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Anent the Weird Born-Again Christian People
November 15th, 2001 - 10:27 a.m.
I'm Currently Avoiding:Oh my. I'm updating in the morning, AND I've actually already been to bed. That's it, there must be something wrong with me. Not only that, but I woke up at something like 8 am. That's just incredibly bizarre for me. Practically unheard of even. Sooo...do I want to discuss Brother Stephen? I think I do. Well, after a few things, like the fact that today,
November 15 is .... National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day (Hmm. Well, maybe I would if I actually had a refrigerator...although, housework of any kind is generally frowned upon.)
anent (prep. uh-NENT)
: about, concerning
Anent looks like a rather old-fashioned word, and indeed, at one point it was nearly obsolete. A precursor to anent can be found in _Beowulf_ (approximately A.D. 800), so it is certainly an old word. It had nearly died out by the 17th century, but it was revived in the 19th century. Various usage commentators have decried anent as affected and archaic. It is certainly not archaic, however, as plenty of examples of current use can be found. Anent turns up in both literary and nonliterary contexts (it seems to be especially common in letters to the editor), although it is rarely found in speech. Dead words do occasionally rise from the grave, and anent is one of them.
cryptic (adj. KRIP-tik)
1 : secret, occult
2 a : having or seeming to have a hidden or ambiguous meaning : mysterious b : marked by an often perplexing brevity
3 : serving to conceal
The history of cryptic starts with kryptein, a Greek word meaning to hide. From this word came kryptos, meaning hidden, which led to crypticus, the Latin predecessor of our cryptic. Not surprisingly, cryptic is closely related to crypt (underground chamber). Crypt comes from the Latin crypta (vault, cavern), another kryptein derivative. Can you uncover other kryptein relatives in English? The element krypton would be a correct guess, and so would apocrypha, which means writings of dubious authenticity. Kryptein also gave us several words having to do with secret codes, such as cryptogram (a communication in cipher or code) and cryptography (the coding and decoding of secret messages). And in fact, something cryptic can sometimes seem as if written in code.
So. What did I do yesterday? Besides go to dinner, as that was the reason why I wasn't awake when I normally would be. Well, the only thing I actually think I wish to comment on is the time I spent listening to the scary born-again Christian guy. Remind me *never* to have anything to do with those born-again Christian people. If "Brother Stephen" is any example, I really don't want to associate with them ever. This guy hates every group you can think of. Catholics, Jews (oh, except "Holy Jews", whatever he meant by that), Muslims, women, you name them, he probably has something against them. I really give no credence to him and the values he claims to support. They're all scary and crackpot and zealous and stuff. However, he's really rather amusing to watch, if you ignore what he's actually talking about. He does funny little things that are hard to describe. Like every time he says, "Hallelujah!" he raises his hands in the air and does a little hop. There are other strange little quirks that are just as amusing, and pretty much indescribable. I don't feel like writing more of this entry, besides, this entry's been sitting here for nigh on two hours now, so I think we're done here. Except...someone I know brought up a good question the other day. Why are we tolerant of intolerance? I'd like to know the answer.
Song of the Day: "Message in a Bottle" by The Police. Because it's fun, it's Sting, and of course, it's on.
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And I like it that way.
