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Jul 14, 2005
This week's theme
Words from movie titles

This week's words
gaslight
mondo
stepford
zelig
mitty

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

zelig

Pronunciation RealAudio

Zelig (ZEL-ig) noun

A chameleon-like person who can change his or her persona to fit in any surrounding; one who appears to be present everywhere and unexpectedly associated with famous people or events.

[After Leonard Zelig, hero of the 1983 movie Zelig by Woody Allen. In the movie, Zelig can blend in with people around him: if he is with doctors he can transform into a doctor; he can take characteristics of anyone: Hassidic rabbis, obese, Scottish, and so on. The name Zelig is from German selig (blessed, happy).]

"'Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey?' is written by Cyril Wecht and Charles Bosworth. Wecht is a forensic pathologist -- the Zelig of medical detectives, apparently, as he seems to be involved in every high-profile case from Elvis Presley to O.J."
Patti Thorn; JonBenet Books Speak Too Soon; Rocky Mountain News (Denver, Colorado); Aug 23, 1998.

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It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to suffering, but only to one's own suffering. -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)

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