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Jan 2, 2008
This week's theme
Newly coined words

This week's words
wiki
adultescent
commentariat
chav
carbon-neutral

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

commentariat

(kom-uhn-TAR-ee-uht) Pronunciation Sound Clip

noun: The group of people who provide opinion and analysis of events in the news.

[Blend of commentator and commissariat or proletariat. The term was first noticed in a 1993 article in the Washington Post.]

Examples of people who form the commentariat: talk show hosts and their guests, newspaper and magazine columnists, and political bloggers.

"This outcome should not have surprised anyone with the wit to examine the opinion polling. But most of Australia's conservative commentariat refused, until faced with the actual results, to believe that their nation's sagacious voters would be so ungrateful as to throw their favourite overboard."
Frank Bongiorno; Rudd Ends Opposition Years; New Statesman (London, UK); Nov 26, 2007.

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Society is like a stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on the top. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

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