Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Vocabulary

  • Word of the Day: Bafflegab

    Gobbledygook

  • Melum ut in pluribus

    I am having trouble understanding the above Latin expression. I encountered it in Theodor Haecker, Kierkegaard the Cripple (tr. C. Van O. Bruyn, New York: Philosophical Library, 1950) in the passage: Not only for Augustine, but also for that Christian whose teaching is most perfectly harmonious, Thomas Aquinas, the evil in the world was always…

  • Word of the Day: Triolet

    Here: An eight-line stanza having just two rhymes and repeating the first line as the fourth and seventh lines, and the second line as the eighth. See Sandra McPherson’s “Triolet” or “Triolets in the Argolid” by Rachel Hadas.  Return   The taste is strong as ever, figs and cheese and wine. I recall each savor; the taste is…

  • Sub-distinguishing the lie?

    What does "sub-distinguishing the lie" mean in the following passage from A. J. A. Symons, The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (NYRB, 2001, p. 73): He [Frederick Rolfe, a.k.a. 'Baron Corvo'] was wont to condemn the alleged laxity of the Roman Communion in the matter of truthfulness, and its sub-distinguishing the lie. He…

  • ‘Arguable’: a Near-Contronym

    'Arguable' is a word that a careful writer, one who strives for clarity of expression, should probably avoid.  I have always used it to mean: it may be plausibly argued that.  But then I noticed that some use it to mean: open to dispute, questionable.  These two meanings, though not polar opposites, are inconsistent.   The…

  • Word of the Day: Anfractuous

    Merriam-Webster: : full of windings and intricate turnings : TORTUOUS   The Unbreakable Anfractuous Plots and paths can be anfractuous. They twist and turn but do not break. Never mind that the English word comes ultimately from the Latin verb frangere, meaning "to break." (Frangere is also the source of fracture, fraction, fragment, and frail.) But one of the steps between frangere and anfractuous is Latin anfractus, meaning "coil,…

  • Word of the Day: Perseveration

    Leftists want to limit your vocabulary so as to limit your thought and make you easier to control.  They want total control. David Horowitz says it well on his masthead, "Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out."  (When a transgressive calls herself 'progressive,' you know there's a cesspool of mendacity up ahead.)…

  • Word of the Day: ‘Phatic’

    phatic /făt′ĭk/   adjective Of or relating to communication used to perform a social function rather than to convey information or ideas. Pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship e.g polite mood, rather than meaning; for example, "How are you?" is often not a literal question but is said only as a…

  • Allyship?

    Explained here. Is this a parody? Word found here: “I started to see these intelligent, educated people, whose mission is to make our system better for people of color, suddenly posting all this anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian stuff,” Rose said. “I’m not changing my values, but screw the allyship. I will not stop fighting, because I believe…

  • Steel Yourselves, Conservatives

    This is a good article. Read it. Not just analysis. The author makes some suggestions for action. And I learned a new word from it, polycule.

  • When Vocabulary Contracts . . .

    . . . thought contracts with it.

  • ‘Depredatory’

    The phrase 'depredatory Left' popped into my head this morning. I asked myself whether 'depredatory' is a recognized adjective. Then I thought, "If it isn't, it ought to be, and I shall introduce it." Well it's already in recognized dictionaries, as it ought to be. 

  • Word of the Day: Peritus

    Merriam-Webster: "an expert (as in theology or canon law) who advises and assists the hierarchy (as in the drafting of schemata) at a Vatican council." I was sent to the dictionary by this communication from Tony Flood: Bill, I remember Lonergan and other Vatican II periti refer[ring] disparagingly (in their writings) to the "theology of the manuals,"…

  • Words of the Day: ‘Claque’ and ‘Clique’

    Definitions and differentiation here.

  • Word of the Day: Cack-Handed

    Substack latest. Short. Entertaining. Makes important points about language and male-female relations.  Improve your vocabulary. Read it! Leftists, especially those of the 'woke'-Orwellian stripe, do not want you to have a large vocabulary. They do not want you to be able to think in a nuanced manner.