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Apr 29, 2022
This week’s theme
There’s a word for it

This week’s words
typomania
epistemology
yestereve
marcescence
aggiornamento

This week’s comments
AWADmail 1035

Next week’s theme
New words
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

aggiornamento

PRONUNCIATION:
(uh-johr-nuh-MEN-toh)

MEANING:
noun: A process of modernization or bringing up to date.

ETYMOLOGY:
The word came on the radar of the English-speaking world from a speech given by Pope John XXIII in which he called for a revision of the church code. From Italian aggiornamento (updating), from aggiornare (to bring up to date), from a- (to) + giorno (day), from Latin diurnus (daily) ), from dies (day). Ultimately from the Indo-European root dyeu- (to shine) that also gave us adjourn, diary, diet, circadian, journal, journey, quotidian, sojourn, diva, divine, deify, Jupiter, Jove, jovial, July, Zeus, and Sanskrit deva (god). Earliest documented use: 1962.

USAGE:
“The traditional political parties may believe, indeed, that it is only a matter of carrying out an aggiornamento, that all they have to do is ‘modernising’, install an app and get on the social networks.”
Technopolitics and the New Territories for Political Action; openDemocracy (London, UK); Jun 20, 2016.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Science is built with facts as a house is with stones, but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. -Jules Henri Poincaré, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher (29 Apr 1854-1912)

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