How to Pronounce “Financier”

THE financier, a refined, butter-rich, miniature French cake, has a storied past that goes as far back as the 17th century to a community of French nuns called the Sisters of the Visitation.

No Informal Words, Please. But Why?

ONE of the greatest disservice English language teachers in school can do to young minds is to taint the value of informal words. No informal words, please. Stay away from informal words. The poor students hear so much of this, they’ve all developed a kind of paranoia, a built-in lexical thermometer that makes them cringe at the sound of informal words. Take “crazy” or “junkie” for instance, or phrases like “two thumbs up.” Don’t ever dream of suggesting words of this flavor if you’re ever working on an essay with them. No, these words can’t—I mean, cannot—appear in written form.

Word of the Week: Captious

captious |ˈkapʃəs|
(adj) formal
tending to find fault or raise petty objections: a captious teacher

ORIGIN
late Middle English (also in the sense ‘intended to deceive someone’): from Old French captieux or Latin captiosus, meaning ‘seizing,’ (or figuratively) ‘deceiving’ 

PRONOUNCED
CAP-shuhs

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Where I First Came Across This Word

When “Stupid” and “Idiot” Are Fine Words Indeed

STUPID and idiot aren’t two words you would hear in an interview or see in a news article often, but when you do, they tend to send shudders that could either trigger shock and outrage on the one hand, or pleasure and approval on the other.

Last week, I came across these two words uttered by two very different people—one, a German fashion icon, and the other, a retired four-star general.

Word of the Week: Juggernaut

JUGGERNAUT, like shampoo and jodhpur, has its roots in India.

But unlike shampoo (which harks back to the Hindi verb cāṃpo, to press) or jodhpur (named after a Western city in Rajasthan where similar garments are worn by Indian men as part of everyday dress), juggernaut invokes the name of a formidable and all-powerful god,