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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2004 9:11:28 GMT -5
The Word of the Day for May 4 is:
ecstatic \ek-STAT-ik\ adjective : of, relating to, or marked by a state of extreme emotional excitement or rapturous delight
Example sentence: Carla was ecstatic when she received an acceptance letter from the college she had set her heart on attending.
Did you know? "Ecstatic" has been used in our language since at least 1590, and the noun "ecstasy" is even older, dating from the 1300s. Both derive from the Greek verb "existanai" ("to put out of place"), which was used in a Greek phrase meaning "to drive someone out of his or her mind." That seems an appropriate history for words that can describe someone who is nearly out of his or her mind with intense emotion. In early use, "ecstatic" was sometimes linked to mystic trances, out-of-body experiences, and temporary madness. Today, however, it most typically implies a state of enthusiastic excitement or intense happiness.
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Post by Rainforest on May 4, 2004 10:09:52 GMT -5
Congrats to Carla. Upper Mickiwickwa Community College is a fine institution.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2004 10:55:52 GMT -5
Sunday's Word of the Day (in case you missed it):
The Word of the Day for May 2 is:
clerisy \KLEH-ruh-see\ noun : intelligentsia
Example sentence: "Brinkley's book [_Washington Goes to War_] is history rescued from the sterility of the academic clerisy and made accessible to the general reader." (George F. Will, _St. Petersburg Times_, April 14, 1988)
Did you know? English philosopher-poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772- 1834) believed that if humanity was to flourish, it was necessary to create a secular organization of learned individuals, "whether poets, or philosophers, or scholars" to "diffuse through the whole community . . . that quantity and quality of knowledge which was indispensable." Coleridge named this hypothetical group the "clerisy," a term he adapted from "Klerisei," a German word for "clergy" (in preference, it seems, to the Russian term "intelligentsia" which we borrowed later, in the early 1900s). Coleridge may have equated "clerisy" with an old sense of "clergy" meaning "learning" or "knowledge," which by his time was used only in the proverb "an ounce of mother wit is worth a pound of clergy."
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Post by Rainforest on May 4, 2004 11:07:24 GMT -5
With your help, I should be able to get my SAT Verbal score way up. No more children's books for me! Woo hoo!
Clerisy rhymes with heresy.
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Post by Gorf on May 4, 2004 11:39:37 GMT -5
I want verisimilitude to be the WOTD.
Just saying it repeatedly makes me feel ecstatic in believing I may one day join EEO and (R)! within the ranks of the clerisy.
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Post by Rainforest on May 4, 2004 11:58:52 GMT -5
Jolly good. You can have it, Gworph. It's the WOTdeigh.
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2004 9:00:07 GMT -5
The Word of the Day for May 5 is:
verjuice \VER-joos\ noun *1 : the sour juice of crab apples or of unripe fruit (as grapes or apples); also : an acid liquor made from verjuice 2 : acidity of disposition or manner
Example sentence: "The other women took to their Bibles and hymnbooks, and looked as sour as verjuice over their reading." (Wilkie Collins, _The Moonstone_)
Did you know? "Verjuice" has been getting some attention lately -- as one source put it, it's "a recent buzzword on the culinary scene." For those of us not on the culinary edge, verjuice is a tart, pale juice pressed from unripe white grapes, ideal for use in sauces and salad dressings. Verjuice has been around for centuries and is used in Dijon mustard, but the word (a descendant of Anglo-French "vert," meaning "green," and "jous," meaning "juice") was largely forgotten by English speakers until its "rediscovery" in the early 90s. While it's apparent that "verjuice" has returned to our kitchens, the same can't yet be said of the literary scene. Writers have not generally begun to write of "dispositions of verjuice" the way they did in the past. *Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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Post by Gorf on May 5, 2004 10:40:16 GMT -5
That's a pretty mean thing to say about someone you hardly know.
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2004 9:10:46 GMT -5
The Word of the Day for May 6 is:
fallible \FAL-uh-bul\ adjective 1 : liable to be erroneous *2 : capable of making a mistake
Example sentence: As a little girl, BiK idolized her father and believed he was always right, but as she got older, she realized that he was a fallible person who made mistakes like everyone else.
Did you know? "Errare humanum est." That Latin expression translates into English as "To err is human." Of course, cynics might say that it is also human to deceive. The word "fallible" simultaneously recognizes both of these human character flaws. In modern usage, it refers to one's ability to err, but it descends from the Latin verb "fallere," which means "to deceive." "Fallible" has been used to describe the potential for error since at least the 15th century. Other descendants of the deceptive "fallere" in English, all of which actually predate "fallible," include "fallacy" (the earliest, now obsolete, meaning was "guile, trickery"), "fault," "false," and even "fail" and "failure."
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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Post by Barefoot In Kailua on May 6, 2004 14:58:40 GMT -5
Example sentence: As a little girl, BiK idolized her father and believed he was always right, but as she got older, she realized that he was a fallible person who made mistakes like everyone else. Very amusing Snaps for you mem sahib.
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Post by Rainforest on May 6, 2004 18:42:59 GMT -5
When I visited Israel, I ate a lot of fallibles. Ironically, only the Arab "delis" sold fallibles. An Israeli told me the best Jewish food are found in New York City, not Israel, but the best fallibles were found in Jerusalem.
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2004 8:59:09 GMT -5
The Word of the Day for May 7 is:
abnegate \AB-nih-gayt\ verb 1 : deny, renounce *2 : surrender, relinquish
Example sentence: BiK, after the incident at the Prom, chose to abnegate the privileges of her wealthy upbringing, seeking instead a simple life helping those less fortunate than herself.
Did you know? There's no denying that the Latin root "negare" has given English some useful verbs. That verb, which means "to deny," was the ultimate source of the noun "abnegation," a synonym of "denial" that began appearing in English manuscripts in the 14th century. By the 17th century, people had concluded that if there was a noun "abnegation," there ought to be a related verb "abnegate," and so they created one by a process called "back-formation" (that's the process of trimming a suffix or prefix off a long word to make a shorter one). But "abnegate" and "abnegation" are not the only English offspring of "negare." That root is also an ancestor of other nay-saying terms such as "deny," "negate," and "renegade."
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2004 8:20:34 GMT -5
The Word of the Day for May 8 is:
gadzookery \gad-ZOO-kuh-ree\ noun British : the use of archaisms (as in a historical novel)
Example sentence: "Get rid of the gadzookery," Bruce's editor cautioned. "BiK can perfectly well say 'please' instead of 'prithee.'"
Did you know? "Gadzooks . . . you astonish me!" cries Mr. Lenville in Charles Dickens' _Nicholas Nickleby_. We won't accuse Dickens of gadzookery ("the bane of historical fiction," as historical novelist John Vernon called it in _Newsday_ magazine), because we assume people actually uused "gadzooks" back in the 1830s. That mild oath is an old-fashioned euphemism, so it is thought, for "God's hooks" (a reference, supposedly, to the nails of the Crucifixion). But it's a fine line today's historical novelist must toe, avoiding expressions like "zounds" and "pshaw" and "tush" ("tushery" is a synonym of the newer "gadzookery," which first cropped up in the 1950s), as well as "gadzooks," while at the same time rejecting modern expressions such as "okay" and "nice."
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Post by vierra on May 8, 2004 15:42:13 GMT -5
I like the word "gadzookery," Master Ruffda. But may I say your definition has me knickers up in a bunch and me scratchin me prithee head, for I know not what you speak of. But let swallows fly where they may. Pray, and this bit tickles me hoarse more than ol' Nickelby cigars, which I fancy with me noontime tea I must confess, tell me more about life in London?
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2004 9:54:23 GMT -5
The Word of the Day for May 9 is:
loquacious \loh-KWAY-shus\ adjective 1 : full of excessive talk : wordy *2 : given to fluent or excessive talk : garrulous
Example sentence: BiK is a loquacious spokesman for her company, an easygoing speaker with a tendency to ramble on for about ten minutes longer than her audience wants to listen.
Did you know? When you hear or say "loquacious," you might notice that the word has a certain poetic ring. In fact, poets quickly snatched up "loquacious" soon after its debut in 1663 and, with poetic license, stretched its meaning to include such things as the chattering of birds and the babbling of brooks. In less poetic uses, "loquacious" usually means "excessively talkative." The ultimate source of all this chattiness is "loqui," a Latin verb meaning "to speak." Other words descended from "loqui" include "colloquial," "eloquent," "soliloquy," and "ventriloquism."
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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