A.Word.A.Day --liminal

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Jan 5, 2009

This week's theme
Miscellaneous words

This week's words
liminal
avenaceous
span-new
etesian
ecumenical

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

I'm back home from India. Back to the snow and sub-freezing temperatures of Seattle. A few random observations from my three weeks in Mumbai...

There appears to be some law there that everyone has to have at least one cellphone. And you're required to answer the phone when it rings, even if it's in the middle of your own wedding.

In the absence of a cellphone, any small portable electronic device can satisfy the regulation. I swear I saw a beggar on the sidewalk with the wires of an mp3 player hanging out of his ears.

You have a higher chance of dying in a traffic accident than in a terrorist attack, especially if you are a pedestrian. A rule of thumb: the bigger the vehicle, the greater the right of way it has.

Only in Mumbai: A shop selling $100,000 Porsches can be around the block to a shop selling bananas (with a total inventory of perhaps $100).

Only in Mumbai too: Space is at such a premium that in certain neighborhoods buying a parking spot for a Toyota in the parking lot of your building might cost you a Porsche.

Well, adjusting the clock on my laptop computer took only a few seconds, but my body clock is still getting used to the 13.5 hour time difference. Meantime in AWAD this week we'll see five miscellaneous words.

liminal

PRONUNCIATION:

(LIM-uh-nl)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. At an intermediate state.
2. At the threshold of consciousness.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin limen (threshold).

USAGE:

"Jolted is funny and smart and fast paced. And it's written with real love for that fascinating liminal creature called the young teenager, for whom the sky is always just about to fall."
Tim Wynne-Jones; Electrifying; The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Sep 13, 2008.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

I have never gone to sleep with a grievance against anyone. And, as far as I could, I have never let anyone go to sleep with a grievance against me. -Abba Agathon, monk (4th/5th century)

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