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AWADmail Issue 254

A Weekly Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day and Other Interesting Tidbits about Words and Languages

From: Art Haykin (theart webtv.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--piliferous

Ah, hair today, gone tomorrow.

One of the great mysteries is pattern baldness which affects 35% of all men, and 3% of women. It has created a multi-billion dollar vanity industry in products and services to grow it, remove it, groom and clean it, dye it, straighten it, curl or wave it, and artificially replace it. Yet it serves no practical function of any sort, and it is dead tissue.

I started to lose mine at 25, and was bald at 27. My life did NOT come to an end.

From: Elaine Rambo (momrambo webtv.net)
Subject: piliferous

No outfit is complete without a dog hair on it.. no gourmet meal est fini without a cat hair in it.. no life is whole without a four-footed furry friend to be loved and loved by.

From: Moses Liang (yettie 163.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--calvous

Here in China, every second day of the second month of the Chinese Lunar Year (falls today this year, the year of the Golden Pig), in most parts of northern China, people will cut their hair. In Chinese folklore, this particular day, the God of Dragons who is responsible for the rain will raise his head and bring spring rain to the earth from today. On this day, people in China not only go to the barber, but they also eat noodles or popcorn.

From: Bonnie Rupp (bhrupp erols.com)
Subject: calvous

As someone who is undergoing chemotherapy treatment right now, I love this week's theme. If it were not for my cranial prosthesis, I would be calvous. Hair today, gone tomorrow, hoping back next year... :)

From: Johanna Brown (jhbandcats zipcon.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--calvous

Serious, not facetious question: What is put on driver's licenses when the driver is bald? Does it say "bald"? I have always wondered but haven't known any bald people well enough to ask. I once answered a personals ad where the man described himself as "blond" but it was clear to me that he hadn't been blond for a REALLY long time because he was awfully bald when I met him.

From: Suri Vangala (suri_vangala fanniemae.com)
Subject: Hair(y) words (Re: pogonotrophy)

Thank for an amusing collection of words. Shaving is the most boring event in the mornings... calling it pogonotomy makes me feel that I am doing something important!

From: Mark Dwor (mdwor onsbc.com)
Subject: pogonotrophy

I have had had a beard continuously for two-thirds of my life and for years I owned "Pogon Professional Services Corporation". Seeing the word pogonotrophy pleasantly reminded me of a book I had not looked at for too long, "Beards" by Reginald Reynolds, London, 1950. Thank you for providing the impetus to revisit this book, wherein I first saw the word pogonotrophy, about a year after I stopped shaving.

From: David L. Smith (dsmith psl.nmsu.edu)
Subject: This week's theme

This week's theme, 'Hair today, gone tomorrow', reminds me of my friend, Skipper, who had a pet rabbit. Really cute and housebroken so it was a very good pet. One day the rabbit got into some growth hormone and in a day or two it looked terrible, ludicrous, stupid. Goes to show, hare today, goon tomorrow.

From: Roy Jenner (r.jenner xtra.co.nz)
Subject: Hair today

Could it be suggested that a hair transplant is a 'reseeded' hairline?

From: Yan Zen (yan.zen vodafone.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--pilgarlic

The Buddhist monks and nuns take vows to get rid of the hair on the heads. It symbolises the separation from this real world. All through childhood, my education was influenced much about what hair symbolises -- the living world full of laughter and misery.

Also note that Javanese witchdoctors require one strand of the hair for the idol to represent the person. There are strings attached.

From: Raymond Schlabach (raschlabach yahoo.com)
Subject: hair

I, who have gray hair, like to tease my bald friends with this line: When we get older, the roots of our hair grow deeper. If they hit gray matter, the hair turn gray. I they find an empty space, they dry up and fall out.

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. -Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (1804-1864)