Word of the Day - December 19, 2010

nos·trum   [nos-truhm] –noun
1. a medicine sold with false or exaggerated claims and with no demonstrable value; quack medicine.
2. a scheme, theory, device, etc., esp. one to remedy social or political ills; panacea.
3. a medicine made by the person who recommends it.
4. a patent medicine.


Example

Word of the Day - October 1, 2010

Funny¹ a.
1. Affording fun mirth-producting, comical, facetious.
2. Curious, queer, odd strange. colloq.

Example according to someone recently blocked by me on Facebook: "...every 37.8 seconds, somewhere in America a man is battered, according to the National Violence Against Women Survey."

¹ The Oxford English Dictionary: Volume IV F-G. New York: Oxford University Press, 1933. p609.

Word of the Day - 9/11/10

pretext - n. a false reason concealing a real reason; misleading excuse; pretense.

Example: He wasn't taking his medication, so I made him cry.

Word of the Day - September 1, 2010

picayune adj


Definition of PICAYUNE

: of little value : paltry; also : petty, small-minded

— pic·a·yun·ish\ adjective
 
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Relationship between metaphysics and language arts

The discovery of the planet Pluto in 1930 illustrates the relationship between metaphysics and the language arts. The planet Pluto had been a real entity, traveling in its orbit about our sun, for centuries; its discovery in 1930 did not create it. By being discovered, however it became in 1930 for the first time a logical entity. When it was named Pluto, it became a grammatical entity. When by it's name knowledge of it was communicated to others through the spoken word and also through the written word, the planet Pluto became a rhetorical entity.¹

And when, in 2006, it was reclassifed as a Dwarf Planet, Pluto became a punchline entity.

¹Joseph, Sister Miriam, C.S.C., Ph.D.  p. 9