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Nov 17, 2003

This week's theme
Miscellaneous words

This week's words
armamentarium
banausic
rapprochement
codswallop
extramundane

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I truly loved speaking, sharing stories, mingling, listening, and connecting with the people. I enjoyed and learned much during this trip (including the fact that turbulence at 30,000 feet is God's way of encouraging us to pray).

I'm glad to be back to high-speed Internet though not to the tons of backlogged email. While I catch up with it, this week we'll look at some miscellaneous words.

armamentarium

noun: The collection of equipment and techniques available to one in a particular field, especially in medicine. plural armamentaria

From Latin armamentarium (arsenal), eventually from Latin armare (to arm). Ironically, the word to describe the apparatus of war (armament) and the word for healing paraphernalia (armamentarium) derive from the same root.

"All developed countries share the components: growing populations of elderly people, health-care systems in varying degrees of financial crisis and an armamentarium of sophisticated medical technology - respirators and life-support systems - whose use in end-of-life care is increasingly being viewed with distrust."
Sue Woodman; Death's Doormen; The Guardian (London, UK): Jul 2, 1997.

"The heavens are just full of stuff (asteroids, meteors, comets and a miscellany of rubble) that has a good chance of whacking the Earth sooner or later. The inventory of that celestial armamentarium -- and the likelihood of an ultimately ruinous Big Splat -- are the subjects of this morbidly mesmerizing book (Fire on Earth: Doomsday, Dinosaurs, and Humankind) by two prolific science authors."
Curt Suplee; Science; The Washington Post; Oct 20, 1996.

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