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Sep 30, 2021
This week’s themeHand to mouth This week’s words handmaiden snoutfair sticky-fingered gobsmacked hardfisted 
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garggobsmacked
PRONUNCIATION:
(GOB-smakt)
MEANING:
adjective: Utterly surprised; flabbergasted.
ETYMOLOGY:
From gob (mouth), probably from Irish and/or Scottish Gaelic gob (beak,
mouth) + smack (to strike with the palm), probably imitative. Earliest
documented use: 1935.
USAGE:
“People were completely gobsmacked at a politician ... wait for it ...
telling the unvarnished truth!” Think of It as Jabs for Jobs; Sun Herald (Sydney, Australia); Aug 15, 2021. See more usage examples of gobsmacked in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Racism tends to attract attention when it's flagrant and filled with
invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism is
frame-flipping -- positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So the gay do
not simply want to marry; they want to convert our children into sin. The
Jews do not merely want to be left in peace; they actually are plotting
world take-over. And the blacks are not actually victims of American power,
but beneficiaries of the war against hard-working whites. This is a
respectable, more sensible bigotry, one that does not seek to name-call,
preferring instead to change the subject and straw man. -Ta-Nehisi Coates,
writer and journalist (b. 30 Sep 1975)
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