gonkulator

"A pretentious piece of equipment that actually serves no useful purpose. Usually used to describe one's least favorite piece of computer hardware."

-
from here > to here > to here

women were excluded from shaping the paradigm they are now being paradoxically judged within

Christian Patterson on the LoC P&P

at after Momus (whose Bonsai Tree is still echoing through here)

"Luckily language is never in the exclusive control of scholars; it does not belong to them alone, as they are often inclined to believe; it belongs to all who have it as a mother-tongue. It is governed not by elected representatives but by a direct democracy, by the people as a whole assembled in town-meeting."

Brander Matthews, Essays in English 8-9 (1922)

Garner's Usage Tip of the Day

Fifty Years in Chains or The Life of an American Slave
-
from the archives:

a piece of the slave ship Clothilde
-
Melungeons
-
Portraits of African American ex-slaves
-
Bell Rack

An even more learned equivalent is "fugacious," which is a literary word as well as a botanical term describing plants that wither or drop their leaves early.

Garner's Usage Tip of the Day

Inconstant Star