or penance. Mostly used in the form "go to Canossa": to humble or humiliate oneself, to eat humble pie. [From the name of a castle in Canossa, a village in Italy, where Holy Roman emperor Henry IV sought pardon before Pope Gregory VII in 1077.] "If I were to believe what you do about the policies of Russia there would be no way out for me but to crawl to Canossa ... " Edward S. Shapiro; Letters of Sidney Hook: Democracy, Communism, and the Cold War; M. E. Sharpe, 1995. Full-text on Questia at http://questia.com/CM.qst?D=wotdcanossa "Having seen his famously revered spiritual compass appear this week at President Ezer Weizman's residence, one senior Shas activist was quoted as regretting Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's having `gone to Canossa'." Amotz Asa-El; Thoughts on Canossa; Jerusalem Post; Jun 4, 1999. Government is a good thing, mostly. Religion is perhaps a good thing too, most of the time. But when the two mix, it's a recipe for disaster (from Latin dis- + -aster, literally unfavorable stars). The story of Canossa is a small slice of the long history of such mix-ups. The metaphorical sense of today's term Canossa comes from the name of a ruined castle in Canossa village in north-central Italy. It was the site of penance by Holy Roman emperor Henry IV before Pope Gregory VII in January 1077 for calling him a false monk. The emperor crossed the Alps in the middle of winter to see the Pope, who was a guest of Matilda, countess of Tuscany, at the castle. It's said that Henry stood outside the castle barefoot in snow for three days It was this incident that inspired German chancellor Bismarck to later coin the phrase "Nach Canossa gehen wir nicht" (We're not going to Canossa) during Kulturkampf: http://wordsmith.org/words/kulturkampf.html This week's AWAD features toponyms or words derived from place names. -Anu anu@wordsmith.org P.S.: Beginning this week, we'll experiment with including usage examples from books with links to full-text, courtesy Questia ( http://questia.com ), an online library of thousands of books. Date: Tue Feb 11 00:01:09 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.DayTartarean X-Bonus: A nation, like a tree, does not thrive well till it is engrafted with a foreign stock. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882) Tartarean (tahr-TAR-ee-uhn) adjective Hellish; infernal. [From Latin tartareus, from Greek tartareios, from Tartaros. In Greek mythology, Tartarus was the place in Hades reserved for punishing the worst.] "The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whaleship's stokers." Herman Melville; Moby Dick: Or, the Whale; Hendricks House; 1952. Full-text on Questia at http://questia.com/CM.qst?D=wotdtartarean "The late-afternoon skies over lower downtown Denver were Stygian dark and Tartarean dreary, as had been the Rockies in the series with the omnipotent Yankees, when Todd Zeile approached the plate in the culmination of the 10th inning, and there was a fulmination and fulguration of thunder and lightning." Woody Paige; A Ruthian Victory For the Locals; The Denver Post; Jun 21, 2002. This week's theme: toponyms, or words derived from the names of places. Date: Wed Feb 12 00:01:07 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.DayDunkirk X-Bonus: By trying to make things easier for their children parents can make things much harder for them. -Mardy Grothe, psychologist and author (1942- ) Dunkirk (DUN-kurk) noun 1. A desperate evacuation or retreat. 2. A crisis requiring drastic measures to avoid total disaster. [After Dunkirk (also Dunkerque), a seaport and town in northern France. In World War II, it was the site of evacuation of more than 330,000 Allied troops by sea while under German fire during May-June, 1940.] "Nearly a month before he was named head of the Office of Management and Budget in early December, Stockman had at the instigation of Congressman Jack Kemp of New York prepared a report for Reagan called `Avoiding an Economic Dunkirk' that forecast dislocations in the credit and capital markets, a 1981 recession, soaring budget deficits and the collapse of monetary policy." Lou Cannon; President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime; PublicAffairs; 2000. Full-text on Questia at http://questia.com/CM.qst?D=wotddunkirk "Humanity is now facing a sort of slow motion environmental Dunkirk. It remains to be seen whether civilization can avoid the perilous trap it has set for itself." Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich; Brownlash: The New Environmental Anti-science; The Humanist (Washington DC); Nov 21, 1996. This week's theme: toponyms, or words derived from the names of places. Date: Thu Feb 13 00:01:09 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Daysolecism X-Bonus: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. -Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet (1806-1861) solecism (SOL-i-siz-ehm, SOA-li-) noun 1. A nonstandard usage or grammatical construction. 2. A violation of etiquette. 3. An impropriety, a mistake, or an incongruity. [Latin soloecismus, from Greek soloikismos, from soloikizein, to speak incorrectly, from soloikos, speaking incorrectly after Soloi (Soli), an Athenian colony in Cilicia where a dialect regarded as substandard was spoken.] "`Ah! Madam,' said Ovid, `how great a solecism would it be both in a lover and a poet if he did not look upon his mistress as the sublimest object of his thoughts!' Benjamin Boyce and Thomas Brown; The Adventures of Lindamira: A Lady of Quality; The University of Minnesota Press; 1949. Full-text on Questia at http://questia.com/CM.qst?D=wotdsolecism "But the AAUP's (Association of American University Presses) guidelines go beyond correcting what it regards as solecisms to more drastic exercises in raising consciousness. Consider the traditional personification of ships as feminine. According to the AAUP task force, such usage is `quaint at best' and should be avoided: `it' is preferred. Along the same literalist lines, you should think twice before describing an important work by a woman scholar as `seminal'. Speech Therapy; The Economist (London); Jun 3, 1995. This week's theme: toponyms, or words derived from the names of places. Date: Fri Feb 14 01:01:08 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.DayRubicon X-Bonus: It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. -William Ellery Channing, clergyman and writer (1780-1842) Rubicon (ROO-bi-kon) noun A point of no return, one where an action taken commits a person irrevocably. [Contrary to popular belief, Caesar salad is not named after Julius Caesar. But today's term does have connection to him. In 49 BCE, Caesar crossed the Rubicon, a small river that formed boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy. As he crossed the river into Italy, he exclaimed "iacta alea est" (the die is cast) knowing well that his action signified the declaration of a war with Pompey. Today when an action marks a situation where there is no going back, we say the Rubicon has been crossed.] "The age-old Labour debate between universal and means-tested social benefits is being decisively resolved in favour of means-testing. Tony Blair's government has indeed crossed the Rubicon." The Universal Means Test; The Economist (London); Mar 6, 1999. "Why should one not say, for example, that the defendants in Boyle 'crossed the Rubicon' and were thus guilty of attempted burglary when they attacked the door of the house which they intended to burgle ..." R.A. Duff; Criminal Attempts; Oxford University; 1996. Full-text on Questia at http://www.questia.com/CM.qst?D=wotdrubicon This week's theme: toponyms, or words derived from the names of places. Date: Mon Feb 17 00:31:07 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Daysobriquet X-Bonus: There's no sauce in the world like hunger. -Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (1547-1616) sobriquet (SOH-bri-kay) noun, also soubriquet A fancy nickname or a humorous name. [From French sobriquet, from soubriquet (chuck under the chin). Probably from the fact that calling by a nickname affords one to cozy up to someone and tap under the chin.] "His (British PM Tony Blair's) role as Bush's unwavering ally has already earned him a long list of unflattering sobriquets, including puppet, poodle, the US `foreign minister,' and the MP [member of Parliament] for Texas North." Mark Rice-Oxley, Tony Blair's Risky Stance on Iraq; Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Massachusetts); Feb 14, 2003. "In a speech honoring the airmen waging the Battle of Britain `Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,' he (Churchill) said, coining the soubriquet (`the Few') by which the RAF pilots would forever be known ..." David M. Kennedy; Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945; Oxford University Press, 1999. Full-text on Questia at http://www.questia.com/CM.qst?D=wotdsoubriquet A subscriber recently wrote to share this: "During a walking tour in Alexandria, Virginia I learned that the maids would be sent to the taverns to go sip wine and learn about their neighbors. You can easily see how this would turn into gossip over the years! (It also illustrates how integrals maids were to the family unit.)" Talk about an easy maiden life in those olden days! Well, it's a good story but I'm afraid it's not true (much like gossip!). It falls in line with many myths circulating on the Internet: "Life in 1500s", the explanation of a certain scatological word as an acronym for "Ship High In Transit", etc. That's not to say that stories behind words aren't interesting. Most of the words have fascinating histories, it's just that they are not as cut-and-dried. Words have biographies we call them etymologies that are engaging. Take "gossip" for example. It came originally from Old English godsibb (sibb: related) meaning godparent. From there, the word took a downward journey to the sense of one who is a familiar acquaintance, to one who engages in idle talk, to the talk itself. This week we'll look at a few terms with etymologies that make entertaining reading. -Anu anu@wordsmith.org Date: Tue Feb 18 00:31:08 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Dayerudite X-Bonus: A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness. -Elsa Schiaparelli, fashion designer (1890-1973) erudite (ER-yoo-dyt) adjective Learned. [From Middle English erudit, from Latin eruditus, from erudire (to instruct), from e- (ex-) + rudis (rude, untrained).] A branch laden with fruits is closer to earth than the one without. The same is true for people: the more the learning, the more humble one usually is. And it shows in the etymology of today's word. If you're erudite, literally, you've had rudeness taken out of you. Other words that share the same Latin root are rude and rudiment. -Anu "Over the decades he (Roy Porter) spent at the Wellcome Institute, part of University College, London, he became legendary for his industriousness and for the generous, erudite and inspiring leadership that he provided to students, postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars. Chandak Sengoopta; Books: A Stitch in Time; Independent (London), Dec 7, 2002. "Ironically, the best way of preserving the forbidding flavor in Chinese might be to leave many words in English, since liberally sprinkling one's text with English is considered erudite in Chinese (it is a kind of Chinese counterpart to the way in which Art-Language borrows foreign terms like Gedankenexperiment and prima facie)." Douglas R. Hofstadter; Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language, Basic Books, 1997. Full-text on Questia at http://www.questia.com/CM.qst?D=wotderudite This week's theme: words with interesting etymologies. Date: Wed Feb 19 00:01:07 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Dayindite X-Bonus: Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. -Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969) indite (in-DYT) verb tr. To write or to compose. [From Middle English enditen, from Old French enditer, from Vulgar Latin indictare (to compose), from Latin indicere (to proclaim), from in- + dicere (to say).] Google for the term "was indited" and a few hundred citations show up where the writer clearly meant to use the word "indict". While that usage is incorrect, etymologically speaking, those writers are not too far off the mark. When someone is indicted, he literally has charges written against him. The word "indict" is simply a spelling variant of "indite" that acquired a distinct sense over time. Other words that derive from the same Latin root dicere (to say) are: dictionary, dictum, ditto, ditty, benediction, contradict, valediction, predict, verdict, and their many cousins. -Anu "The things he writes or I indite, we praise For poets, after all, are lonely men Singing a bit to themselves, but more to each other Hoping that fellow there will recognize A bit of himself in this pale groping brother." Alfred Kreymborg; The Lost Sail: A Cape Cod Diary; Coward-McCann, Inc.; 1928. Full-text on Questia at http://www.questia.com/CM.qst?D=wotdindite "In 1844, Sir Charles Napier, governor of Sind, was writing from Kurrachee, as he spelled it, urging his officials to indite their papers in English, larded with as small a portion of to him unknown tongues as they conveniently can, instead of those he generally receives-namely Hindostanee larded with occasional words in English." A Plain Man's Appeal For Finds, The Economist (London); Nov 29, 1997. This week's theme: words with interesting etymologies. Date: Thu Feb 20 00:01:08 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Daypentimento X-Bonus: A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives the rose. -Chinese proverb pentimento (pen-tuh-MEN-toh) noun, plural pentimenti A painting or drawing that has been painted over and shows through it. [From Italian pentimento (repentance), from pentire (to repent), from Latin paenitere (to regret).] Today's word comes to us from Italian and literally means repentance. What in the world could a form of painting have to do with contrition? To know the answer, we may have to apply the pentimento approach itself. Digging a bit deeper, we discover the word ultimately derives from Latin paenitere (to repent or regret). Now it becomes easy to see. The painting didn't turn out as you expected it? Don't regret the loss of canvas, just paint over it! In other words, to repent, you repaint. -Anu "Not satisfied with the passive position of the feet in Giotto's left-hand figure which he at first copied exactly, as can be seen in the drawing Michelangelo made a pentimento to replace the left foot, thus giving more stability and energy to the pose." Charles De Tolnay; Michelangelo; Princeton University Press, 1943. Full-text on Questia at http://www.questia.com/CM.qst?D=wotdpentimento "In photographs taken by once-secret American surveillance satellites, traces of the buried past show through the arid surface of the Middle East like pentimento. The traces are as intriguing to archaeologists as the ghostly painted-over layers on a canvas are to art historians." John Noble Wilford; Satellites Uncover Ancient Mideast Road Networks; The New York Times; Jan 28, 2003. This week's theme: words with interesting etymologies. Date: Fri Feb 21 00:01:08 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Daycockamamie X-Bonus: Life is mostly froth and bubble, / Two things stand like stone, / Kindness in another's trouble, / Courage in your own. -Adam Lindsay Gordon, poet (1833-1870) cockamamie (KOK-uh-may-mee) adjective, also cockamamy Ridiculous; nonsensical. [The origin of the term cockamamie is not confirmed. It's believed that it's a corruption of decalcomania, the process of transferring a design from a specially prepared paper to another surface. In the beginning, a cockamamie was a fake tattoo, moistened with water and applied to the wrist. How it took the sense of something pointless is uncertain. It's perhaps been influenced by such terms as cock-and-bull or poppycock.] "Don't know about you, but if I had been a board member at Vivendi Universal SA, I would have pushed Jean-Marie Messier out the door long before now. It wasn't the company's 2001 loss of $11.8 billion (U.S.), the largest in French history, that did me in. Nor the cockamamie convergence idea that saw a one-time water utility become the world's second largest media and communications company ..." Jennifer Wells; Crooning Set Tone for Messier Ouster; The Toronto Star (Canada), Jul 3, 2002. "For these reasons, the delegates were unwilling, as late as two weeks before the end of the convention, to endow the presidential office with substantive powers. Then somebody proposed the electoral college a complicated, cumbersome, one might say cockamamie scheme that overcame all the objections, and it was adopted." Gary L. Gregg and Matthew Spalding; Patriot Sage : George Washington and the American Political Tradition; ISI Books, 1999. Full-text on Questia at http://www.questia.com/CM.qst?D=wotdcockamamie This week's theme: words with interesting etymologies. Date: Mon Feb 24 00:01:08 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Dayscrofulous X-Bonus: I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice. -Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865) scrofulous (SKROF-yuh-luhs) adjective 1. Of or pertaining to or affected with scrofula. 2. Morally corrupt. [From scrofula, a tuberculosis of the lymph glands, especially of the neck. The word scrofula derives from Late Latin scrofulae, plural of scrofula, diminutive of Latin scrofa (breeding sow), perhaps from the belief that breeding sows were subject to the disease. In olden times it was believed that a royal touch would cure the disease, which was also known as "king's evil".] "I am aware that there are no sleek pacers here, only scrofulous jugheads, square-gaiters with more fur on them than the coats on the society dames on the Via Veneto back in Rome." Jeff Wells; Punting with Les Mugs of Paris; The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia); Jan 16, 1999. "This crushing realization comes by way of a splendid roster of minor English characters, created by Mount for our amusement and Gus's torment. The scrofulous, self-pitying travel agent and racing-car enthusiast ..." Christopher Hitchens; Fairness; The Atlantic Monthly (Boston); Jul/Aug 2001. "I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am." These candid words of Samuel Johnson, lexicographer extraordinaire, provide a perceptive observation on the human condition. A language is a mirror of its people. As a disinterested record of the language, a dictionary serves as an accurate window to the culture. It's not surprising that there are more words to describe people who fall on the wrong side than on the other. In this week's AWAD we'll look at five such words. -Anu anu@wordsmith.org Date: Tue Feb 25 00:01:22 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Dayugsome X-Bonus: The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: Humility is endless. -T.S Eliot, poet (1888-1965) ugsome (UG-suhm) adjective Dreadful, loathsome. [From Middle English, from uggen, from Old Norse ugga (to fear). As in many typical stories where one child in a family becomes well-known while the other remains obscure, "ugly" and "ugsome" are two words derived from the same root one is an everyday word while the other remains unusual.] "The grandmother is at times ugsome ..." John Moore; 3 Women, 3 Generations, Clever Word Play; Denver Post; Mar 7, 2002. This week's theme: words to describe people. Date: Wed Feb 26 00:01:10 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Daygormless X-Bonus: To know how to hide one's ability is great skill. -Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680) gormless (GORM-lis) adjective, also gaumless Dull or stupid. [From English dialectal gaum (attention or understanding), from Middle English gome, from Old Norse gaumr.] "For my parents, though, it was compulsory viewing. They would sit on the settee making appreciative or derogatory noises about one or another contestant and bitterly denouncing the judges when Miss England failed to get a placing - even if Miss England was a gormless, whey-faced hag, which quite often she was." Rod Liddle; The Ugly Side of Miss World; The Guardian (London); Nov 26, 2002. "As the movie's gormless hero, Spacey inverts his usual glib persona. But there's something mannered about his minimalism. He creates a character so deliberately vacant and slow-witted that, behind the concave performance, the armature of intelligence shows through." Brian D Johnson; Bumping Into Neverland; Maclean's (Toronto, Canada); Dec 31, 2001/Jan 7, 2002. This week's theme: words to describe people. Date: Thu Feb 27 00:01:11 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Dayscalawag X-Bonus: I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. -Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969) scalawag (SKAL-uh-wag) noun, also scallywag or scallawag 1. A rascal. 2. In US history, a white Southerner who acted in support of the Reconstruction after the Civil War. [Of unknown origin.] "But too often, critics say, the law is part of the problem. Past and present police officers have been linked to kidnappings. When Mr. Marohombsar was killed, a local police officer was among those found in his hideout. 'There are scalawags in the police who are involved in kidnapping,' said Col. Alan Purisima, Pacer's chief." Wayne Arnold and Carlos H. Conde; In Manila, Kidnapping as a Business Expense; The New York Times; Jan 28, 2003. "Directors Eric Bergeron and Don Paul have been meticulous in re-creating the feel of the Road movies and enhancing them with the boundless magic of animation. Their scalawags are a pair of con artists called Tulio (Kevin Kline) and Miguel (Kenneth Branagh)." Louis B. Hobson; El Dorado is a Gem; The Calgary Sun (Canada); Mar 31, 2000. This week's theme: words to describe people. Date: Fri Feb 28 00:01:12 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Daysciolist X-Bonus: Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862) sciolist (SAI-uh-list) noun One who engages in pretentious display of superficial knowledge. [From Late Latin sciolus (smatterer), diminutive of Latin scius (knowing), from scire (to know). Another example of the similar kind of word formation is the name of the bird oriole which is derived from the diminutive form of Latin aureus (golden).] "Never was so brilliant a lecture-room as his evening banqueting-hall; highly connected students from Rome mixed with the sharp-witted provincial of Greece or Asia Minor; and the flippant sciolist, and the nondescript visitor, half philosopher, half tramp, met with a reception, courteous always, but suitable to his deserts." John Henry Newman; The Idea Of A University, University Life At Athens; 1854. "On the other hand, judged strictly by the standard of his own time, (Francis) Bacon's ignorance of the progress which science had up to that time made is only to be equalled by his insolence toward men in comparison with whom he was the merest sciolist." Thomas H. Huxley; Harvey Discovers The Circulation Of The Blood; History of the World. This week's theme: words to describe people. | |
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