Category Archives: Word Builder

February Word Builders

 

In Late January, The Washington Post published an article about the Doomsday Clock. It is now TWO minutes until Midnight.  In the article it sighted the tensions between the USA and North Korea, citing the puerile name calling by the countries’ leaders. The editors felt a need to define in the body of the article the meaning of one of the words used by Kim Jong Un to describe the US President. Sad that they felt that North Korea’s leader’s use of English was above that of the average US Newspaper reader.

to Quote the Article, because they said it so well:

Kim responded with an arcane insult, declaring in an unusually direct and angry statement published by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency: “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.” (Oxford defines dotard as “an old person, especially one who has become weak or senile.”)

http://www.ajc.com/news/doomsday-clock-moved-now-minutes-midnight/1JhWnMKF5AeYX408WmLvRP/

In that Washington Post was so amazed by the word they wrote an article on it detailing its history and recent rise in popularity.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/21/a-short-history-of-the-word-dotard-which-north-korea-called-trump/?utm_term=.d97f20ae727a

I would argue that the word was Arcane  ( Adj) – understood by few, mysterious or secret  ( per Google’s Dictionary).

oh – and my word  Puerile :(Adj) childish or silly, immature,   Can mean relating to childhood but I have seldom seen it used in that context.   Etymologically:  in Latin puer = boy

Other words of recent note in the post-Black Panther age

Afrofuturism – a blend of science fiction and fantasy into African culture – First use of word credited to Mark Dery in his 1994 essay “Black to the Future”  – and captured powerfully in Marvel’s Black Panther country of Wakanda.

http://www.ajc.com/entertainment/how-the-resurgence-afrofuturism-goes-beyond-black-panther/cWngUfLoui3o0BXGsHfn7I/

Diaspora-noun –  the dispersion a people from their native lands –  such as the diaspora of Venezuelans

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by | February 19, 2018 · 1:24 PM

Word Builder January 2018

Word Builder Inculcate: Verb – to teach or instill such as a moral or an attitude by persistence

Typewriter Key

Tom Hanks gave a typewriter to a family who wrote to him:

The letter to Hanks, she said, explained that “we would really use this typewriter to try to inculcate this value of communication specifically around gratitude.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/19/entertainment/tom-hanks-gives-typewriter-to-Massachusetts-family/index.html

 

Word builder; Deicide ~ (Dee-uh-side)  noun~ to kill a god or a killer of a god- had to look up thought was misspelled.

“This ain’t my first deicide, ya know. Gods ain’t so tough.”

From one of my fave webcomics #GuildedAge http://guildedage.net/

Phyrric –  (Pir -ik) adjective -(a victory) won at too great a cost -perhaps too great. Had heard the word by never seen it spelled out. Magneto said it in a

majuscule – noun – large lettering – usually letters all cap and same sized – like in signage or drafting. http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170502-what-your-handwriting-says-about-you

Sanguine – Adj is a cheery disposition or blood red, Noun is a blood red color -Ran across in Titanquest game  – Sanguine Swords

Salacious adjective – in a deceitful sexual way, lustful or lecherous

Febrile – adjective – having or symptoms of a fever  or  nervous excitement and high energy  A BBC Article about a North Korean Defector

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