ineluctable (adjective)
Ineluctable (in-uh-LUK-that-bul) means inescapable; unable to be resisted or avoided. As Bill Bonner used it in the above essay: “And now, despite the irrefutable math and ineluctable financial debacle, the public barely seems to notice.”
prestidigitation (noun)
Prestidigitation (pres-tih-dish-jih-TAY-shun) is sleight of hand, magic tricks performed for entertainment. As I used it today: “The combination of genuinely innovative technology, marketing hyperbole, and financial prestidigitation created a view of how businesses become more valuable that seems (at least to old-timers like me) downright nutty.”
prophesy (verb)
To prophesy (PRAH-fuh-say) is to foretell or predict. As used by Winston Churchill: “I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.”
officious (adjective)
Officious (uh-FISH-us) means meddlesome; asserting authority in an annoying, domineering way. As I used it today: “Lest you continue to unwittingly offend, the (anonymous) author of this article officiously offers alternatives [to potentially problematic words and phrases].”
bafflegab (noun)
Bafflegab(BA-ful-gab) is pretentious and wordy language. As used by Peter Shawn Taylor in an article titled “Donald Trump: America’s First Millennial President”: “Conversations that would once have been conducted behind closed doors or cloaked in diplomatic bafflegab are now out in the open for all to see.”
sanguine (adjective)
Sanguine (SANG-gwin) means cheerfully optimistic; hopeful. As used by Vincent Okay Nwachukwu: “That ‘God will provide,’ is a sanguine statement laced with faith. He does not bring one out in the dark and switch off the light.”
replete (adjective)
Replete (ruh-PLEET) means filled or abundantly provided with something. As I used it today in my mini review of Midnight in Chernobyl: “Replete with vivid detail and sharply etched personalities, this narrative of astounding incompetence moves from mistake to mistake, miscalculation to miscalculation.”
slubber (verb)
To slubber (SLUH-ber) is to work hastily and carelessly; to perform in a slipshod manner. As used by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice: “I saw Bassanio and Antonio part; / Bassanio told him he would make some speed / Of his return; he answered, ‘Do not so. / Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio, / But stay the very riping of the time.’”
intentionality (noun)
Intentionality (in-ten-shuh-NAL-ih-tee ) is being deliberate or purposeful. As I used it today: “You can learn to act intentionally without attachment.”
barlyhood (noun)
Barlyhood – a word rarely used these days – is a fit of unruly behavior brought on by heavy drinking. From “The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng,” a long, satiric poem written by John Skelton in around 1517: “And as she was drynkynge,/ She fell in a wynkynge,/ With a barly-hood.”