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Nov 16, 2012
This week's theme
Words borrowed from German

This week's words
wunderkind
gemutlichkeit
blitzkrieg
kulturkampf
kaffeeklatsch

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

kaffeeklatsch

PRONUNCIATION:
(KAH-fee-klach)

MEANING:
noun: An informal social gathering for coffee and conversation.

ETYMOLOGY:
From German Kaffeeklatsch, from Kaffee (coffee) + Klatsch (gossip). Earliest documented use: 1888.

NOTES:
The word has many spelling variants: kaffeeklatch, kaffee klatch, kaffee klatsch, coffeeklatsch, coffeeklatch, coffee klatsch, coffee klatch.

USAGE:
"I can always count on my monthly kaffeeklatsches with my fellow scribes to surface the news items that really matter."
Ruth Walker; The Real Regular and the New Normal; The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Massachusetts); Jun 8, 2010.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs. -Daniel J Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)

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