From the monthly archives:

April 2012

OBFUSCATE: to confuse or muddle

April 30, 2012

Obfuscate [ob-fuh-skeyt] is one of those words that sounds obscure and remote.  However, it is a great word that is used regularly in any number of settings.   I often hear it on news shows, in interviews and in the midst of dialogue and it appears in articles all the time.   Obfuscate is from the Latin [...]

Read the full article →

LEGENDARY: celebrated or fabled

April 29, 2012

How many hundreds of times have you seen a cartoon of a banana peel on the sidewalk and someone comes along, steps on it, and ends up flat on their back on the sidewalk?  It’s a legendary image, loved by those who create animated cartoons. But … how many times have you actually seen a [...]

Read the full article →

CONNECTION: a rapidly-changing concept having to do with interaction with another person

April 27, 2012

When younger people say that they “connected” with someone over the weekend they could mean anything from having seen somebody and waved to them to having a sexual encounter with another person.  It is a word that requires a context, and younger people seem to have an ability to identify context in order to ascribe [...]

Read the full article →

PERSNICKETY: overly fussy

April 26, 2012

Persnickety. I love this word.  It’s fun to say.   It’s one of those old-fashioned words that doesn’t come up in conversations much these days.  My research indicates that it’s a word that comes to us from Scottish origins, and that its actual spelling was pernickety.  Over the years it was adjusted to the newer spelling, [...]

Read the full article →

MEME [meem]: a cultural factor that replicates over time, much as a gene is carried from generation to generation

April 25, 2012

The word meme “was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976)… as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, fashion and the technology of building arches.” (Wikipedia)   It has become [...]

Read the full article →

SUSTAINABILITY: the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance*

April 24, 2012

The concept of sustainability revolves around the idea that elements of our environment and our attempt to live in a healthy way in this environment require an understanding of depletion and restoration.   If those elements, including food, are to be available to this and future generations care must be taken to avoid depleting the supply [...]

Read the full article →

EDIT: to revise or correct an article, book or manuscript

April 23, 2012

I am increasingly frustrated with the lack of editing of articles in my local newspaper.  As I have watched the economically-motivated redistribution and elimination of personnel over the past several years, I have also watched the increasingly blatant errors which have resulted from those measures. An editor, specifically a copy editor, is more than a [...]

Read the full article →

TEAM TRAVAIL: when everything starts to go wrong

April 22, 2012

After wearing my socks for a day I know they are smelly and in need of laundering.  It’s not a matter of choice.  It’s a matter of necessity.   If I fail to maintain that protocol people will begin to notice the odor and avoid me. That’s a rather harsh and crude way of saying that [...]

Read the full article →

CAMPAIGN WEARY: tired of speeches, arguments, ads, rhetoric, robo calls

April 21, 2012

I’ve almost had it, and it isn’t even May.   The elections are more than 6 months away and already I’m experiencing campaign weariness.  I get a dozen or more email requests a day  for funds for candidates. The other day I had a verbal feud with someone from my own party who was calling to [...]

Read the full article →

QUANDARY: being in a state of confusion

April 20, 2012

Remember the advertisement showing the dog with a prize bone who was confused and perplexed about how to protect the bone from being stolen?   He buries the bone, digs it up, puts it in a safe deposit box, retrieves it, and finally keeps it in his doghouse next to him where he can watch over [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries