A.Word.A.Day Nails "Our" Diversivolent President (And "A Thought For Today" Provides His Epitaph)

 

"The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions" And The "Mobocratic Spirit" That Will Destroy Them: Abraham Lincoln's Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois January 27, 1838 

https://newsfrombarbaria.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-perpetuation-of-our-political.html

The Seditious Uprising On Capitol Hill, And What The 14th Amendment Requires

https://newsfrombarbaria.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-seditious-uprising-on-capitol-hill.html 

In this week’s A.Word.A.Day we’ll look at some words to describe people.

diversivolent

PRONUNCIATION:

(dy-vuhr-SIV-uh-luhnt) 

MEANING:

adjective: Desiring strife.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin diversus (diverse), from divertere (to turn aside), from di- (away, apart) + vertere (to turn) and volens, present participle of velle (to wish). Earliest documented use: 1612.

USAGE:

“No more diversivolent or superficial creature have I ever known.”
Stephen Marche; Shining at the Bottom of the Sea; Riverhead; 2007.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The main problem in any democracy is that crowdpleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy -- then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece. -Hunter S. Thompson, journalist and author (18 Jul 1937-2005)

High though his titles, proud his name, / Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; / Despite those titles, power, and pelf, / The wretch, concentred all in self, / Living, shall forfeit fair renown, / And, doubly dying, shall go down / To the vile dust from whence he sprung, / Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung. -Walter Scott, novelist and poet (15 Aug 1771-1832)

***

From A.Word.A.Day Comments:

Isaac Asimov - There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.

Thomas Szasz (prof. of psychiatry) - If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order.