Word of the Day

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

January 1, 2011

Word of the Day

grandee

\grand-DEE\

DEFINITION

noun
: a man of elevated rank or station

FELIX’S EXAMPLES

In the allegedly egalitarian and populist U.S.A., grandees emerge from television reality shows, preferably with attitudes and personal styles that evoke envy in the tabloid nation.

The grandees of English colonies in North America more often arose from entrepreneurial persons without pedigree than aristocrats; by the second generation they were beginning to acquire the patina of hereditary wealth.

DID YOU KNOW?

In Medieval Spain and Portugal, the “grandes” (“great ones,” from Latin “grandis,” meaning “great”) were at the pinnacle of the ranks of rich and powerful nobles. A grandee (as it came to be spelled in English) could wear a hat in the presence of the king and queen — the height of privilege — and he alone could address a letter directly to royalty. (Even Christopher Columbus had to direct his reports of the New World to an important noble at court, who read them to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.) Today the term can still be applied to nobility, but it can also be used for anyone of importance and influence anywhere, such as the “pin-striped grandees of London’s financial district.”

Readings for Today

From the Revised Common Lectionary for today, commemorating:

William Dwight Porter Bliss, Priest, who served in both Congregational and Episcopal churches, and:

Richard Theodore Ely, Economist.

These two men advanced the cause of the Social Gospel, within the Episcopal Church and in academia.

The Gospel reading is from Luke 16:19-31, the story of the Parable of the rich man and the impoverished Lazarus, following the two after death into quite different ends; the rich man suffers in Hades, while Lazarus is welcomed into the bosom of Abraham.

Word of the Day

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

The Word of the Day for September 12, 2009 is:
munificent • \myoo-NIF-uh-sunt\ • adjective

*1 : very liberal in giving or bestowing : lavish

2 : characterized by great liberality or generosity

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Chattanooga has benefited from many local foundations, organizations that dole out munificent grants to multiple causes.

Did you know?

“Munificent” was formed back in the late 1500s when English speakers, perhaps inspired by similar words such as “magnificent,” altered the ending of “munificence.” “Munificence” in turn comes from “munificus,” the Latin word for “generous,” which itself comes from “munus,” a Latin noun that is variously translated as “gift,” “duty,” or “service.” “Munus” has done a fine service to English by giving us other terms related to service or compensation, including “municipal” and “remunerate.”

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Trading Costs

The collapse of the economy in many areas has affected budgets private, corporate and governmental. Lack of money is an absolute, making cuts across all strata of society necessary, so hard choices and reduced standards are inevitable. All reductions in costs, especially in those levels of society with the fewest resources and greatest needs, are not necessarily actual reductions. Sometimes cuts in services by government simply shift the costs into areas not as recognizable as taxes or fees.

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.