Saturday, May 10, 2008

365* New Words a Year [Merriam Webster] (Workman Publishing 5/10/8: Podunk

Podunk n : a small, unimportant, and isolated town
From the DYK part of the calendar page: "'I hear you ask, 'Where in the world is Podunk?"' A correspondent asked that question of the editors of the Buffalo, New York, Daily National Pilot in 1846, then answered himself: 'It is in the world, sir; and more than that, is a little world of itself.' That writer may have introduced America to the concept of Podunk as an insignificant Anywhere, U.S.A., town, but the place isn't just imaginary; towns with that name have actually existed in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Iowa (and probably elsewhere) over the years. The exact origin of the name is murky, but it appears that Podunk comes from an Algonquian word, either the name of a tribe that inhabited an area near Hartford, Connecticut, or a more generic term meaning 'swampy place'."
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"