Monday, May 05, 2008

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Word-a-Day 2008 Calendar (Houghton Mifflin) 5/1/8: sinecure

sinecure n. 1. A position or office that requires little or no work but provides a salary. 2. Archaic An ecclesiastical benefice not attached to the spiritual duties of a parish.
The thruway tollbooths use tickets to determine your toll. For the toll portion of i90, you get a ticket at one tollbooth, and depending where you get off you pay the rate at the next. Instead of a machine dispensing the tickets, a person inside the booth hands you a ticket. Most of the time that person is reading and hands out the ticket with barely any interaction; the only time the eyes come off the page are to aim the hand with the ticket correctly to the driver. That job is definitely a sinicure. Rating 10/10 fees.
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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"