Enron Mail

From:doctor@dictionary.com
To:wordoftheday@lists.lexico.com
Subject:tatterdemalion: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
Cc:
Bcc:
Date:Mon, 15 Oct 2001 00:00:20 -0700 (PDT)

/----------------------------------------------------------------\
Live Online Tutoring. Certified Teachers. Guaranteed Results.
eSylvan offers online, one-on-one instruction from certified
teachers. Find out how we can help put your child on the road to
academic success. Click here for an introductory special offer.
http://by.advertising.com/1/c/62072/30703/101756/101756

<a href="http://by.advertising.com/1/c/62072/30703/101756/101756"<
AOL users click here </a<
\----------------------------------------------------------------/

Word of the Day for Monday October 15, 2001:

tatterdemalion \tat-ur-dih-MAIL-yuhn; -MAY-lee-uhn\, noun:
A person dressed in tattered or ragged clothing; a ragamuffin.
adjective:
Tattered; ragged.

Last time peasant blouses surfaced, in the 1960s and '70s,
they were part of an epidemic of Indian bedspread dresses,
homemade blue-jean skirts, Army surplus jackets, Greek
bookbag purses and love beads, the whole eclectic
tatterdemalion mix meant to express egalitarian sentiments
and countercultural solidarity with underdogs everywhere.
--Patricia McLaughlin, "The peasant look," [1]Philadelphia
Inquirer Magazine, April 25, 1999

I was expecting a wild hair, clanking jewelry, a
tatterdemalion velvet cape from whose folds wafted the
scent of incense, a house full of candles, dream catchers,
cats, and bad art.
--David Rakoff, [2]Fraud

To my ear, though, the prose has the tatterdemalion feel of
something hooked together by commas, tacked together by
periods.
--Brad Leithauser,"Capturer of Hearts," [3]New York Times,
April 7, 1996
_________________________________________________________

Tatterdemalion derives from tatter + -demalion, of unknown
origin, though perhaps from Old French maillon, "long clothes,
swadding clothes" or Italian maglia, "undershirt."

References

1. http://www.phillynews.com/sunmag/index.shtml
2. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/038550084X/lexico
3. http://www.nytimes.com/


_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._

You are currently subscribed to Dictionary.com Word of the Day as:
susan.w.pereira@enron.com

To subscribe to the list by email, send a blank message to:
join-WordoftheDay@lists.lexico.com

To unsubscribe via email, send a blank message to:
leave-wordoftheday-301289Q@lists.lexico.com

Subscriptions can be turned on and off from the Web at
http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/list/

Dictionary.com Word of the Day
http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/
(C) 2001, Lexico LLC.