Words that you don't see everyday

If verbs ever needed a spokesperson, they'd find the perfect candidate in the naturalist and author Terry Tempest Williams, who once said: This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, argue, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek. To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers.

Williams said it well. Verbs make words come alive. Verbs are the words, literally, from Latin verbum (word). This week we'll look at five specimens from this tribe of words.

asseverate

PRONUNCIATION:

(uh-SEV-uh-rayt) MEANING:

verb tr.: To affirm solemnly.
ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin asseverare (to declare in earnest), from severus (serious). Ultimately from the Indo-European root segh- (to hold), which is also the source of words such as hectic, scheme, scholar, and cathect.
USAGE:

"I asseverate from experience that some of my correspondence opponents do make use of a program."
Peter Gibbs; Pastimes: Chess; Birmingham Post (UK); Oct 9, 2004.

scarper

PRONUNCIATION:
(SKAHR-puhr) MEANING:
verb intr.: To flee, especially without paying one's bills.

ETYMOLOGY:
The term is a Briticism and its origin isn't confirmed. It's probably from Italian scappare (to escape), influenced by Cockney rhyming slang Scapa Flow, to go. Scapa Flow is an area of water off the northern coast of Scotland, in the Orkney Islands. It was the main British naval base during WW I & II, known for the scuttling of the German fleet.

USAGE:
"I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major's Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism."
J.K. Rowling; The Single Mother's Manifesto; The Times (London, UK); Apr 14, 2010.

imbricate

PRONUNCIATION:
(adj: IM-bri-kit, -kayt; verb: IM-bri-kayt) MEANING:
adjective: Having overlapping edges, as tiles on a roof or scales on a fish.
verb tr., intr.: To overlap as roof tiles or fish scales.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin imbricare (to cover with pantiles: semicylindrical tiles), from imbrex (pantile), from imber (rain).

USAGE:
"In that region [Skopje], yesterday as today, allegiance to the Church was more than a merely confessional matter. It was, and is, imbricated with a series of loyalties to nation, region, and even party."
Christopher Hitchens; The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice; Verso Books; 1995.

batten

PRONUNCIATION:
(BAT-n) MEANING:
1. verb: To fatten or to grow fat; to thrive and prosper at another's expense.
2. noun: A long strip of wood, metal, or plastic used for strengthening something.
3. verb: To fasten or secure using battens.

ETYMOLOGY:
For 1: From Old Norse batna (to improve). Ultimately from the Indo-European root bhad- (good), which is also the source of the words better and best.
For 2, 3: From Old French batre (to beat), from Latin battuere (to beat).

NOTES:
The term is often heard in the idiom "to batten down the hatches" meaning to prepare for a difficult situation or an impending disaster. It is nautical in origin. Literally speaking, to batten down is to cover a ship's hatch (an opening in the deck) with a tarpaulin and strips of wood in preparation for an imminent storm.

USAGE:
"Once-promising migrant visa plan shelved as U.S. battens down the hatches."
James Blears; Stuck in Limbo; Business Mexico (Mexico City); 2003.

vellicate

PRONUNCIATION:
(VEL-i-kayt) MEANING:
verb tr., intr.:
1. To twitch or to cause to twitch.
2. To pluck, nip, irritate, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin vellicare, frequentative of vellere (to pull, pluck, or twitch).

NOTES:
The great lexicographer Samuel Johnson used this word in one of his definitions "Cough: A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity" and broke one of the premier commandments of dictionary making: don't define a word using a harder word (serosity refers to serum: watery fluid in an animal body).

USAGE:
"I have seen old folk flung to the ground by these paroxysmal and vellicating vehicles."
Paul Johnson; And Another Thing; The Spectator (London, UK); Jun 25, 2005.

With all the hassles of air travel, it's no fun flying any more. Things are different in A.Word.A.Day though. We'll fly you to places far and wide without having to remove remove shoes and jacket and walk through the see-thru scanners at the airport.
This week we have picked five fabled destinations, places that exist only in our collective imagination. So tighten your seat belts and enjoy the ride. You're not in Kansas anymore.

utopia

PRONUNCIATION:
(yoo-TOH-pee-uh) MEANING:
noun:
1. An ideal place or state.
2. An impractical scheme for social or political reform.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Utopia, an imaginary ideal island in the book Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More, from Greek ou (not) + topos (place).

USAGE:
"As we believe simplicity contributes to a peaceful life, we have not bought into the utopia promised by consumerism."
Harry MacLure; Mush Register; The Hindu (Chennai, India); Mar 22, 2010.

cockaigne

PRONUNCIATION:
(kaw-KAYN) MEANING:
noun: An imaginary land of luxury and idleness.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Middle French pais de cocaigne (land of plenty), from Middle Low German kokenje, diminutive of koke (cake). Cockaigne was a fabled place of ease and luxury, a land overflowing with milk and honey where food fell into your mouth by itself. It was an imaginary place a medieval peasant could aspire to, a place away from the harsh reality of life.

USAGE:
"This was a land of Cockaigne, a place of total self-indulgent enchantment where I sat alone for hours contemplating."
Christopher Moore; Broad Horizons; The Press (Christchurch, New Zealand); Jan 4, 1999.

Shangri-la

PRONUNCIATION:
(shang-gri-LAH) MEANING:
noun: An imaginary, idyllic place that is remote and secluded.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Shangri-La, a Tibetan utopia in the novel Lost Horizon (1933) by James Hilton (1900-1954). From Shangri (a coined name) + Tibetan la (mountain pass).

USAGE:
"For just one hour you think you are living in dreamland, a Shangri-La, where if life is not yet quite perfect, it will be very soon."
Simon Hoggart; Budget 2010; The Guardian (London, UK); Mar 25, 2010.

Garden of Eden

PRONUNCIATION:
(GAHR-dn of EED-n) MEANING:
noun: A place of unspoilt happiness and beauty.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Hebrew eden (delight, pleasure). The Garden of Eden refers to the Biblical place where Adam and Eve lived before being expelled.

USAGE:
"Long before the Spaniards arrived in Palos Verdes, a nation of people lived in a veritable Garden of Eden. Lush and teeming with wild game and fish, life on the Peninsula for its native people, the Tongva, was rich and abundant."
Mary Scott; Paradise Lost -- And Found?; Peninsula News (California); Mar 25, 2010.

Explore "Garden of Eden" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better, it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil. -Charles Mayo, physician and founder of the Mayo Clinic (1865-1939)

Land of Oz

PRONUNCIATION:(land ov oz) MEANING:
noun: An unreal or magical place.

ETYMOLOGY:
A mythical and magical place, first introduced in the children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum (1856-1919). The legend that Baum came up with the name when he saw a filing cabinet drawer labeled O-Z (below the drawers A-G and H-N) is disputed. See here.

USAGE:
"Perhaps you were living in the Land of Oz if you had been expecting anything but what we were handed by an Ontario Government up to its snoot in red ink."
Tayler Parnaby; Don't Peek Behind the Curtain; Caledon Enterprise (Canada); Mar 30, 2010.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The death of dogma is the birth of morality. -Immanuel Kant, philosopher (1724-1804)

Our language is sprinkled with terms coined with the formula X's Y. There's baker's dozen and bull's eye and deadman's hand (a poker hand).
There are diseases and syndromes and body parts named after physicians (Parkinson's disease); there are theorems, laws, and numbers named after scientists (Avogadro's number); there are plants named after botanists (Ahnfelt's seaweed); and there are places named after explorers, though some are named after no one ("no man's land" :-).
This week we'll look at five terms that follow this X's Y or "someone's something" formula, terms named after specific people that answer: Whose what?
Ockham's razor or Occam's razor

PRONUNCIATION:
(OK-ehmz RAY-zuhr) MEANING:
noun: The maxim that the simplest of explanations is more likely to be correct.

ETYMOLOGY:
After William of Ockham (c. 1288-1348), a logician and theologian, who is credited with the idea.

NOTES:
Ockham's razor states that "entities should not be multiplied needlessly". It's also called the principle of parsimony. It's the idea that other things being equal, among two theories the simpler one is preferable. Why razor? Because Ockham's razor shaves away unnecessary assumptions. Ockham's razor has applications in fields as diverse as medicine, religion, crime, and literature. Medical students are told, for example, "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras."

USAGE:
"But not everyone in Washington is a believer in Occam's razor, so all manner of other theories flourished."
A DC Whodunit: Who Leaked And Why?; Reuters (UK); Sep 22, 2009.

Morton's fork



PRONUNCIATION:

(MOR-tuhns fork) MEANING:
noun: A situation involving choice between two equally undesirable outcomes.

ETYMOLOGY:
After John Morton (c. 1420-1500), archbishop of Canterbury, who was tax collector for the English King Henry VII. To him is attributed Morton's fork, a neat argument for collecting taxes from everyone: those living in luxury obviously had money to spare and those living frugally must have accumulated savings to be able to pay.

USAGE:
"[Japan's political elites] face a Morton's fork between being ignored or being seen as a problem to which there is little solution."
Michael Auslin; Japan Dissing; The Wall Street Journal (New York); Apr 22, 2010.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Ethiopians imagine their gods as black and snub-nosed; Thracians blue-eyed and red-haired. But if horses or lions had hands, or could draw and fashion works as men do, horses would draw the gods shaped like horses and lions like lions, making the gods resemble themselves. -Xenophanes, philosopher and poet (c.570-475 BCE)

Hobson's choice

PRONUNCIATION:
(HOB-sonz chois) MEANING:
noun: An apparently free choice that offers no real alternative.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Thomas Hobson (1544?-1630), English keeper of a livery stable, from his requirement that customers take either the horse nearest the stable door or none.

NOTES:
Hobson had some 40 animals in his rent-a-horse business and a straightforward system: a returning horse goes to the end of the line, and the horse at the top of the line gets to serve next. He had good intentions -- rotating horses so his steeds received good rest and an equal wear, but his heavy-handed enforcement of the policy didn't earn him any customer service stars. He could have offered his clients the option of choosing one of the two horses nearest the stable door, for instance, and still achieve nearly the same goal. More recently Henry Ford offered customers a Ford Model T in any color as long as it was black.

USAGE:
"There, many are given a legal Hobson's choice: Plead guilty and go home or ask for a lawyer and spend longer in custody."
Sean Webby; No Lawyer in Sight for Many Making Way Through System; San Jose Mercury News (California); Dec 30, 2009.

Explore "Hobson's choice" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Our choicest plans / have fallen through, / our airiest castles / tumbled over, / because of lines / we neatly drew / and later neatly / stumbled over. -Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

Achilles' heel

PRONUNCIATION:
(uh-KIL-eez heel)

MEANING:
noun: A seemingly small but critical weakness in an otherwise strong position.


ETYMOLOGY:
After Achilles, a hero in the Greek mythology. When Achilles was a baby, his mother Thetis dipped him into the magical river Styx to make him immortal. She held him by the heel which remained untouched by the water and became his weak point. He was killed when the Trojan king Paris shot an arrow that pierced his one vulnerable spot: his heel. After him, the tendon in the lower back of the ankle is also known as the Achilles tendon.


USAGE:
"Economics, once the Coalition's strength, is in danger of becoming its achilles heel."
Laurie Oakes; Coalition Weak on Economics; Herald Sun (Melbourne City, Australia); Apr 3, 2010.

Explore "Achilles' heel" in the Visual Thesaurus.


A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court, recognized by all nations, will settle international differences. -Ulysses S. Grant, military commander, 18th US President (1822-1885)

St. Elmo's fire

PRONUNCIATION:
(saynt EL-mohz fyr)

MEANING:
noun: An electrical discharge visible at the surface of a conductor, as a ship's mast or an airplane's wing.


ETYMOLOGY:
After St. Erasmus (mispronounced as Elmo by sailors) who is regarded as the patron saint of sailors and an electrical discharge on the mast of a ship is believed to be a sign of his protection. This phenomenon of corona discharge is also called St. Elmo's light.


USAGE:
"When Capt Moody opened the door to the cockpit he saw the windscreen ablaze with a St. Elmo's fire -- a discharge of static electricity."
When Volcanic Ash Stopped a Jumbo at 37,000ft; BBC News (London, UK); Apr 15, 2010.

"Donald Holder's lighting design needed more pizzazz, particularly in scenes like the storm that sparks St. Elmo's fire on the ship's masts."
Heidi Waleson; Taming the Whale; The Wall Street Journal (New York); May 4, 2010.

Explore "St. Elmo's fire" in the Visual Thesaurus.


A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me. -Banksy, street artist (b. 1974)

Some of the people I admire in history had multifarious talents: Rabindranath Tagore (poet, novelist, dramatist, composer, musician, artist, educator, Nobelist), Leonardo da Vinci (painter, engineer, musician, scientist), Isaac Asimov (scientist, writer of about 500 books on all sorts of topics), among others. Humans were meant to do many things.
So can be said of this week's words. Each words featured here has multiple, often unrelated meanings.

jactitation

PRONUNCIATION:
(jak-ti-TAY-shun)

MEANING:
noun:
1. A false boast or claim that is intended to harm someone, especially a malicious claim by a person that he or she is married to a particular person.
2. Involuntary tossing and twitching of the body and limbs.


ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin jactitation (tossing, false declaration), past participle of jactitare (to throw out publicly, to boast), frequentative of jactare (to throw about), frequentative of jacere (to throw).


USAGE:
"Film actress Meera has filed a suit for jactitation of marriage against her alleged husband Attique Ur Rehman, seeking court directions to stop him from claiming her as his legal wife."
Meera Files for Marriage Jactitation; The Pak Banker (Pakistan); Feb 10, 2010.

"Tizanidine hydrochloride has been used for the treatment of jactitation."
How to Relieve Chronic Pain After Amputation; Pulse (UK); May 5, 2001.

bagman

PRONUNCIATION:
(BAG-man, BAG-muhn)

MEANING:
noun:
1. One who collects or distributes money from illicit activities, for example, in a protection racket.
2. UK: A traveling salesman.
3. Canada: A political fundraiser.
4. Australia: A tramp; swagman.
5. Golf: A caddie hired to carry a golf player's clubs.


ETYMOLOGY:
From the literal senses of the words bag and man.


USAGE:
"Andres Butron confessed to being a bagman in a drug operation, transporting cash collected in drug sales to Mexico."
William Lee; 3 Men Found Dead; Chicago Tribune; May 19, 2010.

"Here is an account of how the hawker, the street peddler, the lowly bagman, evolved into the mighty selling and marketing gurus of today."
Birth of a Salesman; Financial Times (London, UK); May 22, 2004.

"The party also has turned a fundraising corner with its new and energetic bagman Rocco Rossi."
Barbara Yaffe; Struggling Ignatieff Needs Peter Donolo; The Ottawa Citizen (Canada); Nov 2, 2009.

"Anyone who wants to know just how the lot of the caddie has changed need only look at Steve Williams, Tiger Woods's bagman. He is frequently referred to as the highest-paid sportsman in New Zealand."
Nomadic Life Became Byrne's Bag; Irish Times (Dublin); Nov 21, 2009.

Explore "bagman" in the Visual Thesaurus.


A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another. -John Muir, Naturalist and explorer (1838-1914)

cashier

PRONUNCIATION:
(ka-SHEER)

MEANING:
verb tr.: To dismiss from service, especially with disgrace.
noun: An employee who handles payments and receipts in a store, bank, or business.


ETYMOLOGY:
From Dutch cassier or French caissier, both from French caisse (cashbox), from Latin capsa (case).


USAGE:
"Iraq is thick with bitter men. Some 400,000 were cashiered from the army."
Mideast Carnage Tests Our Resolve; Toronto Star (Canada); Aug 20, 2003.

Explore "cashier" in the Visual Thesaurus.


A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

meiosis


PRONUNCIATION:
(my-O-sis)

MEANING:
noun:
1. Understatement for rhetorical effect.
2. The process of cell division in which the number of chromosomes per cell is reduced to one half.


ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek meiosis (lessening), from meioun (to lessen), from meion (less).


NOTES:
Meiosis is a figure of speech in which underemphasis is used to achieve a greater effect, for example, "It took a few days to build the Great Wall of China." Also see litotes.


USAGE:
"At times I have a problem with this understatement. Understatement is effective only when there is real purpose to the meiosis."
James Gardner; Cold Mountain; National Review (New York); Dec 31, 1997.

"I took two years of biology in secondary school and couldn't today tell you the difference between meiosis and mitosis without a little help from Google, yet no one's arguing that studying cellular processes is a waste of precious school resources."
Kate Sommers-Dawes; Foreign Language in High Schools is Worthwhile; Washington Post; May 13, 2010.

tabby

PRONUNCIATION:
(TAB-ee)

MEANING:
noun:
1. A domestic cat with a striped or brindled coat.
2. A domestic cat, especially a female one.
3. A spinster.
4. A spiteful or gossipy woman.
5. A fabric of plain weave.
6. A watered silk fabric.
7. A building material made of lime, oyster shells, and gravel.


ETYMOLOGY:
For 1-6: From French tabis, from Medieval Latin attabi, from Arabic attabi, from al-Attabiya, a suburb of Baghdad, Iraq, where silk was made, from the name of Prince Attab. Cats got the name tabby after similarity of their coats to the cloth; the derivations of words for females are probably from shortening of the name Tabitha.
For 7: From Gullah tabi, ultimately from Spanish tapia (wall).


USAGE:
"I was playing whist with the tabbies when it occurred, and saw nothing of the whole matter."
Charles James Lever; Jack Hinton, the Guardsman; 1857.

"Kay Sekimachi uses tabby and twill weaving to contrast black and beige linens."
Stunning 30-year Retrospective at San Jose Museum of Quilts Textiles; Independent Coast Observer (California); Jan 4, 2008.

"Mayor Carl Smith suggested that tabby fence posts be used around the cemetery's perimeter because the oyster-based concrete would better fit the island's character."
Jessica Johnson; Group Restoring Cemetery; The Post and Courier (South Carolina); Jan 21, 2010.

Explore "tabby" in the Visual Thesaurus.


A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
And this our life, exempt from public haunt, / Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, / Sermons in stones, and good in everything. -William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)

McKenzie

PRONUNCIATION:
(muh-KEN-zee) MEANING:
noun: Someone who attends a court trial as an adviser to one of the parties. This person works not as a legal representative, but as an informal adviser. Also known as a "McKenzie friend".

ETYMOLOGY:
The term arose from the 1970 divorce case McKenzie v. McKenzie in the UK. The man in this case didn't have a lawyer. An Australian barrister, Ian Hanger, wanted to help, but could not as he was not qualified to practise in the UK. The man represented himself; Hanger offered to sit with him and provide advice as a friend, but he was denied this by the court. The man lost the case, and this denial became the basis for appeal which affirmed the position that a litigant can, in fact, have someone attend the trial to help in a non-professional capacity. Given the role of the barrister Hanger, a better choice of coinage for this word would have been Hanger, instead of McKenzie.

USAGE:
"A measure, of benefit to women especially, would be to permit the litigant to have a McKenzie friend in the course of the case."
Chitra Narayan; On An Obstacle Course; Hindu (Chennai, India); Nov 17, 2005

orrery
PRONUNCIATION:(OR-uh-ree) MEANING:
noun: A mechanical model of the solar system that represents the relative motions of the planets around the sun.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery (1676-1731), who was given one of those models by John Rowley, a London instrument-maker. They were invented by George Graham c. 1700. The device would have been better named either after its inventor, Graham, or its maker, Rowley.

USAGE:
"The lamp at the center of the orrery demonstrates the way the sun lends light to the planets."
James Fenton; Sheridan the Revolutionary; The New York Review of Books; Feb 4, 1999.
"Even the nation's attic couldn't contain a 650-yard-long model of the solar system, so the Smithsonian Institution has put it outdoors, on the National Mall. 'Voyage: A Journey Through Our Solar System', a new permanent installation, represents the solar system at one 10-billionth its actual size. ...
"The stations within this giant orrery also feature porcelain information plaques with high-resolution, full-color images of the planets."
Eric P Nash; A Smithsonian Spin Through the Cosmos; The New York Times; Feb 10, 2002.

Explore "orrery" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest", but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is. -Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (1917-1986)

philippic


PRONUNCIATION:

(fi-LIP-ik) MEANING:
noun: A bitter condemnation, usually in a speech.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek philippikos, the name given to orator Demosthenes's speeches urging Athenians to rise up against Philip II of Macedon.

USAGE:
"John McCain sat in the elegant ballroom of the Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich and listened politely as President Putin delivered a full-throated rant against America and all that it stood for. Mr McCain has long been one of Mr Putin's most outspoken critics, but it was less a rush of anger that overwhelmed him as he listened to the Russian leader's philippic, and more a mounting sense of irony."
Gerard Baker; Support for War May Yet be the Undoing of John McCain; The Times (London, UK); Feb 15, 2007.

Explore "philippic" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket, and do not pull it out and strike it merely to show you have one. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it, but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman. -Lord Chesterfield, statesman and writer (1694-1773)

Buridan's ass

PRONUNCIATION:
(byoo-RUHD-uhnz ass) MEANING:
noun: A situation demonstrating the impracticality of decision-making using pure reason, especially a situation involving two equal choices.

ETYMOLOGY:
Named after French philosopher Jean Buridan (1300-1358).

NOTES:
Imagine a hungry donkey standing equidistant from two identical piles of hay. The donkey tries to decide which pile he should eat first and finding no reason to choose one over another, starves to death. This paradox didn't originate with Buridan -- it's been found back in Aristotle's time. A hungry and thirsty man cannot decide whether to slake his thirst first or his hunger, and dies. Buridan, in his commentaries on Aristotle, chose a dog, but his critics, in their parody of Buridan, turned it into an ass. So Buridan's ass was named after a person who neither proposed the paradox nor picked that animal to discuss it.
Buridan studied under William of Ockham (of Ockham's razor fame).

USAGE:
"Unless we felt strongly enough to exert ourselves in one direction rather than another, we would do nothing, but would suffer the fate of Buridan's ass."
A.C. Grayling; Though Euphoria Will Fade, Hope Springs Eternal; The Canberra Times (Australia); Nov 12, 2008.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I am I plus my surroundings and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve myself. -Jose Ortega Y Gasset, philosopher and essayist (1883-1955)

taxis

PRONUNCIATION:
(TAK-sis) plural taxes (TAK-seez) MEANING:
noun:
1. Movement of an organism towards or away from a stimulus.
2. Order, arrangement, or classification.
3. The manual repositioning of a displaced body part to its normal position, in a case of hernia, for example.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek taxis (arrangement, order), from tassein (to arrange).

NOTES:
1. The word tropism is usually applied to plants. 2. The word for a public vehicle, taxi, is unrelated. A taxi is one which taxes, etymologically speaking. It's short for taximeter, the name of the device that calculates the fare. 3. Also see parataxis.

USAGE:
"I believe every action an insect makes is due to a reflex, a taxis or a tropism."
Poppy Adams; The Sister; Anchor; 2009.
"Dionysius wanted to see the entire cosmos as a taxis, in the sense of a hierarchy."
James H. Charlesworth; Jesus and Archaeology; Wm. B. Eerdmans; 2006.

Explore "taxis" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Laughter and are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)