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What's Your Word for the Day?
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by
David
(new)
Oct 05, 2008 09:21PM
The word for today, however, is "defenestration," assassination by being thrown out a window, especially significant in Czech history.
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Actually, I have from time to time hired a consultant who has a background as a window contractor and manufacturer. He calls himself a "fenestration expert."
Mod
Intimately related to fenestrations and defenestrations is another WFTD: EmbrasureAn embrasure is a slit in a wall through which arrows or cannonballs can be fired.
In dentistry, it means the gaps between teeth, presumably the ones through which tiny seeds can be fired by the tongue at an offending cheek.
In the case of less violent abodes, it refers to the encasement of a window, especially one that slopes inward toward the exterior wall.
It comes from the French embraser, though I have no idea what that means.
I mention it because I've run into "embrasure" two or three times in the past few weeks, and I like the way it sounds.
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Mod
There is a very specific word for a gap between the front teeth--a "diastema."Like most physical features, they can be alluring or off-putting.
deb's all allureshe hides behind her warmth, cuteness, and rimless fenestrations
but underneath
there beats the heart of a black russian swillin
ottoman in the dumpster sittin
activist against hideous art and
ee cummings floutin
bathrobe eschewing grammarians
who would learn to spell color correctly with an honourable u
if she had her diastemic way
To Debbie, Who Spells With "U"sHer diastemic whistle sails
Across the glens and canyons where
Lit'rature and other fare
Console the souls of exiles there.
Unlettered multitudes all pine
For rescue from life's tedium
Some go consult a medium
Some like sheep and eating 'em.
Eschew the tube, the wise one teaches
And on the internet don't surf
'Tis in old tomes you'll unearth
Wise words to fill your days with worth.
The Antipodean lady's teaching
And she'll give you honest odds
Americans are often clods
Mesmerized by alien pods.
These voting cattle do not listen
To those they see as learned twits
They'll trample us to trifling bits,
And so, this versifier quits.
Mod
Oh moe and David......hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
TWO odes to moi! And both so witty.........
....and really, I am just a curmudgeonly, 'sardonic princess of cheerfulness', who is learning to be less pedantic about "u"s!!
Coming soon: an obbligato of lachrymose rodomontade.Oh, I forgot. The Democrats did that one already.
Mod
Many sources list them as synonyms, but I've yet to find a nitty-gritty lowdown on their differences. (Surely if you stick two words in a locked room, they'll experience differences sooner or later...).
Mod
Paradigm is "an example" while paragon is "a factor"(that produces something in general, here a role model) so NE is right, in context they might be synonyms with "model of behaviour". It's amusing to consider that in Greek most of the time paradigm refers to people while paragon is mostly used to describe things or situations.My WFTD is nonagenarian. (what I aspire to be)
"Paradigm" originally referred to a table of grammatical endings in inflected languages such as Latin or Greek.Thomas Kuhn used it in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" for a complex of ideas and theories in science, which he says periodically are upended after great resistance.
A "paragon" is a model of excellence, as in, "Ashkenazy is a paragon of pianistic romanticism."
Other than the "para" at the beginning, I fail to see much resemblance, but Newengland's explanation seems as good as any.
ParadiseParadox
Parasol
Paramour
Paramecium
Paragraph
Parabola
Parallactic
Paranoia
Parasite
And even more exciting words that begin with "para" are found in the nearest dictionary!!
Mod
vile usurper!how dare you utter these insolent words;
"Newengland's explanation seems as good as any."
why i'll have you know ne's explanations are superior to most
;)
"Paradise" is a borrowing from Persian, not a compound word, n'est ce pas?
It certainly is not an originally Greek word, David, though we do use it in everyday life. I think it came to us after most greeks went Christian
Mod
paramedic (working "beside" a doctor)
paralegal (working "beside" a lawyer)
paraklesis (a service of supplication for the welfare of the living)
pardes in Hebrew means both "orchard" and "heaven." no doubt borrowed from Persian or Greek."paranoia" ("para" + "nous" meaning "mind"); cf. "metanoia," meaning "conversion" or "repentance."
parboilednot cooked all the way through ;)
I learned a new word today, supposedly British slang: "shambolic."It was used to describe McCain's campaign. 'Nuff said.
Mod
Mod
What an anorak? Um, isn't that a jacket sold by LL Bean?
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hooo boylet me tell you john
i just want to tell you john
i'm telling you john
i'm a gonna tell you john
john i'm
of why bother
john's not list en ing
brilliant post deb ;)
did make me feel a tad better about our sorry lot of politicians
I was waiting for one of the NZ pols to hit the other over the head with a dead fish.
Mod
I noticed you did not call the PM a "lady," or even a "woman," but merely a "female." You must favor the bloke.
Mod
To get back to the fish thing, she's a bit of a fishwife, methinks.
Mod
Changing the subject, is there an opposite of "noblesse oblige"? How about "joie de vivre"?
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George Bush as nobility? The idea makes me think of Elvis riding to hounds.I suppose he does come from a family of parvenu barons.
Personally, I'd offer Otto von Habsburg the American crown.
Mod
How many days until January 9th? We should all party like it's 1999 (plus a decade).
...is there an opposite of "noblesse oblige"?Yes, but I don't know how to say "Wall Street" in French.
N.E., I think you give W. waaaay too much credit: he caused the oil price increases (maybe that was caused at least in part by a specualtors' bubble) and then he caused the prices to come down as well? Interesting theory, but I think if he had that much power he'd hide it a little better so that the Repubs. could win in November.
Mod
P.S. I still hold that the Republicans WILL win in November. I won't believe otherwise until I see it, unwilling to give a Nation of Just Enough "Joe Plumbers" who see in black and white its due...
Ohhh....sad, isn't it, really? Down here where I live some of the remarks (I won't dignify them by calling them thoughts) are both scary and depressing. But I'm still thinking most people have had enough and are going to go over to the light. Maybe. We can hope.
Who needs four walls? One wall is enough!
PUDICITY - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :Pudicity \Pu*dic"i*ty\, n. [Cf. F. pudicit['e:], L. pudicitia.]
Modesty; chastity. --Howell.
[1913 Webster:]
pudicity - Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) :
PUDICITY. Chastity; the abstaining from all unlawful carnal commerce or
connexion. A married woman or a widow may defend her pudicity as a maid may
her virginity.
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