phrase of the day: over the transom

The phrase of the day is over the transom:

offered without prior arrangement especially for publication (merriam-webster.com)


"Hume, Cloherty, and Owens don't remember where Whitten got the tip-off about the Frankfurter theft.  'We called our chief source O.T. Transom,' Owens told me,.  'For "over the transom."'"

 - Jill Lepore, "The Great Paper Caper: Someone swiped Justice Frankfurter's papers.  What else has gone missing?", 1 December 2014 The New Yorker

word of the day: casuistry

The word of the day is casuistry:

Etymology:  < French casuiste (Spanish casuista , Italian casista ), < Latin cāsus case

The science, art, or reasoning of the casuist; that part of Ethics which resolves cases of conscience, applying the general rules of religion and morality to particular instances in which ‘circumstances alter cases’, or in which there appears to be a conflict of duties. Often (and perhaps originally) applied to a quibbling or evasive way of dealing with difficult cases of duty; sophistry. (OED)


"Aside from staged eccentricity, freak tourism, and eye-popping spectacle, Ripley trafficked in anachronism, hyperbole, and casuistry."

 - Jill Lepore, "The odyssey: Robert Ripley and his world", 3 June 2013 The New Yorker

Word of the day: husting

The word of the day is husting:

Etymology:  Old English hústing, < Old Norse hús-þing, house-assembly, a council held by a king, earl, or other leader, and attended by his immediate followers, retainers, etc., in distinction from the ordinary þing or general assembly of the people (the Old English folcgemót, folkmoot n.).

 

I. In form husting.

1. An assembly for deliberative purposes, esp. one summoned by a king or other leader; a council. rare (in general sense). Obs. exc. Hist.

 

II. In form husting, pl. hustings.

2.a. A court held in the Guildhall of London by the Lord Mayor, Recorder, and Sheriffs (or Aldermen), long the supreme court of the city.The early history of this is in many points obscure. The mention of ‘husting's weight’ in the charter of Cnut (see Compounds 1) suggests that the husting had already then become a permanent institution for the transaction of civic business.

 

The Hustings or Court of Hustings was formerly a court of common pleas, of probate, of appeal against decisions of the sheriffs, a court of record for the formal conveyance of property, etc.; but it is now convoked only for the purpose of considering and registering gifts made to the City. In the Calendar for 1898 ‘Hustings’ were set down for 31 Tuesdays during the year, although there had been only one meeting since 1885.

(a) singular husting. Obs. exc. Hist.(b) plural hustings in same sense as the sing.

 

b. According to Cowell, a similar court anciently held in other cities: but it is doubtful whether this is the meaning of the passage in Fleta. 

 

III. In form hustings, now usually constr. as sing. 

3. The upper end of the Guildhall, where this Court was held; the platform on which the Mayor and Aldermen took their seats. Obs. 

4. The temporary platform from which, previous to the Ballot Act of 1872, the nomination of candidates for Parliament was made, and on which these stood while addressing the electors. Hence, contextually, the proceedings at a parliamentary election.

 

"On June 8, 1858, four days after Catherine Dickens signed a deed of separation, Edward Bulwer was speaking before his constituents in Hertford when his estranged and often outrageous wife showed up and heckled him, shouting, 'Sir Liar!'  Bulwer had married Rosina Wheeler, the daughter of a women's-rights advocate, in 1827, but he beat her, and kept a series of mistresses.  According to a well-corroborated story, he once bit his wife in the face and had to be pulled off her by the servants.  After they were legally separated, in 1836, he had their children, aged six and ten, taken away from her; she barely saw them again.  She took vengeance by writing novels–her first, 'Chevely; or, the Man of Honour,' is a satirical portrait of her husband.  After she showed up at the hustings, he had her declared insane, and committed to a lunatic asylum."

 - Jill Lepore, "Dickens in Eden: Summer vacation with 'Great Expectations'", 29 August 2011 The New Yorker

(I think that paragraph would have made a whole lot more sense if the first sentence had been moved to be the penultimate one.  I guess the author was trying to tie in the Bulwers' story with the Dickens'?)

Word of the day: optative

The word of the day is optative:


Etymology:  < Middle French, French optatif (adjective) expressing desire (15th cent.), (noun) word expressing a wish (1374), optative mood (1548) and its etymon post-classical Latin optativus (adjective) expressing desire (4th cent. in grammatical context), (noun) optative mood (4th cent.; compare Hellenistic Greek ἡ εὐκτική) < classical Latin optāt-, past participial stem of optāreoptate v. + -īvus-ive suffix. Compare Italian ottativo (early 14th cent. as †optativo, noun and adjective), Spanish optativo (1490 as noun), both in grammatical sense. 

A. adj. 
1. Grammar. Having the function of expressing wish or desire.   optative mood (also mode) n.  [translating post-classical Latin optativus modus (4th cent.), in turn translating Hellenistic Greek εὐκτικὴ ἔγκλισις] the mood or form of the verb of which a prominent function is the expression of wish or desire, as in ancient Greek μὴ γένοιτο ‘may it not happen!’. 
2.a. Relating to choice, or expressing desire; relating to the future and to the decisions it involves. 
b. Roman Law.  [Translating classical Latin optīvus.] = optive adj. Obs. rare.

"In an hour-long talk, rife with allusions to Leibniz, Hume, Kierkegaard, Wilde, Woolf, and Hardy, Miller offered a reading of 'Great Expectations' in which he argued that the novel is defined by 'the optative mode of self-understanding,' an experience of modern life, in which everything is what it is but could have been something else."

 - Jill Lepore, "Dickens in Eden: Summer vacation with 'Great Expectations'", 29 August 2011 The New Yorker