Good morning readers! After a break last week, I’m back at it. I know you’ve all been waiting anxiously for your next vocabulary lesson. (And by that I mean not at all.)
This week, Kathy Wilson’s editorial on the infamous letter the mayor of Norwood penned to Norwood’s police department is full of Words Nobody Uses or Knows. Well, just four, but that’s a lot for one article. I’ll start with my favorite: bon mot. In French, bon mot literally translates to good word. (Woo! All my years of French classes finally paid off!)
In the states, though, bon mot is defined as an apt, clever, or witty remark (n.)
In this issue: ”
In a letter dated Dec. 22 that has now come to light, Norwood Mayor Thomas F. Williams penned a bon mot to the Norwood Police Department slamming black civil rights leaders and do-nothing politicians, warning officers — like a roll call from a long-ago episode of Hill Street Blues — to ‘be careful out there,’ ending that he, for one, will always have their backs.”
Next best word in Kathy’s piece is flummoxed, which is pronounced flum-eks. (I kept thinking it was pronounced flu-mox.)
flummox:
to confuse or perplex someone (trans. verb)
In this issue: “
People are talking about you in these streets and they’re mainly flummoxed by your letter and how it and you can go unnoticed.”
The third word in Kathy’s editorial that caught my eye is kowtowing.
kowtow: to be submissive or subservient to someone, or to kneel and touch the ground with your forehead as an act of worship (trans. verb)
In this issue: ”
Clearly, Mayor Williams can say Ferguson, Long Island and Cleveland. Further, he must be watching endless pundits on, probably, Fox News espouse how this country has been run off the rails by gutless politicians kowtowing to bullying black thugs running and rioting in the streets.”
And, finally, the last word in Kathy’s piece (but not in our lesson) is meted. I have a feeling this isn’t an unusual or pretentious word at all, but I’ve never heard of it.
meted:
to allot; distribute; apportion: usually with out (trans. verb)
In this issue: “
The KKK was also formed as a fraternity of like-minded, fed-up brethren who sidestepped the law and meted out their own form of justice, all while stitching their rebel flags with the threads of “us versus them.”
The other pretentious word in this week’s issue, polymath, was found in Anne Arenstein’s piece on Opera Fusion. It sounds very much like an algebra word (anybody remember polynomials? *shudder*) but it means a person of great and diversified learning (n.) Poly is Greek is for multiple or more than one. Makes sense!
That’s all I’ve got, readers, enjoy the weekend!
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2015.