Historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote today’s poem for us. Well, she didn’t intend it to work as a poem, but it has a nice rhythm to it. She wrote it in her newsletter dated May 30, 2024:
Trump stared blankly ahead as the verdict was read. “Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.”
Taylor — you wanna chime in?
There were some real odd items in the puzzle today. How about FIENDING? The clue was “Hankering, slangily.” What? We called Miriam about it and she did not approve! It’s not in her dictionary. But less formal venues cite it as derived from “fiend.” A fiend wants something really badly, i.e., a dope fiend. And fiending takes its meaning from that.
Then there was GAMIFY. The clue was “Make more fun and addictive, in a way.” Miriam was okay with this one. She said it’s when you add fun elements to a task to make it more palatable. Okay.
And what about UBERIZE, clued with “Disrupt with technology, as an existing industry.” You hear of that one? Well, Mimi Webster’s not buying it. Not in her dictionary. But the Cambridge English Dictionary has it as: “to change the market for a service by introducing a different way of buying or using it, especially using mobile technology.” As Uber did to the ride service market.
And the word that was most hated was: “Sisters are part of it:” NUNHOOD. I guess it’s parallel to the priesthood, but many found it clunky.
So those are your words for the day today, readers: fiending, gamify, uberize, and nunhood.
Wait — I also learned about SYNERGY, a word I had heard of but didn’t really get. The clue was good: “What might cause 1 + 1 to be greater than 2.” And here’s the dictionary definition: “the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.” Perfect: 1 + 1 greater than 2.
Who’s this? Anybody know?
On its first day of operation, Jezebel offered a $10,000 reward for the best example of a magazine cover photo prior to being retouched for publication. The winning entry was a photo of country singer Faith Hill from the cover of Redbook. Jezebel pointed out 11 different ways the photo had been altered, including radically distorting Hill’s left arm.
Ellis Hicks of the Dull Men’s Club (UK chapter) wrote that it’s common knowledge that a can (tin, he calls it) of Heinz beans contains on average 465 beans. [It is?] He bought ten tins and counted all of the beans in them. In 8 of the 10 there were fewer than 430 beans. In the third tin he opened there were only 387 beans! The most beans in a tin was 483. The mean was 421.4.
He concluded that Heinz is “diddling” its customers and will be boycotting it from now on.
This being the Dull Men’s Club, there were over 240 comments. Many noted that if the tins were okay in terms of weight, the fewer beans might just be larger.
One fellow said: “I’m sorry Ellis, but your entire analysis amounts to nothing more than a hill of beans.”
Another asked: Have you stopped farting yet? And, in that vein, a fellow named Tim said he has a delicious recipe for a “239-bean casserole.” He says you have to be careful though — one extra bean and it’s “too forty.”
Just one more — I promise!! Rosemary said her mum once bought a tin of beans from the co-op that contained only one bean and the rest was sauce. Her dad “decanted it into a Tupperware” and brought it back with the receipt. They gave him several tins by way of apology.
It’s rare for Phil to lose his patience and walk away from an assignment. But this girl really had it coming, he says. C’mon, buddy, she’s 8-years-old. Sheesh!
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 