From the category archives:

ECLECTIC

SNEAKERS: a rubber-soled shoe

August 26, 2010

My blog-friend, Newport Betty, raised a question which I have asked a number of times myself.   She was commenting on her daughter’s sneakers and posed the question:
“Where does the name sneakers come from, anyway?”
I had a vague idea what the answer might look like, but it was worth spending some time researching the issue, since [...]

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ETIOLATE: to cause vegetables to whiten by restricting light

August 18, 2010

Evidently presentation is everything when it comes to gourmet meals.  I discovered this when I chased down the meaning of the word etiolate which I had come across in an article in the NY Times. The article was about a “ghost stroller” which has appeared on a street in New York, chained to a pole.  [...]

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CURATION: having to do with assembling pertinent information

August 12, 2010

One of the people I relate with on Facebook is a young man by the name of Jojo Malig, a journalist from the Philippines.  This week he introduced me to the term curation and sent me scrambling to the Internet to try to figure out what the word meant.  As a result, he exposed [...]

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NUPTIAL: marriage, or the marriage ceremony

August 2, 2010

The media coverage of  the wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky has been refreshing.  In the midst of depressing economic, environmental, and  war stories which have smothered the news for the past months, it was fun to follow this amazing young woman and her new husband through a fairy tale romance and wedding .  Some [...]

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PICALILLI: a pickle of mixed vegetables, esp onions, cauliflower, and cucumber, in a mustard sauce

July 28, 2010

It’s not a word that compares in significance to others I have chosen for comment.  It won’t approach the national economy, the war in Afghanistan, or the machinations of the members of Congress.  I doubt that it occurs in the daily language of the President of the United States, the coach of the Boston Red [...]

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DEPRESSED STORM DRAINS: gutters with a mental illness

July 25, 2010

We were driving along peacefully, minding our own business, when I began to laugh out loud.  Loud enough to wake up my wife who was taking one of her 10 minute naps needed to restore her energy for driving.  I didn’t realize that my laughter was loud enough to awaken her.
The subject of my mirth [...]

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ANACHRONISM: belonging to an earlier time

July 14, 2010

This week it was announced that the PT Cruiser, the retro car of the Chrysler Corporation was going out of production.  It was a creative, cute vehicle for a short period of time, but, like most anachronistic constructions, its tenure was limited.  I, like many, was fascinated with the Cruiser when it was introduced in [...]

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TOTEMIC: anything serving as a distinctive, often venerated, emblem or symbol

June 25, 2010

I really had to work hard on this one.  My daughter was reading an article aloud to me from the June, 2010,   edition of Vanity Fair magazine.  James Wolcott, a regular contributor to the magazine, was reporting on the life of the late author, Norman Mailer.
At one point in the well-written article, Wolcott refers to [...]

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MYTHICAL DAD: a man who was more a figment of selective memory than reality

June 20, 2010

I’ve come to the conclusion that the father I refer to occasionally is a myth.  As in most myths, there is some truth to the depiction, but the overall picture has been shaped to fit into a frame I created from distortions.  When my father died a number of years ago (at the age of [...]

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RACINO: a casino at a racetrack

June 13, 2010

I was shocked to discover that one of my old stomping grounds at Saratoga, the famous Saratoga Raceway, is now more a gaming casino than a raceway.  They call it the Racino…a clever melding of the words raceway and casino. The parking lot was full when we arrived for the first of three events in [...]

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