Posted on 08/13/2009 4:30:37 AM PDT by secret garden
In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day".
desultory \DES-uhl-tor-ee\, adjective
1. Jumping or passing from one thing or subject to another without order or rational connection; disconnected; aimless.
2. By the way; as a digression; not connected with the subject.
3. Coming disconnectedly or occurring haphazardly; random.
4. Disappointing in performance or progress.
Example sentences:
The shadows on the perfect lawn were straight and angular; they were the shadows of an old man sitting in a deep wicker-chair near the low table on which the tea had been served, and of two younger men strolling to and fro, in desultory talk, in front of him.
-- Henry James Jr., "The Portrait of a Lady", The Atlantic Monthly, November 1880
In January 1905 Richard Watson Gilder approached the then-president of the Institute, the genteel poet and Wall Street broker Edmund Clarence Stedman, and urged him to hold a "formal discussion" on the question of women in both the Institute and the newly created Academy -- a formal discussion, he said, rather than the "desultory talk among members" that was all there had been so far.
-- Penelope Lively, The Five Thousand and One Nights
One way or the other, his once voluminous exchanges with Mrs. Swanson dwindled to almost nothing. For a year or two, they consisted of the odd, desultory postcard, then the store-bought Christmas greeting, and then, by 1976, they had stopped altogether.
-- Paul Auster, Timbuktu
Etymology:
Desultory comes from Latin desultorius, from desultor, "a leaper," from the past participle of desilire, "to leap down," from de-, "down from" + salire, "to leap."
The sentence must, in some way, relate to the news of the day. The Review threads are linked for your edification. ;-)
Practice makes perfect.....post on....
Review Thread One: Word For The Day, Thursday 11/14/02: Raffish (Be SURE to check out posts #92 and #111 on this thread!)
Review Thread Two: Word For The Day, Tuesday 1/14/03: Roister
Review Thread Three: Word For The Day, Tuesday 1/28/03: Obdurate
WFB's attempt to emulate us ; ) No pushing at the door please!
Rise and shine! It’s the first day of school here so I have to run but will be back later this morning.
As you wish. Yhe desultory manner of my rising, and the lackluster performance of my shining, can be attributed to an inadequacy of caffeine.
I rest my cup.
On Healthcare, Obama is desultory
He flits from the optional to the mandatory
The old and sickly, we know
Are headed for the ice floe
Or a quick trip to the crematory
Just the desultory check-in to the thread this morning...
On Healthcare, Obama is desultoryAbe Vigoda says, "Just go with the floe."
He flits from the optional to the mandatory
The old and sickly, we know
Are headed for the ice floe
Or a quick trip to the crematory
Thought of you and Rika last night when i saw this covered. holy cow, she is something else!
xshub has a pic of me and rick pitino in his ofc, taken in 1987, when he was coach of Providence College,the cinderella team in the Final Four, along with Syracuse.
Hopefully, you're up and at 'em by now. A for you.
Don't do that, especially to the Circ So Gay. A for you.
But no one complained at his "town hall meeting". A+ for you.
Great Jeopardy comic. And what’s with the book? We know he doesn’t even read 1/10 of what GWB did while in office. A+ for you.
I don’t know about you, but I am so ready for football and hockey to get started again. A for you.
Excellent! A+ for you, F- for the wig factory.
The fruit fly is probably more intelligent too. When are y’all going to elect someone with half a brain?
Relapsed big, didn't ya Josh?
It made all the headlines here since Kentucky doesn’t have a real newspaper. Creepy all the way around but Louisville is content to look the other way. A+ for you.
So, the short answer is -- this district will NEVER elect anyone with half a brain. I predict that Sheila will enter the afterlife as a sitting US Congressperson.
This is why I like Argentina, where the corruption and ignorance is mostly out in the open for all to see.
xshub told me last night. of course he has been to all the relevant college basketball boards. this has repercussions for Louisville’s program. his son, Richard Pitino was on the staff at L’ville, but several months back left for the U of FL for the same position he had at L’ville. so it looks like Rick was trying to safeguard his son’s career before this all came out and he could have potentially gone down, as well. The son was recruiting this excellent brazilian, everyone assumed the guy was going to L’ville, bc of Pitino, and his son was recruiting him. When the son left L’ville, that sort of opened the door for other schools to talk to the Brazilian and he ended up signing with SU. Of course UK fans are all chortling bc they hate L’ville and Pitino used to coach there.
I concur completely, ‘love the Fall — the thing I don’t care for is what follows (at least up here ;)
This map lacks the detail to show you what I mean, but you get the general idea....can you say GERRYMANDERING?
This morning, I’ve been destroying CD-ROMs loaded with stuff I don’t want to fall into the wrong hands. My office looks like a Disco after New Years with little chunks of foil everywhere. 150 CDs with 12 years worth of data.
Wait, strike that. I shouldn’t own up to destroying anything. Yer honor, my dogs ate the CDs, all 150 of them.
i think you’ve already been reported to flag@whitehouse.gov... prepare for the appearance before the death panel. did you hear Ann Coulter say she only is for death panels if she gets to be ON one, and her #1 will be zeke emmanuel.
this is so funny, i just got off the phone with the receptionist at my doc’s ofc. xsteen is turning 21 in Oct, so the ped ofc it throwing her out and so i called my internist to see if she’d accept her as a patient for checkups etc. And they are fine with that, but in talking to the receptionist, i got the distinct impression from her accent that she was from upstate NY. so i asked and she is, and her dad still lives near Binghamton. the accent was a dead giveaway. i don’t recall what word it was but it was the A sound in it that was the clincher! i am so proud that i can detect it. i am nearly as successful in detecting upstate NY accents as i am Pgh accents by now!
I’m certain that I’m public enemy #1 on somebody’s list. The BATFE has a 24 hour webcam on my house anyway.
with good reason....
Do you recall your first words to me when you called me the very first time? They were, “OMG, you really have a southern accent!”
kind of shaped like a sphincter....
well sure you DO sound like the ‘Bama cracker you are!
i sent it to xshub bc i was telling him last night that you and rika lived in her district.
Interesting that you said sex at an Olive Garden when the article says it was another location..... so go ahead and tell us XS, did you have sex on a table at Olive Garden at some point???
xshub read a bunch of articles on it, and he said it was an olive garden, guess he got it wrong.
did you catch that the woman met his equipment mgr that same night and that’s whom she married, AND he was the one carrying the extortion requests to pitino? ummmm, rick, my wifey asked me to give you this note...
I missed the part where she met him that night! Yikes - this sounds kind of like a made up deal to pay for their divorce - obviously not untrue since Coach admitted to it, but maybe she and the hubby decided to see what they could get - I hope they both go down for extortion and the Coach gets whatever his wife feels is appropriate in way of punishment
OMG you answered that exactly like a politician! You didn’t acknowledge the real question therefore you didn’t answer it, and you took a small detail and blamed someone else! LOL
But it’s so frustrating! Why can’t there be an outcry and effort to redraw obvious gerrymandering? Why did DeLay get blamed for doing this when this blatant example was there for all to see? My biggest beef with the republicans is that we don’t go public on the corruption loud and strong until things are resolved. We just cave, don’t want to be seen as causing any trouble, heaven forbid. It’s pushing me toward the wacky libertarians.
GOOD LORD! wasn’t she the one in charge of controlling bimbo eruptions???
That’s her, but I read it incorrectly. She’s not doing time, just visiting someone who is. Sometimes we see what we think is true...or should be.
funny, and your question sounded exactly like something a MSM journalist might ask, insinuating that perhaps I HAD had sex on an Olive Garden table, simply bc i had misstated the restaurant in question ; )
yes i was trying to open the link to see, bc i thought maybe she was smuggling it in. kind of like michael douglas’ son’s GF who was smuggling in heroin to him in glassine bags in his electric toothbrush!
So we are both able to channel the worst in others... ;^) I’m really not sure which is lower - an MSM journalist or a politician... lol
i’d call it a tie!
No entertainment needed. I’ve got Saliva and Linkin Park on the MP3 player as I destroy CDs. Speaking of Saliva, they are coming to town on 9/10 and I’ve got mosh pit tickets and a date!
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