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WordOfTheDay

We have exchanged quotes about AncientWisdom. Let's now exchange stimulating words.

• What word intrigues you today?
• Why are you attracted to it?
• Where did you hear it?

Please try to limit yourself to posting a single word each day.

skulk: somebody who moves about secretively or conceals a sinister purpose.

For me, the sound of the word matches its definition, which I love. The word came to my attention while reading Jeffery Deaver's The Twelfth Card: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel.

SteveSmith 2006.05.09

jiggles: in systems interventions, interventions that peturb a system that's stable. Weinbergian coinage featured in BATL, although he might have nicked the term from somewhere.

I like the image of jell-o, jiggling in some dynamic, interesting way.

-- JimBullock, 2006.05.09

I heard the word, and its origin, while listening to Arnold Weinstein's Classics of American Literature course published by the Teaching Company. Weinstein was talking about Henry James' book The Turn of the Screw.

Like skulk, I like the connection between the word's sound and its meaning.

SteveSmith 2006.05.11

I too like the the connection of the word's sound and its meaning. I first read the word in American Vertigo by the philosopher and journalist Bernard-Henri L�vy.

I reccomend the book. For me Mr. Levy's observations of the US since 2004 have great merit. Only a few of his observations are off the mark.

--CharlesAdams 2006.05.12

[Mid-17th century. < French < badin "fool, joker" < assumed Vulgar Latin badare "yawn, gape"]

I love the fact that we have lots of badinage here on the AYE wiki, to leaven some of the incredibly serious material.

1. tr.
   
   
   1. To revive with or as if with rest, food, or drink; give new vigor or spirit to.
      
      
   2. To give new freshness or brightness to; restore.
      
      
   3. To make cool, clean, or moist; freshen up.
      
      
   4. To renew by stimulation: refresh one's memory.
      
      
   5. To fill up again; replenish: refresh a drink.

I used this word a few times this past week. There is something about the sound that appeals to me. I also have been thinking more about being refreshed each day.

Dwayne Phillips 15 May 2006

• 1 sturdy or resilient.
• 2 strong and healthy.
• 3 uncompromising and forceful; not subtle: a robust defence.
• 4 (of wine or food) strong and rich in flavour or smell.

I'm not sure about the smell part, but otherwise, I appreciate robustness. - JerryWeinberg 2006.05.15

resplendent - adjective

• attractive and impressive through being richly colourful or sumptuous.

DERIVATIVES resplendence noun resplendency noun resplendently adverb.

ORIGIN Latin, from resplendere �shine out�.

I like the sound as well as the thought. It makes you dwell a little (though not wallow) on the second syllable, and it has a satisfying, though unemphasised end. And I�m much taken with the notion of shining out.

--FionaCharles 15-May-2006

savour (US savor)

� verb 1 appreciate and enjoy the taste of (food or drink). 2 enjoy or appreciate to the full. 3 (savour of) have a suggestion or trace of.

� noun 1 a characteristic taste, flavour, or smell. 2 a suggestion or trace.

� ORIGIN Old French, from Latin sapere �to taste�.

Example: Canadians and Brits especially savour the refeshing AYE experience, robustly resplendant with learnings.

Did that exemplar jiggle you, or do you execrate badinage and skulk around like an infant?

- JerryWeinberg 2006.05.16

• I execrate skulking, both infant and grown
• But savour robust gauntlet thrown!
• Badinage is refreshing, resplendent -- if worse
• When I flaunt my riposte in bad verse.

flaunt - verb

• display ostentatiously.
  
  � USAGE It is a common error to use flaunt when flout is intended. Flaunt means �display ostentatiously�, while flout means �openly disregard (a rule or convention)�.
  
  � ORIGIN of unknown origin.

Haiku, anyone? Or--Jerry?

--FionaCharles 16-May-2006

And on this thread, I think we could potentially do some fun stuff incorporating people's words into different poetic forms. That's if people wanted to play, of course, and without highjacking the original thread. --FionaCharles 17-May-2006

A distinctive outfit intended to identify those who wear it as members of a specific group.

Once or twice a week I stop at a local coffee shop on the way to work to write in my journal (how's that for including three threads in one statement). I like Starbuck's coffee and coffee shops. Nevertheless, I have found myself stopping at a much smaller chain called Greenberry's (http://www.greenberrys.com).

I noticed today that the young ladies who work at Greenberry's don't wear uniforms, not even corportate uniform aprons.

Maybe that's why I like this place so much.

DwaynePhillips 24 May 2006

Homonym: One of two or more words spelled and pronounced alike but different in meaning

• cleave, verb: to cut
• cleave, verb to adhere

Homophone: One of two or more words pronounced alike but different in meaning or spelling

• to
• too
• two

Homograph: One of two or more words spelled alike but different in meaning or pronunciation

• lead, noun: the element with atomic weight 82
• lead, verb: to guide on a way especially by going in advance

CharlesAdams 2006.06.05

• lead, noun: the element with atomic weight 82
• led -- past tense (preterit) of the homograph

--FionaCharles 5-Jun-2006

joy n.

• Intense and especially ecstatic or exultant happiness.
• The expression or manifestation of such feeling.

Something I noticed last week is that one of the most joyous occasions in life is splashing a little water on someone else. There is something child like about this that still infects many adults.

DwaynePhillips 6 June 2006

BEAST

- JerryWeinberg 6.6.6

<Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia>

• the fear that originates in the the Biblical verse Revelation 13:18 which indicates that the number 666 is linked to Satan or the Anti-Christ.

-MikeMelendez 6.6.7

My definition: ... increasingly boring data. (no reflection on Mike's interesting contribution above)

- JerryWeinberg 6.6.8

An odd small critter with exposed gills that can breathe through its skin as well.

Why is this my word of the day? I love the sound, including the name of one of its habitats: Lake Xochimilco.

(By the way Steve, I am nearly finished The Twelveth Card ) - BeckyWinant 6.6.9

My word today is neotony. " In neoteny, the physiological (or somatic) development of an animal or organism is slowed or delayed. Ultimately this process results in the retention, in the adults of a species, of juvenile physical characteristics well into maturity. Neoteny is derived from the Latin neotenia, derived from the prefix Greek neo-, meaning young, and teinein, to extend."

I thought of it because, "One example of a neotenic trait in vertebrates is the salamander species axolotl, which usually remains fully aquatic as it matures."

I like the sound of "neotonous axolotl," but also think that many computer programmers are neotonous. (and some are monotonous--neotony monotony). - JerryWeinberg 2006.06.10

I came across this word yesterday. I never heard it before. I like the sound and I wish I had sagacity. I found it while looking for the definition of one of my favorite words...

serendipity, noun, The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.

DwaynePhillips 11 June 2006

antinomy a contradiction between two apparently equally valid principles; a fundamental and apparently unresolvable conflict or contradiction <antinomies of beauty and evil, freedom and slavery -- Stephen Holden>

And add the antinomy of heavy weight and light weight software processes.

polymath someone who has encyclopedic knowledge.--I think there are a few AYErs who are polymaths.

CharlesAdams 2006.06.12

• 1 a honey-drug mixture said to be a poison antidote
• 2 a cure-all

I ran across this word in one of my word-of-the-day lists and decided to save it. It ultimately derives from a Greek word meaning wild animal, but I knew the word from my medieval studies.

Andromachus, a physician in ancient Greece, is said to have concocted the first theriac combining 70 drugs and honey. Physicians in plague-ridden medieval Europe had much more elaborate creations, whose recipes were carefully guarded since there was no patent protection back then.

In the end, however, the word reminds me that, even though we seem to be suckers for the one solution to all ills, our ills are more creative than that. So it is best to have many concoctions ready at hand.

DennisCadena June 13, 2006

I was talking to a former teammate, who is now in commercial real estate, and he mentioned that his firm developed brownfields. And they used "insurance instruments" to mitigate the risks. The word fits the definition, especially when contrasted with a greenfield.

See http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/glossary.htm for a complete description.

SteveSmith 2006.06.13

How interesting that software development when there is an existing system gets called "brownfield." In making software a vast space of emptiness gets called "greenfield." It seems that the stuff we produce is thought of as a net worse starting place than nothing at all.

Once upon a time "developed" land didn't mean a toxic waste dump, crumbling parking lot, or swaying apartment building full at this point of something from nothing at all to meth labs. "Developed" lands were once, and sometime tended wood lots, orchards, and carefully cultivated topsoil, "slash and burn" agriculture being seen even then as not producing a "developed" slice of land. If you've lived in it, vs. impressions informed by city living and Bambi movies, you have experienced the vibrant and startling ecology of woods, fields, orchards, shrubbery, and so on juxtaposed and cared for.

I wonder. Why shouldn't software we've written be a better starting place for the next thing than a big pile of nothing at all. Why shouldn't adding to an ecosystem start with appreciating the bucolic beginning that was left to us by those who came before. And most puzzling, why shouldn't creating a piece of software produce something as lush and supportive as a well-tended country farm.

I understand why the damage occurs in land use and farming, where all manner of perverse incentives thrive. Why in a contrived field as yet mostly free of perverse external incentives? -- JimBullock (2002.06.13)

--DaveSmith 2006.06.15

Why does it intrigue me? it describes something about imperfection

Where did it come to my attention? It was a word in a book title (Flawed Advice and the Management Trap by Chris Argyris). I think book titles are a good source for potent words.

SteveSmith 2006.07.30

Didn't Jerry write something about calling flaws features? "If you can't fix it, feature it." Hmmmm .... Featured Advice and the Management Learning Opportunity?

KurtSimmons 2006.07.30 (Did Steve feature a new year, or is this an old word?)

Kurt, Oops, a data entry flaw. I fixed it. Hmm, I wonder if it was Freudian mistake. re: the book title, the new title doesn't work as well, at least to my ear. Coming up with a postive title that works sounds like a good writing exercise. But my creative engine isn't up for the challenge, at the moment. SteveSmith 2006.07.31

It's "the Bolden Rule" which when over-applied can lead to the "Levine the genius taylor" problem.

- JimBullock 2006.07.30 (Aye yam, what aye yam, and that's all what aye yam.)

"Cogito Ergo Spud" (I think, therefore yam.) --DaveSmith

KurtSimmons 2006.08.07

Kurt, what a great start to a new thread, if you'd like to share your amphigories. Might just be the next new thing, as out Haiku energy seems low right now. I'm assuming this is like The Walrus and The Carpenter from Alice in Wonderland?- BeckyWinant 2006.08.08