[Word Powers] Daily Words - July 2009

Scythe (sahyth) (verb): cut with a blade or mower ; Second seed Roger Federer continued to scythe through the men's draw with a 6-4, 7-6, 7-6 fourth-round victory over Sweden's Robin Soderling in Wimbledon.

Smart (smahrt) (verb): To feel a sharp, usually superficial, stinging pain; Smarting from the embarrassing eight-wicket loss to West Indies, India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said his batsmen failed to gauge the wicket and didn't give enough respect to the rival bowlers.

Emollient(i-mol-yuhnt) (noun): a cream or lotion that softens the skin and interior; Emollients can be applied at any time of the day, particularly after a bath or shower, and can also be used as a soap substitute for cleansing.

Vilify(vil-uh-fahy) (verb): To make vicious and defamatory statements about. In the 2008 tour of Australia, Harbhajan Singh was accused of racially vilifying Andrew Symonds.

Oxymoron (ok-si-mawr-on) (noun): A rhetorical device in which two seemingly contradictory words are used together for effect Plastic glass is an example of oxymoron.

Onomatopoeia (on-uh-mat-uh-pee-uh) (noun): the use of imitative and naturally suggestive words for rhetorical effect The buzz of bees; the hiss of a goose; the crackle of fire are examples of onomatopoeia expressions.

Scalpel (skal-puh) (noun): A small, light, usually straight knife used in surgical and anatomical operations and dissections. I would prefer that the surgeon wielding the scalpel on me be highly skilled.

Scalp (skalp) (noun): Any token of victory; Argentine player Gisela Dulko claimed a major scalp at Wimbledon when she beat former champion Maria Sharapova in the second round.

Fiscal (fis-kuhl) (Adj): Of or relating to government expenditures, revenues, and debts. Expressing concern at the rising fiscal deficit, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in his Budget speech that the government will come back to the path of fiscal consolidation at the earliest.

Legacy(leg-uh-see) (noun): Something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past. Michael Jackson, The King of Pop, leaves behind a legacy of music and style that changed the world of entertainment.

Ululate (uhl-yuh-leyt) (verb): To howl, wail, or lament loudly. The woods ululate with many kinds of birds.

Requiem (rek-wee-uhm) (noun): A hymn, composition, or service for the dead. Perhaps the most famous and frequently performed requiem is an unfinished masterpiece composed by Mozart in 1791 towards the tragic end of his very short life.

Contrite (kon-trahyt) (Adj): 1. Feeling or showing sorrow and remorse for a sin or shortcoming. 2. Filled with a sense of guilt and the desire for atonement; penitent: A contrite sinner. They do not have a broken spirit or a contrite heart.

Corral (kuh-ral): 1. (noun) An enclosure or pen for horses, cattle, etc. Fish Corrals were primarily designed in size and shape for fishes, but are suitable for many kinds of mobile aquatic animals. 2. (verb) To collect, gather, or garner: to corral votes. It is difficult for congressional leadership to corral a majority of votes.

Smirk (smurk): 1. (verb) to smile in an affected, often offensively self-satisfied manner. 2. (noun) the facial expression of a person who smirks. "I told you it would end in disaster, " said Polly with a self-satisfied smirk on her face.

Cogent (KOH-juhnt) (adj): 1. convincing or believable by virtue of forcible, clear, or incisive presentation; telling. 2. to the point; relevant; pertinent. In this assessment, there isn't always a perfect answer for the given problem, so cogently defend your proposed answer to an examiner.

Quotidian (kwoh-TID-ee-uhn) (adj): 1. usual or customary; everyday 2. ordinary; commonplace Television has become part of our quotidian existence.

Detriment (DE-truh-muhnt) (noun): 1. loss, damage, disadvantage, or injury. 2. a cause of loss or damage. Are you sure that I can follow this diet without detriment to my health?

Furrow (fuhr-oh) (noun): A deep wrinkle in the skin, as on the forehead. Deep lines, a furrowed forehead, and sagging eyebrows can make you look very old, tired and unhappy.

Furore(fyoor-awr) (noun): A very angry or excited reaction by people to something. Salman Rushdie’s work “The Satanic Verses” caused a furore and was burnt publicly for its alleged slur on the Islamic faith.

Sedition (si-dish-uhn) (Noun): 1. incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government. 2. any action, esp. in speech or writing, promoting such discontent or rebellion. Rene Buelen, a Dutch National, who was standing trial on a sedition charge, was last Friday convicted and sentenced.

Sentient (sen-shuhnt) (Adj): Having the power of perception by the senses; conscious. Human beings are sentient. Rocks are not.

Intrepid (in-trep-id) (Adj) : Resolutely fearless; dauntless: An intrepid explorer. An intrepid explorer and brilliant naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace co-published the theory of evolution by natural selection with Charles Darwin.

Renegade (ren-i-geyd) (noun): 1. (noun) A person who abandons a party, movement, etc. and goes over to the other side; traitor; turncoat. 2. (Adj) Of or like a renegade; disloyal China considers Taiwan a renegade province that must be united with the mainland by force if necessary.

Dour (DOU-er) (adj): 1. sullen; gloomy The normally dour Mr James was photographed smiling and joking with friends. 2. severe; stern His dour criticism made us regret having undertaken the job.

Slapstick (SLAP-stik) (noun): 1. Broad comedy characterized by boisterous action, as the throwing of pies in actors' faces, mugging, and obvious farcical situations and jokes. 2. A paddle designed to produce a loud whacking sound, used by clowns Charlie Chaplin’s slapstick acrobatics made him famous, but the subtleties of his acting made him great.

Leitmotif (LAHYT-moh-teef) (noun): A theme associated throughout a music drama ( or any other work of art) with a particular person, situation, or idea. Revenge and reincarnation are the leitmotifs of the movie “Karan Arjun”.

Mire (mahyuhr) (noun): 1. An area of wet, soggy, muddy ground; a bog. 2. A disadvantageous or difficult condition or situation We must not be drawn into the mire of civil war.

Succinct (suhk-singkt) (Adj): 1. expressed in few words; concise; terse. 2. compressed into a small area, scope, or compass. Given little room to write on examination, we kept our essays succinct.

Surfeit (sur-fit) (Noun): Excess or overindulgence in eating or drinking. Thanksgiving meals are usually a surfeit for everyone involved.

Internecine (in-ter-nee-seen) (Adj): mutually destructive There seems to be no end to the internecine Ambani war. Even four years after splitting the Reliance empire, they still seem to be washing dirty linen in public: the latest battle is over gas pricing.

Colossus (kuh-los-uhs) (noun): Something likened to a huge statue, as in size or importance. The irresistible force of Flintoff’s pace and precision smashed Australia’s resistance and finally wrote the name of the colossus on the board of English bowlers who have claimed five Test wickets in an innings at Lord's.

Doyen (doi-uhn) (noun) : 1. The senior member of a body or group. 2. One who is knowledgeable or uniquely skilled as a result of long experience in some field of endeavor. Christian Dior, doyen of fashion, introduced the new Look for women, with long flowing skirts and a strong emphasis on non-practical femininity.

Paladin (pal-uh-din) (noun): 1) A knight-errant; a distinguished champion of a medieval king or prince; as, the paladins of Charlemagne. 2) A champion of a cause. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, that great paladin for justice, took up Slater's case and the arguments continued for nineteen years.

Languish (lang-gwish) (verb): 1. To be or become weak or feeble; droop; fad 2. To be subjected to delay or disregard; be ignored. The boats languished on the beach for a year.

Zeitgeist (tsahyt-gahyst) (noun): The general set of ideas, beliefs, feelings etc. which is typical of a particular period in history. By the 1970s, the 1960s zeitgeist that had spawned “Hippie” culture started to fade away.

Noetic (noh-ET-ik) (adj): 1. of or pertaining to the mind and intellect. 2. originating in or apprehended by the reason. As we grow old, we all experience a decline in our noetic abilities.

Conflate (kuhn-FLEYT) (verb): To fuse into one entity; merge We should conflate our dissenting voices into one protest against the offenders.

Repast (ri-past) (noun): A meal. Lentil soup with a combination plate of aloo chole & matar paneer with Basmati Rice, poori, vegetable samosa, pappadam, raita, desert and tea make a perfect Indian repast.

Gravitas (grav-i-tas) (noun): Seriousness, as of conduct or speech, substance, weightiness. American news anchor Cronkite's reputation was built on a certain gravitas, the rich baritone giving a sense of comfort to millions of viewers.

Sycophant (sik-uh-fuhnt, -fant, sahy-kuh-) (noun): A self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite. The French class seemed to be full of sycophants; the students were always bringing apples to the teacher and telling her how nice she looked.

Surrogate (sur-uh-geyt, -git, suhr-) (Adj): Appointed to act for another; deputy A surrogate mother is a woman who bears a child for someone else.

W o W - Week of Words - June 2009

This section covers the certain words related to Cricket.

The “W o W” word Bodyline (noun): A tactic (now suppressed by law changes restricting fielders on the leg side) involving bowling directly at the batsman's body, particularly with close fielders packed on the leg side. The term "Bodyline" is usually used to describe the contentious 1932-33 Ashes Tour. Also known as fast leg theory, Bodyline was a cricketing tactic devised by the English cricket team for their 1932–33 Ashes tour of Australia, specifically to combat the extraordinary batting skill of Australia's Don Bradman. A Bodyline bowler aimed the cricket ball at the leg stump of the opposing batsman, in the hope of creating leg side deflections that could be caught by one of several fielders in the quadrant of the field behind square leg.

The “W o W” word Hawk-Eye (noun): Hawk-Eye is the computer system used in cricket, tennis and other sports to visually track the path of the ball and display a record of its actual path as graphic image. In some sports, it is now part of the adjudication process. It is also able to predict the future path of a ball. It was developed by engineers at Roke Manor Research Limited of Romsey, Hampshire in the UK, in 2001. It shows where a bowler has bowled on the pitch and on what line and length is he playing. The different runs scored off a ball is shown in different colors. All Hawk-Eye systems are based on the principles of triangulation using the visual images and timing data provided by at least four high speed video cameras located at different locations and angles around the area of play. The system rapidly processes the video feeds by a high speed video processor and ball tracker. A data store contains a predefined model of the playing area and includes data on the rules of the game. The technology was first used by Channel 4 during a Test match between England and Pakistan on Lord's Cricket Ground, on 21 May 2001. It is used primarily by the majority of television networks to track the trajectory of balls in flight. In the winter season of 2008/2009 the ICC trialed a referral system where Hawkeye was used for referring decisions to the third umpire if a team disagreed with an LBW decision. The third umpire was able to look at what the ball actually did up to the point when it hit the batsman, but could not look at the predicted flight of the ball after it hit the batsman.

The “W o W” word Sticky Wicket: A difficult wet pitch. Describes a pitch, which although dry on the surface, has underlying soft patches. This type of wicket is generally a difficult playing surface for batsman as it can cause a ball to behave unpredictably. Most pitch preparation practices have all but done away with these type of pitches, which were once very common in England and Australia.

The “W o W” word Mankaded: A mode of dismissal named after former Indian cricketer Vinoo Mankad. In the 2nd test match of India's tour of Australia in 1947, Mankad ran out Bill Brown when, in the act of delivering the ball, he held on to it and whipped the bails off with Brown well out of his crease. This was the second time Mankad had dismissed Brown, the earlier occasion being a first class match on the same tour. Instances of bowlers running batsmen out this way in first class cricket date back to the nineteenth century. But after this incident, if a batsman is given out this way, he is said to have been Mankaded.The Laws of cricket have changed since, so that a bowler may no longer Mankad a batsman once he has entered into his delivery stride.
The “W o W” word Duckworth-Lewis method: A mathematically based rule that derives a target score for the team batting second in a one-day cricket or Twenty-20 cricket match interrupted by weather or other circumstance. It is generally accepted to be a fair and accurate method of setting a target score, but as it attempts to predict what would have happened had the game come to its natural conclusion, it generates some controversy. The D/L method was devised by two English statisticians, Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis. The essence of the D/L method is 'resources'. Each team is taken to have two 'resources' to use to make as many runs as possible: the number of overs they have to receive; and the number of wickets they have in hand. Looking at historical scores, there is a very close correspondence between the availability of these resources and a team's final score, a correspondence which D/L exploits. Using a published table which gives the percentage of these combined resources remaining for any number of overs (or, more accurately, balls) left and wickets lost, the target score can be adjusted up or down to reflect the loss of resources to one or both teams when a match is shortened one or more times. This percentage is then used to calculate a target (sometimes called a 'par score') that is usually a fractional number of runs.

Tuesday Tutor - June 2009

This section covers basic Kannada words as part of Tuesday tutor section.

elli (ye-lli) (adverb/question): where? elli ninna / nimma lEkhani? Where is your pen?
Illi (i-lli) (adverb): here illi ide nanna lEkhani. here is my Pen.
baagilu (baa-gi-lu) (noun): Door baagilu tegedide Door is open
kiTaki (ki-ta-ki) (noun): Window kiTaki tegedare gaaLi baruttade Window if open(you) breeze will come
	gottu (go-ththu) (verb): know nanage ee prashnege uttara gottu I (for me) this to question answer know
	gottilla (go-ththi-lla) (verb): don’t know nanage majestic ge daari gottilla I (for me) to Majestic route don’t know