The word for today is… proselytise (verb): 1 : to induce someone to convert to one’s faith 2 : to recruit someone to join one’s party, institution, or cause Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology :Proselytise comes from the noun proselyte, meaning “a new convert,” which in turn ultimately comes from the
The word for today is… ritzy (adjective): 1 : snobbish 2 : impressively or ostentatiously fancy or stylish Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology :César Ritz (1850-1918) earned worldwide renown for the luxurious hotels bearing his name in London and Paris. (The Ritz-Carlton hotel company is a contemporary descendant of these enterprises.) Although they
Rob Perez Honolulu Star-Advertiser This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Series: Promised Land A Failed Housing Pledge to Native Hawaiians For the better part of two
Patrick Carroll Patrick Carroll has a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Waterloo and is an editorial fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education. If someone were to ask you how you know Australia exists, what would you say? If you haven’t been there yourself, it can
The word for today is… kerfuffle (noun): : a disturbance or commotion typically caused by a dispute or conflict Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology :Fuffle is an old Scottish verb that means “to muss” or “to throw into disarray”—in other words, to (literally) ruffle someone’s (figurative) feathers. The addition of
Omar Khaled Abdelrahman University of Huddersfield Claire McCamley University of Huddersfield Christmas is a period for celebrating our relationships with family and friends – a time filled with nostalgia and sentimentality. Of course, for many people, it’s also a time of conspicuous consumption, even if this year in the face
The word for today is… sporadic (adjective): : occurring occasionally, singly, or in irregular or random instances Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology :You never know where or when the occasion to use sporadic will pop up, but when it does, sporadic is the perfect choice to describe something that happens randomly or
The word for today is… caucus (noun, verb): noun 1: a closed meeting of a group of persons belonging to the same political party or faction usually to select candidates or to decide on policy 2: a group of people united to promote an agreed-upon cause verb : to meet in
I have a love-hate relationship with cockies — that’s sulphur-crested cockatoos, to you. The birds are an Aussie icon. So ubiquitous that graziers are commonly called “cockies” in this wide, brown land. The sobriquet supposedly emerged because, in the squatter days, farmers would crowd around a waterhole like said birds.
“It belongs to my mate, I didn’t know it was there!” didn’t wash as an excuse when my Mum found a pack of cigarettes in my room all those years ago, and it’s not washing as an excuse for planting apparent pro-paedophilia material in a fashion catalogue.
The word for today is… anthropomorphic (adjective): 1 : described or thought of as having a human form or human attributes 2 : ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman things Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology :We are endlessly fascinated by the uniqueness and complexity of human language. Many species use sounds and gestures to
The word for today is… conscription (noun): : compulsory enrollment of persons especially for military service Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology :With its scrip- root, conscription means basically writing someone’s name on a list—a list that, unfortunately, a lot of people usually don’t want to be on. Conscription has
The word for today is… misnomer (noun): 1 : the misnaming of a person in a legal instrument 2a : a use of a wrong or inappropriate name b : a wrong name or inappropriate designation Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology :What’s in a name? Well, in some cases, a name will contain
If we’re to believe the legacy media, “groomers” are nothing more than a hateful, right-wing conspiracy against gay people. Which might be news to the gay people who’ve formed lobby groups such as “Gays Against Groomers”. But, no, the media insist: it’s not only a hate conspiracy,
The word for today is… defer (verb): 1a : put off, delay 1b : to postpone induction of (a person) into military service 2 : to delegate to another Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology :There are two distinct words spelled defer in English, each with its own history and meaning. The defer having to
The word for today is… perspicacious (adjective): : of acute mental vision or discernment Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology :Some perspective on perspicacious: the word combines the Latin perspicac- (from perspicax meaning “clear-sighted,” which in turn comes from perspicere, “to see through”) with the common English adjective suffix -ious. The result is
