Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for July 18, 2010 is:
agita • \AJ-uh-tuh\ • noun

: a feeling of agitation or anxiety

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Months stretching into almost two years since the financial collapse of 2008 have produced serious agita in the general public, in view of weak economic news and stubborn unemployment figures.

Did you know?

Judging by its spelling and meaning, you might think that “agita” is simply a shortened version of “agitation,” but that’s not the case. Both “agitation” and the verb “agitate” derive from Latin “agere” (“to drive”). “Agita,” which first appeared in American English in the early 1980s, comes from a dialectical pronunciation of the Italian word “acido,” meaning “heartburn” or “acid,” from Latin “acidus.” (“Agita” is also occasionally used in English with the meaning “heartburn.”) For a while the word’s usage was limited to New York City and surrounding regions, but the word became more widespread in the mid-90s.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for July 09, 2010 is:
struthious • \STROO-thee-us\ • adjective

: of or relating to the ostriches and related birds

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Faced with the irreconcilable goals of increasing taxes or reducing spending, with the concomitant reductions in government services, most politicians adopt various struthious evasions and duplicitous devices to avoid both measures.

Did you know?

“Struthious” can be scientific and literal, or it can be figurative with the meaning “ostrich-like,” as in our example sentence. The extended use suggests a tendency to bury one’s head in the sand like an ostrich. But do ostriches really do this? No — the bird’s habit of lying down and flattening its neck and head against the ground to escape detection gave rise to the misconception. The word “struthious” has been fully visible in English since the 18th century. “Ostrich” is much older. Anglo-French speakers created “ostriz” from Vulgar Latin “avis struthio” (“ostrich bird”); Middle English speakers made it “ostrich” in the 13th century. Scientists seeking a genus word for ostriches turned back to Latin, choosing “struthio.”

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for October 15, 2009 is:
oracular • \aw-RAK-yuh-ler\ • adjective

1 : resembling an oracle (as in solemnity of delivery)

*2 : of, relating to, or being an oracle

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Many pundits adopt an  oracular tone in pronouncing their forecasts of economic trends, hoping that only those predictions that work out are remembered.

Did you know?

When the ancient Greeks had questions or problems that were worrying them, they would often turn to one of their gods for answers by consulting an oracle. The word “oracle” has several meanings. It can refer to the god’s answer, to the shrine the worshippers went to when seeking advice, or to a person through whom the god communicated, usually in the form of cryptic verse. (The words “oracular” and “oracle” trace back to the Latin verb “orare,” which means “to speak.”) Today, “oracle” can simply mean an authoritative pronouncement or a person who makes such pronouncements (“a designer who is an oracle of fashion”). The related adjective “oracular” is used in similar contexts (“a designer who is the oracular voice of fashion”).

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for October 07, 2009 is:
stanch • \STAUNCH\ • verb

1 : to check or stop the flowing of; also : to stop the flow of blood from (a wound)

2 *a : to stop or check in its course
b : to make watertight : stop up

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Programs aimed at stanching the accelerating cascade of collapsing mortgages have had limited success.

Did you know?

The verb “stanch” has a lot in common with the adjective “staunch,” meaning “steadfast.” Not only do both words derive from the Anglo-French word “estancher” (which has the same meaning as “stanch”), but the spelling “s-t-a-n-c-h” is sometimes used for the adjective, and the spelling “s-t-a-u-n-c-h” is sometimes used for the verb. Although both spelling variants have been in reputable use for centuries and both are perfectly standard for either the verb or adjective, “stanch” is the form used most often for the verb and “staunch” is the most common variant for the adjective.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for October 05, 2009 is:
avuncular • \uh-VUNK-yuh-ler\ • adjective

1 : of or relating to an uncle

*2 : suggestive of an uncle especially in kindliness or geniality

Felix’s Example Sentence:

An avuncular manner aided President Franklin Roosevelt in his fireside chats, making the audience feel more hopeful during the depths of the Depression.

Did you know?

Not all uncles are likeable fellows (Hamlet’s murderous Uncle Claudius, for example, isn’t exactly Mr. Nice Guy in Shakespeare’s tragedy), but “avuncular” reveals that, as a group, uncles are generally seen as affable and benevolent, if at times a bit patronizing. “Avuncular” derives from the Latin noun “avunculus,” which translates as “maternal uncle,” but since at least the 1830s English speakers have used “avuncular” to refer to uncles from either side of the family or even to individuals who are simply uncle-like in character or behavior. And in case you were wondering, “avunculus” is also an ancestor of the word “uncle” itself.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for September 02, 2009 is:
inflammable • \in-FLAM-uh-bul\ • adjective

1 : flammable

*2 : easily inflamed, excited, or angered : irascible

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Simmering anger flowing from deep fear made many commenters at the health care meeting highly inflammable, needing very little to start them shouting and abusing those speaking, or trying to speak, in favor of reform.

Did you know?

“Combustible” and “incombustible” are opposites but “flammable” and “inflammable” are synonyms. Why? The “in-” of “incombustible” is a common prefix meaning “not,” but the “in-” of “inflammable” is a different prefix. “Inflammable,” which dates back to 1605, descends from Latin “inflammare” (“to inflame”), itself from “in-” (here meaning “in” or “into”) plus “flammare” (“to flame”). “Flammable” also comes from “flammare,” but didn’t enter English until 1813. In the early 20th century, firefighters worried that people might think “inflammable” meant “not able to catch fire,” so they adopted “flammable” and “nonflammable” as official safety labels and encouraged their use to prevent confusion. In general use, “flammable” is now the preferred term for describing things that can catch fire, but “inflammable” is still occasionally used with that meaning as well.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for September 01, 2009 is:
holus-bolus • \hoh-lus-BOH-lus\ • adverb

: all at once

Felix’s Example Sentence:

The new administration of Barack Obama came into power feeling that a multitude of issues had to be faced holus-bolus, since all were equally important.

Did you know?

The story of “holus-bolus” is not a hard one to swallow. “Holus-bolus” originated in English dialect in the mid-19th century and is believed to be a waggish reduplication of the word “bolus.” “Bolus” is from the Greek word “bolos,” meaning “lump,” and has retained that Greek meaning. In English, “bolus” has additionally come to mean “a large pill,” “a mass of chewed food,” or “a dose of a drug given intravenously.” Considering this “lumpish” history, it’s not hard to see how “holus-bolus,” a word meaning “all at once” or “all in a lump,” came about.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for August 27, 2009 is:
eleemosynary • \el-ih-MAH-suh-nair-ee\ • adjective

: of, relating to, or supported by charity

Felix’s Example Sentence:

In times of economic distress, personal necessity tends to limit the eleemosynary spirit across all strata of society.

Did you know?

While you may not agree with the grammarian who asserted that "a long and learned word like this should only be used under the stress of great need," you might find that remembering how to spell "eleemosynary" makes you tend to use its synonym "charitable" instead. The good people of early England had mercy on themselves when it came to spelling and shortened the root of "eleemosynary," the Latin "eleemosyna," to "ælmes," which they used as their word for "charity." (You may be more familiar with "alms," an "ælmes" derivative that came to denote food or money given to the poor.) The original Latin root was resurrected in the early 17th century to give us the spelling challenge of the adjective we feature today.

Caring for the Country

After almost nine months of economic decay, collapse of large financial institutions, continuing job losses, foreclosures, bankruptcies and oh, yes, war in Afghanistan threatening Pakistan, a nuclear power, the key issues for Republicans and Democrats to debate are torture and the closing of the Guantanamo mini-Gulag.

Although President Obama and former Vice-President Cheney were not on the same platform, their television addresses last night covered those issues as though they were point-counterpoint.

The Virtues of Capitalism

Capitalism has been very, very good to my family and to me. The economies of the industrial world have largely prospered under various forms of capitalism, except for the occasional hiccup, in a rather severe example of such unpleasantness we find ourselves now. Perhaps we could say of capitalism what Winston Churchill said of democracy, it is the worst of all economic systems, except for all the rest.  However, I have been thinking about a quotation that took up permanent residence in my disorderly memory years ago. I know that it was in a footnote in The Politics of Rich and Poor, by Kevin Phillips. Phillips cited a statement by another author regarding the seven deadly sins and capitalism. In my memory, the quotation is this:

The success of capitalism absolutely depends on the exploitation of each of the seven deadly sins, with the possible exception of Sloth.

I have never been able to remember who was cited as the originator of that caustic assessment of our founding principle of national wealth. This morning, with the assistance of the internet and Google Books, I may have located it, although not the precise page and wording. In 1944, Lewis Mumford wrote a book titled, The Condition of Man.  Searching within the text available on line, the closest I could come to the quotation above was on p. 162 in the paperpack edition published in 1973 as a Harvest Book:

Between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries one may sum up the change in the  moral climate by saying that the seven deadly sins became the seven cardinal virtues…Greed, gluttony, avarice, envy and luxury were constant incentives to industry…

Nice to know, more or less, at the cost of 19 years of wondering, and an hour of Googling. It appears that Mumford did include Sloth as necessary to capitalism, and thinking of all the products designed to ease the effort of daily life, probably he was right.

Going back to Phillips and his book on rich and poor, the burden of his message was that the transfer of wealth from the middle and lower middle class to the wealthiest tiny percentage of the population of the country was likely to weaken and eventually destroy our economy. It appears that 19 years later, some evidence that he was right has just fallen in on us like the roof of a badly constructed building.

For the sake of my children and grandchildren, I hope it is not so.