#anugarg — Public Fediverse posts

#TFG #GOP #ChristianRight #AWAD #AnuGarg

Today's word:

pecksniff

PRONUNCIATION:
(PEK-snif)

MEANING:
noun: A hypocritical person who pretends to have high moral principles.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Seth Pecksniff, a character in Charles Dickens’s novel Martin Chuzzlewit (serialized 1843-1844). Earliest documented use: 1844. The adjectival form is pecksniffian.

NOTES:
Pecksniff sounds like a man who moralizes in public and misbehaves in private. Which, spoiler alert, he does.

But Pecksniff, seriously? If a character’s name is Pecksniff, his moral downfall feels less like a character arc and more like a destiny. With a name like this, you have given them no hope. They’re doomed from page one. See nominative determinism.

It’s not just Dickens. The Harry Potter world has Voldemort (from French vol de mort: flight of death), 101 Dalmatians has Cruella de Vil, and so on. Heroes, on the other hand, get regular names like Oliver Twist or Harry Potter.

#Words #AWordADay #AnuGarg

Today's Word is Podsnap:

"Podsnap is a pompous, jingoistic character, proudly immune to nuance. As Dickens describes him, “Mr Podsnap was well-to-do, and stood very high in Mr Podsnap’s opinion. ... Mr Podsnap’s world was not a very large world, morally; no, nor even geographically: seeing that although his business was sustained upon commerce with other countries, he considered other countries, with that important reservation, a mistake.”

As Podsnap himself adds, “No Other Country is so Favoured as This Country. ... This Island was Blest, Sir, to the Direct Exclusion of such Other Countries as -- as there may happen to be.”

Podsnap, the walking embodiment of moral myopia in a world so tight no unpleasant facts gets through."

Indeed! This seems so familiar...

#Nautical theme this week on A Word A Day #awad #AnuGarg #language
https://wordsmith.org/words/today.html

#WordOfTheDay #AnuGarg

siderodromophobia

PRONUNCIATION:
(sid-uh-ruh-droh-muh-FOH-bee-uh)

MEANING:
noun: The fear of trains.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek sidero- (iron) + dromos (running) + -phobia (fear). Earliest documented use: 1879.

USAGE:
“He went at night, by sleeper, and was able to make the most interesting observations of siderodromophobia. ... he was aghast with certainty that something had gone wrong -- a bridge was out, a train was ahead of them; perhaps another was coming just behind them, about to smash into them at sixty miles an hour.”
Sinclair Lewis; Arrowsmith; Harcourt Brace; 1925.

I love this new to me word!

#Words #Language #WordOfTheDay #AnuGarg

TIL a new one for number 47

https://wordsmith.org/words/nefandous.html

A.Word.A.Day
with #AnuGarg

Eight billion people. That’s a lot of humanity -- and a lot of personality! One can never have too many words, especially words to describe people.

Sometimes a single word just won’t cut it when summing up someone’s essence. This week’s words might help. Who in your life, at work, or beyond fits one or more of these words?

nefandous

PRONUNCIATION:
(nuh-FAN-duhs)

MEANING:
adjective: So wicked as to defy description: abominable, appalling.

#AWAD
Wordsmith.org

 
Today's #AWAD #AWordADay: ELSEWHEN
with Anu Garg

❛❛ Unlike a #BlackHole — a region of #SpaceTime from which you cannot escape if you get too close — a #Wormhole is a region into which you would disappear only to reappear #elsewhere or #elsewhen. ❜❜ 2001 May 20 #WaPo

🔗 https://Wordsmith.org/words/elsewhen.html 2025 Jan 06
🔗 https://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Anu_Garg … #AnuGarg

#Community #TimeTravel #Research #vocabulary #lexicon #words #glossary #English #Time #Kronodon

#AWordADay #AnuGarg #AWAD #Wordplay #DadJokes

In Anu Garg's weekday email, the word was "tangent" in a week of math/geometry terms.

Of course, my mind went:

Tangent: The dapper dude that sprays a certain orange-y bronze-ish color on an egomaniac and then tells him how great it looks.

#AWordADay #AWAD #AnuGarg

Another new word to me that I probably knew at one point. Maybe?

umbrageous

PRONUNCIATION:
(uhm-BRAY-juhs)

MEANING:
adjective:
1. Inclined to take offense easily.
2. Cast in shadow; shaded.
3. Providing shade.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin umbra (shade, shadow) + -ous (full of). Earliest documented use: 1587.

#Quotes #AndreMalraux #Sons #Trauma #Terrorist #AnuGarg #AWordADay

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The sons of torture victims make good terrorists. -Andre Malraux, novelist, adventurer, art historian, and statesman (3 Nov 1901-1976)

#AnuGarg #Words
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

trumpery

MEANING:
noun:
1. Something showy but worthless.
2. Nonsense or rubbish.
3. Deceit; fraud; trickery.
ETYMOLOGY:
From French tromper (to deceive). Earliest documented use: 1481.
USAGE:
“The room was crowded with a chilly miscellany of knick-knacks and ornaments, gewgaws, and trumpery of every kind.”
Leo Bruce; Case for Three Detectives; Academy Chicago; 1980.

“History, made up as it is of so much trumpery, treachery, and tyranny, needs deeds of valor, of sacrifice, and of heroism if it is to be palatable.”
The Medal of Honor: A History of Service Above and Beyond; Zenith Press; 2014.

#Quotes #Atheist #AnuGarg #AWordADay

Not completely sure this is Anu's own quote, but I like it.

A thousand thoughts and prayers amount to less than a single action.

#Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #ThoughtForToday #JohnUpdike

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable. -John Updike, writer (18 Mar 1932-2009)

#Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #JohnUpdike

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Smaller than a breadbox, bigger than a TV remote, the average book fits into the human hand with a seductive nestling, a kiss of texture, whether of cover cloth, glazed jacket, or flexible paperback. -John Updike, writer (18 Mar 1932-2009)

#Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #Crime #CesareBeccaria #IdesOfMarch

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. -Cesare Beccaria, philosopher and politician (15 Mar 1738-1794)

#Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #PZMyers #Atheist #Science

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
What has occurred over the course of the last few centuries is a growing (but by no means universal or certain) recognition that science gets the job done, while religion makes excuses. Sometimes they are very pretty excuses that capture the imagination of the public, but ultimately, when you want to win a war or heal a dying child or get rich from a discovery or explore Antarctica, you turn to science and reason, or you fail. -PZ Myers, biology professor (b. 9 Mar 1957)

#Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #Creativity #JuliaCameron

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY (that makes a lot of sense even if I haven't had any brilliantly creative ideas---yet!)

Creativity -- like human life itself -- begins in darkness. We need to acknowledge this. All too often, we think only in terms of light: "And then the lightbulb went on and I got it!" It is true that insights may come to us as flashes. It is true that some of these flashes may be blinding. It is, however, also true that such bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary. -Julia Cameron, artist, author, teacher, filmmaker, composer, and journalist (b. 4 Mar 1948)

#Quotes #Ducks #AWAD #AnuGarg #Multatuli

Indeed. So, let's not remove things from children that would otherwise help them grow!

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
One does not advance the swimming abilities of ducks by throwing the eggs in the water. -Multatuli (pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker), novelist (2 Mar 1820-1887)

#Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #MicheldeMontaigne

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war between princes. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (28 Feb 1533-1592)

#Quotes #Boldness #AWAD #AnuGarg #JohnLeonard

I love this:

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
In the cellars of the night, when the mind starts moving around old trunks of bad times, the pain of this and the shame of that, the memory of a small boldness is a hand to hold. -John Leonard, critic (25 Feb 1939-2008)

#Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #Democracy #WEBDuBois

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience. -W.E.B. Du Bois, educator, civil rights activist, and writer (23 Feb 1868-1963)

#Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #JamesRussellLowell #ActionsNotWords

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action. -James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (22 Feb 1819-1891)

#Quotes #Galileo #TheSun #AWAD #AnuGarg

I really love this quote, again, for perspective.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (15 Feb 1564-1642)

#Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #Atheist #RobertGreenINgersoll

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The hands that help are better far / Than lips that pray. / Love is the ever-gleaming star / That leads the way, / That shines, not on vague worlds of bliss, / But on a paradise in this. -Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

#GreenEnergy #Quotes #Edison #AnuGarg

There is some controversy about the actual wording of the quote, this may be an amalgamation.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy -- sun, wind, and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. -Thomas Edison, inventor (10 Feb 1847-1931)

#Customs #AWAD #AnuGarg #AaronHill

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I see too plainly custom forms us all. Our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed belief, are consequences of our place of birth. -Aaron Hill, dramatist and writer (10 Feb 1685-1750)

#Empathy #Empaths #Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #AliceWalker

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I find it difficult to feel responsible for the suffering of others. That's why I find war so hard to bear. It's the same with animals: I feel the less harm I do, the lighter my heart. I love a light heart. And when I know I'm causing suffering, I feel the heaviness of it. It's a physical pain. So it's self-interest that I don't want to cause harm. -Alice Walker, author (b. 9 Feb 1944)

#Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #HumanLabor #LouisNizer

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist. -Louis Nizer, lawyer (6 Feb 1902-1994)

#Quotes #AWAD #AnuGarg #JamesJoyce #Mistakes

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Mistakes are the portals of discovery. -James Joyce, novelist (2 Feb 1882-1941)

#AWAD #Quotes #AnuGarg

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where nonconformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose. -Learned Hand, jurist (27 Jan 1872-1961)