51吃瓜 of the Day
More about celerity
Celerity, 鈥渟wiftness; speed,鈥� comes via Middle French 肠茅濒茅谤颈迟茅 from Latin 肠别濒别谤颈迟腻蝉 (inflectional stem 肠别濒别谤颈迟腻迟-) 鈥渟wiftness, quickness, speed,鈥� a derivative of the adjective celer. Celer comes from the Proto-Indo-European root kel– 鈥渢o drive, incite to quick motion鈥� and the suffix –es– (Old Latin keles– regularly changes to Classical Latin celer-). The Latin adjective celeber, also celebris 鈥渂usy, crowded, frequented鈥� (source of English celebrate, celebrated) is also formed from kel-. The root also appears in Greek 办茅濒脓蝉 鈥渞unner, racer, racehorse, fast ship.鈥� Celerity entered English in the second half of the 15th century.
how is celerity used?
At both forms of interview, the majority are not attending and taking notes because a court stenographer is doing it for them. With breathtaking celerity鈥攚ithin ten minutes鈥攖ranscripts of both the flash interviews and the longer interviews are produced, reproduced, machine-stapled, never proofread, and placed in wall racks, where they are collected by the journalists.
Minutes after my delayed arrival Schneier had with characteristic celerity packed himself and me into a taxi.
celerity
Fletcherize
verb (used with or without object)
to chew (food) slowly and thoroughly.
More about Fletcherize
Fletcherize, 鈥渢o chew (food) slowly and thoroughly so as to extract its maximum nutrition,鈥� is named after Horace Fletcher (1849-1919), a self-taught U.S. nutritionist and author. During his lifetime Fletcher was known as the 鈥淕reat Masticator鈥� for his insistence that food be chewed until liquefied before swallowing and for his slogan “Nature will castigate those who don’t masticate.” Other food reformers of the 19th century include Sylvester Graham (1794-1851), who inspired the graham cracker. Herman Melville refers to graham crackers in his novel Pierre; or The Ambiguities (1852): 鈥淭hey went about huskily muttering the Kantian Categories through teeth and lips dry and dusty as any miller’s, with the crumbs of Graham crackers.” And John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) was a U.S. physician and nutritionist best known today for his invention of corn flakes. Fletcherize entered English in the early 20th century.
how is Fletcherize used?
Ottla always said how kind and gentle her brother was … and how the Kafka family worried about his digestion and how boring it was to sit and watch him Fletcherize聽his food.
Yet one reason 鈥淭he Voyeur鈥檚 Motel鈥� is gripping is that Mr. Talese doesn鈥檛 fletcherize his material. He lays out what he knows and does not know in sentences that are as crisp as good Windsor knots.
Fletcherize
More about noetic
Noetic, 鈥渞elating to the mind; originating in or comprehended by the reason,鈥� is very common in all genres of Greek literature, but especially in Platonic, Aristotelian, and Neoplatonic philosophy. The word comes straight from the Greek adjective 苍辞脓迟颈办贸蝉 鈥渋ntellectual,鈥� a derivative of the noun 苍贸脓蝉颈蝉 鈥渢hought, intelligence.鈥� 狈贸脓蝉颈蝉 is a derivative of the verb 苍辞别卯苍, which in turn comes from the noun 苍辞没蝉, the Attic Greek contracted variant of general Greek 苍贸辞蝉 鈥渕ind, sense, intellect鈥� (Attic Greek, the dialect of Attica, whose capital was Athens, was the basis for Koine or standardized Greek after the late 4th century). As with about 60 percent of ancient Greek vocabulary, there is no convincing etymology for 苍辞没蝉, 苍贸辞蝉. In colloquial British usage, nous (rhyming with mouse, not with moose) also means 鈥渃ommon sense, practical intelligence.鈥� Noetic entered English in the middle of the 17th century.
how is noetic used?
The Kyaanusili peace poem is as tightly patterned as a sonnet, as symmetrical and strophic as a Greek choral ode, and in its way as richly rhymed as a troubadour song鈥攁nd yet these patterns, strophes, rhymes, are made primarily of ideas and of images, only secondarily sounds. This is noetic prosody.
He is a noetic butterfly that no one has pinned down鈥攈e was once offered a job on the Clinton economic team, and the Bush campaign approached him about being a crime adviser鈥攂ut who is widely appreciated.
noetic