Uh oh

Camera bit the dust...for real this time. This time it was my fault dropping it as I was being harassed on the F from Coney Island.

Palindrome

Word of the Day for Sunday May 1, 2005

palindrome \PAL-in-drohm\, noun:
A word, phrase, sentence, or verse that reads the same
backward or forward.

A few examples:
* Madam, I'm Adam. (Adam's first words to Eve?)
* A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama! (The history of the
Panama Canal in brief.)
* Able was I ere I saw Elba. (Napoleon's lament.)
* Mom, Dad.
_________________________________________________________

Palindrome comes from Greek palindromos, literally "running
back (again)," from palin, "back, again" + dromos, "running."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation
==========================
Unfortunately I broke my camera at Coney Island, so the only palindrome I could photo was a bad one of Abba's SOS on my computer:

Intransigent

Word of the Day for Saturday April 30, 2005

intransigent \in-TRAN-suh-juhnt; -zuh-\, adjective:
Refusing to compromise; uncompromising.

He was intransigent at times, and almost playfully yielding at others.
--"The Decline and Fall of a Sure Thing," New York Times, September 10, 1989

Sometimes I was intransigent, and proud of it. At other times I seemed to myself to be nearly devoid of any character at all, timid, uncertain, without will.
--Edward W. Said, Out of Place: A Memoir

The dispute brewed through the summer as Nehru remained intransigent and U.S. officials confronted an unbending legal mandate.
--George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb


Intransigent is from French intransigeant, from Spanish intransigente, from in-, "not" (from Latin) + transigente, present participle of transigir, "to compromise," from Latin transigere, "to come to an agreement," from trans-, "across" + agere, "to drive."
================================

Extol

Word of the Day for Friday April 29, 2005

extol \ik-STOHL\, transitive verb:
To praise highly; to glorify; to [1]exalt.

The processes of nature, which most writers extol as
symbols of renewal and eternal life, were always seen
darkly by Kerouac.
--Ellis Amburn, [2]Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of
Jack Kerouac

Let your deeds themselves praise you, for here I leave them
in all their glory, lacking words to extol them.
--Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha

Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?
--Arthur Christopher Benson, Song from Pomp and
Circumstance by Sir Edward Elgar
_________________________________________________________

Extol derives from Latin extollere, "to lift up, praise," from
ex-, "up from" + tollere, "to lift up, elevate."
=================================
Epitome:


singing the praises of our heros:


Used in advertising, accolades and exalting an accomplishment to sell


Origin, to elevate

Pusillanimous

Word of the Day for Thursday April 28, 2005

pusillanimous \pyoo-suh-LAN-uh-muhs\, adjective:
Lacking in courage and resolution; contemptibly fearful;
cowardly.

Evil, unspeakable evil, rose in our midst, and we as a
people were too weak, too indecisive, too pusillanimous to
deal with it.
--Kevin Myers, "An Irishman's Diary," [1]Irish Times,
October 20, 1999

Under the hypnosis of war hysteria, with a pusillanimous
Congress rubber-stamping every whim of the White House, we
passed the withholding tax.
--Vivien Kellems, Toil, Taxes and Trouble

You are now anxious to form excuses to yourself for a
conduct so pusillanimous.
--Ann Radcliffe, The Italian
_________________________________________________________

Pusillanimous comes from Late Latin pusillanimis, from Latin
pusillus, "very small, tiny, puny" + animus, "soul, mind."
====================================
Headshot of the cowardly lion I found:


I took this earlier this year of a Macy's window, Fonzi Bear as the cowardly lion


Small brained organism/soul:


this morning, a taxi cut off a biker. the biker got pissed and used his radio to get lots of messengers to confont this taxi. To me that's cowardly, if you have a beef, go mano-a-mano. don't call in reinforcements dude:

Detritus

Word of the Day for Wednesday April 27, 2005

detritus \dih-TRY-tuhs\, noun;
plural detritus:
1. Loose material that is worn away from rocks.
2. Hence, any fragments separated from the body to which they
belonged; any product of disintegration; debris.

The water was smooth and brown, with detritus swirling in
the eddies from the increasing current.
--Gordon Chaplin, [1]Dark Wind: A Survivor's Tale of Love
and Loss

If they [flying cars] were easy to produce, we'd be walking
around wearing helmets to protect us from the detritus of
flying car crashes.
--Gail Collins, "Grounded for 2000," [2]New York Times,
December 7, 1999

The loose detritus of thought, washed down to us through
long ages.
--H. Rogers, Essays
_________________________________________________________

Detritus derives from the past participle of Latin deterere,
"to rub away, to wear out," from de-, "from" + terere, "to
rub." It is related to detriment, at root "a rubbing away, a
wearing away," hence "damage, harm."
========================================
This was the word of the day for April 13th, excactly two weeks ago. Now dictionary.com is really starting to make me cross. Here is my post on detritus from April 13th.

Matutinal

Word of the Day for Tuesday April 26, 2005

matutinal \muh-TOOT-n-uhl\, adjective:
Relating to or occurring in the morning; early.

Get up early and wash your face in the matutinal May Day
dew; it will make your skin beautiful and your heart pure.
--Ray Murphy, "Hurray, Hurray the Month of May," [1]Boston
Globe, April 28, 1988

We had to rehearse at an hour at which no actor or actress
has been out of bed within the memory of man; and we
sardonically congratulated one another every morning on our
rosy matutinal looks and the improvement wrought by our
early rising in our health and characters.
--George Bernard Shaw, "The Author's Apology," [2]Mrs.
Warren's Profession

Harry Truman, was -- like Winston Churchill -- known to
take a matutinal shot of whisky. He did it after his
regular very vigorous early-morning walk.
--R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., "Plainly presidential," [3]The
Washington Times, January 18, 2002
_________________________________________________________

Matutinal is from Late Latin matutinalis, from Latin
matutinus, "early in the morning; pertaining to the morning."

=========================================





And an older pic i took. I wanted to take a similar picture today, but given that I didn't get the word until 1PM thanks to dictionary.com not updating their site...this will have to do: