Word For The Day, Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - chouse

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary ^ | 03/22/2006 | The Janitor

[VRWCmember]

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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".

chouse • \CHOWSS ("OW" as in "cow")\ • verb

cheat, trick

Example sentence:

In Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Mr. Cruncher says, "If I ain't, what with piety and one blowed thing and another, been choused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor devil of a honest tradesman met with!"

Did you know?
"You shall chouse him of Horses, Cloaths, and Mony," wrote John Dryden in his 1662 play Wild Gallant. Dryden was one of the first English writers to use "chouse," but he wasn't the last. That term, which may derive from a Turkish word meaning "doorkeeper" or "messenger," has a rich literary past, appearing in works by Samuel Pepys, Henry Fielding, Sir Walter Scott, and Charles Dickens, among others, but its use dropped off in the 20th century. In fact, English speakers of today may be more familiar with another "chouse," a verb used in the American West to mean "to drive or herd roughly." In spite of their identical spellings, though, the two "chouse" homographs are not related (and the origin of the latter is a source of some speculation).

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....

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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)

[secret garden]

You're all pervs.

[secret garden]

Now get to the new classroom.

[VRWCmember]

Morning SG.

[Robert A Cook PE]

"I" would never distain to claim that abbreviation (perv) you've so udderly earned, butt must content myself with the full handle .....

[Slip18]

Oh, T5, weather this year has gone amok. Stay safe! We'll see you later. Please try and have a great day! See you later on.

[Slip18]

xs sure does call you that, and deservedly so sometimes. Not often, though.

Good morning!

[Slip18]

It's too early to be ROTFLAMAO, SG!

[tioga]

I go to church to spend time with God, I ignore the rest. If I paid attention to the altar girls, the missing kneelers, the homilies......why, I would go nuts. One time I heard a youth read a statement that we had to accept homosexuals, and gazed across the church at the father of a boy who had been sexually abused by our priest I cracked. The father stood there stoically, trying to control his emotions. I found the nearest church employee and let them have it right in church. When they started about how unchristian I was being, I really got going. I was polite BUT firm. What happened was sinful. This person finally told me the youth leader who arranged that "statement" has a lesbian daughter - I told them that she had compromised the trust we as a church had in her and she had to go. She did leave soon after. I was just fuming. The person I cornered was the head youth minister, but she would have been his boss. I was not letting go of this. We were being sued at the time by another boy claiming sexual abuse, so this was an especially stupid thing to do.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

I really doubt, that if Jesus took the boys to Olive Garden for a modern day Last Supper, that He would have a Holy Cow over waitresses - and not waiters - bringing Him His bread, wine and water.

Actually, I managed to drag my sorry butt to Church a couple weekends ago, and I was very impressed by the one Alter Girl at work that day. Of the three servers, she was the one that the other two clearly took their cues from, and she performed most admirably. She was all the things a good server should be - graceful, respectful, quick but smooth, and always an inconspicuous part of the background who slides out of it as need be. She had better posture then the other two, and held herself more respectfully. I'm doubting Jesus would go off Simon Cowell-like over her performance that day. AMDG

[xsmommy]

not to be mean, but if someone is not a faithful churchgoer, HD, i think that it hardly matters what their feelings are re; altar girls and altar boys. that is one thing that set xshub off in the article in yesterday's paper over this issue, they quoted some guy who said that his 8 yo daughter had desperately wanted to be an altar girl and it was not possible, now she is 22 and SHE HAD LEFT THE CHURCH. oh geez, yeah, let's pander to someone that was so committed to the Catholic church that she left. sorry, that doesn't persuade me.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

I 100% agree that that is an assinine reason to leave the Church - and I mean no sarcasm.

[xsmommy]

i do not believe that is why she left the church, that's what i am trying to say. she wanted to be an altar girl when she was little. She no longer is a Catholic, and this is who we are supposed to be pandering to? obviously her faith was not that important to her. The false reasons given for permitting this is that it may increase vocations. well that is stupid. the altar girls have been permitted in all dioceses in the US except Arlington VA and Lincoln NE for some time now. there are MORE vocations coming out of the dioceses that DON"T permit altar girls than those that do. it is pandering to the left wing of the Catholic church, plain and simple.