GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

sedulous

\SEJ-uh-luhs\
adjective:
1.
Diligent in application or pursuit; steadily industrious.
2.
Characterized by or accomplished with care and perseverance.

Read the full entry

Quotes:
He did not attain this distinction by accident but by sedulous study from the cradle forward.
-- Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Al Gore: A User's Manual

This writing is clearly the product of sedulous art, but it has the flame of spontaneity and the grit of independence both as to mode and spirit.
-- "The Wonder and Wackiness of Man", New York Times, January 17, 1954

And so he reminded the legion that, even though his veneration of his country's flag may not have inhibited sedulous avoidance of the inconveniences of serving under it, he is a patriot so wholehearted that he signed the Arkansas law that forbids flag-burning.
-- Murray Kempton, "Signs of Defeat In the Wind", Newsday, August 30, 1992

Origin:
Sedulous is from Latin sedulus, "busy, diligent," from se-, "apart, without" + dolus, "guile, trickery."

Irreverant example:
Had my grandma been alive in 1986 when the Brigitte Bardot Foundation was established, she would have been sedulously targeted. The foundation's activists would have wished her to become allergic to all fur garments.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

.


I'm being thrifty with WotD's. I won't try to find / post a new one unless and until there's at least one post with a sedulous attempt at using the latest WotD, myself excluded.

So come on, guys, shake a leg and thrum the keyboard. The current heatwave in Europe is no excuse to be remiss.

Thank you.

[Algot Runeman]

This morning the battery on my netbook died and right after that, I attempted an upgrade and disabled my laptop, the one on which the WotD entries (and other tasks, far less important) are typed. As a result, the whole day was a steady effort to reconfigure and update the laptop. Technology is a core element of my "work" so it was necessary to apply patient, sometimes repetetive reconstructive effort. Good fortune did begin the effort. I'd made a backup of data files just before I borked the system. That included my email, Firefox bookmarks and routine documents. BACK IT UP REGULARLY!

The laptop has been running Kubuntu 8.04, which two years out of date. It seemed prudent to try to move ahead. The tech gods were not supportive. The laptop isn't new, and the most recent release of Kubuntu, 10.04 will not work, not even a little bit. I've just finished the upgrade to current version minus one: Kubuntu 9.10. These versions have the newer work environment of KDE 4.x instead of the aging 3.x "desktop." Windows users among you might think of this as moving from Windows 95 to Windows 7. Mac users should think System 7 to OSX. A BIG jump.

The big benefit is that these newer versions support more modern work software. The system is back, but the next step is reinstalling all the newer versions of the day-to-day software I must run. That may be done by tomorrow. Don't hold your breath. It won't matter much to you. At worst, you'll miss my posts while I plod through the installs. At best, you'll miss my posts while I plod through the installs.

This leaves no time to deal with finding a replacement battery for the netbook. I'll not be traveling light until that's done. One cannot always find a convenient U.S. standard 115volt electrical socket while working on the move.

Can I blame any of this on the U.S. Northeast heat? No. When my wife and I retired, we invested in a house air conditioner, and it has kept us comfortable through the 90 degree (F) temperatures plaguing us this July. We've been told that this is the hottest July on record in the Northeast. Wow.

The reality, though, is that you must have been sedulous in the extreme to read through this post.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

juju

\ JOO-joo \
noun:
1.
An object superstitiously believed to embody magical powers.
2.
The power associated with a juju.

Read the full entry

Quotes:
[David] Robinson, sounding confident and sure, said that the time for juju and magic dust had passed. 'To be honest with you, I think it's beyond that', he said. 'It's very hard to come up with magic at the end'.
-- "Knicks Find There's No Place Like Home", New York Times , June 22, 1999

'You ever heard of juju ?'
Skyler shook his head.
'Magic. You talk about this and it'll be the last talkin' you do. You'll just open your mouth and nothin' will come out'.
-- John Darnton, The Experiment

We are told, for example, of the Edo youngster, apparently both Christian and traditionally African in his beliefs, who was heard to mutter 'S.M.O.G.' over and over when he and his companions were threatened by 'bad juju'. When questioned he replied, 'Have you never heard of it? It stands for Save Me O God. When you are really in a hurry, it is quickest to use the initials'.
-- "The Spirits And The African Boy", New York Times , October 10, 1982

On any terminal she is using, a co-worker puts up a sign proclaiming, 'Bad karma go away, come again another day'. When she was pregnant, she said, she crashed her computer twice as often -- she attributes that to a double whammy of woo-woo juju.
-- "Can a Hard Drive Smell Fear?", New York Times , May 21, 1998

Origin:
Juju is of West African origin, akin to Hausa djudju, fetish, evil spirit.

Irreverant example:

Algot Runeman went apeshit, invoked Baron Samedi and just plain yelled "juju!". The cause of his black despair was his netbook going on the blink and his laptop on the fritz, both on the same day.
Though I must admit that, compared to my tantrums in such situations, Algot showed remarkable restraint.

[Algot Runeman]

Mia sat beside her cart in the market square. Her mother cried out the quality of the family's vegetables so everyone would come to buy the last ones. Her bare feet brushed back and forth in the sand which gathered in the square no matter how often the men passed with their brooms. The cobbles had been bare in the early morning, but as the sun was nearing the peaks to the west, the sand was back. A day in the sun and wind had parched Mia's lips. The remaining vegetables on the cart were covered with cloths and it was Mia's job to keep them from getting completely dry. She and her mother sipped from the bucket but saved most of the water to fight the drying wind.

Mama always sold everything, but some Juju was at work today, and there was a full bushel of beans that hadn't even come out from under the cart. Dusk usually meant an easy walk home, pulling the empty cart. Today, Mia and her mother shared a troubled glance as they started home. Mia followed Mama's example and fingered the cross at her neck. It was more than unsold beans that weighed down the cart. Something strange, and at least a little frightening, was coming.

(Two weeks later, WalMart opened in the next town. Mia's mother went to work there. The farmers' market closed.)

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

Indeed, it was only assiduous application of juju which carried me through the laptop challenge. It has been two years since the last major upgrade. In that time the laptop "has just worked" with application of regular updates.

As the author, Arthur C. Clarke remarked, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Most of those to whom I've tried to teach the differences among CPU, RAM, ROM and Hard Drive have worked to fit the concepts into their body of general knowledge. Some have succeeded, but most have lacked the context and assigned the concepts to the realm of "if you say so..."

[MidasKnight]

That's some bad juju, man.

[Darb]

Standard medical treatment for Malignant Juju Syndrome is a 3 month course of oral high-potency Jujubes. I believe the usual dose is 400kmg, thrice daily, accompanied by an infusion of cola nut extract suffused with aspartame and 20 psi of carbon dioxide in solution.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

chagrin

\ shuh-GRIN \
noun:
1.
Acute vexation, annoyance, or embarrassment, arising from disappointment or failure.

transitive verb:
1.
To unsettle or vex by disappointment or humiliation; to mortify.

Read the full entry

Quotes:
He ran away to the recruiting office at Ottumwa, a river port where Union soldiers were transported east--how he got to the town, a good half-day journey by wagon, isn't clear--and to his chagrin , he found his father waiting there.
-- Allen Barra, Inventing Wyatt Earp: His Life and Many Legends

He noted with chagrin how little hair clung to his head.
-- John Marks, The Wall

Rich Moroni was earning $20,000 a year as a cook and was chagrined to discover that he couldn't keep up with the style of life and spending of his preferred reference group -- the lawyers and executives who shared his passion for squash and belonged to the same health club.
-- Peter T. Kilborn, "Splurge", New York Times , June 21, 1998

Chagrined to find that her current boyfriend has become best pals with her ex-boyfriend Hank, she goes to her ex with the problem.
-- Stephen J. Dubner, "Boston Rockers", New York Times , July 26, 1998

Origin:
Chagrin is from the French chagrin, "sad", "sorrow" and "grief".

Irreverant example:
Many women, especially those also possessing high quality furs, were chagrined that my grandma could wear her coats with such class and panache, while they could not.

When my grandma married, several young men were extremely chagrined. Their hopes for a succesful courtship having gone south, they emigrated to the North to try and forget their chagrin d'amour.

Edit: spelling correction

[Darb]

Chet was slightly chagrinned when his future ex-wife declined to march up the aisle to Chopin to renew their vows.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Chet was slightly chagrinned when his future ex-wife declined to march up the aisle to Chopin to renew their vows.

Did she expect to march up to Mayor Wagner, instead of the town clerk?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

facile

\ FAS-uhl \
adjective:
1.
Easily done or performed; not difficult.
2.
Arrived at without due care or effort; lacking depth; as, "too facile a solution for so complex a problem."
3.
Ready; quick; expert; as, "he is facile in expedients"; "he wields a facile pen."

Read the full entry

Quotes:
The colt supplying that evidence was Rock of Gibraltar, who recorded yet another facile victory at Group One level.
-- J. A. McGrath, "Rock thriving on success", Daily Telegraph , June 18, 2002

Today, the nuclear projects in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea forbid the facile conclusion that the atomic weapons age is conclusively ended.
-- Abba Eban, Diplomacy for the Next Century

This is a very facile sort of speculation not supported by the facts or by common sense.
-- Roberto González Echevarría, The Pride of Havana

Some years before he had earned small sums scribbling paragraphs for the front page of the Civil and Military Gazette , whilst admitting to his sister Jane that a dissertation on the uselessness of the Viceroy came readily to his facile pen.
-- Frances Spalding, Duncan Grant: A Biography

He had a fluent, facile style with the brush, but (much more significantly for Yeats) he painted the visions which rose up before him like emanations from some alternative reality.
-- Terence Brown, The Life of W. B. Yeats

Origin:
Facile derives from Latin facilis , "easy."

Irreverant example:
Though my grandma never had formal training in haute couture, she was very facile in her judgment whether a new fur could be made into a fashionable coat. Her opinion was always spot on. Yes, you may call her facile, but never, ever, think her easily done.

[Darb]

Say, did your grandmother ever consult beautician about getting a facile ?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

specious

\ SPEE-shuhs \ , adjective;
1.
Apparently right; superficially fair, just, or correct, but not so in reality; as, "specious reasoning; a specious argument."
2.
Deceptively pleasing or attractive.

Read the full entry

Quotes:
None of those alleged crises really is. They all rest on specious claims about financial abstractions, on scare stories about impending bankruptcy.
-- James K. Galbraith, Created Unequal

A specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment.
-- Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

His descendant later took great pride in these specious titles, and Hawthorne humorously addressed him as "the Count."
-- Edward L. Widmer, Young America

Origin:
Specious is from Latin speciosus , from specious , "appearance," from specere , "to look at."

Irreverant example:
My grandma loved the feel of fur on her naked skin. Had it been fashionable in her day, she would have worn her fur coats like the Inuit do, the actual fur on the inside.
She was privately fantasizing about a bedroom without furniture, except for a floor-wide mattress, entirely covered with soft, springy fur on the resilient floor, walls and ceiling. A fur-niched room, so to speak.
She herself considered this a specious ambition, but I can't help wondering what such a room would have looked, and mostly felt like.

[Darb]

I'm finding this particular species of Oedipus complex to be quite specious.

[Algot Runeman]

I love to offer specious excuses, but just at the moment, I've nothing for which I must apologize.

[E.P.S., has your avatar's image become so odd as to be hidden? I'm just seeing the blank "User Avatar" alternate text.]

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

E.P.S., has your avatar's image become so odd as to be hidden? I'm just seeing the blank "User Avatar" alternate text.

Everything looks normal to me, even you do too.
It must either have been some specious maintenance or the server was bored with serving up my face. Probably the latter.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

tortuous

\ TOR-choo-us \
adjective:
1.
Marked by repeated turns and bends; as, "a tortuous road up the mountain."
2.
Not straightforward; devious; as, "his tortuous reasoning."
3.
Highly involved or intricate; as, "tortuous legal procedures."

Read the full entry

Quotes:
. . .the tortuous , narrow streets of Jerusalem's Old City.
-- Lee Hockstader, "Pope's Road to Israel Paved by Past Errors", Washington Post , March 12, 2000

The attempts to substitute machines, methods of mass production, for the slow manual labour of antiquaries and historical researchers have all broken down; we still rely on those who spend their lives in painfully piecing together their knowledge from fragments of actual evidence, obeying this evidence wherever it leads them, however tortuous and unfamiliar the pattern, or with no consciousness of any pattern at all.
-- Isaiah Berlin, The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and their History

Thus in the 1970s Terry Erwin of the Smithsonian Institution anaesthetized and then counted all the species of beetle in just one tree in Panama, perceived that the number of unknown species far outweighed the ones that had previously been identified, and through a sequence of reasoning that may seem a trifle tortuous but is widely agreed to be reasonable, calculated that the true number of all species on Earth is probably nearer to 30 million.
-- Colin Tudge, The Variety of Life

Origin:
Tortuous is from Latin tortuosus , from tortus , "a twisting," from the past participle of torquere , "to twist."

Irreverant example:
Sometimes furs took a very tortuous journey before finally reaching my grandma's couturier's atelier. But this was as nothing compared to the multiple turns, sinuous twists and convoluted procedures they had to undergo at the fur artist's hands.

Grandma loved and cherished the travel stories that came with her furs, even though she knew full well that her couturier wasn't shy about embellishing a story to make it sound even more exotic and tortuous.

[Darb]

Meanwhile, according to his diaries, your Grandpa suffered terribly. Turns out he was deathly allergic to mink, fox, ermine, coyote, chinchilla, fitch, lynx, muskrat, weasel, tanuki, sable, marten, rabbit, fisher, and even the rare and highly prized brazilian shorthair beaver. Grandma's love affair with fur, and his need to be a good sport about it while hiding his suffering, was truly tortorous.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Meanwhile, according to his diaries, your Grandpa suffered terribly. Turns out he was deathly allergic to {several furs}, and even the rare and highly prized brazilian shorthair beaver. Grandma's love affair with fur, and his need to be a good sport about it while hiding his suffering, was truly tortorous.

You're describing my *other* grandpa, the one with my cordon bleu grandma.

[Algot Runeman]

Lance Armstrong and his Team Radio Shack are making the tortuous route up the Pyrenees mountains without much any hope of having a Tour win. Alberto Contador or Andy Schleck appear to be the best of the race. I'm still watching, but I do wonder if the US audience has dropped with Lance over 40 minutes back.

Fortunately, major league baseball is still going strong, and NFL training camps begin in a couple of weeks, so we American sports fans will have something to do.

[MidasKnight]

GO RAMS!!!!!!

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

GO RAMS!!!!!!

Does your reply imply the WotD?
Otherwise your reply is disWotDified, you know?

[MidasKnight]

I am a diehard St. Louis Rams fan (and the NFL in general). The Rams are currently an awful team but last year hired a new head coach and GM (among other non-playing positions). They are on the road to respectability, but that road is a tortuous one.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

taciturn

\ TAS-uh-turn \
adjective:
1.
Habitually silent; not inclined to talk.

Read the full entry

Quotes:
On stage she seemed to become transformed, and the contrast was even more noticeable given her shy, taciturn character, shrouded in the impalpable veil of gloom that always surrounded her.
-- Pino Cacucci, Tina Modotti: A Life

A balding, stocky, taciturn man who wore glasses, he gave an impression of distance and seriousness.
-- "Diana's Driver: Unsettling Piece in a Puzzle", New York Times , September 21, 1997

In the company of even his close literary and political friends he was shy if not taciturn .
-- "Passionate voice of the press", Irish Times , November 4, 1997

Origin:
Taciturn comes from Latin taciturnus , from tacere , "to be silent."

Irreverant example:
I hope you'll forgive me for being taciturn today. But, please, don't emulate me.

[Algot Runeman]

". . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."