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Aug 21, 2012
This week's theme
Slang

This week's words
wiseacre
naff
suss
lulu
jazz

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

naff

PRONUNCIATION:
(naf)

MEANING:
adjective:
1. Very unstylish or unsophisticated.
2. Useless; of poor quality.

ETYMOLOGY:
Origin unknown, perhaps from Polari slang. Earliest documented use: 1950s.

USAGE:
"The entire point of the original mod movement was to reject the naff rocker look."
Clean Sweep; Vogue (New York); May 2011.

"The plastic bag is such a naff invention that it's quite hard to care one way or the other."
Matthew Carmichael; The Perils of Plastic Amnesia; The Ecologist (London, UK); Dec 2006.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Elvira always lied first to herself before she lied to anybody else, since this gave her a conviction of moral honesty. -Phyllis Bottome, novelist (1884-1963)

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