Word of the day: buckra

The word of the day is buckra:

—noun Southern U.S. (chiefly South Atlantic States) .

1. Usually Disparaging and Offensive. a term used to refer to a white man.

disparaging term among U.S. blacks for "white person," especially a poor one, 1790, apparently from an African language; cf. mbakara "master" in Efik, a language of the Ibibio people of southern Nigeria.

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

"Marginalized and without demand for their labor, poor whites bore up under rude epithets—crackers, white trash, po buckra."

 - Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

Word of the day: apparat

The word of the day is apparat:

an organization or existing power structure, especially a political one

"administrative machinery of the Communist Party in Russia," 1950, from Rus., from Ger. apparat "apparatus, instrument," from L. apparatus (see apparatus).

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

"Fox News Business Network commentator Lou Dobbs commented in 2011 that 'as it's being run now, [the EPA] could be part of the apparat of the Soviet Union.'"

 - Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

Word of the day: menshevik

The word of the day is menshevik:

1. a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party in opposition to the Bolsheviks: advocated gradual development of full socialism through parliamentary government and cooperation with bourgeois parties; absorbed into the Communist party formed in 1918.

1917, from Rus. men'shevik, from men'she "lesser" (comp. of malo "little," from PIE base *men- "to lessen, diminish") + -evik "one that is." So called by Lenin because they were a minority in the party. Earlier used in ref. to the minority faction of the Social-Democratic Party, when it split in 1903. Russian pl. mensheviki occasionally was used in Eng.

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

"Maybe this was the main reason Mike was later to tell me, in reference to the 2016 presidential election and only half jokingly, that he could never bring himself to vote for the menshevik (Hillary Clinton) or the bolshevik (Bernie Sanders)."

 - Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right