Word of the day: Ti' Punch

The word of the day is Ti' Punch:

Down in Martinique and Guadeloupe, rhum agricole country, the preferred way of absorbing the daily ration is in a Ti' Punch -- ti' being how you say petit in the Creole they speak down there. Any drink that has "little" in its name, watch out -- it's like the guy they call Tiny, the one standing over by the keg whom you mistook for a piece of earthmoving equipment. Like the Cuban daiquiri or the Brazilian caipirinha, this do-it-yourself classic (a lot of joints just put the ingredients out and let you have at 'em) uses lime and a cane-based sweetener to take the edge off the hooch. The difference is in the form of the sweetener: For a true Ti' Punch, you need cane syrup, the raw juice of the cane boiled down until thick. This is richer and mellower (and less sweet) than the refined white sugar usually used in drinks, yet not as heavy and sulfurous as molasses; in any case, it's the perfect foil for the rhum. Also -- you're supposed to knock it back in one shot. In the morning.

(http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/recipes/a3856/ti-punch-drink-recipe/)

"Each of the country’s eighteen regions sponsors an area highlighting its gastronomy. Slurp down some oysters in Arcachon, grab some choucroute in Alsace, and then turn a corner and you’re in Martinique, drinking Ti’ Punch."

 - Lauren Collins, "Come to the fair: the food-and-booze fest that is France's national agricultural exhibition", 4 April 2016 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/04/inside-the-salon-international-de-lagriculture)

Word of the day: bleisure

The word of the day is bleisure:

It is a portmanteau of business and leisure, and is used to describe what some people claim is a new type of business traveller: one who fits in leisure travel while on the road.

(http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2015/03/mixing-business-and-leisure)

"Microtourism is not glamping (no yurt) or bleisure (no work) or minimooning (no wedding)."

 - Lauren Collins, "Come to the fair: the food-and-booze fest that is France's national agricultural exhibition", 4 April 2016 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/04/inside-the-salon-international-de-lagriculture)

Word of the day: self-actualization

The word of the day is self-actualization:

—noun Psychology.

1. the achievement of one's full potential through creativity, independence, spontaneity, and a grasp of the real world.

1939, from self + actualization. Popularized, though not coined, by U.S. psychologist and philosopher Abraham H. Maslow. (1908-1970).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/self-actualization)

(Amy Kurzweil, 4 April 2016 The New Yorker)

Word of the day: scud

The word of the day is scud:

1. to run or move quickly or hurriedly.
2. Nautical. to run before a gale with little or no sail set.
3. Archery. (of an arrow) to fly too high and wide of the mark.

"to move quickly," 1532, perhaps a variant of M.E. scut "rabbit, rabbit's tail," in reference to its movements, perhaps from O.N. skjota "to throw, shoot" (cf. Norw. skudda "to shove, push"), but there are phonetic difficulties. Perhaps rather from a N.Sea Gmc. source akin to M.L.G., M.Du. schudden "to shake."

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scud)

"The clouds had scudded away, and in their place the moon and stars shone crisp and bright."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: reef

The word of the day is reef:

1. a part of a sail that is rolled and tied down to reduce the area exposed to the wind.

—verb (used with object)

2. to shorten (sail) by tying in one or more reefs.

"horizontal section of sail," late 14c., from O.N. rif "reef of a sail," probably a transferred use of rif "ridge, rib" (see rib). Cf. Ger. reff, Swed. ref, Norw. riv, Dan. reb, all from the O.N. word. Reefer as a nickname for "midshipman" (1818) is source of the meaning "coat of a nautical cut" (1878).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reef)

"Melville's whaleboat, meanwhile, was proving so swift that he had difficulty maintaining his designated position astern of the captain's cutter.  Melville tried reefing his sail, and still he kept gaining."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: clapboard

The word of the day is clapboard:

1. Chiefly Northeastern U.S. a long, thin board, thicker along one edge than the other, used in covering the outer walls of buildings, being laid horizontally, the thick edge of each board overlapping the thin edge of the board below it.

c.1520, partial transl. of M.Du. klapholt (borrowed into Eng. 14c.), from klappen "to fit" + L.Ger. holt "wood, board."

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/clapboard)

"Like the other boats, she was clinker-built—which meant that the wooden planks of her hull overlapped in the fashion of a clapboard house."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: transom

The word of the day is transom:

1. a crosspiece separating a door or the like from a window or fanlight above it.
2. Also called transom light, transom window. a window above such a crosspiece.
3. a crossbar of wood or stone, dividing a window horizontally.
4. a window so divided.
5. Nautical.
   1. a flat termination to a stern, above the water line.
   2. framework running athwartships in way of the sternpost of a steel or iron vessel, used as a support for the frames of the counter.
6. Artillery. a metal piece connecting the sidepieces of the tail or the cheeks of a gun carriage.

1388, transeyn "crossbeam spanning an opening, lintel," probably by dissimilation from L. transtrum "crossbeam" (especially one spanning an opening), from trans- "across" + instrumental suffix -trum. Meaning "small window over a door or other window" is first recorded 1844.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/transom)

"De Long's cutter was twenty feet, four inches from her bow to her transom stern, with a breadth of six feet at her widest point."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: thwart

The word of the day is thwart:

—noun

4. a seat across a boat, especially one used by a rower.
5. a transverse member spreading the gunwales of a canoe or the like.

c.1200, from O.N. þvert "across," originally neut. of thverr (adj.) "transverse, across," cognate with O.E. þweorh "transverse, perverse, angry, cross," from P.Gmc. *thwerkhaz (cf. M.Du. dwers, Du. dwars "cross-grained, contrary," O.H.G. twerh, Ger. quer, Goth. þwairhs "angry"), altered (by influence of *thwer- "to turn") from *therkh-, from PIE *twork-/*twerk- "twist" (cf. L. torquere "to twist," Skt. tarkuh "spindle," O.C.S. traku "band, girdle," O.H.G. drahsil "turner," Ger. drechseln "to turn on a lathe"). The verb meaning "oppose, hinder" is mid-13c., from the adv. and prep.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thwart)

"Melville's whaleboat came closest to disaster.  At one point, wrote Danenhower, 'a heavy green sea swept over the whole port side and filled her to the thwarts; she staggered and commenced to settle, but every man with a baler in hand quickly relieved her, and she floated again.'"

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: bastinado

The word of the day is bastinado:

1. a mode of punishment consisting of blows with a stick on the soles of the feet or on the buttocks.
2. a blow or a beating with a stick, cudgel, etc.
3. a stick or cudgel.

1570s, from Sp. bastonada "a beating, cudgeling," from baston "stick," from L.L. bastum (see baton).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bastinado)

"De Long noted that after a week of warm weather, everyone was suddenly 'freezing all the time."  Some used sticks to beat their feet 'as a bastinado,' to bring back their circulation.  This dubious technique, 'though making our feet tingle, hardly added to our comfort.'"

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: collodion

The word of the day is collodion:

1. a yellowish, viscous, highly flammable solution of pyroxylin in ether and alcohol: used in the manufacture of photographic film, in engraving and lithography, and in medicine chiefly for cementing dressings and sealing wounds.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/collodion)

Pyroxylin is another name for nitrocellulose: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/image/imagefly.cgi?cid=44263835&width=100&height=100

"The suppurating sore on Alexey's leg would not heal, even though Ambler diligently kept it dressed in collodion solution and clean bandages."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: mephitic

The word of the day is mephitic:

1. offensive to the smell.
2. noxious; pestilential; poisonous.

1620s, from L.L. mephiticus, from L. mephitis "noxious vapor" (also personified as a goddess believed to have the power to avert it).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mephitic)

"Inuits from far and wide believed that this seething mephitic realm was the place where the souls of the recently deceased entered the underworld."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of the Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: maar

The word of the day is maar:

1. a circular volcanic landform resulting from explosive ash eruptions.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/maar)

"All around St. Michael was an extensive volcanic field, with more than fifty cones, craters, and maar lakes pocking the surrounding tundra."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of the Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: sough

The word of the day is sough:

1. to make a rushing, rustling, or murmuring sound: the wind soughing in the meadow.
2. Scot. and North England. to speak, especially to preach, in a whining, singsong voice.

"to make a moaning or murmuring sound," O.E. swogan, from P.Gmc. *swoganan (cf. O.S. swogan "to rustle," Goth. gaswogjan "to sigh"), from PIE imitative base *(s)wagh- (cf. Gk. echo). The noun is c.1381, from the verb.

"Seawater steadily lapped at the undersides of the floes, creating a soughing sound that was comforting in its constancy, like the flutter of a million insect wings."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: davit

The word of the day is davit:

1. any of various cranelike devices used singly or in pairs for supporting, raising, and lowering especially boats, anchors, and cargo over a hatchway or side of a ship.

also david, "crane-like structure used to lower things down off a ship, etc.," late 15c., apparently a use of the masc. proper name David on the pattern of applying common Christian names to useful devices (cf. jack, jenny, jimmy).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/davit)

"Cole and Sweetman, operating the davits, swung the cutters and one of the whaleboats onto the ice."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: the Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: cyclopean

The word of the day is cyclopean:

1. of or characteristic of the Cyclops.
2. (sometimes lowercase) gigantic; vast.
3. (usually lowercase) Architecture, Building Trades. formed with or containing large, undressed stones fitted closely together without the use of mortar: a cyclopean wall.

1640s, from L. cyclopeus, from Gk. kyklopeios, from kyklopes (see cyclops).

"Warmth and water brought the foretaste of freedom...  'We knew that the important moment was coming,' Danenhower said, 'when the Jeannette would be liberated from her cyclopean vise.'"

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: Fata Morgana

The word of the day is Fata Morgana:

1. Meteorology. a mirage consisting of multiple images, as of cliffs and buildings, that are distorted and magnified to resemble elaborate castles, often seen near the Straits of Messina.

1818, lit. "Fairy Morgana," mirage especially common in the Strait of Messina, Italy, from Morgana, the "Morgan le Fay" of Anglo-Fr. poetry, sister of King Arthur, located in Calabria by Norman settlers. Morgan is Welsh, "sea-dweller." There is perhaps, too, here an infl. of Arabic marjan, lit. "pearl," also a fem. proper name, popularly the name of a sorceress.

"It was just a vision in the distance, maybe fifty miles off, a nub of gray standing proud of the hummocks and pressure ridges.  For several days, Captain De Long studied this curiosity, wondering if it might be an illusion—a refraction of light, perhaps, a fata morgana."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: purulent

The word of the day is purulent:

1. full of, containing, forming, or discharging pus; suppurating: a purulent sore.
2. attended with suppuration: purulent appendicitis.
3. of the nature of or like pus: purulent matter.

1597, from M.Fr. purulent, from L. purulentus "full of pus," from pus (gen. puris) "pus" (see pus).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/purulent)

"The procedure was a partial success, but over the next six months, Ambler would have to operate, again and again, to drain the 'purulent matter' off the eye."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: roister

The word of the day is roister:

1. to act in a swaggering, boisterous, or uproarious manner.
2. to revel noisily or without restraint.

1582, from an obsolete noun roister "noisy bully" (1551), from M.Fr. ruistre "ruffian," from O.Fr. ruste "rough country fellow," from L. rusticus (see rustic).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/roister)

"This was the season when the ships from San Francisco arrived, when hundreds of Indians and Eskimos camped outside the fort to meet with representatives of the fur companies, to trade pelts and skins and dried fish for calico and guns and rum...  It was a time of roistering and wrestling and tug-of-war contests under the midnight sun, a time of 'mallemaroking,' as the whalers called their drunken sprees."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: theodolite

The word of the day is theodolite:

1. Surveying. a precision instrument having a telescopic sight for establishing horizontal and sometimes vertical angles. Compare transit (def 6).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theodolite)

"Stevedores hauled the Jeannette's weapons on deck...  Next came the navigational and scientific equipment: chronometers, hydrometers, ozonometers, magnetometers, aneroid barometers, transits, sextants, pendulums, zenith telescopes, microscopes, test tubes, Bunsen burners, theodolites."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: aneroid barometer

The word of the day is aneroid barometer:

1. a device for measuring atmospheric pressure, often specially calibrated for use as an altimeter, consisting of a box or chamber partially exhausted of air, having an elastic top and a pointer to indicate the degree of compression of the top caused by the external air.

Compare mercury barometer. 

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/aneroid+barometer)

"Stevedores hauled the Jeannette's weapons on deck...  Next came the navigational and scientific equipment: chronometers, hydrometers, ozonometers, magnetometers, aneroid barometers, transits, sextants, pendulums, zenith telescopes, microscopes, test tubes, Bunsen burners, theodolites."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Phrase of the day: pro forma

The phrase of the day is pro forma:

1. according to form; as a matter of form; for the sake of form.
2. Commerce. provided in advance of shipment and merely showing the description and quantity of goods shipped without terms of payment: a pro forma invoice.
3. Accounting. indicating hypothetical financial figures based on previous business operations for estimate purposes: a pro forma balance sheet.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pro+forma)

"The De Longs' meeting with President Hayes was largely a pro forma affair.  'He knew nothing about Arctic exploration,' Emma said, 'and was only doing his duty in having us.'"

 - Hampton Sides: In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: mansard

The word of the day is mansard:

1. Also called mansard roof. a hip roof, each face of which has a steeper lower part and a shallower upper part. Compare French roof.
2. the story under such a roof.

1734, from Fr. mansarde, short for toit à la mansarde, named for Fr. architect Nicholas François Mansart (1598-1666).

"It was a six-story establishment with a mansard roof and a continental restaurant that served such delicacies as 'broiled redhead duck with currant jelly sauce.'"

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: cooper

The word of the day is cooper:

1. a person who makes or repairs casks, barrels, etc.

"craftsman who makes wooden vessels," attested from 1176 as a surname, either from O.E. (unattested) or from a Low Ger. source akin to M.Du. cuper, E.Fris. kuper, from Low Ger. kupe (Ger. Kufe) "cask," cognate with M.L. cupa (see coop)."A dry cooper makes casks, etc., to hold dry goods, a wet cooper those to contain liquids, a white cooper pails, tubs, and the like for domestic or dairy use." [OED]The surname Cowper (pronounced "cooper") preserves a 15c. spelling.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cooper)

"Each morning, the bell announced the start of the shift, and the crews of tradesmen—carpenters and coppersmiths, tinsmiths and teamsters, plumbers and painters, caulkers and coopers—went about their smoky, cacophonous work."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: strake

The word of the day is strake:

1. Nautical. a continuous course of planks or plates on a ship forming a hull shell, deck, etc.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/strake)

"Captain De Long scrutinized his weather-beaten ship in the golden California light, going over every valve and fitting, every strake of her long hull."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: passerine

The word of the day is passerine:

1. of, belonging, or pertaining to the order Passeriformes, comprising more than half of all birds and typically having the feet adapted for perching.

1776, from L. passerinus "of a sparrow," from passer "sparrow," possibly of imitative origin. The noun is 1842, from the adj.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/passerine)

Read more about Passeriformes here: http://www.nhptv.org/wild/Passeriformes.asp

"Later in the morning, a pair of songbirds that evidently had blown in on the storm circled the ship and landed on the deck.  They were probably from Brazil, two beautiful passerine birds of a species no one aboard recognized."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: hachuring

The word of the day is hachuring:

—noun

1. one of a series of short parallel lines drawn on a map to indicate topographic relief.
2. shading composed of such lines; hatching.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hachuring)

"Petermann greeted Bennett in the drafting room of his institute, where teams of apprentice cartographers sat hunkered over their tilted tables, working with compasses and horsehair paintbrushes and hachuring pens."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: rime

The word of the day is rime:

—noun

1. Also called rime ice. an opaque coating of tiny, white, granular ice particles, caused by the rapid freezing of supercooled water droplets on impact with an object. Compare frost(def 2), glaze (def 17).

—verb (used with object), rimed,rim·ing.

2. to cover with rime or hoarfrost.

"hoarfrost," O.E. hrim, from P.Gmc. *khrima- (cf. O.N. hrim, Du. rijm, Ger. Reif). O.Fr. rime is of Gmc. origin. Rare in M.E., surviving mainly in Scottish and northern Eng., revived in literary use late 18c.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rime)

"They were enveloped in a dense freezing fog, and all the rigging became rimed in ice."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: meerschaum

The word of the day is meerschaum:

1. a mineral, hydrous magnesium silicate, H ₄ Mg ₂ Si ₃ O _1 0 , occurring in white, claylike masses, used for ornamental carvings, for pipe bowls, etc.; sepiolite.
2. a tobacco pipe with a bowl made of this substance.

1789, "tobacco pipe with a bowl made of meerschaum," a type of soft white clay, from Ger., lit. "sea-foam," so called from its frothy appearance, translation of L. spuma maris, from Pers. kef-i-darya.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meerschaum)

"Whenever he had a moment to sit, he could usually be found smoking a meerschaum pipe, his head buried in a book."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: barkentine

The word of the day is barkentine:

1. a sailing vessel having three or more masts, square-rigged on the foremast and fore-and-aft-rigged on the other masts.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/barkentine)

"On a misty morning in late April 1873, the Tigress, a steam barkentine out of Conception Bay, Newfoundland, was pushing through the loose floes and bergs off the coast of Labrador, heading for the seasonal seal-hunting grounds."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: altricial

The word of the day is altricial:

1. helpless at birth or hatching and requiring parental care for a period of time (opposed to precocial )

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/altricial)

"The classic anthropological hypothesis known as the 'obstetrical dilemma' is a well-known explanation for human altriciality, a condition that has significant implications for human social and behavioral evolution.  The hypothesis holds that antagonistic selection for a large neonatal brain and a narrow, bipedal-adapted birth canal poses a problem for childbirth; the hominin 'solution' is to truncate gestation, resulting in an altricial neonate."

 - Holly M. Dunsworth et al., "Metabolic hypothesis for human altriciality", PNAS 109:15212 (September 18, 2012)

Word of the day: kinesics

The word of the day is kinesics:

1. the study of body movements, gestures, facial expressions, etc., as a means of communication.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kinesics)

"After conducting fieldwork together in New Guinea, Bateson and Mead coproduced ethnographic films and photodocumentation of Balinese kinesics."

- Montgomery McFate, "Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship", March - April 2005 Military Review

Word of the day: sisal

The word of the day is sisal:

—noun

1. Also called sisal hemp. a fiber yielded by an agave, Agave sisalana, of Yucatán, used for making rope, rugs, etc.
2. the plant itself.

"While Morley and company found no German submarine bases, he did produce nearly 10,000 pages of intelligence reports documenting everything from navigable shoreline features to the economic impact of sisal production."

- Montgomery McFate, "Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship", March - April 2005 Military Review

Word of the day: subaltern

The word of the day is subaltern:

1. lower in rank; subordinate: a subaltern employee.
2. British Military. noting a commissioned officer below the rank of captain.
3. Logic.
   1. denoting the relation of one proposition to another when the first proposition is implied by the second but the second is not implied by the first.
   2. (in Aristotelian logic) denoting the relation of a particular proposition to a universal proposition having the same subject, predicate, and quality.
   3. of or pertaining to a proposition having either of these relations to another.

—noun

4. a person who has a subordinate position.
5. British Military. a commissioned officer below the rank of captain.
6. Logic. a subaltern proposition.

"subordinate," c.1400 (implied in subalternal), from M.Fr. subalterne, from L.L. subalternus, from L. sub "under" + alternus "every other (one), one after the other" (see alternate). The noun meaning "person of inferior rank" is attested from 1605; as the designation of an army officer, from 1690.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/subaltern)

"Rejecting anthropology's status as the handmaiden of colonialism, anthropologists refused to 'collaborate' with the powerful, instead vying to represent the interests of indigenous peoples engaged in neocolonial struggles.  In the words of Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, anthropologists would now speak for the 'subaltern.'" 

- Montgomery McFate, "Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship", March - April 2005 Military Review

Word of the day: epistemology

The word of the day is epistemology:

1. a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.

"theory of knowledge," 1856, coined by Scot. philosopher James F. Ferrier (1808-64) from Gk. episteme "knowledge," from Ionic Gk. epistasthai "know how to do, understand," lit. "overstand," from epi- "over, near" + histasthai "to stand." The scientific (as opposed to philosophical) study of the roots and paths of knowledge is epistemics (1969).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epistemology)

"One of the central epistemological tenets of anthropology is cultural relativism—understanding other societies from within their own framework."

 - Montgomery McFate, "Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship", March - April 2005 Military Review

Word of the day: chevron

The word of the day is chevron:

1. a badge consisting of stripes meeting at an angle, worn on the sleeve by noncommissioned officers, police officers, etc., as an indication of rank, service, or the like.
2. an ornament in this form, as on a molding.
3. Also called chevron weave.herringbone (def 2a).
4. Heraldry. an ordinary in the form of an inverted V .

1390s, from O.Fr. chevron "rafter," since it looks like rafters of a shallow roof, from V.L. *caprione, from L. caper "goat," the likely connection between goats and rafters being the animal's angular hind legs.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chevron)

"Geese among the bulrushes hear his song and taste the chill in the new air.  Sluggishly at first, waking from the nesting dream, they recall the exquisite urgency of the chevron, and begin to trumpet their intentions."

 - Bill Willingham, Fables: Farewell