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AWADmail Issue 641

Sponsor's message: It's Officially Huge. This week's Email of the Week winner, Donald Mokgale (see below) -- as well as all AWADers worldwide -- can now make their own terrific fun word-nerd party for nothing. Introducing our best-selling One Up! -- The Wicked/Smart Word Game as a free PDF download, absolutely gratis. Hurree y'up.

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the net

Divided by a Common Language
The Guardian
WebCite

Why Adverbs, Maligned by Many, Flourish in the American Legal System
The Wall Street Journal

From: Mark Willcox (willcox datahelper.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--lubricious

The subject Crisco party had just come up in conversation. Perfect fit with this word!

From: Julia O'Connor (mudshark444 gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--lubricious

I would love to know how many of your readers immediately went hunting down the lyrics to "Santa Claus Got Stuck in My Chimney"! (video, 3 min.)

From: John Hoskins (hoskinsjohn59 gmail.com)
Subject: Diffident

In Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore, young Robin Oakapple bemoans his diffident nature:

My boy, you may take it from me,
That of all the afflictions accurst
With which a man's saddled
And hampered and addled,
A diffident nature's the worst.

You know, the first and last time I heard this word was in the movie called V for Vendetta in which the protagonist was doing his monologue using alliteration with the letter V. It goes:

"Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the 'vox populi' now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition." (video, 1.5 min.)

From: William Downing (wdowning rohrbachassociates.com)
Subject: Convivial

I read once that "convivial" is sometimes used in obituaries (WebCite) to describe those who were known to imbibe with frequency.

From: David Ferrier (ferrierd shaw.ca)
Subject: convivial

Re: convivial (friendly; sociable; cheerful; jovial).

After successfully completing a work assignment, I was criticized because I was not Mr. Conviviality. I was not there to be friendly, sociable, cheerful, and jovial: I was there to do a task, which I did competently. Thank you for clarifying this.