acronym of the day: S.E.O.

The acronym of the day is S.E.O.: "search engine optimization":

"“Girls” has been attacked, and lauded, and exploited as S.E.O. link bait, and served up as the lead for style-trend pieces, to the point of exhaustion."

 - Emily Nussbaum, "Hannah barbaric: 'Girls', 'Enlightened', and the comedy of cruelty", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: gormless

The word of the day is gormless:

Etymology:  < gaum, dial. < gome n.² notice, understanding + -less suffix.

orig. dial.

Wanting sense, or discernment. (OED)

"Of the Old and New People of Willesden I speak; I have been chosen to speak for them, though they did not choose me and must wonder what gives me the right. I could say, “Because I was born at the crossroads of Willesden, Kilburn, and Queen’s Park!” But the reply would be swift and damning: “Oh, don’t be foolish, many people were born right there; it doesn’t mean anything at all. We are not one people and no one can speak for us. It’s all a lot of nonsense. We see you standing on the balcony, overlooking the Embassy of Cambodia, in your dressing gown, staring into the chestnut trees, looking gormless. The real reason you speak in this way is because you can’t think of anything better to do.”"

 - Zadie Smith, "The Embassy of Cambodia", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: Abernethy biscuit

The word of the day is Abernethy biscuit:

Etymology:  Probably < the name of John Abernethy, British surgeon (1764–1831), who is said to have developed the biscuit as an aid to digestion.

More fully Abernethy biscuit. A hard biscuit flavoured with caraway seeds. (OED)

"One Bruichladdich whisky—the “classic” twenty-two-year-old expression—promises to deliver a dizzying chain of sensations: “sweet yellow fruits, drizzled with honey and crushed almonds”; “freshly picked summer flowers”; “custard cream and toasted barley”; “banana bread and vanilla fudge”; “marzipan”; “Abernethy biscuit”; “marine citrus meringue.""


 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Spirit guide: Reinventing a great distillery", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: tatty

The word of the day is tatty:

Etymology:  < tat n.⁵ + -y suffix¹.

colloq.

1. Of a person, an animal: untidy, disreputable, ‘scruffy’. Cf. tatty adj.¹ 

2. Of clothes, decoration, etc.: shabby, tawdry, cheap. 

3. Of a place or a building: badly cared for, neglected, run down.

4. transf. In other miscellaneous uses. (OED)

"The walls were tiled with awards and citations, and next to his computer sat a tatty thesaurus, which he uses to write the digressive essays that form the basis for the company’s official tasting notes."

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Spirit guide: Reinventing a great distillery", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: hawser

The word of the day is hawser:

Etymology:  apparently Anglo-Norman hauceour , < Old French haucier to hawse v., hoist; in reference to the original purpose of a hawser. 

Naut. 

a. A large rope or small cable, in size midway between a cable and a tow-line, between 5 and 10 inches in circumference; used in warping and mooring; in large ships now made of steel.  (OED)

"At about five-fifteen in the afternoon, the hawsers began to snap as the surge lifted the boats above the piers."

 - Ian Frazier, "The toll: Sandy and the future", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

Ondansetron study

I am very pleased to see the article “Ondansetron in Pregnancy and Risk ofAdverse Fetal Outcomes” in the New England Journal for two reasons:

1.  Drugs generally aren’t tested on pregnant women during clinical trials, so for most drugs (and food additives: see the recent FDA warning on SimplyThick), we just have no idea whether they’re safe for pregnant women or not.

2.  This is a negative result (no difference between the women who took the drug and the control).  Many journals are biased against publishing negative results, because they’re thought to be uninteresting, but knowing that a drug is safe is actually really important, so I’m glad that it’s prominently featured in the journal and on their web site.

phrase of the day: chew the scenery

The phrase of the day is chew the scenery:

to act melodramatically; overact (theatrecrafts.com)


"At the urging of the Players' director, he went on to appear in 'Night of January 16th', a melodrama by Ayn Rand in which the text itself chewed the scenery."

 - Thomas Mallon, "Wag the dog: The making of Richard Nixon", 4 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: fascia

The word of the day is fascia:

Etymology:  < Latin fascia in senses 1, 2

1. in Latin sense: A band, fillet. Obs. 

2. Archit.a. Any long flat surface of wood, stone or marble, esp. in the Doric order, the band which divides the architrave, and in the Ionic and Corinthian orders, each of the three surfaces into which the architrave is divided. 

b. A ceiling coved on two opposite sides only. 

c. Chiefly in form facia. The tablet or plate over a shop front on which is written the name and often also the trade of the occupier. Also attrib. in facia writer, sign and facia writer.

d. Chiefly in form facia. The instrument panel or dashboard of a motor vehicle. See also Compounds. 

3. Anat.a. A thin sheath of fibrous tissue investing a muscle or some special tissue or organ; an aponeurosis. 

b. The substance of which this is composed. 

4. Any object, or collection of objects, that gives the appearance of a band or stripe. 

a. Astron. The belt of a planet. 

b. Conchol. A row of perforations. 

c. Bot., Zool., and Ornithol. A band of colour. 

d. Heraldry. = fesse n.  (OED)

"Sundering
the heads and feet neatly at the joints, a poor
man's riches for golden stock.  Slitting a fissure
reaching into the chamber,
freeing the organs, the spill of intestines, blue-tinged gizzard,
the small purses of lung, the royal hearts,
easing the floppy liver, carefully, from the green gall bladder,
its bitter bile.  And the fascia unfurling
like a transparent fan."

 - Ellen Bass, "What did I love", 4 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: sandhog

The word of the day is sandhog:

U.S. a man who works underground, as in a caisson or in foundation-work; also fig. (OED)



"'We're like the aboveground sandhogs,' Bill Fitzgerald, the former director of operations at Palladium Window Solutions, which held the contract for the Hearst Tower for several years, told me one afternoon in the cluttered and windowless basement room that served as his midtown office."

 - Adam Higginbotham, "Life at the top: What a window washer sees", 4 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: chamfer

The word of the day is chamfer:

Etymology:  apparently < French chanfrein, formerly also chamfrain , chanfrain , -frin , ‘a chanfering or a channel, furrow, hollow gutter, or streake in stone-worke, etc.’ (Cotgrave), < Old French chanfraindre to chamfer v. 

1. A small groove, channel, gutter, furrow, such as may be cut in wood or stone. Obs.

2. The surface produced by bevelling off a square edge or corner equally on both sides; if made concave, it is called a hollow or concave chamfer. (OED)

"When the architect Norman Foster initially presented sketches for the Hearst Tower, the first skyscraper approved for construction in Manhattan after September 11th, one of the questions the building's prospective owners asked was: How are we going to clean those windows?  Foster's proposal featured curtain walls of glass and stainless steel hung in a diagonal grid that met at each corner of the structure in a dramatic chamfer, a zigzag bevelled edge formed of four concave diamond shapes, each sixteen feet deep and eight stories high, known as 'bird's mouths' by the architects."

 - Adam Higginbotham, "Life at the top: What a window washer sees", 4 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: humidor

The word of the day is humidor:

Etymology:  < humid adj., after cuspidor.

A box, cabinet, or room in which cigars or tobacco are kept moist; also, any apparatus, such as damp sponges, for keeping cigars, the atmosphere, etc., moist.  (OED)

"Some of the board of directors would rather have spent money on a walk-in humidor for shareholders than on a new plane,' Aboulafia says."

 - James Surowiecki, "Requiem for a Dreamliner?", 4 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: vis-à-vis

The word of the day is vis-à-vis:

Etymology:  French vis-à-vis face to face, < vis < Latin vīsum , accusative of vīsus sight, face

A. n.

1. A light carriage for two persons sitting face-to-face. Obs. exc. Hist. 

2.a. One or other of two persons or things facing, or situated opposite to, each other. 

b. esp. in dancing. Also as pl.

c. A counterpart, an opposite number. 

3. A meeting face to face; an encounter. 

B. prep.  Over against, in comparison with, in relation to; also lit., facing, face to face with.

C. adv. 

a. Opposite, so as to face (another or each other).

b. Const. to or with. (OED)

“Responses not present in the control were further analyzed by examining isotopic envelopes vis-à-vis peak spacing and abundances and checking for coelution of other charge states.”

 - Walter Davidson et al., “Characterizationof the binding site for inhibitors of the HPV11 E1-E2 protein interaction onthe E2 transactivation domain by photoaffinity labeling and mass spectrometry”, Analytical Chemistry 76:2095 (2004)

 

word of the day: isocratic

The word of the day is isocratic:

(chemistry, of an HPLC system) which resolves a solute using a solvent system that does not change composition during the run. (Wiktionary)


The elution program comprised isocratic conditions with 87.5:12:0.5 (v/v/v) chloroform/methanol/buffer (1 M formic acid, neutralized to pH 3 with triethylamine) from 0 to 7 min, followed by a linear gradient from 87.5:12:0.5 (v/v/v) to 28:60:12 (v/v/v) chloroform/methanol/buffer from 7 to 27 min."

 -  Cristina Montealegre, Vito Verardo, Ana Gómez-Caravaca, Carmen García-Ruiz, María Luisa Marina, Maria Fiorenza Caboni, "Molecular Characterization of Phospholipids by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Combined with an Evaporative Light Scattering Detector, High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Combined with Mass Spectrometry, and Gas Chromatography Combined with a Flame Ionization Detector in Different Oat Varieties", Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 60:10963 (November 7, 2012)

word of the day: actinic

The word of the day is actinic:

Etymology:  < ancient Greek ἀκτῖν-, ἀκτίς ray (see actino- comb. form) + -ic suffix.

1. Of or relating to actinism; (of light) having the ability to cause a chemical change; having a relatively high ultraviolet content; = photogenic adj. 1.
2. Esp. of a medical condition: produced or caused by the action of light; = photogenic adj. 2. (OED)

"Photoaffinity probes need to fit the following requirements: the probe must be chemically inert in the absence of actinic light; the photophore has to be activated under mild conditions and its activation must not damage the biosystem and its components; the lifetime of the excited state of the label has to be shorter than the lifetime of a ligand-receptor or another complex under study; the activated probe has to nonspecifically react with any neighboring group, including saturated CH-chains of lipids and nonpolar amino acid residues, with production of a tight covalent bond; the photophore must not induce significant disorders in the biosystem organization; the photophore introduction into the initial substance molecule must not considerably decrease the biological activity; the probe has to contain a radionuclide with a sufficiently high specific activity or an additional label attached through an elongated linker; the probe has to be available."

 - E. L. Vodovoza, "Photoaffinity Labeling and Its Application in Structural Biology", Biochemistry (Moscow) 72:1 (2007)

word of the day: actinometer

The word of the day is actinometer:

Etymology:  < actino- comb. form + -meter comb. form².

1. Originally: an instrument for measuring the heating power of the sun's radiation. Later more widely: one for measuring the intensity of solar radiation (cf. actinograph n. 1).First invented by Sir John Herschel (reported in Edinb. Jrnl. Sci. (1825) 3 107).

 2. Photogr. An apparatus by which light intensity (and hence an appropriate exposure time) can be estimated from the time taken for a piece of sensitized paper to darken to a standard shade. Now hist. 

3. Any instrument for measuring the intensity of light in or near the visible range; (also) a chemical system that measures or counts the number of photons in a beam of light. (OED)

"The quantum yield for the initial disappearance of diazirine (spectrophotometric determination), based on ferrioxalate actinometry, is 2.0 ± 0.5."

 - Michael J. Amrich and Jerry A. Bell, "Photoisomerization of Diazirine", Journal of the American Chemical Society 86:292 (January 20, 1964)

word of the day: isosbestic

The word of the day is isosbestic:

Etymology:  < German isosbestisch (A. Thiel et al. 1924, in Fortschr. d. Chem. XVIII. 116), < Greek ἴσος equal + σβεστ-ός extinguished ( < σβεννύναι to quench, extinguish): see -ic suffix.(Show Less)

Physical Chem.

1.   isosbestic point n. a wave-length at which the absorption of light by a liquid remains constant as the acidity varies or, more generally, as the state of equilibrium between two interconvertible substances or states shifts. (OED)

"Successive uv spectra of the irradiated diazirine showed an isosbestic point under these conditions."

 - Richard A. G. Smith and Jeremy R. Knowles, "Aryldiazirines.  Potential Reagents for Photolabeling of Biological Receptor Sites", Journal of the American Chemical Society 95:15 (July 25, 1973)

word of the day: knurl

The word of the day is knurl:

Etymology:  apparently a derivative (? dim.) of knur n.; but compare also knarl n., gnarl n.¹

1. A small projection, protuberance, or excrescence; a knot, knob, boss, nodule, etc.; a small bead or ridge, esp. one of a series worked upon a metal surface for ornamentation or other purpose. 

2. A thick-set, stumpy person; a deformed dwarf. dial. 

3. A knurling-tool. (OED)

"José had drawn the watch with remarkable fidelity, putting in every feature (at least every essential feature - he did not put in 'Westclox, shock resistant, made in USA), not just 'the time' (though this was faithfully registered as 11:31), but every second as well, and the inset seconds dial, and, not least, the knurled winder and trapezoid clip of the watch, used to attach it to a chain."

 - Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

word of the day: guayabera

The word of the day is guayabera:

Etymology:  < Spanish guayabera (1888 or earlier in this sense), of uncertain origin, perhaps ultimately showing a derivative of either guayaba guava or guayabo guava tree.

Chiefly U.S.

A lightweight, loose-fitting shirt for men, typically having two breast pockets and two lower front pockets, a number of vertical pleats, and short sleeves, and usually worn untucked. (OED)

"A slim, friendly man with a shaved head, Rodríguez was derssed in the informal manner of many of Chávez's ministers: a crisp white guayabera over black jeans and running shoes."

 - Jon Lee Anderson, "Slumlord: What has Hugo Chávez wrought in Venezuela?", 28 January 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: lumpen

The word of the day is lumpen:

adj. boorish, stupid, unenlightened, used derisively to describe persons, attitudes, etc., supposed to be characteristic of the lumpenproletariat; also ellipt. or as n. (OED)

which brings us to lumpenproletariat:

Etymology:  < German lumpenproletariat (K. Marx 1850, in Die Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich and 1852, in Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte), < lumpen , rag (lump ragamuffin: see lump n.¹) + proletariat (see proletariat n.)

 

 A term applied, orig. by Karl Marx, to the lowest and most degraded section of the proletariat; the ‘down and outs’ who make no contribution to the workers' cause.

"One journalist friend, Boris Muñoz, told me that the building was run by 'empowered lumpen', who controlled the residents with the same violent system that rule life inside Venzuela's prisons."

 - Jon Lee Anderson, "Slumlord: What has Hugo Chávez wrought in Venezuela?", 28 January 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: junto

The word of the day is junto:

Etymology:  Erroneous form of junta n., by assimilation to Spanish nouns in o (compare -ado suffix ). The form juncto (after Latin junctum) was very common down to 1700. 

 

1. A body of men who have joined or combined for a common purpose, especially of a political character; a self-elected committee or council; a clique, faction, or cabal; a club or coterie.

a. In politics or matters of public interest.

b. In ecclesiastical affairs. Obs.c. In general sense. 

2. = junta n. 1. Obs. (OED)

"The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security.  But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority."

 - Alexander Hamilton, as quoted by Ezra Klein, "Let's talk: The move to reform the filibuster", 28 January 2013 The New Yorker