A.Word.A.Day Archives from https://wordsmith.org/awad -------- Date: Wed Jan 1 01:01:06 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--katabasis X-Bonus: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989) katabasis (kuh-TAB-uh-sis) noun A retreat, especially a military one. [After the march of 10,000 Greeks subsequent to the death of Cyrus the Younger, related by Xenophon in his historical work Anabasis. From Greek katabasis (a going down), from katabainein (to go down). Compare with anabasis: https://wordsmith.org/words/anabasis.html ] "Like Western civilization itself, as his friend and chief critical promoter Harold Rosenberg sardonically remarked, De Kooning was always in decline. This katabasis is supposed to have begun in the early '50s, with the Women series." Robert Hughes, Seeing the Face in the Fire, Time, May 30, 1994. This week's theme: words related to the military. -------- Date: Thu Jan 2 00:44:08 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--mufti X-Bonus: Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the spaces between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. -Maya Angelou, poet (1928- ) mufti (MUFF-tee, MOOF-) noun 1. Civilian clothes, especially when worn by someone who normally wears a uniform. 2. A scholar or jurist who interprets Muslim law. [From Arabic mufti, from afta (to decide a legal point). Another word that comes from the same root is fatwa (decree).] "John Warren `Jack' Gedney, a retired U.S. Navy commander who had traded his uniform for the mufti of a Seattle Costco executive, laid out his life itinerary by the time he could vote: He'd be a career military man, retire at 42, then enjoy a second career in business." Carole Beers, Jack Gedney, Costco Exec, The Seattle Times, Feb 26, 2000. "Those on duty were dressed in the distinctive ochre uniform that has won so many admirers. However, almost the entire complement of cabin crew and pilots not rostered on were also there - in mufti - further demonstrating the sort of esprit de corps the fledgling airline has managed to engender in just 18 months." Piers Lort-Phillips, Crowd Gathers to Bid Bon Voyage for New Airline's Maiden Flight, The Cairns Post (Queensland, Australia), Oct 28, 2002. This week's theme: words related to the military. -------- Date: Fri Jan 3 00:44:06 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--brevet X-Bonus: Danger and delight grow on one stalk. -English Proverb brevet (bre-VET) noun A commission promoting a military officer to a higher rank without a corresponding increase in pay. verb tr. To promote in rank without a pay increase. adjective Having a higher rank without an increase in pay. [From Middle English, literally little letter, from Middle French, from Old French, diminutive of brief (letter), from Latin brevis (short). Other words that have descended from the same Latin root are abbreviate, abridge, brevity, breve, and brumal.] "Fuller served in the first-ever British Tank Corps as a brevet colonel, but soon fell afoul of military brass over what he saw as its ruinous attachment to `body warfare' over the superior `brain'-driven maneuverability that the age of the tank heralded." Chris Lehmann, Rolling Thunder, The Washington Post, May 12, 2002. This week's theme: words related to the military. -------- Date: Mon Jan 6 04:44:07 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--dysphemism X-Bonus: One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul, and yet no one ever comes to sit by it. -Vincent van Gogh, painter (1853-1890) dysphemism (DIS-fuh-miz-em) noun The substitution of a harsher, deprecating or offensive term in place of a relatively neutral term. [From Greek dys- (bad) + -phemism (as in euphemism).] "There are lots of epithets for people like this - Grammar Nazis, Usage Nerds, Syntax Snobs, the Language Police. The term I was raised with is SNOOT. The word might be slightly self-mocking, but those other terms are outright dysphemisms. A SNOOT can be defined as somebody who knows what dysphemism means and doesn't mind letting you know it." David Foster Wallace, Tense Present: Democracy, English, And the Wars Over Usage, Harper's Magazine (New York), Apr 2001. "In 1945, shortly after the final victory over Japan, newsreels provided evidence of another holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Holocaust (the dysphemism chosen by Jewish historians to replace the Nazis' ghastly euphemism, The Final Solution) and the Nuclear Holocaust the one in the past, the other in the future were to hang over the next half-century like a mushroom cloud." Philip French, Hollywood and the Holocaust, The Guardian (London), Feb 13, 1994. Dysphemism and its antonym, euphemism, are often two sides of the same coin. A guerrilla in neutral language might be called freedom-fighter by some while a terrorist by others. Novelist and story-writer Nathaniel Hawthorne summed it well when he wrote, "Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them." Look for more words about words in AWAD this week. -Anu (garg AT wordsmith.org) -------- Date: Tue Jan 7 01:08:09 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--paradox X-Bonus: What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989) paradox (PAR-uh-doks) noun 1. A statement that appears contradictory or absurd yet in fact may be true. 2. A self-contradictory statement that appears true or is derived from true statements. 3. A statement that contradicts commonly accepted opinion. [From Latin paradoxum, from Greek paradoxon, from paradoxos (contrary to opinion), from para- (beyond) + doxa (opinion), from dokein (to think).] "Assuming that the engineering problems could be overcome, the production of a time machine could open up a Pandora's box of causal paradoxes. Consider, for example, the time traveler who visits the past and murders his mother when she was a young girl. How do we make sense of this? If the girl dies, she cannot become the time traveler's mother. But if the time traveler was never born, he could not go back and murder his mother." Paul Davies, How to Build a Time Machine, Scientific American (New York), Sep 1, 2002. "Latest figures from the Property Council highlight the paradox faced by commercial property investors, with most sectors offering good returns while suffering declining capital values." Greg Ninness, Property Investors' Paradox, Sunday Star Times (New Zealand), Jul 28, 2002. Ruth: "A most ingenious paradox! We've quips and quibbles heard in flocks, But none to beat this paradox! A paradox, a paradox, A most ingenious paradox!" Frederic (who was born on Feb 29): "How quaint the ways of Paradox! At common sense she gaily mocks! Though counting in the usual way, Years twenty-one I've been alive, Yet, reck'ning by my natal day, Yet, reck'ning by my natal day, I am a little boy of five!" Gilbert and Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance, 1880. This week's theme: words about words. -------- Date: Wed Jan 8 00:02:06 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--pathetic fallacy X-Bonus: Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing; / Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; / So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, / Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882) pathetic fallacy (puh-THET-ik FAL-uh-see) noun The attribution of human traits to nature or inanimate objects. [Coined by John Ruskin in 1856.] "A good metaphor should never be missed, and Hardie, a poet before she was a novelist, is alert, in a labored sort of way, to the possibilities of some fine pathetic fallacy. One passage, after a pointless bout of cruelty by Hannie, describes her black mood: `She felt rudderless and directionless, like the dead sheep the November rains had carried down the river. Day after day it had drifted up and down, up and down, moving swiftly away with the pull of the sea's ebbing tide, pushing back again as it rose. Bloated, a perch for the gulls. Until it snagged on some drowned tree and left off its journeying.'" Catherine Lockerbie, Green Unpleasant Land, New York Times Book Review, Dec 22, 2002. "Sefan Ruzowitzky generates terror and suspense effectively with an eccentric cast, film and lighting techniques. Flickering fluorescent lights and other eerie phenomena function effectively as pathetic fallacy." `Anatomie': A Good Film to Dissect, The Korea Times (Seoul), Jun 20, 2001. This week's theme: words about words. -------- Date: Thu Jan 9 00:02:07 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--holophrastic X-Bonus: I will not play at tug o' war. / I'd rather play at hug o' war, / Where everyone hugs instead of tugs. -Shel Silverstein, writer (1930-1999) holophrastic (hol-uh-FRAS-tik) adjective 1. Expressing a sentence in one word, for example, "Go." 2. Expressing complex ideas in a single word, as in some Inuit languages. Also polysynthetic. [From Greek Holo- (whole) + Greek phrastikos, from phrazein (to speak).] "Despite this mild heritage, Thomson sells packages easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Thomson is holophrastic." Trader Horn, Travel: Agents of Change, The Guardian (London), Sep 17, 1994. "It's interesting that while Carmen never tells Jose that she loves him, the words that one hears continually -- almost as if they were a verbal tic -- from him are `Je t'aime' or `Je t'adore.' A linguist might call such expressions holophrastic -- their individual components come together as one -- and French pronunciation emphasizes the merging of these words." Stephen Wigler, Carmen Puts Male Nightmare Into Music, The Sun (Baltimore, Maryland), Oct 7, 1990. This week's theme: words about words. -------- Date: Fri Jan 10 00:02:08 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--hypercorrection X-Bonus: The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us. -Robert Louis Stevenson, writer (1850-1894) hypercorrection (hi-puhr-kuhr-REK-shun) noun A grammatical, usage or pronunciation mistake made by `correcting' something that's right to begin with. For example, use of the word whom in "Whom shall I say is calling?" [From Greek hyper- (over) + correction.] "One explanation is that some people may have been corrected for saying `bad' in another construction such as `I need money bad' and so in hypercorrection use `badly' in all constructions. Other use it trying to be elegant, thinking `feeling bad' is somehow less educated." Roz Young, The Good Word is Don't Feel Bad About 'Feeling Badly', The Dayton Daily News, Sep 4, 1993. "The truth is that hypercorrection isn't grammar's coup de grace. We all do it occasionally; here's how: Fear of the objective case. This comes as a shock to we (should be `us') people who care about grammar, but between you and I (should be `me'), hypercorrection is quite common." Rob Kyff, The Error of Fixing What Ain't Broke, The Hartford Courant, Apr 20, 1994. This week's theme: words about words. -------- Date: Mon Jan 13 00:02:07 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--acid test X-Bonus: A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company. -Charles Evans Hughes, jurist (1862-1948) acid test (AS-id test) noun A crucial test to establish the worth or genuineness of something. [From the use of nitric acid for testing gold.] "The acid test of all performances, in the end, is the audience's attentiveness. For the duration of the two hour-long operas, not one chocolate paper rustled. The only disrupting noise was someone sneezing. Once." Suzanne Joubert, Production Passes Silence Acid Test, Business Day (Johannesburg, South Africa), Nov 8, 2002. "Chavez, a former paratrooper who led a failed coup himself in 1992, has spent his time since the April coup placing supporters in key positions in the armed forces, using officers' behavior during the overthrow as an acid test of loyalty to decide whom to expel and whom to promote." T. Christian Miller, Military Remains on Sidelines, The Seattle Times, Dec 22, 2002. Guest wordsmith Brad Chase, a former Microsoft executive and creator of Derivation http://entspire.com/derivation writes: It was a sunny Seattle afternoon (the kind we get once in a blue moon), and friends were over for barbecue. I noticed that the conversation was in English and another language, phrases that we all understood, but whose meaning could not be derived from a dictionary: Get the lead out, bite the bullet, happy as a clam. I remarked that it would be fun to make a game about the origins of words and phrases. Months later, while idly discussing philanthropy with my wife, the idea of developing the game and giving some of the proceeds to charity emerged. So, work began. For the next nine months, only PhD candidates checked out more books from the library than I did. When I walked past the librarians' desk at our local library and greeted everyone with a big smile, out of the corner of my eye I could see them pointing at me and whispering to each other: What's this guy up to? How many books on etymology can one guy read? Should we alert security, or send him to a psychiatrist? The first working model of Derivation consisted of a game board, made of drywall, and stacks of index cards I filled out from my research. I ran test games to refine the concept and improve playability. At the end of October, my company Entspire ( http://entspire.com ) started selling the final games at resellers across the country and on our website. Feedback has been great, with some people saying they had never laughed so hard and others saying "I always wondered why we say that." This week's AWAD brings you a few of the terms featured in the game. I hope you enjoy them. (Brad Chase can be reached at bradATentspire.com) -------- Date: Tue Jan 14 00:02:09 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--gerrymander X-Bonus: No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. -John Donne, poet (1573-1631) gerrymander (JER-i-man-duhr) verb tr. To repartition an area in order to create electoral districts that give an unfair advantage to a political party. noun 1. An instance of gerrymandering. 2. One or more electoral districts, widely differing in size or population, created as a result of gerrymandering. [A blend of Elbridge Gerry and salamander. Massachusetts Governor Gerry's party rearranged the electoral district boundaries and someone fancied the newly redistricted Essex County resembled a salamander. Gerry later served as a Vice President of the United States (1813-1814).] "But the champion gerrymandering comes from Illinois. Chicago has two Hispanic areas. They are in different parts of the city, but that has not discouraged the good politicians of Illinois from creating a constituency consisting of these two areas only. They lie on either side of a black part of the city like the bread of a sandwich. Worst of all is the state's extraordinary 17th District, which is a crab." United States: How to Rig an Election, The Economist (London), Apr 27, 2002. "The same tendency to duck and weave has characterized the campaign. Because the parties mutually agree to gerrymander most of the country, a shamefully small number of congressional districts are in play, along with some key Senate seats." Fifty-Fifty, The Washington Post, Nov 3, 2002. This week's theme: words from the word game Derivation http://entspire.com/derivation -------- Date: Wed Jan 15 00:02:06 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--humble pie X-Bonus: What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. -Crowfoot, Native American warrior and orator (1821-1890) humble pie (HUM-buhl pi) noun Humiliation in the form of apology or retraction. Often used in the phrase "to eat humble pie". [From the phrase, an umble pie, transformed by folk etymology by resemblance to the word humble. The phrase "an umble pie" itself was made by false splitting from "a numble pie". Numbles or nombles are edible animal entrails. The words came to us from Latin via French.] "TVNZ's highest-paid broadcaster Paul Holmes ate humble pie today and apologised for his criticism of TVNZ chairman Ross Armstrong." Holmes Eats Humble Pie, The Evening Post (Wellington, New Zealand), Feb 13, 2001. "Mr. Ivester's apology stopped short of admitting liability; Coca-Cola also released a toxicology report that suggested something else must have caused the symptoms. That made Coke's apology a more limited serving of humble pie than other corporate leaders have had to dish out. In Japan, executives not only apologize publicly but also personally, to each person harmed in incidents." Constance L. Hays, Coca-Cola Hopes Things Go Better With 'Sorry', The New York Times, Jun 27, 1999. This week's theme: words from the word game Derivation http://entspire.com/derivation -------- Date: Thu Jan 16 00:02:07 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--scuttlebutt X-Bonus: Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance. -Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902) scuttlebutt (SKUT-l-but) noun 1. Rumor, gossip. 2. A drinking fountain or a cask of drinking water on a ship. [From scuttle (a small opening in the deck or hull of a ship) + butt (cask). Also see furphy https://wordsmith.org/words/furphy.html ] "Elliott Teaford, hockey columnist for the Los Angeles Times: Toronto, with four dailies, three all-sports TV channels and a 24-hour all-sports radio station, is a veritable breeding ground for scuttlebutt." Chris Zelkovich, The Rumour Mill, The Toronto Star (Canada), Jan 27, 2001. "Broadcasters were the day's poorest-performing group after a rumor swept trading desks that Standard & Poor's planned to downgrade the debt of Comcast. An S&P spokeswoman declined to comment on the scuttlebutt, but investors acted like it could be a possibility and sold off the group." Karen Talley, Small-Stock Focus, The Wall Street Journal (New York), Jun 21, 2002. This week's theme: words from the word game Derivation http://entspire.com/derivation -------- Date: Fri Jan 17 00:02:10 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--tantalize X-Bonus: When people tell you how young you look, they are also telling you how old you are. -Cary Grant, actor (1904-1986) tantalize (TAN-tuh-lyz) verb tr., also tantalise To tease or torment by showing something desirable but keeping it out of reach. [After Tantalus in Greek mythology. Tantalus, a king of Lydia, was condemned to stand in Hades chin deep in water and under fruits that receded whenever he tried to drink water or eat the fruit.] "(JK) Rowling e-mailed Catie back with some tantalizing snippets from her fourth book -- `Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' -- and then phoned her in Albany, New York to read extracts." Rowling Read Unfinished Potter Book To Dying Fan, The Times of India (New Delhi, India), Dec 29, 2002. "Though Law & Order follows a long line of case-solving hits from Dragnet to Columbo, its penchant for real-life cases is its bread and butter. They tantalize with a whiff of familiarity, but often veer off in another direction to surprise viewers -- and to forestall lawsuits." Gary Levin, Plot Ideas Ripped From the Headlines, USA Today, Dec 6, 2002. This week's theme: words from the word game Derivation http://entspire.com/derivation -------- Date: Mon Jan 20 00:16:06 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--ciceronian X-Bonus: When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice. -William James, psychologist (1842-1910) ciceronian (sis-uh-RO-nee-uhn) adjective 1. Of or relating to Cicero. 2. In the style of Cicero, marked by ornate language, expansive flow, forcefulness of expression, etc. [After Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, orator, and writer (106-43 BCE). Another eponym derived from Cicero's name is cicerone (guide) https://wordsmith.org/words/cicerone.html ] "Oxford University mooted the idea of establishing a business school six years ago, prompting 500 black-gowned dons to storm into the 17th-century Sheldonian Theatre in protest. Harvard's business school dates from 1908. Cambridge succumbed in 1990. But outraged Oxonians unleashed volleys of Ciceronian oratory, arguing that the groves of academe should be out of bounds to commerce." Tara Pepper, Oxford's Business Blues, Newsweek (New York), Sep 2, 2002. "Voices in the wilderness rarely speak in perfect Ciceronian cadences; why must we call (Edward Durell) Stone's work to such strict account?" James Trilling, A Piece of History, The New York Times, Apr 16, 2000. Eponyms are people who have a word coined after them. Take Amerigo Vespucci, Italian explorer, after whom America was named (one wonders why it wasn't named Vespuccia). The term eponym is also used to refer to words coined in this manner. The elementary particle boson, for example, is named after Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. This week we travel around the world in our quest for eponyms. Our stops are going to be Rome, Germany, US, Egypt, and China. We pick words coined after good guys, as well as words named after not-so-good ones. -Anu (garg AT wordsmith.org) -------- Date: Tue Jan 21 00:01:11 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--flack X-Bonus: One of the strongest characteristics of genius is the power of lighting its own fire. -John W. Foster, clergyman (1770-1843) flack (flak) noun 1. A press agent. 2. Publicity. Verb intr. To act as a press agent. Verb tr. To publicize. [Origin unknown, possibly after Gene Flack, a publicity agent for movies.] noun A variant of flak: 1. Anti-aircraft fire. 2. Strong criticism; hostile reaction. [An acronym of German Flugzeugabwehrkanone (anti-aircraft gun), from Flugzeug (aircraft, literally flyer) + Abwehr (defense) + Kanone (gun).] "Japan Tobacco has 75% of the Japanese cigarette market, non-U.S. rights to brands like Camel, Salem and Winston--and a $13 million investment in U.S. biotech firm Cell Genesys, now developing a lung cancer vaccine. Successful tests would entitle JT to an undisclosed royalty. The monitoring group Genewatch UK recently disclosed the three-year-old position. In Tokyo a JT flack says the Cell Genesys investment is part of his firm's `diversified business portfolio' and one that helps `meet our customers' needs.'" Janet Novack, et al., The Informer, Forbes (New York), Dec 24, 2001. "Superintendent Jerry D. Weast took some flack for not closing the schools at particular points in the crisis. But to have closed our schools would have said that they are unessential -- a mere frill, easily forsaken." Karin Chenoweth, Thanks to Those Who Were There for Children Despite Danger, The Washington Post, Nov 7, 2002. This week's theme: eponyms. -------- Date: Wed Jan 22 00:01:14 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--goth X-Bonus: A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. -Charles Robert Darwin, naturalist (1809-82), Goth (goth) noun A rude or uncivilized person. [From Goth, one of a Germanic tribe who invaded the Roman empire during the third, fourth and fifth centuries.] "Meanwhile, his (Newt Gingrich's) pronunciamentos swing wildly between statesman and Goth. One minute he sounds like Peter Rodino, the next like, well, Gingrich." Michael Powell, The Speaker, Holding His Tongue, The Washington Post, Oct 31, 1998. This week's theme: eponyms. -------- Date: Thu Jan 23 00:10:09 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--pharaoh X-Bonus: Although gold dust is precious, when it gets in your eyes, it obstructs your vision. -Hsi-Tang pharaoh (FAR-o) noun, also Pharaoh 1. A title of an ancient Egyptian ruler. 2. A tyrant. [From Middle English pharao, from Old English, from Latin pharao, from Greek pharao, from Hebrew pharoh, from Egyptian pr-o, from pr (house) + o (great). The designation was for the palace but later used to refer to the king, just as White House can refer to the US President.] "Throughout most of history, governments -- usually monarchies headed by kings, emperors, pharaohs and other major or minor tyrants -- actually owned everything under their rule, including, believe it or not, the people. In those regimes the population was considered to be subjects, not citizens. That means that the people were treated as the underlings, subjected to the will of the ruler." Tibor Machan, The Orange Grove, The Orange County Register, Apr 15, 1999. This week's theme: eponyms. -------- Date: Fri Jan 24 00:10:06 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--mandarin X-Bonus: Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living. -Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977) mandarin (MAN-duh-rin) noun 1. A member of one of nine ranks of public officials in the Chinese Empire. 2. A powerful government official or bureaucrat. 3. A member of an elite group, especially one having influence in intellectual or literary circles. 4. Capitalized: the official national language of China. 5. A citrus tree, Citrus reticulata, that is native to China. adjective 1. Of or relating to a mandarin. 2. Marked by refined or ornate language. [From Portuguese mandarim, from Malay menteri, from Sanskrit mantri (counselor), from mantra (word or formula), from manyate (he thinks).] "Even the International Swimming Federation mandarins made an appointment yesterday to talk with the sport's greatest star." Nicole Jeffery, (Ian) Thorpe Strives to Do Better, The Australian (Sydney), Jul, 30, 2001. "He (Macha Rosenthal) wrote about poetry as part of the common heritage of culture, not reserved for those who wrote in jargon or a mandarin prose style. He wrote plainly, and took no pride in cleverness." Eric Homberger, Power of the Poem: Macha Rosenthal, The Guardian (London), Jul 29, 1996. This week's theme: eponyms. -------- Date: Mon Jan 27 00:10:14 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--ensorcell X-Bonus: The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials. -Chinese Proverb ensorcell (en-SOR-sehl) verb tr. To bewitch; to enchant. [From Middle French ensorceler, from Old French ensorcerer, from en- + -sorcerer, from Old French sorcier, from Vulgar Latin sortiarius, from Latin sort-, stem of sors (lot, fate).] "For now, it is appropriate, if a little misleading, to relish the aphoristic focus of `the allusive and laconic style' Sir Victor developed during World War II when paper was rationed and essays limited to `a couple of columns.' Trained in such skirmishes with the circumstances of privation, Pritchett is determined to beguile, even to ensorcell his reader." Richard Howard, V.S. Pritchett: The Seduction Of Criticism, The Washington Post, Jun 14, 1992. "Press to my lips -- until the Present seems The Past again to my ensorcelled gaze, -- Kneeling within that cloister of old dreams." Richard Le Gallienne, A Jongleur Strayed; Verses on Love And Other Matters Sacred And Profane. Verbs are special words. They describe action. Nothing would ever get done if it were not for the verbs. Look at a sentence on your screen or on paper -- it just lies there listless, a mere collection of random words until a verb comes to infuse life into it. This week we'll feature five unusual verbs - words for a few things you most likely don't do every day. -Anu (garg AT wordsmith.org) -------- Date: Tue Jan 28 00:01:06 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--guttle X-Bonus: Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924) guttle (GUT-l) verb tr., intr. To eat voraciously; to devour greedily. [From gut, on the pattern of guzzle, from Middle English gut, from plural guttes (entrails), from Old English guttas.] "Wednesday was early closing day in Umtali, a relief for both of us, and Mr. Gordon was not obliged to linger at the tuckshop where he would read the notices posted on the board over the cash register or inspect the polish on his shoes or crack his lumpy knuckles while he waited for me to guttle my ice cream." George Makana Clark, A is For Ancestors, Transition (Durham, N. Carolina), 2000. "Confess my pipings, dancings, posings served A purpose: guttlings, guzzlings, had their use!" Robert Browning, Aristophanes' Apology, 1875. This week's theme: verbs. -------- Date: Wed Jan 29 00:01:07 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--chaffer X-Bonus: Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and philosopher (1772-1834) chaffer (CHAF-uhr) verb tr., intr. 1. To haggle; to bargain. 2. To bandy words; to chatter. noun Bargaining or haggling. [From Middle English chaffare, eventually from Old English ceap (trade, purchase), precursor of English cheap + faru (journey).] "Or lulling random squabbles when they rise, Chafferings and chatterings at the market-cross ..." Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King: The Holy Grail, 1868. "I chaffered with the king of those people, who was a wise and far-sighted woman, and brought her to understand that it would be much to her advantage to accept from me half the arms and ammunition I had brought with me ..." Delia Sherman, The Parwat Ruby, Fantasy & Science Fiction (Cornwall, Connecticut), Jun 1999. This week's theme: verbs. -------- Date: Thu Jan 30 00:01:10 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--dehisce X-Bonus: There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. -Richard Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988) dehisce (di-HIS) verb intr. 1. To burst open, as the pod of a plant. 2. To gape. [When a peapod is ripe after a long wait and bursts open, it's yawning, etymologically speaking. The term dehisce comes from Latin dehiscere (to split open), from hiscere (to gape, yawn), from Latin hiare (to yawn). Another term that derives from the same root is hiatus.] "Garrison Keillor: Rhubarb is a vegetable, no matter what the government says: a member of the buckwheat family of herbaceous plants including buckwheat, dock and smartweed, which are characterized by having swollen joints, simple leaves, small petalless flowers and small, dry, indehiscent fruit. Indehiscent means `not dehiscent,' not opening at maturity to release the seed. So "indehiscent" means `hard, dry, holding onto the seed,' which actually describes Norwegians quite well. Most Norwegians consider dehiscence to be indecent. They hold the seed in. But rhubarb pie comes along in the spring, when we're half crazed from five months of winter -- it's the first fresh vegetable we get, and it makes us dehisce." Carol Stocker, Rediscovering Rhubarb, Boston Globe, May 16, 1996. This week's theme: verbs. -------- Date: Fri Jan 31 00:01:09 EST 2003 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--debouch X-Bonus: Swords and guns have no eyes. -Chinese proverb debouch (di-BOUCH, di-BOOSH) verb intr. 1. To march out from a narrow or confined place into an open area. 2. To emerge or issue from a narrow area into the open. [From French deboucher, from de- (out of) + boucher, from bouche (mouth), from Latin bucca (mouth or cheek). The word buckle (as in a belt) derives from the same Latin root.] "Just after 10 a.m., shlepping kit, personal weapons and the heavy Brownings and their tripods, we doubled through the Sanhedria cemetery (a most unsuitable place to start a war, I panted to Ben-Yishai) and debouched into a woefully shallow trench at the foot of Ammunition Hill." Meir Ronnen, At the Foot of Ammunition Hill, Jerusalem Post (Israel), Jun 7, 2002. "Russia, the world's second-largest oil exporter, wants Central Asian resources to be transported across its territory. Iran, also an oil producer, wants the energy pipelines to debouch at its ports, the shortest route." Eric S. Margolis, Russia Checkmated Its New Best Friend, The Los Angeles Times, Nov 28, 2001. This week's theme: verbs.