What's Your Word for the Day? Showing 251-300 of 3,049

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

....and for those of us who live abroad, my word of the day is palimpsest:A palimpsest is a manuscript page, whether from scroll or book that has been written on, scraped off, and used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin from Greek παλιν + ψαω = ("again" + "I scrape"), and meant "scraped (clean and used) again." Romans wrote on wax-coated tablets that could be smoothed and reused, and a passing use of the rather bookish term "palimpsest" by Cicero seems to refer to this practice.

[Inky]

I just finished a book on a palimpsest! It's called "The Archimedes Codex," and it's about the recovery of early unknown works by the mathematician from Syracuse.
The best detail: Archimedes wrote word problems in verse. It took mathematicians centuries to discover the answer to one (based on cattle, Cyclops and the island of Sicily) had at least a 6-digit answer.

[Sally]

Debbie - Palmipsest has been my word of the semester in my class on Ezra Pound. I keep referring to his "palimpestual" writings, how they evoke all of the writings that have come before. What I like about palimpsest is that reputably you can always read layers of text beneath the current writing. :)

[Ruth]

I wrote a poem called Palimpsest. About my mother's fading into dementia.

[Ken, Moderator]

Sally, do you teach the Pound class or are you a student in it? Palimpsest is a word you see hanging around and call the cops on for loitering, but don't really use that often (at least I don't). It reminds me, for no sane reason, of pimpernel, of which there was a scarlet one in literature (I never read it, though).

[[deleted user]]

I also just finished a book with palimpsest in it! It was The Navigator by Clive Cussler. It was a map leading to King Solomon's mines.

[Ken, Moderator]

That does it. I have palimpsest envy.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

You must have a palimpsest somewhere! If you haven't, then make one!!

[Sally]

I am a student in a grad seminar on Ezra Pound. There are four students.
But I am a TA for a really mind-expanding "Reading and the Web" class

I'm also taking Teaching Reading
and
Syntax for ESL/EFL

[Ken, Moderator]

Make palimpsest, not war! (Got it!)

Your courses sound coolio, Sally. Ezra Pound took a pounding for his pro-Nazi sentiments during WWII but I guess he was a little whacked so what can you do. Plus we read him for his poetry, not his politics. Frankly, I've read this side of nothing of his work. The Cantos are too huge, I think.

Knut Hamsun is another guy from that era who took a beating for Nazi sympathies. I have read him extensively, though. Love his stuff.

As for the course, "Teaching Reading," it's kind of funny to try to teach such a thing. Well, I suppose if you get some students to practice what you're learning, it wouldn't be bad. Otherwise, EVERYTHING works in theory.

[Inky]

NE, Pound isn't a poet I've read extensively either, although I do have a soft spot for H.D., his female companion:

"She was high,
And far,
And blind
In her high pride;
But now that my head
Is bowed in sorrow,
I find she is most kind."

[[deleted user]]

pound and t.s. elliot
both unreadable in my book
or at least pound was when i was in college
elliot was just...i don't know...full of himself?

i excerpted both and said perhaps before i die i'll try again

but yah know as i get older the less i feel compelled to read something i don't particularly enjoy just because it's supposed to be great lit

[Ken, Moderator]

Agreed. And Inky, who is "H.D."? Hilda Doolittle? Don't know those initials, sadly.

For you, Moe Goodreader (sounds like a character in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress): the word for the day is wasteland. Once T.S. Eliot's word, it now is the province of the Who ("Teenage Wasteland," anyone?)...

[Inky]

Got it in one, NE:)

[[deleted user]]

i read bunyan when i was 15 and it was like everyman for me in college
mind altering
life altering
touches one on a higher plane
should read them both again
yah sometimes i feel like a character from an allegory
wasteland
reminds me of ecclesiastes?
should read that book again too :)

[Ken, Moderator]

I think I'm on record already as picking Ecclesiastes as my favorite book in the Bible. I read the Bible as literature. Not that I don't believe. I just believe in literature.

[[deleted user]]

yes
i was alluding to that reference in your early post on one of my posts on a thread where others posted and other posters responded
to ecclesiastes or progress of language pilgrims :)

[[deleted user]]

Was it a pre-post or a post-post?

[[deleted user]]

i think it was a postscript

[Ken, Moderator]

Keep us posted.

[[deleted user]]

I prefer Kellogs.

[Ken, Moderator]

Keep us Kellogged, then. (Don't they both use genetically-modified ingredients, however?)

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Isn't that just a bunch of cornflakes?

[[deleted user]]

nuts and flakes i think

[[deleted user]]

That's why I like it-- and this group!

And I'm not sure about the genitically modified bit. Perhaps I can think of it as nutritionally enhanced through the scientific wonders of our modern age.

[[deleted user]]

well-not to bring ya down sara
but i think the major focus of the genetically engineered corn is to enfuse it with monsanto chemicals to control pests or fungus when it grows
basically making the seeds not more nutritious but able to grow better

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

...like the Eta peanut butter ad..."they're all nuts in there anyway"!

[[deleted user]]

goodreader-- well, that just really bugs me :)

[[deleted user]]

haha
yah
i love cornflakes
i guess i'll have to stick to cheerios

don't anyone tell me any bad stories about oats

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

In New Zealand, cheerios are small red cocktail sausages, eaten on a stick at childrens parties - usually after dipping in tomato sauce.

[[deleted user]]

vienna sausage are someone's idea of your cheerios
except they are more like rubber little liverworst
red hot dogs are made in maine and what you eat when you eat beanies and weenies
and cheerios for me are the little oat circles made by a u.s. cereal maker that have sort of a nutty flavor
i like mine with strawberries and honey

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

What do you call a dancing sausage?
A ballet-weiner!

[[deleted user]]

grooooaaaaannnnn
you win!!!

[Ken, Moderator]

Speaking of Monsanto, the words for the day are:

NEFARIOUS and

UNSCRUPULOUS and

BOYCOTT.

Boycott is an eponym, too.

[Dottie]

Oh my goodness -- I was just speaking today of The Road to Wellville. Kellogg and genetic engineering -- heh -- well, it all ties in. I absolutely love just dropping into a thread in this group and finding out where your minds are going at that particular moment.

[Dottie]

Should my word perhaps be "serendipitous"?

[Ken, Moderator]

I think "serendipitous" is the word of the year, it's been nominated so often! I've never read The Road to Wellville, but maybe I should. Monsanto really gets my hackles up. If I could bring one company to its knees, they'd be the prime candidate...

[[deleted user]]

yah... they're pretty obnoxious
exxon
all oil co's
most chemical co's
but genetically engineering our food
it's totally orwellian to me

[Ken, Moderator]

Monsanto's also behind artificial growth hormone in dairy products. But most menacing of all is their patenting of seeds. Seeds should be outside the province of the law. Period. They've created seeds that are resistant to their own chemical poison, Round-Up, etc., so they can sell more of same to farmers and spray the hell out of fields (bad for you). Sniff profit at the expense of human health yet?

Then, if a patented, Round-Up-proof seed is blown by the wind onto an innocent farmer's fields where it begins to grow, they sue the hell out of the farmer AND HAVE WON CASES. To its credit, the State of Maine just passed a law this week protecting its farmers from such lawsuits. Of course Monsanto, with its high-powered, corporate-profit driven money, can and will sue the State of Maine and take it up in the federal courts where they have a better chance of winning due to the bought-and-paid for factors forever at work with politicians and judges AND due to the sympathetic-to-corporations judges that have been sown by the Republican Administration on federal benches these past 8 years.

The word for the day is unconscionable.

[Eastofoz]

"Perdition" and "concerted"---very serious, don't fool around here words (!)

[Ken, Moderator]

Hi, Eastie! Welcome back. Good to see your striped beach chair again (uh, it is a beach chair, right?).

[Inky]

Okay, I just read the Vanity Fair article on Monsanto. My contributions to the word of the day would have to be:
-corrupt
-sinister
-and yeah, I'll throw in mercenary.

The whole Monsanto thing made me think of an old Kentucky union song that says: "Us poor folks haven't got an chance unless we organize."

[Ken, Moderator]

Didn't even know there WAS a Vanity Fair exposé on Monsanto and Yours. They're hard to boycott. So I don't buy Round-Up. Or growth-hormone injected milk. Wow.

They (and certain other chemical and food corporations) are working hard to take any notice off labels that your food and drink is (pick one, any one): treated with herbicides and pesticides, cloned, injected with growth hormones, fed antibiotics, and/or genetically-altered (actually, these last are already in our stores in cognito).

All they have to do is get bought-and-paid-for-scientists (think FDA and USDA) to say it's safe as far as they're concerned, and the courts will back them up. If they discover 8 years down the road it causes cancer, it's WHOOPS and what's a couple million people?

"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." -- Joseph "Comrade Monsanto" Stalin

[[deleted user]]

arrrggghhhhh!!!!!

[Ken, Moderator]

I love the word gnomon, as in the the part of the sundial that throws a shadow. In the book I'm on-again, off-again reading, Neal Stephenson refers to all of US as gnomons when the sun is out. Cool, thought, that. And we can even tell the time (well, I can't, because I can't stand wearing a watch).

So if everyone positioned a sundial just so on the ground in the middle of their gardens, they could go out on a sunny day, stand in the center like a big honking gnomon, and announce the time based on their shadow. Sound like fun?

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Ummmmmm..........NE, are you sane?

[[deleted user]]

haha
i liked the gnomon idea
my grandson and i were talking about getting a sundial for the patio garden yesterday
now we don't have to
ne says so
except it's dark out right now
a gnight gnomon?

[Ken, Moderator]

Am I sane? It took you this long?

G'night, Gnomons...

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Gnomon gnomon gnomon....I love that word. Is the g silent or can you say it? I want to say it!

[Ruth]

When I lived in San Bernardino, the people down the street had three plaster gnomons in their yard, all with little pointed caps and evil grins.