Sunday, May 11, 2008

365 New Words a Year [Merriam Webster] (Workman Publishing 9/1/7: ersatz

ersatz adj : being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation
DYK: "Ersatz can be traced back in English to 1875, but it really came into prominence during World War I. Borrowed from German, where Ersatz is a noun meaning 'substitute', the word was frequently applied as an adjective in English to items like 'coffee' (from acorns), 'sugar' (from sawdust), and 'flour' (from potatoes)—ersatz products inflicted by the privations of war. By the time World War II came around, bringing with it a resurgence of the word along with more substitute products, ersatz was wholly entrenched in the language." Rating 10/10 cubic zirconiums.
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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"