Today's Word

Yesterday's Word

Archives

FAQ

AWADmail Issue 669

Sponsor’s Message:
Do you want to teach your kids some valuable life lessons about winning and losing? Turn them into the “greedy, self-serving punks” that they really are, and have a blast doing it? We’re offering our ‘no participation trophies, please’ subscribers, as well as this week’s Email of the Week winner, Mark Parry (see below), a huge, no-brainer 25% discount on ONEUPMANSHIP, the way-better-than-Harvard education disguised as a classic board game. Just use the AWAD insider special coupon code “machiavellian”. Ends at midnight tonight.

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
SUbject: Interesting stories from the net

11 Proverbs for the Digital Age
The Guardian
WebCite

What If Printed Books Went by Ebook Rules?
The Web of Language
WebCite

Why Does Africa Have So Many Languages?
Christian Science Monitor
WebCite

From: Jeffrey W Percival (via online comments)
Subject: stolid

Ascotic: Wearing one’s scarf really tight
Copascetic: Avoiding the Copacobana
Bascetic hound: A dog that doesn’t eat all his food at once
Cascettic: Refusing to upgrade to a CD player
Videocascettic: Refusing to upgrade to a DVD player
Amasscetic: Avoiding any contact with Donald Trump

From: Andrew Pressburger (andpress sympatico.ca)
Subject: Dour

In German musical notations (which are different from English, French, or Italian) dur or hard is the equivalent of the major scales and intervals, moll or soft of the minor ones. See also the English words endure (to last, as against hardship) and mollify (to soften). The former scale is generally associated with cerebration, while the latter is considered applicable to the realm of emotions. Like all generalizations, this too is fairly wide of the mark.

For instance, Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony #41 is in the key of C major, the preceding #40 is in G minor. They were composed in almost the same time period, in July and August 1788.

From: Steven Stine (scstine1672 gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--lissom

The quantities mentioned in your first usage example for “lissom” today will confound many Americans. As a lifelong numerophile, I am delighted to clarify.

Sutcliffe says that Adam drinks “28 litres of fizzy drinks a week”. That works out to 7.4 gallons per week or 1.06 gallons per day, which is almost 17 cans.

I do not know why the British measure human weight in stone (always singular), which is 14 pounds. Therefore, Sutcliffe is being ironic when he calls Jorjie “comparatively lissom” at 13 stone, because that is 182 pounds. At 19 stone, Adam is a substantial 266 pounds.

From: Joan Perrin (perrinjoan aol.com)
Subject: Words to describe people

This week’s theme, words that describe people, would make a great personal ad: Intractable, lissom dancer wishes to meet kindred spirit. Ascetic, stolid, and dour men need not apply.

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Limericks

He silently lay in the bed.
“It’s just that he’s stolid,” she said.
What the girl didn’t know
is written below:
He was not only stolid, but dead.

A Scottish lass may be ascetic
Ach aye, but a swain is magnetic
A fine bonnie guy’ll
Get her down the aisle
That night’ll be sumthin’ frenetic.

From Heathcliff and Holmes on the moor
To Rochester famously dour
The Brits are hypnotic
So dark and exotic
Just look at Christiane Amanpour.

In Angus a farmer adaptable
Had one problem he found intractable
Increasing his herd
Was a notion absurd
For amid cows aplenty he lacked a bull.

I’ll never be called lissom,
To think that I could is dumb.
Born with two left feet,
I have no conceit,
Since I can’t walk and chew gum.

“A stolid ascetic of Seattle
Was dour and not prone to prattle.
Thought intractable
And terribly dull,
A lissom young wench won the battle!”

From: Charlie Rettiger (crettiger hotmail.com)
Subject: Double usage this week

I like the way you have included a second word of the week in the example sentence for each day’s word. It helps to reinforce the word when you read it twice in one week. If you’ve done this before, I have not paid attention. Anyway, keep up the good work. Your daily email is the ONLY daily email I have continued for more than a few months, and I feel like I’ve been getting it for well over ten years now -- I am not sure, as I can’t remember when I didn’t get it. Thanks for enriching my vocabulary every day!