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Annie of the Day

Annie of the Day

Actor Anne Hathaway has surprised fans by revealing we’ve been calling her by the wrong name. During an interview on The Tonight Show in the US, the Hollywood star said she disliked being referred to as Anne. “Call me Annie, everybody, everybody, call me Annie, please,” she said, before

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The BFD Word of the Day

The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is… dissemble (verb): 1: to hide under a false appearance 2: to put on the appearance of : simulate Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : Dissemble (from the Latin verb dissimulare, meaning “to disguise the identity of”) stresses the intent to deceive others, especially about facts, feelings, or intentions.

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The BFD Word of the Day

The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is… fruition (noun): 1: pleasurable use or possession : enjoyment 2a: the state of bearing fruit  b: realization Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : Fruition must come from the word fruit, right? Not exactly—the apple falls a little further from the tree than one might think. Fruition and

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green and black trees under blue sky

When the Balloon Goes Up

Steven Tucker Steven Tucker is a UK-based writer with over ten books to his name. His next, Hitler’s & Stalin’s Misuse of Science, comparing the woke pseudoscience of today to the totalitarian pseudoscience of the past, will be published in summer 2023. mercatornet.com Have you ever seen

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The BFD Word of the Day

The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is… inchmeal (adverb): : little by little, gradually Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : I really enjoy inserting the occasional adverb into this series. “All the infections that the sun sucks up / From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him / By inch-meal a disease!” So goes one

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The BFD Word of the Day

The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is… redux (adjective): : brought back – used postpositively Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : In English, redux describes things that have been brought back—metaphorically, that is. For example, if the relationship between two nations resembles that of the United States and the Soviet Union in the late 20th

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On the Wonderfulness of Being Maori

On the Wonderfulness of Being Maori

To paraphrase Penn and Teller, “Maori wonderfulness” is bullshit. The psychology of sport isn’t new, but Maori concepts in this space are proving a game-changer for up-and-coming sports stars. Really? Mental skills coach Luke Rowe (Ngati Raukawa, Tuwharetoa) is a clinical psychologist changing up the field of high-performance sports

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The BFD Word of the Day

The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is… saturnine (adjective): 1: born under or influenced astrologically by the planet Saturn 2a: cold and steady in mood : slow to act or change b: of a gloomy or surly disposition c: having a sardonic aspect Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : Saturnine is far—even astronomically far—

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The BFD Word of the Day

The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is… etiquette (noun): : the conduct or procedure required by good breeding or prescribed by authority to be observed in social or official life Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : The French word étiquette means “ticket”; its direct French ancestor also referred to a label attached to something for

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The BFD Word of the Day

The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is… blandishment (noun): : something that tends to coax or cajole Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : The word was formed from the verb blandish, meaning “to coax with flattery.” Blandish ultimately comes from the Latin adjective blandus, meaning “mild” or “flattering,” source too of our adjective bland, which

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The BFD Word of the Day

The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is… excoriate (verb): 1: to wear off the skin of : abrade 2: to censure scathingly Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : Excoriate, which first appeared in English in the 15th century, comes from “excoriatus,” the past participle of the Late Latin verb excoriare, meaning “to strip off the

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How Banks Make Life Hard for New Zealand Charities

How Banks Make Life Hard for New Zealand Charities

Jane Horan Economic Anthropologist, and contract lecturer University of Auckland New Zealand is home to 28,560 registered charities and some 90,000 not-for-profits without charitable registration. From disability advocacy groups and local theatres to sporting clubs, all do vital work in our communities. Around 89,000 of these are

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The BFD Word of the Day

The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is… trenchant (adjective): 1: keen, sharp 2: vigorously effective and articulate 3a: sharply perceptive : penetrating b: clear-cut, distinct Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : The word trenchant comes from the Anglo-French verb trencher, meaning “to cut.” Hence, a trenchant sword is one with a keen edge. Nowadays, trenchant

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The BFD Word of the Day

The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is… concatenate (adjective, verb): adjective : linked together verb : to link together in a series or chain Source : Merriam -Webster Etymology : Concatenate is a fancy word for a simple thing: it means “to link together in a series or chain.” It’s Latin in origin, formed from

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The BFD Word of the Day

The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is… catastrophe (noun): 1: a momentous tragic event ranging from extreme misfortune to utter overthrow or ruin 2: utter failure : fiasco 3a: a violent and sudden change in a feature of the earth b: a violent usually destructive natural event (such as a supernova) 4: the

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TheBFD. Person holding green grass during daytime

How Is the Legalising of Cannabis Going?

Contrary to scaremongering and doomsday predictions, US states that have legalised cannabis have seen a 37 per cent decrease in mental health admissions. Wait, what? Recreational marijuana laws (RMLs) continue to grow in popularity, but the effects on mental health treatment are unclear. This paper uses an event-study within a

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