Tasmania’s annual Dark Mofo winter arts festival would be better named the “Look at Me, I’m so EDGY!” festival. The brainchild of the poker millionaire who founded the Mona gallery in Hobart, it’s of a piece with the “edgy” art gallery: a whole lot of attention-seeking tat
The word for today is… underwhelm (verb) : to fail to impress or stimulate Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : Overwhelm and its rare synonym “whelm” have both been around since the 14th century, but “underwhelm” first appeared in print in 1949. Both “overwhelm” and “whelm” are derived from the Middle English “whelmen,
The word for today is… toady (noun) – : one who flatters in the hope of gaining favors : sycophant Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : In 17th-century Europe, a toadeater was a showman’s assistant whose job was to make the boss look good. The toadeater would eat (or pretend to eat) what were
Gabriel Hays newsbusters.org Staff writer for MRC Culture. Joe and Betty Anderlik Fellow. University of Dallas Class of ’16. More and more people are starting to see the LGBTQ/cancel culture mafia for what it is. One female rapper recently slammed LGBTQ activists for “bullying” straight people, and even
Tova O’Brien has been the Prime Minister’s cheerleader for quite some time. That was until yesterday. Now she is accusing Jacinda Ardern of breaking promises, and has turned into a scold: Jacinda Ardern effectively introduced a capital gains tax (CGT) today, breaking one of the biggest promises of
The word for today is… anodyne (adjective) – 1 : serving to alleviate pain 2 : not likely to offend or arouse tensions : innocuous Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : Anodyne came to English via Latin from Greek an?dynos (“without pain”), and it has been used as both an adjective and a noun (“something
David Wojick cfact.org David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. Power system design can be extremely complex but there is one simple number that is painfully obvious. At least it is painful to the advocates of wind and solar
The word for today is… vanilla (noun, adjective) – noun 1a : vanilla bean b : a commercially important extract of the vanilla bean that is used especially as a flavoring 2 : any of a genus (Vanilla) of tropical American climbing epiphytic orchids adjective 1 : flavored with vanilla 2 : lacking distinction : plain, ordinary,
The word for today is… voracious (adjective) – 1 : having a huge appetite : ravenous 2 : excessively eager : insatiable Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : Voracious is one of several English words that derive from the Latin verb vorare, which means “to eat greedily” or “to devour.” “Vorare” is also an ancestor of “devour”
Daniel Bernardus Augusto Silberstein mercatornet.com Daniel Bernardus writes from the Netherlands. He teaches biology at Amsterdam University College and is the director of Leidenhoven College, a collegiate hall of residence. He blogs at danielbernardus.com. (Daniel Bernardus is the pen name of Daniel Bernardus van Schalkwijk.) Augusto Silberstein is
The word for today is… ambidextrous (adjective) – 1a : using both hands with equal ease or dexterity b soccer : using both feet with equal ease : 2 : designed or suitable for use by the left or right hand 3 : unusually skillful 4 : characterized by duplicity Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : Latin dexter originally
The word for today is… durable (adjective) – able to exist for a long time without significant deterioration in quality or value Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : Something “durable” lasts a long time, so it’s no surprise that the word comes to us, via Anglo-French, from the Latin verb durare, meaning
Bruce Logan Every now and then a significant event along with the reaction to it reveals the character of an entire society. Harry’s and Meghan’s embrace of the victimhood cult on the Oprah Winfrey Show is just that. It is a symptom and portent of Western civilisation in
The word for today is… nugatory (adjective) – 1 : of little or no consequence 2 : having no force Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : Nugatory, which first appeared in English in the 17th century, comes from the Latin adjective nugatorius and is ultimately a derivative of the noun nugae, meaning “trifles.” Like its
Gerry Giving (Someone) The Cold Shoulder Recently a BFDer asked, where did this phrase originate? The term appears to have entered common use in the early part of the nineteenth century, and Sir Walter Scott is said to have used the term frequently to describe a snub or a show
A good friend of mine suffers terribly from coeliac disease. It’s a debilitating condition that mandates constant dietary vigilance. But coeliac is not to be confused with “gluten intolerance”. One is a very real condition; the other is an attention-seeking fancy, cooked up in the hypochondriac cornucopia of the
