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Jul 9, 2020
This week’s theme
Shirts and pants as metaphors

This week’s words
redshirt
smarty-pants
sansculotte
descamisado
bloody shirt

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with Anu Garg

descamisado

PRONUNCIATION:
(des-ka-mee-SAH-doh)

MEANING:
noun: A very poor person.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Spanish descamisado (shirtless), from des- (dis-, un-) + camisa (shirt). Earliest documented use: 1821.

NOTES:
Over the years, the term has been applied to various people, such as a revolutionary in the Spanish Revolution of 1820-23 and a supporter of Argentinian President Juan Perón.

USAGE:
“Oscar and Jesse James walked past cardboard and blanket in a dry outflow wall-pipe, which was some descamisado’s home.”
Robert Newman; The Fountain at the Center of the World; Soft Skull Press; 2004.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I wanted to live my life so that people would know unmistakably that I am alive, so that when I finally die people will know the difference for sure between my living and my death. -June Jordan, writer, teacher, and activist (9 Jul 1936-2002)

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