Unhealthy Fear

today's word:

xenophobia \ZEN-uh-FOE-bee-uh\
noun:Fear or hatred of strangers, people from other countries, or of anything that is strange or foreign.

The word xenophobia was formed from the Greek elements xenos "guest, stranger, foreigner" phobos "fear."

Definition: intolerance
Synonyms: ageism, animosity, antipathy,
apartheid, aversion, bad opinion, belief, bias, bigotry, chauvinism,
contemptuousness, detriment, discrimination, disgust, dislike, displeasure,
disrelish, enmity, injustice, jaundiced eye, mind-set, misjudgment,
narrow-mindedness, one-sidedness, partiality, pique, preconceived notion,
preconception, prejudgment, prepossession, racism, repugnance, revulsion,
sexism, slant, umbrage, unfairness, warp, zenophobia.

Notes: a person’s bias is based on facts, but prejudice occurs without a person knowing or examining
the facts.

Read the synonyms. They are strong words. Words we hear and use every day. These words often fall short when attempting to bridge the wide cavern between bias and prejudice. Bias is unuseful and most times unfortunate when dealing with culture and race. Prejudice merely begets xenophobia. Will we ever completely move our country and our world beyond this spiraling erosion of mankind?

Accountablity: Why this Site

Today’s word is:

excrescence \ik-SKRESS-uhn(t)s\, noun:1. Something (especially something abnormal) growing out from something else.2. A disfiguring or unwanted mark, part, or addition.

Example:
Even Henry Mee's well-known portrait of Anthony Powell makes the novelist look as if he had some odd excrescence growing out of his head.-- DJ Taylor, "Picture this dead chicken, then ponder a fine artistic tradition", Independent, June 22, 2001

Excrescence is one of those five-dollar words. If I were referring to the sentence above, I’d probably say, "Henry Mee had some weird abnormal protrusion growing out of his head. It was really disgusting". Using "excresence" is far more gentile and dignified.

This brings me to the core of why there are all of these “today’s word” postings. I have a couple of simple reasons:
1) to expand my vocabulary and ...
2) the fear of Alzheimer’s.
I believe if I practice writing about the Word for Today from dictionary.com's selection, I might actually retain something.

It’s good to continue to strive no matter how slow the journey or how hard the climb.

Much ado about a Hullabaloo

Today’s word is:
hullabaloo \HUL-uh-buh-loo\, noun:A confused noise; uproar; tumult.

Hullabaloo is perhaps a corruption of hurly-burly, or the interjection halloo with rhyming reduplication. hurly-burly

1539, alteration of phrase hurling and burling, reduplication of 14c. hurling "commotion, tumult," verbal noun of hurl (q.v.). Hurling time was the name applied by chroniclers to the period of tumult and commotion around Wat Tyler's rebellion.

hur·ly-bur·ly n. pl. hur·ly-bur·lies Noisy confusion; tumult. See halloo

hal·loo interj.
1. Used to catch someone's attention.
2. Used to urge on hounds in a hunt.
n. pl. hal·loos also hal·loas A shout or call of "halloo." v. hal·looed also hal·loaed, hal·loo·ing also hal·loa·ing, hal·loos also hal·loas v. intr. To shout "halloo." v. tr. To urge on or pursue by calling "halloo" or shouting.
1. To call out to.
2. To shout or yell (something).

This all seems like a lot of hullabaloo about a lot of hallooing

that was just hurly-burly in the first place if you ask me.

Today's word is: acrid

acrid \AK-rid\, adjective:1. Sharp and harsh, or bitter to the taste or smell; pungent.2. Caustic in language or tone; bitter.

The 2008 Democratic presidentail race has developed into an acrid display of spoilers being fed by a bored media.

This is Groote's gaggle.

Life's too short to be cold-nosed when you're down.