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omnivorous
If Hillary and Bill can reference the last episode of The Sopranos in a campaign video, then newspaper opinion columnists can write about it, too, can't they? (Actually, even if Hillary and Bill...
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supergrass
No, it's not vegetation or any form of cannabis. A "supergrass" in British slang is an informer whose testimony points to many suspects; to "grass on" someone is to tattle on him. "An Al Qaeda...
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chutzpah
Like all Yiddish words that have entered the English lexicon, chutzpah is difficult to translate yet wonderfully useful. In this case, Hillary and Bill Clinton were accused of having chutzpah (nerve,...
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stultify
Do high temperatures make us stupid? Maybe not, but this New York Times item says the heat the city is experiencing is stultifying: "It cannot be compared to the recent record-shattering temperatures...
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bowdlerize
The New York Times made its feelings about Richard Nixon clear in an editorial about his presidential library. According to the newspaper, the censored version of the Nixon archives would have made...
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lexiphanicism
Judge Bruce M. Selya, this week's guest Wordsmith, wrote eloquently about his attempts to introduce more interesting language into the courtroom. A touch of lexiphanicism, he believes, would be a good...
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loya jirga
New York Times columnist David Brooks (starting Sept. 19, 2007, no longer behind the TimesSelect wall) reports on US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's new health care plan, noting that her ideal...
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somnambulant
Frank Rich of The New York Times issues a wake-up call to the US Congress, which he describes as somnambulant (the adjectival form of somnambulate), or "operating heavy machinery while in a drowsy...
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polymath
A polymath may sound like a complicated equation but actually it's a very good thing to be — a person who knows a lot about various fields (also known as a Renaissance man): "...and in conversation he...
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föhn
They go by various names in various parts of the world — chinooks, bergwinds and others — but whatever they're called, the föhns are ill winds indeed: "Santa Anas are categorized as a föhn wind by...
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