Monthly Readings for May 2006

May 1, 2006: New York Times. Audra McDonald's Degree of Difficulty: Challenging to Scary. Concert review. With Fred Hersch. Holden, Stephen.
May 2, 2006: Extreme VOIP. Senate Bill Attacks Content, VOIP, Analog TVs
May 5, 2006: PC Mag. The Best Products of Q1 2006

Word of the Day for Sunday May 21, 2006

bombinate \BOM-buh-nayt\, intransitive verb:To buzz; to hum; to drone.

• He is often drunk. His head hurts. Snatches of conversation, remembered precepts, prefigured cries of terror bombinate about his skull.-- Elspeth Barker, "Nobs and the rabble, all in the same boat", Independent, September 22, 1996
• Sometimes the computer bombinates way into the night, stops for a bit of rest, then resumes its hum at the early hours of the morning.-- Cheryl Glenn and Robert J. Connors, New St. Martins Guide to Teaching Writing

Bombinate is from Late Latin bombinatus, past participle of bombinare, alteration of Latin bombilare, from bombus, "a boom."

Word of the Day for Wednesday May 17, 2006 arrant

arrant \AR-unt\, adjective:Thoroughgoing; downright; out-and-out; confirmed; extreme; notorious.

• More deplorable is his arrant and compulsive hypocrisy . . . Under all the chest hair, he was a hollow man.-- J. D. McClatchy, review of Crux: The Letters of James Dickey, New York Times, December 19, 1999
• I think a pilot would be a most arrant coward, if through fear of bad weather he did not wait for the storm to break but sank his ship on purpose.-- Georges Minois, History Of Suicide translated by Lydia Cochrane
• The moon's an arrant thief,And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.-- Shakespeare, Timon of Athens
• The entire story is a load of arrant nonsense.-- Victor Pelevin, Buddha's Little Finger translated by Andrew Bromfield

Arrant was originally a variant spelling of errant, meaning "wandering." It was first applied to vagabonds, as an arrant (or errant) rogue or thief, and hence passed gradually into its present sense. It ultimately derives from Latin iter, "a journey."

Word of the Day for Thursday May 18, 2006 palimpsest

palimpsest \PAL-imp-sest\, noun:1. A manuscript, usually of papyrus or parchment, on which more than one text has been written with the earlier writing incompletely erased and still visible.2. An object or place whose older layers or aspects are apparent beneath its surface.

• The manuscript is a palimpsest consisting of vellum leaves from which the "fluent and assured script" of the original Archimedes text and 55 diagrams had been washed or scraped off so that the surface could be used for new writings.-- Roger Highfield, "Eureka! Archimedes text is to be sold at auction", Daily Telegraph, October 3, 1998
• Each is a palimpsest, one improvisation partly burying another but leaving hints of it behind.-- Robert Hughes, "Delight for Its Own Sake", Time, January 22, 1996
• It's a mysterious many-layered palimpsest of a metropolis where generations of natives and visitors have left their mark, from Boadicea and the Romans, through the Middle Ages and the Elizabethan era to the present.-- Philip French, "Jack the knife", The Observer, February 10, 2002

Palimpsest is from Latin palimpsestus, from Greek palimpsestos, "scraped or rubbed again," from palin, "again" + psen, "to rub (away)."

May 18, 2006: Minutes - Upcoming Engineering Institute Projects Review

Raytheon business Wilma Calderone Amby Nangeroni Learning Solutions Stephen Milam

May 17, 2006: New Leader Assimilation Notes

Raytheon business Wilma Calderone Maureen Syzmanski

May 8, 2006: Development Team Staff Meeting Notes

Raytheon business Wilma Calderone

Word of the Day for Tuesday May 9, 2006 otiose

otiose \OH-shee-ohs; OH-tee-\, adjective:

1. Ineffective; futile.

2. Being at leisure; lazy; indolent; idle.

3. Of no use.

• Mr. Federspiel's surreal flourishes and commentaries straddle the line between interesting and otiose. Most of the surrealism is pretty but pointless.-- D. F. Wallace, "The Million-Dollar Tattoo", New York Times, May 5, 1991
• Although the wild outer movements and the angular Minuet can take such clockwork precision, the Andante, with its obsessive, claustrophobic dialogues between strings and bassoons, seemed sluggish and otiose.-- Tim Ashley, "VPO/Maazel", The Guardian, April 16, 2002
• The umlaut he affected, which made no difference to the pronunciation of his name, was as otiose as a pair of strategically positioned beauty spots.-- Peter Conrad, "Hidden shallows", New Statesman, October 14, 2002
• One hazard for religions in which all professional intermediaries are dispensed with, and in which the individual is enjoined to 'work out your own salvation' and is regarded as fully capable of doing so, is that belief and practice become independent of formal organized structures which may in such a context come to be perceived as otiose.-- Lorne L. Dawson, "The Cultural Significance of New Religious Movements: The Case of Soka Gakkai", Sociology of Religion, Fall 2001

Otiose is from Latin otiosus, "idle, at leisure," from otium, "leisure."

Word of the Day for Tuesday May 2, 2006 daedal

daedal \DEE-duhl\, adjective:1. Complex or ingenious in form or function; intricate.2. Skillful; artistic; ingenious.3. Rich; adorned with many things.

• Most Web-site designers realize that large image maps and daedal layouts are to be avoided, and the leading World Wide Web designers have reacted to users' objections to highly graphical, slow sites by using uncluttered, easy-to-use layouts.-- "Fixing Web-site usability", InfoWorld, December 15, 1997
• He gathered toward the end of his life a very extensive collection of illustrated books and illuminated manuscripts, and took heightened pleasure in their daedal patterns as his own strength declined.-- Florence S. Boos, preface to The Collected Letters of William Morris
• I sang of the dancing stars,I sang of the daedal earth,And of heaven, and the giant wars,And love, and death, and birth.-- Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Hymn Of Pan"

Daedal comes from Latin daedalus, "cunningly wrought," from Greek daidalos, "skillful, cunningly created."

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

---

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.

Monthly Readings March 2006

March 2006: National Geographic. Walking Tour of NYC
March 01, 2006: PC Mag. The Well-Connected Traveler. Which gear is right for the traveller
March 13, 2006: PC Mag. Yahoo! Power. Review of Yahoo services
March 15, 2006: PC Mag. 14th Annual Utility Superguide
March 21, 2006: Publish. How to Understand the MySpace Phenomenon.
March 20, 2006: Publish. The Web 2.0 Tutorials Toolbox
March 21, 2006: PC Mag. The Gudding Photogrpher's Home Photo Lab.
March 22, 2006: New York Times. Texas Skies May Fianally Be Set Free. Wright Amendment. Leonhardt, David.