things that keep me up at night
Have you ever noticed that when you put a plant on a windowsill, it turns to look out at the sun. So you turn it back around so the pretty part is towards you. The next day or two, your plant starts to ignore your wishes and turns around again.
phototropism – Growth or movement of a sessile organism toward or away from a source of light. (dictionary.com)
Well, it doesn’t help when they use words you don’t know in the definition. So–
sessile – Permanently attached or fixed; not free-moving
Vegan – A vegetarian who eats plant products only
No eggs, cheese or milk products. No honey. No leather or fur.
I know people follow this strict vegetarianism, but it must be tough.
1857: Fannie M. Farmer (cookbook author)
1882: Emmy Noether (German Jewish mathematician)
1897: Margaret Farrar (Crossword puzzle editor)
1900: Erich Fromm 1900 (Social philosopher and psychoanalyst)
1908: Joan Crawford (actress)
1910: Akira Kurosawa (film director)
1912: Wernher Von Braun (rocket scientist)
1929: Roger Bannister (runner)
1953: Chaka Khan (singer)
In the hope of planting some vocabulary in young minds, there has been a CD created showcasing vocabulary that might be on the new SAT. Isn’t it amazing how you can grope for the meaning of a word, but even if you don’t think you can remember a song, as you sing it, the next line comes into your head.
One of the songs starts, “Ephemeral day” and then repeats the idea in the next line with “short-lived day.” If only they could have put math to music!
ephemeral – Lasting for a markedly brief time. (dictionary.com)
We sometimes play a game in our house where one person goes to our unabridged dictionary, turns to a random page, picks out an obscure word and sees if anyone else can guess what the definition of it is. John is always the winner. So here’a word that I picked at random.
pyknic – Having a short stocky physique. From the Greek puknos, compact.
So if you have a tendency to be pyknic, don’t go on too many picnics. “Picnic,” by the way, comes from the French piquenique, to pick or peck (piquer) a worthless thing (nique.) It was originally a pot-luck social and not necessarilty outside.
Ignominious
1.Marked by shame or disgrace 2.deserving disgrace or shame: despicable: 3. degrading; debasing.
I’d say I took an ignominious fall.
I saw in the news today that Webster’s Dictionary has added new words to the dictionary. One of these words is “wedgie.” You know, that uncomfortable underwear prank that middle schoolers are prone to. Anyway, I was thinking how great American English is. We are so flexible and so ready to embrace new words. Now, if we were living in France, a wedgie would probably turn out to be, remonter du lingerie, or in Germany, ziehenobenUnterwashen. (Disclaimer: I know neither French or German so I just looked up some words in a dictionary.) Best of all, though, is that one of the new words for this year is “blog.”
Supply and Demand
In classical economics, supply and demand are the factors that are said to determine price, by correlating the amount of a given commodity producers hope to sell at a certain price (supply), and the amount of that commodity that consumers are willing to purchase (demand).
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.
Here’s a word I come across frequently but never can seem to remember what it means. It looks to me like it should mean angry or flabbergasted but the definition is something entirely different. Maybe writing it down will keep it in an accessible place in my brain.
inchoate
1. In an initial or early stage; incipient.
2. Imperfectly formed or developed: a vague, inchoate idea.
(dictionary.com)
I have been seeing ads on TV suggesting that older people should exercise their minds. Using your neural pathways is a way keep your brain sharp. I’ve been doing crossword puzzles since forever. Probably I started doing them because my mom and dad did them. I even still use their old and tattered crossword puzzle dictionary from time to time (I know that’s cheating.) My roommate in college said the reason I got the NY Times delivered was not to keep up on current events but to do the puzzle. She was right. Anyway, just for instance, here are a bunch of words that I’ve learned about just from doing crosswords this week.
vorago, Lacedaemon, panoply, zenana, tramontane, tantivy, erica
Do you know what these mean?