Answers.com: Word Overheard

föhn

Pnina Baumgarten — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 06:21:09 -0400

They go by various names in various parts of the world — chinooks, bergwinds and others — but whatever they're called, the föhns are ill winds indeed:

"Santa Anas are categorized as a föhn wind by meteorologists. The 'murder winds' were termed so during a study by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Germany which found a 10 percent increase in suicide and accidents during föhn winds in Central Europe. Santa Anas Winds of are the föhn kind called snow-eaters, because they can swiftly make snow melt in the Alps."

Link: Malibu Arts Reviews Magazine - Malibu Fire Crews Exhausted But Fight On Against The "Devil Winds"

polymath

Pnina Baumgarten — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 07:29:45 -0400

A polymath may sound like a complicated equation but actually it's a very good thing to be — a person who knows a lot about various fields (also known as a Renaissance man):

"...and in conversation he comes across as less a utility manager than a polymath with the combined savvy of an engineer, an economist and a politician."

Link: The Future Is Drying Up - New York Times

somnambulant

Pnina Baumgarten — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 06:10:27 -0400

Frank Rich of The New York Times issues a wake-up call to the US Congress, which he describes as somnambulant (the adjectival form of somnambulate), or "operating heavy machinery while in a drowsy state." Think somnolent + ambulatory.

"It's up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day."

Link: The 'Good Germans' Among Us - New York Times

loya jirga

Pnina Baumgarten — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:23:25 -0400

New York Times columnist David Brooks (starting Sept. 19, 2007, no longer behind the TimesSelect wall) reports on US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's new health care plan, noting that her ideal style of policy-making reminds him of loya jirga, a Pashto language term for "a meeting of tribal leaders":

"It began to sound like a health care loya jirga — indicative of the political vision that has marked so much of her thinking over the years.... When she's asked to describe a system that works, she describes diverse people coming together around a big table to reach a consensus.
"That's the sort of national community her plan is supposed to foster and that's the sort of process she used to create it. "

Link: Hillary Clinton, From Revolution to Evolution - New York Times

lexiphanicism

Pnina Baumgarten — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 08:12:27 -0400

Judge Bruce M. Selya, this week's guest Wordsmith, wrote eloquently about his attempts to introduce more interesting language into the courtroom. A touch of lexiphanicism, he believes, would be a good thing :

"Judges, by nature and by training, rarely tend to be free spirits, and I have encountered from time to time an undercurrent of anti-lexiphanicism. But like Job, I persevere. Language is the lifeblood of our culture, and it would be a shame not to use it to its fullest."

Link: A.Word.A.Day -- aposematic

bowdlerize

Pnina Baumgarten — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:34:36 -0400

The New York Times made its feelings about Richard Nixon clear in an editorial about his presidential library. According to the newspaper, the censored version of the Nixon archives would have made Thomas Bowdler proud (he's the guy who cleaned out the parts of Shakespeare he deemed objectionable):

"The library at Yorba Linda, Calif., has been turned over to the National Archives after serving for years as the center of bowdlerized Nixonia. The institution insulted history by peddling ludicrous whitewashings..."

Link: The Nixonian Whitewash, Scrubbed - New York Times

stultify

Pnina Baumgarten — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 04:06:56 -0400

Do high temperatures make us stupid? Maybe not, but this New York Times item says the heat the city is experiencing is stultifying:

"It cannot be compared to the recent record-shattering temperatures in the western United States, but still, it has been quite hot in New York City. With temperatures recorded so far today of 92 degrees in Central Park and 93 degrees at La Guardia Airport, New Yorkers confronted a second day of stultifying heat and humidity."

Link: A Second Day of Scorching Heat in New York - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog

chutzpah

Pnina Baumgarten — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 07:42:54 -0400

Like all Yiddish words that have entered the English lexicon, chutzpah is difficult to translate yet wonderfully useful. In this case, Hillary and Bill Clinton were accused of having chutzpah (nerve, audacity) after they criticized President Bush for commuting Scooter Libby's prison sentence.

"'I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah but this is a gigantic case of it,' presidential spokesman Tony Snow said.

"Bill Clinton is from the state of Arkansas. Chutzpah is the Yiddish word for brashness....

"In the closing hours of his presidency, Clinton pardoned 140 people, including fugitive financier Marc Rich."

Link: Bush spokesman says Clintons have nerve for criticizing Bush on commuting former aide's prison term. - International Herald Tribune

supergrass

Pnina Baumgarten — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 17:06:26 -0400

No, it's not vegetation or any form of cannabis. A "supergrass" in British slang is an informer whose testimony points to many suspects; to "grass on" someone is to tattle on him.

"An Al Qaeda supergrass held in the U.S. is to be shown pictures of the terror suspects arrested in Britain in the hope that he can identify them."

Link: 'Terror ringleader' is brilliant NHS doctor | News | This is London

omnivorous

Pnina Baumgarten — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:56:10 -0400

If Hillary and Bill can reference the last episode of The Sopranos in a campaign video, then newspaper opinion columnists can write about it, too, can't they? (Actually, even if Hillary and Bill hadn't...) Maureen Dowd wastes no time in jumping on the bandwagon, and she calls Tony Soprano a man who eats anything:

"Would Carmela, she of the pans of baked ziti and casseroles of veal parm, ever deny the omnivorous Tony onion rings? Nah. But the Carmela-Tony pact was a lot less strict than the Hillary-Bill pact."

Link: Carmela Got Gold Jewelry. Hillary Wants a White House. - New York Times