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Word For The Day, Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - malversation
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary ^ | 12/07/2005 | The Janitor

Posted on 12/07/2005 6:09:18 AM PST by VRWCmember



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".

malversation \mal-ver-SAY-shun\ noun

1. misbehavior and especially corruption in an office, trust, or commission *
2. corrupt administration

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

A picture of bill clinton appears next to this word in the dictionary

Example sentence:
The governor was finally convicted of malversation, after years of rumors about kickbacks and illegal contracts.

Did you know?
The form "mal-" is often a bad sign in a word, and "malversation" is no exception. In Middle French, "mal-" (meaning "bad," from the Latin word for "bad," "malus") teamed up with "verser" ("to turn, handle," from the Latin verb "vertere," "to turn ") to create "malverser," a verb meaning "to be corrupt." This in turn led to "malversation," which was adopted by English speakers in the mid-16th century. Some other "mal-" descendants are "maladroit" ("inept"), "malcontent" ("discontented"), and "maltreat" ("to treat badly").

Rules: Everyone must leave a post using the Word for the Day in a sentence.
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 Threads:
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
Review Thread Four: Word For the Day, Friday 7/25/03: Potation
Review Thread Five: Word For the Day, Monday 8/19/03: Stolid
Review Thread Six: Word for the Day, Tuesday 11/09/2004: Peripatetic (Post #125 may be my best anagram post ever)


TOPICS: Word For The Day
KEYWORDS:
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To: TheGrimReaper

comin' UP in the world ain'tye?


241 posted on 12/08/2005 6:15:45 AM PST by xsmommy
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To: Gabz

see that's when you wish you could electrify the perimeter of your property....


242 posted on 12/08/2005 6:17:05 AM PST by xsmommy
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To: Gabz
"They are big, clear-plastic bubbles, 8 feet tall, filled with small Styrofoam balls kept aloft with blowers. The giant snow globes are the most au courant thing in oversized Christmas lawn decorations, and Rich Faucher had 14 of them."

We just got one of those this year. They are absolutely fantastic. I brought it home, and Cyber set it up in the house just to see its workings. Then I couldn't resist a hologram of Santa on his sleigh. It lights up at night, but during the day, it looks like a hologram. There's also one of a Saguaro cactus that I'm looking to buy.

Our whole neighborhood lights up.

243 posted on 12/08/2005 6:21:32 AM PST by Slip18
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To: xsmommy
One of my unspoken ambitions in life is to meet a nymphomaniac distillery-owner.
)8-])
244 posted on 12/08/2005 6:22:17 AM PST by TheGrimReaper (Peace through victory -- it works every time)
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To: Slip18

you will have to take pix and send!


245 posted on 12/08/2005 6:23:05 AM PST by xsmommy
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To: TheGrimReaper

i am quite sure that would be fun for you : )


246 posted on 12/08/2005 6:23:24 AM PST by xsmommy
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To: xsmommy

That would be an appropriate action to take........and could easily be hidden amongst all the lights already on the perimeter of the property :)


247 posted on 12/08/2005 6:24:21 AM PST by Gabz
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To: TheGrimReaper; xsmommy; WhyisaTexasgirlinPA; Slip18; All

HAH!!

Here's an oldish Canadian parable:


CLASSIC VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE END


THE CANADIAN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. So far, so good, eh?

The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like him, are cold and starving.

The CBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.

Canadians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.

The NDP (our far left party), the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers)and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house. The CBC, interrupting an Inuit cultural festival special from Nunavut with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome."

Sven Robinson (NDP member) rants in an interview with Pamela Wallin that the ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share".

In response to polls, the Liberal Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant's taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers. Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

The ant moves to the US, and starts a successful agribiz company.

The CBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food, though Spring is still months away, while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it.

Inadequate government funding is blamed, Roy Romanow (former NDP premier of Saskatchewan, headed a big expensive commission investigating our Medicare which determined that A LOT more money needed to be spent) is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $10,000,000.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Toronto Star blames it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity.

The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching Canada's multicultural diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana grow op, and terrorize the community.

THE END


248 posted on 12/08/2005 6:25:54 AM PST by Argh
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To: Slip18

Sounds like fun!!!!


249 posted on 12/08/2005 6:26:44 AM PST by Gabz
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To: CholeraJoe; pissant; secret garden; Dan from Michigan; hobbes1; dubyaismypresident

Ping to # 248.


250 posted on 12/08/2005 6:27:34 AM PST by Argh
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To: xsmommy
I will. Cyber promised me this weekend he was going to show me how to send photos into here.

We also have an eight-foot snowman. We don't know what we have because we buy more on sale at the end of the season. We haven't gone into the attic yet. Sheesh. More dust in the air.

251 posted on 12/08/2005 6:28:26 AM PST by Slip18
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To: Argh
Isn't that the way it is?

ROTFLMAO!

252 posted on 12/08/2005 6:31:34 AM PST by Slip18
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To: VRWCmember
more teacher boinks student. It irks me no end to have people maintain that a 17 year old is not a boy.
253 posted on 12/08/2005 6:32:03 AM PST by xsmommy
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To: Argh

Substitute "democrats", "Jesse Jackson", "PETA" and "Maxine Waters", and you have a universal story.


254 posted on 12/08/2005 6:32:20 AM PST by TheGrimReaper (Peace through victory -- it works every time)
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To: Argh

That is excellent.


255 posted on 12/08/2005 6:32:51 AM PST by NeoCaveman (Ken Blackwell for Governor, Ohio 2006)
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To: Slip18; Cyber Liberty; xsmommy
:^)

By the way, do Cyber and exlaxmommy talk to each other anymore?

:^)

256 posted on 12/08/2005 6:34:14 AM PST by Argh
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To: TheGrimReaper

Sadly.


257 posted on 12/08/2005 6:34:39 AM PST by Argh
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To: xsmommy

I didn't know anyone who was ever boinked by a teacher. Is this all new, or is it because of the internet?


258 posted on 12/08/2005 6:36:23 AM PST by Slip18
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To: Argh; xsmommy; Cyber Liberty
I'm taking the high road on this one. I can't remember. LOL!

I know Cyber is really busy today.

259 posted on 12/08/2005 6:38:06 AM PST by Slip18
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To: xsmommy
We only socialize them to be "boys" until they are 18, 21, 25, maybe 30 these days. Not that long ago by age 17 you had a job a wife and a few kids.

The extended adolescence is purely a cultural phenomena.
260 posted on 12/08/2005 6:39:55 AM PST by NeoCaveman (Ken Blackwell for Governor, Ohio 2006)
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