#52

"Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane."

......................

Qutodiationing Word suggestion

col·late [kuh-leyt, koh-, ko-, koh-leyt, kol-eyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–verb (used with object), -lat·ed, -lat·ing.
1.
to gather or arrange in their proper sequence (the pages of a report, the sheets of a book, the pages of several sets of copies, etc.).
2.
Bookbinding. to verify the arrangement of (the gathered sheets of a book), usually by inspecting the signature at the foot of the first page of each sheet or the mark printed on the back of each sheet or on the spine of each signature.
3.
to compare (texts, statements, etc.) in order to note points of agreement or disagreement.
4.
Bibliography. to verify the number and order of the sheets of (a volume) as a means of determining its completeness.
5.
Computers. to merge (sequenced data from two or more data sets or files) to produce a new sequenced data set or file.
6.
Ecclesiastical. to present by collation, as to a benefice.

[Origin: 1550–60; < L collātus (ptp. of conferre to bring together), equiv. to col- col-1 + lā- (suppletive s. of ferre) + -tus ptp. ending]

—Related forms
col·lat·a·ble, adjective
col·la·tor, noun

#9

hoi polloi \hoi-puh-LOI\, noun:
The common people generally; the masses.

Lizzie insisted that her children distinguish themselves from the hoi polloi by scrupulous honesty.
-- Kate Buford, Burt Lancaster: An American Life

The exchange of roles in "The Prince and the Pauper" suggests that a man of the people can be a benevolent ruler because of his humble roots, that a prince can become a better ruler through exposure to hoi polloi.
-- Michiko Kakutani, "In Classic Children's Books, Is a Witch Ever Just a Witch?", New York Times, December 22, 1992

America's cereal queen [Marjorie Merriweather Post, heir to the Post Cereal fortune] had the same problems that the hoi polloi have -- philandering husbands, messy divorces, soggy Grape-Nuts.
-- Maureen Dowd, "Rich Little Rich Girl", New York Times, February 12, 1995


Hoi polloi is Greek for "the many."

from dictionary.com

-----------

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.
- Rita Mae Brown

#7

triskaidekaphobia \tris-ky-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh\, noun:
A morbid fear of the number 13 or the date Friday the 13th.

Thirteen people, pledged to eliminate triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13, today tried to reassure American sufferers by renting a 13 ft plot of land in Brooklyn for 13 cents . . . a month.
-- Daily Telegraph, January 14, 1967

Past disasters linked to the number 13 hardly help triskaidekaphobics overcome their affliction. The most famous is the Apollo 13 mission, launched on April 11, 1970 (the sum of 4, 11 and 70 equals 85 - which when added together comes to 13), from Pad 39 (three times 13) at 13:13 local time, and struck by an explosion on April 13.
-- "It's just bad luck that the 13th is so often a Friday", Electronic Telegraph, September 8, 1996


Triskaidekaphobia is from Greek treiskaideka, triskaideka, thirteen (treis, three + kai, and + deka, ten) + phobos, fear.

In Christian countries the number 13 was considered unlucky because there were 13 persons at the Last Supper of Christ. Fridays are also unlucky, because the Crucifixion was on a Friday. Hence a Friday falling on the thirteenth day is regarded as especially unlucky.

Some famous triskaidekaphobes1:

Napoleon
Herbert Hoover
Mark Twain
Richard Wagner
Franklin Roosevelt


1. Source: "It's just bad luck that the 13th is so often a Friday," Electronic Telegraph, September 8, 1996

from dictionary.com


------------------


Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.

Raymond Chandler (1888 - 1959)

#3

coruscate \KOR-uh-skayt\, intransitive verb:
1. To give off or reflect bright beams or flashes of light; to sparkle.
2. To exhibit brilliant, sparkling technique or style.

They pulled up at the farthest end of a loop path that looked out over the great basin of the Rio Grande under brilliant, coruscating stars.
-- Bill Roorbach, "Big Bend", The Atlantic, March 2001

Beneath you lie two miles of ocean -- a bottomlessness, for all practical purposes, an infinity of blue. . . . A thousand coruscating shafts of sunlight probe it, illuminating nothing.
-- Kenneth Brower, "The Destruction of Dolphins", The Atlantic, July 1989

What coruscating flights of language in his prose, what waterfalls of self-displaying energy!
-- Joyce Carol Oates, review of A Theft, by Saul Bellow, New York Times, March 5, 1989

Whether we know or like it or not, those of us who turn our hands to this task are scribbling in a line of succession which, however uncertainly and intermittently, reaches back to the young Macaulay, who first made his public reputation as a coruscating writer in the 1820s.
-- David Cannadine, "On Reviewing and Being Reviewed", History Today, March 1, 1999


Coruscate comes from Latin coruscatus, past participle of coruscare, "to move quickly, to tremble, to flutter, to twinkle or flash." The noun form is coruscation. Also from coruscare is the adjective coruscant, "glittering in flashes; flashing."

from Dictionary.com


--------------------------



Equations are the devil's sentences.
- Stephen Colbert

#2

scintilla \sin-TIL-uh\, noun:
A tiny or scarcely detectable amount; the slightest particle; a trace; a spark.

In victory, they must hold on to at least a scintilla of humility, lest they get too cocky -- and ripe for a takedown.
-- Bill Breen, "We are literally trying to stop time", Fast Company, May 2000

I bear her not one scintilla of ill will, he said.
-- Sarah Lyall, "That Harriman Book", New York Times, May 4, 1994

There was never a scintilla of doubt, or a hint of equivocation, in Michael about his commitment to the party.
-- "Ferris's decency and sense of fun recalled", Irish Times, March 23, 2000


Scintilla is from Latin scintilla, "a spark, a glimmer, a faint trace." Also from scintilla is the verb scintillate, "to sparkle."

from Dictionary.com

-------------------------

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)

#1

autochthonous \aw-TOK-thuh-nuhs\, adjective:
1. Aboriginal; indigenous; native.
2. Formed or originating in the place where found.

For cultures are not monoliths. They are fragmentary, patchworks of autochthonous and foreign elements.
-- Anthony Pagden, "Culture Wars", The New Republic, November 16, 1998

I thought of the present-day Arcadians, autochthonous, sprung from the very earth on which they live, who with every draught from a stream drink up millennia of history and legend.
-- Zachary Taylor, "Hot Land, Cold Water", The Atlantic, June 17, 1998


Autochthonous derives from Greek autochthon, "of or from the earth or land itself," from auto-, "self" + chthon, "earth." One that is autochthonous is an autochthon.

from Dictionary.com


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing says, 'I have no idea what to get you,' quite like giant beige bath towels.
- Missbhavens