pettifogger one given to quibbling over trifles In 1996, after two seasons, HBO’s "Taxicab Confessions," the mother of all reality television, was run out of New York City by a pettifogging official from the Taxi and Limousine Commission. John Lahr The New Yorker February 7, 2005 http://newyorker.com/talk/content/?050207ta_talk_lahr 2005 2 3 magnanimous showing nobility of feeling or generosity of mind Michael Ovitz, who, in 1982, commissioned and paid for a sculpture that he says Koons never delivered, magnanimously refrained from kidding him about it. Calvin Tomkins The New Yorker February 7, 2005 http://newyorker.com/talk/content/?050207ta_talk_tomkins 2005 2 3 benison blessing, benediction Thomas Krens, the Guggenheim Museum’s director, who had once pushed to present the "Celebration" series at the Guggenheim, as part of a Koons retrospective that never happened, showered his frosty benison upon one and all. Calvin Tomkins The New Yorker February 7, 2005 http://newyorker.com/talk/content/?050207ta_talk_tomkins 2005 2 3 bruit rumor, report Radford pays sufficient attention to the much-bruited view of the Antonio-Bassanio friendship as homoerotic. To establish one aspect of Bassanio, we first see him frivoling with some women, but then we also see him and Antonio kiss goodbye when they part to look for money. Stanley Kauffman The New Republic January 24, 2005 http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050124&s=kauffmann012405 2005 1 19 klatch a gathering with informal conversation Every year, just before Thanksgiving, I head down to Fairhope, Alabama. It doesn't take much to get me to make the trip; for my money, there are few places more beautiful than this sleepy town on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. But my stated purpose for this particular journey is to attend Southern Writers Reading, a weekend klatch of panels, readings, and parties that draws many of the region's novelists, poets, and fans. Clay Risen The New Republic December 27, 2004 - January 10, 2005 http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041227&s=diarist122704 2005 1 15 ken range of perception, understanding or knowledge Even more painfully, Oz's father was, for all his good intentions, a failure in the realm of emotions and relationships. A blandly programmatic rationalist, he would never talk about feelings, found his wife's turbulent inner world beyond his ken, and had a grating habit of inserting bad puns or little lectures on etymology where real conversation was needed. Robert Alter The New Republic December 27, 2004 - January 10, 2005 http://tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041227&s=alter122704 2005 1 15 sardonic disdainfully or skeptically humorous With this ruling, Ginsburg moved constitutional law very close to treating sex discrimination with the same hostility applied to racial discrimination. And O'Connor and Kennedy joined Ginsburg's opinion. Tushnet's most general point is that the Court's opinion was a reflection of "changing social values about the role of women." He writes, somewhat sardonically, that the Rehnquist Court "was entirely unified about women's issues appealing to suburban women." Cass R. Sunstein The New Republic December 27, 2004 - January 10, 2005 http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041227&s=sunstein122704 2005 1 15 monograph a learned treatise on a small area of learning It was not very useful, analytically, to compare Hitler and Khrushchev, let alone Hitler and Jaruzelski. Historians also had trouble both with the very notion of comparison (they always do) and, more importantly, with the lopsided nature of the sources. With every passing year, more research was done on Nazi Germany, more scholarly monographs were published, more lines of investigation were pursued. Meanwhile, scholars of Soviet history, denied access to archives, were still squabbling over whether the views of exiles or the opinions of Pravda deserved greater weight. Richard Overy The New Republic December 27, 2004 - January 10, 2005 http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041227&s=applebaum122704 2005 1 15 eclat dazzling; brilliant success At Apple Computer, Steve Jobs spent hundreds of thousands of dollars making the sides of his impractically cubic NeXT machine precisely perpendicular. While the NeXT’s hardware could barely support its sophisticated operating system, and the platform subsequently vanished, it ultimately gave Jobs the tools to restore Apple's finances and eclat (the Mac OS X was built from the NextStep OS). Ed Tenner Technology Review January 2005 http://www.technologyreview.com//articles/05/01/issue/megascope0105.asp 2005 1 15 capon a castrated male chicken Then a descent down a sweeping marble staircase, follwed by circumnavigation of the adults-only Hibiscus Pool, at which the main pastime seemed to be baking like an oiled capon in a hot oven and reading "The Bourne Supremacy." Caitlin Flanagan The New Yorker January 3, 2005 2005 1 15 rashers a thin slice of bacon or ham broiled or fried In the same spirit, I resolved long ago that my own little boys' holidays would not be spent in Irish B. and B.s redolent of turf fires and rashers. Caitlin Flanagan The New Yorker January 3, 2005 2005 1 15 redolent exuding fragrance; aromatic In the same spirit, I resolved long ago that my own little boys' holidays would not be spent in Irish B. and B.s redolent of turf fires and rashers. Caitlin Flanagan The New Yorker January 3, 2005 2005 1 15 polders a tract of low land (as in the Netherlands) reclaimed from a body of water Liberated, at last, from the strictures of religion and social conformity, the Dutch, especially in Amsterdam, frolicked in the expectation that the wider world would not disturb their perfect democracy in the polders. Ian Buruma The New Yorker January 3, 2005 http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050103fa_fact1 2005 1 15 cant the insincere use of pious words Theo van Gogh—fat, blond, absurdly generous toward his friends and madly vindictive toward his enemies, a worshipper of Roman Polanski, a talented filmmaker who never had enough patience to produce a masterpiece, a heavy smoker and consumer of cocaine and fine wines, a columnist of some style and shocking vulgarity, a doting father, a disgusting slob adored by many women, a provocateur, and a man of principle—had embarked on a very different kind of war: a war against what he regarded as hypocrisy and cant. Ian Buruma The New Yorker January 3, 2005 http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050103fa_fact1 2005 1 15 schist a metamorphic crystalline rock that has a closely foliated structure Smith, who is from Albuquerque and moved to New York in 2000, loves what he calls the "rock-star sites," such as the Statue of Liberty and Times Square, but he is most passionate about the less heralded landmarks and oddities of the city: coal chutes and watchtowers and rock formations. Approaching Bennett Park from Pinehurst Avenue, he stopped and pointed at an outcropping of Manhattan schist. "This is the highest spot in Manhattan," he said, beaming. Ben McGrath The New Yorker January 3, 2005 http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?050103ta_talk_mcgrath 2005 1 15 rectitude moral integrity, righteousness Though it was well known that Conan Doyle had formed a bond with Leckie during his wife's long illness, he had always insisted, "I fight the devil and I win." And, to maintain an air of Victorian rectitude, he often brought along chaperones when he and Leckie were together. David Grann The New Yorker December 13, 2004 2005 1 15 ratiocination a reasoned train of thought Holmes was not the first great literary detective—that honor belongs to Edgar Allan Poe's Inspector Auguste Dupin—but Conan Doyle's hero was the most vivid exemplar of the fledgling genre, which Poe dubbed 'tales of ratiocination.' David Grann The New Yorker December 13, 2004 2004 12 19 bromide a commonplace or hackneyed statement or notion (or person) The gaunt Holmes has no wife or children; as he explains, 'I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.' Rigidly scientific, he offers no spiritual bromides to his bereaved clients. David Grann The New Yorker December 13, 2004 2004 12 19 balustrade a row of balusters--vertical, vase-shaped supports--topped by a rail [Nathaniel Hawthorne in English Notebooks wrote:] Part of the mansion is three or four hundred years old...There is [a] curious, old, stately staircase, with a twisted balustrade, much like that of the old Province House in Boston. David Grann The New Yorker December 13, 2004 2004 12 19 pastiche a literary, artistic, musical, or architectural work that imitates the style of previous work Gibson had written several books with Green, including 'My Evening with Sherlock Holmes,' a 1981 collection of parodies and pastiches of the detective stories. David Grann The New Yorker December 13, 2004 2004 12 19 ennui a feeling of weariness or dissatisfaction; boredom The truck, commissioned by the Mexico Tourism Board, was painted with travel-agency slogans like 'Mexico: It’s Beyond Your Expectations.' In back, in a Plexiglas pen the size of a shipping container, three young women, in bikinis, and one young man, in surfer trunks, lolled about on a patch of beach. The tableau featured fake palms, real sand, honest games of chess and checkers, halfhearted beachball-tossing, aimless booty-shaking, occasional lotion application, and, above all, authentic ennui, of a kind seen on actual tropical beaches, as well as in strip-club dressing rooms. Nick Paumgarten The New Yorker December 13, 2004 http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?041213ta_talk_paumgarten 2004 12 19 transduce to convert into another form, particularly a message or energy To make a record, a microphone's diaphragm transduces sound into back-and-forth motions that are encoded as grooves in a vinyl platter. As a needle plows through the groove, its movements are converted into analog electrical impulses that drive a speaker, producing sound. Wired December 2004 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/tools.html?pg=4 2004 12 19 colloquy a high-level serious discussion; conference Will it be the Jews' fault if 'The Passion of the Christ,' ignored by the Golden Globes this week, comes up empty in the Oscar nominations next month? Why, of course."'Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular,' William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, explained in a colloquy on the subject recently convened by Pat Buchanan on MSNBC. Frank Rich The New York Times December 19, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/arts/19rich.html 2004 12 16 ambit a sphere of action, expression or influence Legitimacy arises from the conviction that state action proceeds within the ambit of law, in two senses: first, that action issues from rightful authority, that is, from the political institution authorized to take it; and second, that it does not violate a legal or moral norm. Ultimately, however, legitimacy is rooted in opinion, and thus actions that are unlawful in either of these senses may, in principle, still be deemed legitimate. Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson Foreign Affairs November/December 2004 http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20041101faessay83603/robert-w-tucker-david-c-hendrickson/the-sources-of-american-legitimacy.html 2004 12 12 macerate to soften or separate into constituent parts, especially using liquid It takes me a few minutes to arrange a mobile laboratory on the simple wooden table in my room. When placed in water with macerated soybean and canola, a chemical in the plastic test strip will bond with CP4 ESPS, a protein produced by the Roundup Ready gene. If the protein is present, the chemical turns a section of the strip red. Joshua Davis Wired November 2004 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/columbia.html 2004 12 12 sui generis in a class of its own, unique What little I knew then about the world’s badness I knew mainly from a camping trip, some years earlier, when I’d dropped a frog into a campfire and watched it shrivel and roll down the flat side of a log. My memory of that shrivelling and rolling was sui generis, distinct from my other memories. It was like a nagging, sick-making atom of rebuke in me. Jonathan Franzen The New Yorker November 29, 2004 http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?041129fa_fact 2004 12 11 desultory marked by lack of definite plan, regularity or purpose In the spring of 1970, Miss Niblack’s class was studying homonyms to prepare for what she called the Homonym Spelldown. I did some desultory homonym drilling with my mother, rattling off 'sleigh' for 'slay' and 'slough' for 'slew' the way other kids roped softballs into center field. To me, the only halfway interesting question about the Spelldown was who was going to come in second. Jonathan Franzen The New Yorker November 29, 2004 http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?041129fa_fact 2004 12 11 koan a paradox to be meditated upon Or Chapter 2, verses 6-12, of what I knew about fiction: Linus is annoying Lucy, wheedling and pleading with her to read him a story. To shut him up, she grabs a book, randomly opens it, and says, 'A man was born, he lived and he died. The End!' She tosses the book aside, and Linus picks it up reverently. 'What a fascinating account,' he says. 'It almost makes you wish you had known the fellow.'The perfect silliness of stuff like this, the koanlike inscrutability, entranced me even when I was ten. But many of the more elaborate sequences, especially the ones about Charlie Brown’s humiliation and loneliness, made only a generic impression on me.' Jonathan Franzen The New Yorker November 29, 2004 http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?041129fa_fact 2004 12 11 equanimity evenness of mind Conservative propaganda has also created a fantasy president, but this one is named 'George W. Bush.' If his followers did not revere him so slavishly, and if frank appraisals of his background and personal qualities had not been so marginalized, it would be much easier to accept with equanimity the fact that the leader of the free world is basically the Fredo Corleone of the Bush family. Jonathan Chait The New Republic December 13, 2004 http://tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041213&s=diarist121304 2004 12 11 Panglossian excessively optimistic Likewise, few here seem to share the White House's Panglossian view that the United States is sitting atop some massive, but politically off-limits, reserve of natural gas. In fact, as much as these executives would love to sink their drills anywhere they want -- and as much as they detest environmentalists for stopping them -- no one here believes the volume of natural gas yet to be discovered in the Rockies, or anywhere else in America, would reverse the nation's decline of gas production or let the United States move to a cleaner, more secure "gas" economy. Paul Roberts Mother Jones November/December 2004 http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/11/10_401.html 2004 12 11 decoct to boil down or concentrate At present, it comes in handy for parking two wonderful, vast works: Ellsworth Kelly’s 1957 'Sculpture for a Large Wall' and James Rosenquist’s 1964-65 'F-111.' (The latter improves each time it is seen, as a decoction of the cultural energies of the sixties caught at their peak moment.) Peter Schjeldahl The New Yorker December 6, 2004 http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?critics/041206craw_artworld 2004 12 9 lapidary having the elegance and precision of monumental engravings Reopened now in a lustrous building by the architect Yoshio Taniguchi, MOMA is an effect: historical, conservative, magisterial. It works. The devout, incredibly expensive perfectionism of the building’s lapidary joinery and excruciating lighting may cloy—the God in these details is a neat-freak—but it optimizes looking. Peter Schjeldahl The New Yorker December 6, 2004 http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?critics/041206craw_artworld 2004 12 9 swain shepherd or male suitor The Tuareg fancy themselves as desert swains. Encouraged by their reported success with European women, various members of our Tuareg posse regularly hit on the unmarried women in our group, flattering them at the same time they unintentionally insulted them, by explaining, in halting French, their preference for 'large' women. Peter Wilkinson The New York Times December 5, 2004 http://travel2.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/travel/05libya.html 2004 12 5 obsidian dark glass made from molten lava Under the watchful eye of Mama, their stately, obsidian-skinned leader, the nomadic Tuaregs, their faces hidden by indigo veils, led us over Pyramid-size dunes and through rocky mountain passes, to wait out the midday sun under lone acacia trees. Peter Wilkinson The New York Times December 5, 2004 http://travel2.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/travel/05libya.html 2004 12 5 medina the non-European part of a North African city As we toured Tripoli's medina, a brief walk from the hotel, I was struck by how refreshingly tranquil it was. Peter Wilkinson The New York Times December 5, 2004 http://travel2.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/travel/05libya.html 2004 12 5 polemic an agressive attack on the opinion of others 'Proper' historians cavilled, and with some reason. Her book, several said, was too polemical, and was riddled with mistakes which she refused to correct. The Economist November 27th to December 3rd, 2004 http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3423136 2004 12 5 cavil raise a trivial objection to 'Proper' historians cavilled, and with some reason. Her book, several said, was too polemical, and was riddled with mistakes which she refused to correct. The Economist November 27th to December 3rd, 2004 http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3423136 2004 12 5 addled muddled, confused [Amy to Josh] Is it possible that you are so addled that you've constructed some nonsense problem so that you'd have an excuse to see me? H. CON—172 Janurary 9, 2002 http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/westwing/season3/thewestwing-310.txt 2004 12 5 fungible interchangeable Under these standards, the marijuana at issue in this case is similarly non-fungible, as its use is personal and the appellants do not seek to exchange it or to acquire marijuana from others in a market. Raich v. Ashcroft Majority Opinion Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals December 16, 2003 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0315481p.pdf 2004 12 4 attenuate to weaken or make thin The final Morrison factor examines whether the link between the regulated activity and a substantial effect on interstate commerce is 'attenuated.' The connections in this case are, indeed, attenuated. Presumably, the intrastate cultivation, possession and use of medical marijuana on the recommendation of a physician could, at the margins, have an effect on interstate commerce by reducing the demand for marijuana that is trafficked interstate. It is far from clear that such an effect would be substantial. Raich v. Ashcroft Majority Opinion Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals December 16, 2003 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0315481p.pdf 2004 12 4 ructions a noisy fight Few churches are undivided in their ideas: consider the Episcopalians' ructions about the appointment of an openly homosexual bishop. The Economist November 20th to 26th, 2004 http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3403305 2004 11 28 anodyne not likely to offend or arouse tensions Mr Annan was determined that his wise men (and two wise women) should not get bogged down in national rivalries and so produce some anodyne lowest-common-denominator report. The Economist November 20th to 26th, 2004 http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3398746 2004 11 28 churlish lacking civility; difficult to work with [Indian Prime Minister Manmohan] Singh tried something no less ambitious: to make friends with the Kashmiris themselves. Their reaction was churlish. The Economist November 20th to 26th, 2004 http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3402770 2004 11 28 avuncular like an uncle A mild, avuncular chap in Dockers and a sweater, Wagner recites facts and figures about the facility as if memorized from years of repetition. Jeff Howe Wired November 2004 http://wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/salt.html 2004 11 28 apostasy abandonment of a personal loyalty or faith This is true Puritanism: failure to support the ICC is proof of apostasy on human rights generally. John Bolton The National Interest Winter 1998/1999 http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.9791,filter./news_detail.asp 2004 11 28 chary discreetly cautious Wal-Mart bowed to pressure from China's government to allow trade unions in its 40 stores in the country. The world's largest retailer is notoriously chary of unions, but a worker's revolt is unlikely. China does not allow independent unions and all employees are affiliated to one run by the Communist Party. The Economist November 27th to December 3rd, 2004 http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3437473 2004 11 27 a fortiori http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=a%20fortiori all the more certainly A fair reading of these provisions leaves one unable to answer with confidence whether the United States was guilty of war crimes for its aerial bombing campaigns over Germany and Japan in World War II. Indeed, if anything, a straightforward reading of the language probably indicates that the Court would find the United States guilty. A fortiori, these provisions seem to imply that the United States would have been guilty of a war crime for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. John Bolton The National Interest Winter 1998/1999 http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.9791,filter./news_detail.asp 2004 11 27 atavistic a throwback Still, in a world of 'swaptions' and strips gold’s allure is increasingly atavistic. James Surowiecki The New Yorker November 29, 2004 http://newyorker.com/talk/content/?041129ta_talk_surowiecki 2004 11 27