– Definition: adj. intense and impassioned – Used in a sentence: The perfervid activists had trouble with their blood pressure. – Why: There is something attractive about a three-syllable word replacing a three-word phrase. (Maybe it’s the concisifier in me.)
Category: Crit
Examination, interpretation, appreciation.
Word to Bring Back: “Prig”
– Definition: noun a self-righteously moralistic person who behaves as if superior to others. – Used in a sentence: Scratch a prig, find a hypocrite. – Why: To name a thing is to control it — either by voting it…
Private Fame
TO AN AMATEUR SKYWATCHER (in the original sense of that first word), the beginning of the month is quite special; it’s when the new issue of Astronomy arrives. Among that magazine’s many excellent features and fixtures is “Ask Astro,” where…
Words to Bring Back: “Shambolic”
– Definition: adj.; chiefly British chaotic, disorganized, or mismanaged. – Used in a sentence: Our political and cultural landscapes have become shambolic as all get-out. – Why: Because we need a more polite (and adjectival) descriptor than… those in current…
Word to Bring Back: “Amphitryon”
– Definition: (French) n. person with whom or at whose expense one dines – Used in a sentence: My father is a well-known and gracious amphitryon. – Why: Aside from its capitalized Greek origin (Amphitryon was, according to Sophocles, a…
Some people use the word ‘God’ the way white supremacists use the word ‘patriot.'”
— me
Words To Bring Back: “Daresay”
– Definition: v., archaic used to indicate that one believes something is probable. – Used in a sentence: I daresay we need to get out the vote this November, or all will be lost. – Why: You could always and…
IF YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN IT simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
— Albert Einstein
Pithyism #20-20
EVERYTHING IS EASY — IN HINDSIGHT.
THE AX EXISTED FOR 1.4 million years before anyone thought to put a handle on it.”
— James Williams
Re-Vision
LOVE adv. A DEDICATED SERIES OF related kindnesses and decisions.
I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT ‘bizarre’ means anymore.”
— Anthony Bourdain