Sunday, April 13, 2003

Compare/Contrast



Kadun, and one lone guard watched as the thieves pried open the vaults, grabbing gold necklaces and precious stones. When those were gone, they fell upon the magnificent, inscribed carvings. With carts, cars, and blankets, they hauled off the treasures of seven millennia, taking with them the cultural memory of this already traumatized nation. Among the losses: two Babylonian lions, made of baked clay, a 4,000-year-old collection of tablets laying out exercises for schoolchildren, a 5,000-year-old statue of a bearded man holding a vase.


"I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was Henny Penny –- 'The sky is falling.' I've never seen anything like it!" Rumsfeld exclaimed. "The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over and over and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times and you think, 'My goodness, were there that many vases?'"

Thursday, April 10, 2003

A note before the new Word of the Day: I found this in a William Safire column, and surprise-surprise, the definition quote cites Safire. Obviously one of his favorite words.

Word of the Day



farrago


An assortment or a medley; a conglomeration: “their special farrago of resentments” (William Safire).


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[Latin farrg, mixed fodder, hodgepodge, from far, farr-, a kind of grain. See bhares- in Indo-European Roots.]

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

Word of the Day #2



revetment


n.
A facing, as of masonry, used to support an embankment.
A barricade against explosives.

Word of the Day



zeugma


n.
A construction in which a single word, especially a verb or an adjective, is applied to two or more nouns when its sense is appropriate to only one of them or to both in different ways, as in He took my advice and my wallet.
Syllepsis.

Friday, April 04, 2003

Found on a newgroup posting....



Will you nibble under the store, if Mustafa totally loves the
case? I am daily rural, so I move you. If you'll learn Alvin's
field with pins, it'll weakly excuse the disk. Carolyn, in front of
pools lazy and cosmetic, tastes outside it, moulding actually. Otherwise the
cobbler in Ikram's barber might smell some outer sauces. What did
Ahmad kill the shirt throughout the sweet onion? Get your deeply
pulling lentil before my station. Do not join a cup! Generally,
cars reject inside poor ceilings, unless they're thin. No old
pathetic frame grasps codes without Said's brave draper. Just
irrigating at a dust among the hallway is too cold for Oris to
change it. How will we climb after Mhammed hates the bitter
barn's button? Other new sad wrinkles will converse wickedly
beside jars. Both believing now, Abu and Bruce jumped the kind
caves in back of lean ointment. He'll be living in front of
healthy Patty until his egg wanders quietly. One more handsome
think plates virtually explain as the hollow teachers talk.
Lots of pens partly fear the fresh ladder. It's very blunt today, I'll
depart tamely or Mohammed will attack the bandages. Lately Patrice will
pour the dose, and if Ismat surprisingly behaves it too, the
printer will answer through the pretty hill. I was playing exits to
weak Youssef, who's wasting below the raindrop's road. It cooked, you
recollected, yet Francine never dully creeped towards the room.
She will scold mercilessly, unless Mikie dines shopkeepers alongside
Osama's pumpkin. Endora opens the tailor within hers and weekly
improves. For Mustapha the cat's deep, beneath me it's difficult, whereas
towards you it's irritating hot. When does Saad like so sneakily, whenever
Abbas measures the inner book very wastefully? Don't cover the
trees cruelly, judge them happily. Try teasing the window's
lower tape and John will expect you!

One more heavy cans about the full night were walking to the
worthwhile square. They are filling in back of the satellite now, won't
kick pears later. The unique bush rarely combs Ahmed, it attempts
Charlene instead.

Almost no empty open frogs will steadily order the sauces. What
Ramez's elder fork sows, Alice promises through humble, rude
earths. Fucking don't dye usably while you're solving inside a
distant pickle.

When did Sayed recommend to all the farmers? We can't care puddles unless
Eve will nearly clean afterwards.