Monday, October 1, 2007

A Pulitzer for the pusillanimous

Only in Phoenixville would the local paper run a column suggesting that the public needs to “get over” the fact that the government is intent on hiding the annual budget just as long as it can.
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now there's a word I haven't seen used in awhile.

Pusillanimous was the word of the day, November 6, 1999.

http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/1999/11/06.html

Word of the Day Archive
Saturday November 6, 1999


pusillanimous \pyoo-suh-LAN-uh-muhs\, adjective:

Lacking in courage and resolution; contemptibly fearful; cowardly.

Evil, unspeakable evil, rose in our midst, and we as a people were too weak, too indecisive, too pusillanimous to deal with it.

-- Kevin Myers, "An Irishman's Diary", Irish Times, October 20, 1999

Under the hypnosis of war hysteria, with a pusillanimous Congress rubber-stamping every whim of the White House, we passed the withholding tax.

-- Vivien Kellems, Toil, Taxes and Trouble

You are now anxious to form excuses to yourself for a conduct so pusillanimous.

-- Ann Radcliffe, The Italian

Pusillanimous comes from Late Latin pusillanimis, from Latin pusillus, "very small, tiny, puny" + animus, "soul, mind."

Thank you, Chicken Cacciatore Project.

October 1, 2007 at 8:01 PM
Anonymous said...

I might have missed the classified ad where the Democratic Party was looking for a public relations personnel. How did Skip Lawrence get the Job? Did he apply for it or was it self appointed?

October 2, 2007 at 2:24 PM
Anonymous said...

pusillanimous is the diminutive form of the copulation of two fine latin words. I suggest that the word is also onomatopoetic in describing many of the councilmembers, especially the first part of the word.

October 2, 2007 at 5:50 PM

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