This Week in Word of the Day/3-17-13
shilly-shally \SHIL-ee-shal-ee\, verb:
1. to show indecision or hesitation; be irresolute; vacillate.
2. to waste time; dawdle.
noun:
1. irresolution; indecision; vacillation: It was sheer shilly-shally on his part.
Scouts should have recognized that the giant’s shilly-shally and clumsy post up game as well as a complete lack of leadership were clear signs his heart wasn’t in basketball. They were seduced by his 7’1, muscular frame and surprising agility, so the giant was fast-tracked to the NBA.
He showed a smile on draft day because he owed it to his family for being the one blessed with an extraordinary body. When the catastrophic knee injury extinguished his career only three seasons later, the giant made his apologies to the city of Atlanta and to the fans, but in private, could not stop smiling as he dreamt of the moment he could step back into the chemistry lab to resume the life of science ripped from him the summer he sprouted eight inches.
bevel \BEV-uhl\, adverb:
1. irresolutely.
noun:
1. the inclination that one line or surface makes with another when not at right angles.
2. a surface that does not form a right angle with adjacent surfaces.
verb:
1. to cut or slant at a bevel: to bevel an edge to prevent splintering.
He left his California Widow crying on the front porch with the children’s heads poked curiously around her apron. It was a terrible, lasting image, but happiness doesn’t keep the bank’s bulldozers from growling at the edge of their homestead.
He found construction work in San Diego through the spring and summer. Menial labor, just remember to bevel the studs, to set the nails, to ignore the vitriolic insults by the drunken and racist foreman.
He returned in September. She welcomed him inside his own home with a distant smile. The youngest didn’t recognize him, the oldest was too shy to give his father a hug. The meal was quiet, the bed was cold, but the bank was satisfied and that was all that mattered.
truant \TROO-uhnt\, noun:
adjective:
1. absent from school without permission.
2. neglectful of duty or responsibility; idle.
3. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a truant.
No one pictured Jeffrey as a truant lad, rather the picture of a vibrant, responsible, and destined prodigy. But middle school was drowning Chester and he owed his closest friend a perfect day.
The pair met during their elementary days where the wealth and influence of Jeffrey’s family meant nothing on the brutal playground. Chester would never say why, but the hulking bully pulled Jeffrey from a scrum one day and backed off the pack of rivals. Ever since, Jeffrey basked in Chester’s protective glow.
But as Chester aged, his size advantage diminished as well as his respect. Familial complications and psychic scars became increasingly evident. Jeffrey watched Chester retreating into himself.
To save his friend, Jeffrey pulled money from his savings, arranged transportation by a burnout friend of the family, and prepared to rekindle his loyal guardian.
There would be repercussions, of course, but after all the battles Chester faced in his sad life, it was time that Jeffrey started protecting him.
madcap \MAD-kap\, adjective:
1. wildly or heedlessly impulsive; reckless; rash: a madcap scheme.
noun:
1. a madcap person.
In the crumbling catacombs of his failing memory, he held onto that one, perfect night as a madcap rampage throughout the darkened streets of New Orleans.
What happened, really? Nothing of note to the average soul. A little drink, perhaps. Too many cigarettes, without a doubt. Sex and violence were still just distant storm clouds.
But the ideas! Those wonderful little things were everywhere. An infestation and they formed a mob and carried the pair off into the night and he truly believed, for a moment, that they would never be seen again.
furl \furl\, verb:
1. to gather into a compact roll and bind securely, as a sail against a spar or a flag against its staff.
2. to become furled.
noun:
1. the act of furling.
2. something furled, as a roll.
It was not entirely clear how little Kimberly managed to rip a water pipe out of the wall, place a sofa up on the roof, punch thirteen holes through the interior and exterior walls, and melt a stainless steel sink into a bulbous hunk of metal.
What is clear is that the pint sized superhero, currently furled up in a comforter in the dire hope her parents wouldn’t find her, needed to work on her anger control issues.
prolepsis \proh-LEP-sis\, noun:
1. Rhetoric. the anticipation of possible objections in order to answer them in advance.
2. the assigning of a person, event, etc., to a period earlier than the actual one; the representation of something in the future as if it already existed or had occurred; prochronism.
3. the use of a descriptive word in anticipation of its becoming applicable.
4. a fundamental conception or assumption in Epicureanism or Stoicism arising spontaneously in the mind without conscious reflection; thought provoked by sense perception.
5. Pathology. the return of an attack of a periodic disease or of a paroxysm before the expected time or at progressively shorter intervals.
Walter launched into a well-reasoned and thorough prolepsis to diffuse any anxiety the owners might have about the roll-out of the new website for the jewelry store that has stood, mostly unchanged, downtown for sixty-two years. As Mildred and Morris peered up at Walter through spectacles thicker than bullet-proof glass, he addressed their fears one by one, including:
1. The addition of a fully trained webmaster to take care of all the site’s needs so the owners didn’t even have to even touch a computer.
2. The impenetrable firewall that would protect the site from hackers.
3. The impossibility of the website to become sentient.
4. All money earned on the website is real money that can be transferred into real banks.
5. Even though the webmaster is of Asian decent, his family has lived in the US for over 100 years, so is likely not a sleeper agent.
6. The website does not make their store prone to robot attacks.
7. None of the images on the site are “photobombs,” as they heard their grandson mention once while showing them “The Facebooks.” That term does not even mean what they think it means.
8. That North Korea, Pakistan, China, or the KGB had no interest in hijacking their site in an effort to destabilize the US economy.
9. The computer does not have the ability to look at you and certainly not when you are in the bathroom.
sundry \SUHN-dree\, adjective:
various or diverse: sundry persons.
He scanned his walls, sweeping over the numerous and sundry movies, video games, records, books – it was how he measured his life. He tracked his memories, his friends, his lovers by the media he consumed when they fell in and fell out of his life.
And the Great Love of his Life? Well, that was the most perfect and humiliating of all.
Their first song was Jann Arden’s “Insensitive” – don’t ask. Their last?
Get this: they swam together nearly a year ago, their bond brittle and crumbling. She was sad and desperate, he was terrified of losing her. Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” sounded over the loud speakers and, for just a moment, that tepid and saccharin song inspired a brief flare of passion.
Then, a month later, she sang Etta James’ “At Last” and he realized that her voice, soaked with scotch and smolder, was no longer directed at him, but at the man sitting just a few feet away.
