Monthly Readings April 2006

April 2, 2006: ExtremeTech. A Trio of Widescreen Monitors
April 4, 2006: eWeek. Making Your Apps Work with Internet Explorer 7
April 5, 2006: eWeek. Boot Camp: Apple's Enterprise Trojan Horse?
April 11, 2006: PC Mag. FeedDemon 2.0. Best desktop RSS aggregator
April 17, 2006: The Pulitzer Prizes: Nominees and Winners
April 18, 2006: PC Mag. Media Center Laptops
April 19, 2006: PC Mag. Bright and Clear, Ready for Business. Review LCD monitors
April 26, 2006: PCMag. Worst Products of Q1 2006
April 30, 2006: New York Times. Obituary: John Kenneth Galbraith, 97, Dies; Economist Held a Miror to Society

Word of the Day for Monday April 24, 2006 rebarbative

rebarbative \ree-BAR-buh-tiv\, adjective:Serving or tending to irritate or repel.

• Over the past couple of hours a lot of rebarbative, ulcerated and embittered people had been working hard at bedding their resentments down in sensory-deprivation tanks full of alcohol.-- Will Self, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis
• I still think this true, yet can't help regret the unretrievable hours lavished on so much rebarbative critical prose, convinced that the nearly impenetrable must be profound.-- Michael Dirda, "In which our intrepid columnist visits the Modern Language Association convention and reflects on what he found there", Washington Post, January 28, 2001

Rebarbative comes from French rébarbatif, "stern, surly, grim, forbidding," from Middle French rebarber, "to be repellent," from re- (from the Latin) + barbe, "beard" (from Latin barba).

Word of the Day for Sunday April 16, 2006 hortatory

hortatory \HOR-tuh-tor-ee\, adjective:Marked by strong urging; serving to encourage or incite; as, "a hortatory speech."

• He later gave up the ministry in the conviction that he could reach thousands with his beguiling pen and only hundreds with his hortatory voice.-- Carl Van Doren, The American Novel, 1789-1939
• Instead of "Home Run, Jack," the hortatory message that greets the batter at the plate is the subliminal one that surfaces: "Run Home, Jack."-- Marjorie Garber, Symptoms of Culture
• The former West German Chancellor's book . . . is a call to action, and, even in this good translation, the book relies heavily on the hortatory language of political appeals.-- Tamar Jacoby, "Carrots and Sticks", New York Times, August 24, 1986

Hortatory is from Latin hortatorius, from hortari, "to exhort, to incite, to encourage."

Word of the Day for Monday April 17, 2006 choler

choler \KOLL-ur; KOLE-ur\, noun:Irritation of the passions; anger; wrath.

• And at last he seems to have found his proper subject: one that genuinely engages his intellect, truly arouses his characteristic choler and fills him with zest.-- "Black Humor': Could Be Funnier", New York Times, January 12, 1998
• I found my choler rising.-- Samuel Richardson, A Collection of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments... in the Histories of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison

Choler is from Latin cholera, a bilious disease, from Greek kholera, from khole, bile.

Word of the Day for Friday April 14, 2006 desuetude

desuetude \DES-wih-tood, -tyood\, noun:

The cessation of use; discontinuance of practice or custom; disuse.

Nuns and priests abandoned the identifying attire of the religious vocation and frequently also the vocation itself, experimental liturgies celebrated more the possibility of cultural advancement than that of eternal life, and popular Marian devotions fell into desuetude.
-- Michael W. Cuneo, The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism

Probably only one in a hundred girls who give birth clandestinely even knows that an edict of King Henry II, now fallen into desuetude, once made their action punishable by death.
-- Nina Rattner Gelbart, The King's Midwife

Where specific restrictions on personal freedom and on communal activity had not explicitly been lifted they were allowed to fall into desuetude by default.
-- David Vital, A People Apart: The Jews in Europe, 1789-1939

The exercise of rights which had practically passed into desuetude.
-- John Richard Green, Short History of the English People

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Desuetude comes from Latin desuetudo, "disuse," from desuescere, "to become unaccustomed," from de- + suescere, "to become used or accustomed."

Word of the Day for Friday April 14, 2006 desuetude

desuetude \DES-wih-tood, -tyood\, noun:

The cessation of use; discontinuance of practice or custom; disuse.

Nuns and priests abandoned the identifying attire of the religious vocation and frequently also the vocation itself, experimental liturgies celebrated more the possibility of cultural advancement than that of eternal life, and popular Marian devotions fell into desuetude.
-- Michael W. Cuneo, The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism

Probably only one in a hundred girls who give birth clandestinely even knows that an edict of King Henry II, now fallen into desuetude, once made their action punishable by death.
-- Nina Rattner Gelbart, The King's Midwife

Where specific restrictions on personal freedom and on communal activity had not explicitly been lifted they were allowed to fall into desuetude by default.
-- David Vital, A People Apart: The Jews in Europe, 1789-1939

The exercise of rights which had practically passed into desuetude.
-- John Richard Green, Short History of the English People

---

Desuetude comes from Latin desuetudo, "disuse," from desuescere, "to become unaccustomed," from de- + suescere, "to become used or accustomed."

Word of the Day for Thursday April 13, 2006 salmagundi

salmagundi \sal-muh-GUHN-dee\, noun:1. A salad plate usually consisting of chopped meat, anchovies, eggs, and onions, served with oil and vinegar.2. Any mixture or assortment; a medley; a potpourri; a miscellany.

• A glance at the schedule is enough to make one feel that one would rather go out and shoot songbirds than stay in and watch the dismal salmagundi of game shows, repeats and soap operas.-- Jane Shilling, "My brother and other animals", Daily Telegraph, August 22, 1998
• What the BBC has the nerve to call Vanity Fair is a baffling salmagundi of Nineties accents, 1800s clothes, Wardour Street plotting, and a sort of language never spoken by any human being at any point in history.-- "Stop betraying the classics", Independent, November 4, 1998

Salmagundi comes from French salmigondis.

Word of the Day for Wednesday April 12, 2006 coeval

coeval \koh-EE-vuhl\, adjective:1. Of the same age; originating or existing during the same period of time -- usually followed by 'with'.
noun:1. One of the same age; a contemporary.

• According to John Paul, this longing for transcendent truth is coeval with human existence: All men and women "shape a comprehensive vision and an answer to the question of life's meaning."-- "Culture, et cetera", Washington Times, October 6, 2000
• Coeval with human speech and found among all peoples, poetry appeals to our sense of wonder, to our unending quest for answers to the timeless questions of who we are and why we are.-- Mark Mathabane, "A Poet Can Lead Us Toward Change", Newsday, January 20, 1993
• Unhappily, however, the writers speak almost wholly to those who already regard Lewis as not just the coeval but the equal of T. S. Eliot, Joyce and Pound.-- Julian Symons, "Prophecy and Dishonor", New York Times, February 10, 1985
• The 1,500 years of [Barcelona's] existence had produced only five names that came easily to mind: the cellist Pau Casals, the artist Joan Miró and his somewhat tarnished coeval Salvador Dali, both of whom were still very much alive, and the dead architect Antoni Gaudí.-- Nicholas Shrady, "Glorious in Its Very Stones", New York Times, March 15, 1992

Coeval comes from Medieval Latin coaevus, from Latin co- + aevum, "a period of time, lifetime."

Word of the Day for Thursday April 6, 2006 hobbledehoy

hobbledehoy \HOB-uhl-dee-hoy\, noun:An awkward, gawky young fellow.

• For early on, girls become aware -- as much from their fathers' anguished bellows of "You're not going out dressed like that, Miss" as from the buffoonish reactions of the spotty hobbledehoys at the end-of-term disco -- of the power of clothes to seduce.-- Jane Shilling, "Soft-centred punk", Times (London), October 27, 2000
• His memories, even only reveries, of incomparable women, made me feel like a hulking hobbledehoy.-- Edith Anderson, Love in Exile
• Unfortunately, they have to contend with ignorant hobbledehoys who, on seeing these rows of shingle heaps, feel compelled to jump on them.-- Susan Campbell, "He grows seakale on the seashore", Daily Telegraph, March 27, 1999

The origin of hobbledehoy is unknown, though it perhaps derives from hobble, from the awkward movements of a clumsy adolescent.

Word of the Day for Tuesday April 4, 2006 brummagem

brummagem \BRUHM-uh-juhm\, adjective:Cheap and showy, tawdry; also, spurious, counterfeit.

• But demanding that publishers replace their brummagem wares with books which embody Kunin's "high standards of excellence" would be a promising -- and cost-free -- way to begin.-- Betty McCollister, "A Conspiracy of Good Intentions: America's Textbook Fiasco", Humanist, November-December, 1993
• The distortions they bring on damage society and fuel defiant behavior, encouraging everything from immigrations to the Cayman Islands, to active distortions of reality through brummagem corporate filings.-- William F. Buckley, Jr., "Reforming the Rich", National Review, January 20, 2006

Brummagem is an alteration of Birmingham, England, from the counterfeit groats produced there in the 17th century.