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This is a "Water of India"* week. Anu will be amazing us with words which don't fit into any particular theme this week.
Today's AWAD [Day 5] is "animus". Please scroll down. The AWAD for Day 1 is:odium (O-dee-uhm) noun
1. Hatred accompanied by contempt.
2. A state of infamy or disgrace.
[From Latin odium (hatred), from odisse (to hate). Ultimately from Indo-European root od- (to hate) that is also the source of the words hate, annoy, noisome, and ennui.]I could take the podium and talk about "odium". But, I'm going to turn the stage over to the floor to get "odium" going. While we're waiting for the next post to arrive, I have a "Water of India" ALAD to divert you on our limerick thread in "Wordplay and Fun". So, join the Fun, or let "odium" run. :) Or visit SuperWAG's new thread "urban myths". [You could call it 'A Tale of Two Myths'. Betchya don't know the answer.] And, if you've ever wanted to learn how to read palms [and who hasn't!], you won't find out how to do it on Wordwind's "Handflata" thread. But you'll read a lot about palms there -- and before you know it, you'll know palms like the back of your hand. [And I'm not tryin' to palm anything off on you, either.] BTW how well do you know the back of your hand? How well do we know anything we just take for granted? * For those who don't already know, "Water of India" is Anu's linguistic prestidigitation for a diversion inspired by a magician he enjoyed in his youth in India. The magician used to do a trick at the side of the stage at irregular intervals while his assistants set up new props. Interesting how Anu has finessed Wordwind's "Handflata" thread into his AWAD today."Water of India" is a magic trick, and so is "prestidigitation". And the "digit" in "prestidgitation" [which also gives us "Presto"] is a finger -- which you will find on your hand. And the underside of your hand is -- you guessed it, your palm. Very clever, Anu! Now even I can take it from here. If you lose a hand, it would take magic to grow it back. But you can grow a palm. And that isn't magic. It's horticulture. Which means that tomorrow's AWAD will be -- you guessed it: "horticulture". But I would never want to take Anu for granted. So, maybe he's going to outsmart me -- again!  [I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. Drat!] Oh, one more thing. It isn't only our hands which should go out to the palm. It is also our heart. To see what I mean, please visit Wordwind's "Handflata" thread. [ You'll never feel the same about "heart of palm salad" again, believe me.] P.S. I've been thinking. Maybe tomorrow's AWAD will be "suture", not "horticulture". You can't grow a new hand, but you can "suture" on an old one. [I guess we'll just have to wait for tomorrow.]
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Today's AWAD is:
presentism (PREZ-uhn-tiz-uhm) noun
Evaluating past events and people by present-day values.
[From English present, from Middle English, from Old French, from Latin praesent- (stem of praesens), from present participle of praeesse (to be present before others), from prae- (pre-) + esse (to be).]
Presentism is the application of current ideals and moral standards to interpret historical figures and their actions. For example, consider Mr. John Teacher who caned pupils in his 1889 class. A presentist would say that Mr. Teacher engaged in unacceptable violence against children
while one with an opposing view would claim that since it was considered OK to hit children at the time, Mr. Teacher isn't to be blamed.
Have you ever met an -ism that isn't a little extreme?
Presentism is like perfectionism applied after-the-fact -- to others, of course, never to ourselves.
We're always a lot more charitable with ourselves. When we look back on our own mistakes, we shrug our shoulders and say "Hey, hindsight is 20-20."
Now, you might be asking yourself: "What has presentism got to do with "horticulture"?" Looking back on it, nothing at all. But that's the trouble with "presentism", don't you see? So I was right about "horticulture" after all.
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Is a prism extreme?
What's your angle, Wordwind?
Seriously, "prism" is just an -ism without a whole word in front of it.
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atheism
baptism
classicism
fossilism
catholicism
mutualism
journalism
...I don't think these are extreme. There are lots of examples that are extreme, but I don't think that all ism's are extreme.
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I don't think that all ism's are extreme.Well, now you're taking my argument to extremes, Wordwind. But, you could have a point. Fossilism? [Hey, I've got you there.] But, you know Wordwind, I was thinking about this whole looking-backward, looking-forward, looking-inside-out pseudo-scientific sort of optical self-illusion kind of thing. You know: presentism, deconstructionism, post-structuralism, revisionism. It gets me going a little cross-eyed, sometimes. I honestly don't know whether I'm coming or going with it. Maybe it isn't just me. Maybe these ism-meisters don't know if they're coming or going either.
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Go to onelook.com, plutarch, and enter *ism. You won't even be able to read past the, oh, b*isms or so because onelook won't post more than 1,000 entires at a time. But it is amazing the number of isms that are out there! You could probably publish a mini-lexicon of isms.
I like presentism, by the way.
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Your presentism has won me over, Wordwind.
I think I'm gonna go back to bed. I may look back on this with a whole different perspective when I wake up and smell the coffee.
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Today's AWAD is:repine (ri-PYN) verb intr.
1. To feel discontent; to fret.
2. To yearn for something.
[From re- + pine, from Middle English, from Old English pinian (to suffer). Ultimately from Indo-European root k(w)ei- that's also the source of words such as pain, penal, punish, impunity, and subpoena.]I won't repine about today's AWAD because it's a piece of cake to bake one into a limerick -- at least, compared to yesterday's AWAD. "Presentism" was so tough we only had two ALADs. Fortunately, one of them was a "Pabst Blue Ribbon" entry [designed to win easy favor with themilum]. [Themilum is the "self-annointed" arbiter of the best limerick heads around here, for those of you who don't already know that.] I haven't got too much to say about "repine" myself, other than to say that some people make a full-time occupation out of it. There's always a cloud in the sky for some people. Reminds me of that "Snoopy" character. Remember that old WWI song. "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile." All the repiners I have ever met are always "unpacking" their kit bag. And they never smile. Come to think of it, when was the last time you saw a smiley around here? Some old-timers don't even approve of smileys. Does that mean they're repiners? I don't think so. It just means they're sick and tired of smiley faces. So I use :) instead. It's a good idea to stay on the right side of old-timers 'cause if you stick around here long enough, you're going to end up as an old-timer yourself. Hmmm. That could be something to repine about. Now I remember that "Snoopy" character's name. It's "Linus". Wherever Linus goes, a cloud goes with him. I think they call it "the Linus effect". Anyway, you can pretty much see a cloud following a repiner around wherever they go. Unless the repiner is a yearner. There are fewer yearners than fretters as repiners go. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. But, it's easy to tell the difference. A fretter is always looking down in the mouth, and a yearner is always looking up although he's always down in the mouth as well. The eyes give them away. A fretter wants to stay down, and a yearner wants to be somewhere else. But neither one of them ever goes anywhere else. They just hang around and repine. You know, it suddenly occurs to me that repiners could be repiners because they're a lot smarter than the rest of us. Perhaps the rest of us are not smart enough to repine all the time. Check this out and you'll see what I mean: LUCY: If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations...what do you think you see, Linus?LINUS: Well, those clouds up there look to me like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean...that cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor...and that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen...I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side....LUCY: Uh huh....that's very good....what do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?CHARLIE BROWN (growing alarmed): Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind!http://www.culturedose.net/review.php?rid=10003971
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Don't we pretty much use 'to pine' in the same sense (and more senses beyond) of 'to repine'? It reminds me of the same relationship between iterate and reiterate with 're' being an intensifier, although I think here people use reiterate more than iterate, whereas they use 'pine' over 'repine.'
Actually, thank you, Anu, for this because it gives me another verb for the 're' as an intensifier example. Faldage would know the word I'm looking for that would be better than 'intensifier.'
Thanks, plutarch. Food to mull over today.
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