233. Gripe

From, “For a Nation of Whiners, Therapists Try Tough Love,” by Elizabeth Bernstein, 5/15/12, The Wall Street Journal:

How do you get someone to stop the constant griping? The answer is simple, but not always easy: Don't listen to it.

Gripe: express a complaint or grumble about something, esp. something trivial

232. Capricious

From, “Facebook I.P.O. Raises Regulatory Concerns,” by Evelyn M. Rusli and Michael J. De La Merced, 5/22/12, The New York Times:

In the weeks leading up to Facebook’s I.P.O., Morgan Stanley took a frontal approach to the pricing process. When the firm considered raising the offering price as high as $38 a share and increasing its size, other bankers pushed back. They worried that the company’s growth prospects did not support such lofty valuations.

Some bankers were also troubled by the huge demand from individual investors, a relatively capricious group. While Facebook allocated most of its shares to big, institutional investors like mutual funds and hedge funds, it also gave a larger-than-usual block, close to 25 percent, to ordinary investors.

Capricious: given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior; whimsical; fickle

231. Tenacious

From, “'Today's Anchor Amy Robach Leaves NBC News For ABC News,” by HuffPost Media, 5/21/12:

"Today" weekend anchor Amy Robach is leaving NBC News to join ABC News.

In a statement on Monday, ABC News president Ben Sherwood announced that Robach will be joining the network as a correspondent based in New York. He called her "a tenacious and skilled reporter" who will bring "engaging and high-impact journalism to all of our broadcasts and platforms."

Tenacious: persistent; tough

230. Mien

From, “Theater Talkback: Against Ovation Inflation,” by Ben Brantley, 5/17/12, The New York Times:

I would like to make the case, officially and urgently, for the return of the sitting ovation. Because we really have reached the point where a standing ovation doesn’t mean a thing. Pretty much every show you attend on Broadway these days ends with people jumping to their feet and beating their flippers together like captive sea lions whose zookeeper has arrived with a bucket of fish. This is true even for doomed stinkers that find the casts taking their curtain calls with the pale, hopeless mien of patients who have just received a terminal diagnosis.

Mien: a person's look or manner, indicating their character or mood

229. Peripatetic

From, “The Vows Column at 20,” by Lois Smith Brady, 5/18/12, The New York Times:

At the time of their wedding, Ms. Irwin, then 29, and Mr. Liotta-Mangio, then 50, were a free-spirited artistic couple who lived on a houseboat in the 79th Street Boat Basin in Manhattan. They seemed too bohemian for marriage; I figured they would drift apart sooner rather than later.

Ms. Irwin, then a record promoter, said the boat basin “was the closest thing I could find to a hippie commune in New York.” Mr. Liotta-Mangio was a peripatetic, handsome, charming Sicilian guitarist. How long do they ever stick around? As it turns out, he stuck around forever. Well, almost.

Peripatetic: one who walks from place to place; an itinerant

228. Divot; Impede

From, “Sex or Sleep?” by Miriam Gottfried, 5/14/12, Barron’s:

Well, it was absolutely an issue for Kim Browne of Simi Valley, Calif., when her Tempur-Pedic memory-foam bed arrived seven years ago. "My boyfriend and I were laughing the first time we had sex on the bed," Browne, a 44-year-old office manager, wrote to Barron's in an e-mail. "We couldn't move around as easily. I got stuck in a divot, and he couldn't get traction on his knees. We ended up on the floor, thinking we were never going to be able to have sex in the bed again."

Within a month, however, she says they got the hang of it -- and in fact began to like it. "Just think of this little extra challenge as an additional benefit of the bed," she wrote.

Not all adventures on these mattresses end so happily. Sari Eckler Cooper, the New York sex therapist, says some clients decided to give up their memory-foam mattress because it was impeding their sex life and causing marital disagreement. Some others, based on the message boards, have stopped using the beds for sex, taking their hanky-panky elsewhere.

Divot: turf

Impede: hinder; obstruct; delay something from happening

227. Dissipate; Temporize

From, “Seeking Original Bliss,” by Maureen Dowd, 5/12/12, The New York Times:

In the diary entries she [Genevieve Cook] shared with David Maraniss, whose new biography, “Barack Obama: The Story,” is excerpted in the June Vanity Fair, Cook presages Obama’s relationship with bedazzled American voters: passion cooling as he engages in a cerebral seminar and a delight in doubt.

Sunday, Jan. 22, 1984: “A sadness, in a way, that we are both so questioning that original bliss is dissipated….”

His embrace of gay marriage was not a profile in courage. It was good, better than continued “evolving,” but not particularly brave. He has been in office three and a half years and he is running for re-election, trying to bring back the thrill with a lot of constituencies and donors who felt let down by his temporizing. Who knows how long he might have kept evolving, while his advisers gamed it out, if Joe Biden, Arne Duncan and Shaun Donovan hadn’t forced his hand by speaking out in such an unabashed way in support of same-sex marriage.

Dissipate: to break up and scatter or vanish

Temporizing: to act to suit the time or occasion

226. Annihilate; Implode

From, “Why Wrigley Field Must Be Destroyed,” by Rich Cohen, 5/15/12, The Wall Street Journal:

Having not won a World Series since 1908, and having last appeared on that stage in 1945—a war year in which the professional leagues were still populated by has-beens and freaks—the Chicago Cubs must contemplate the only solution that might restore the team to glory: Tear down Wrigley Field.

Destroy it. Annihilate it. Collapse it with the sort of charges that put the Sands Hotel out of its misery in Vegas. Implosion or explosion, get rid of it. That pile of quaintness has to go. Not merely the structure, but the ground on which it stands.

Annihilate: destroy utterly; obliterate

Implode: collapse or cause to collapse violently inward

225. Pivot; Deftly

From, “The Future Belongs to the Flexible,” by Ian Bremmer, 4/27/12, The Wall Street Journal:

We have entered what I like to call a "G-Zero" world: one in which no single nation (not even the U.S.) or alliance of governments (certainly not the G-7 or G-20) possesses the political and economic muscle to drive an international agenda. In this new decentralized global order, growth isn't enough. A country also must have resilience—the power to pivot.

Which countries are best positioned to pivot deftly in this emerging world order?

Pivot: turn; rotate; revolve

Deftly: quick and skillful; adroit

224. Morph

From, “Stocks Are Primed for an Ugly Slide,” by Michael Kahn, 5/9/12, Barron’s:

In a best-selling book, journalist Malcolm Gladwell popularized the concept of a "tipping point," that moment where a series of small moves suddenly morphs into something more powerful.

The stock market, which has been struggling in recent weeks with a series of pullbacks, may be reaching a bearish tipping point of its own. And once stocks begin to fall, they may fall hard.

Morph: change smoothly from one image to another by small gradual steps [using computer animation techniques]

223. Saccharine

From, “10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won't Tell You,” by Charles Wheelan, 4/20/12, The Wall Street Journal:

I became sick of commencement speeches about your age. My first job out of college was writing speeches for the governor of Maine. Every spring, I would offer extraordinary tidbits of wisdom to 22-year-olds—which was quite a feat given that I was 23 at the time. In the decades since, I've spent most of my career teaching economics and public policy. In particular, I've studied happiness and well-being, about which we now know a great deal. And I've found that the saccharine and over-optimistic words of the typical commencement address hold few of the lessons young people really need to hear about what lies ahead.

Saccharine: sickeningly sweet; ingratiating; overly sentimental

222. Elide; Orthogonal

From, “Romney’s Budget Fairy Tale,” by Jonathan Chait, 5/16/12, New York (nymag.com):

The story told by Romney is one in which all of these things are either untrue or could not possibly be true.

Romney elides some inconvenient facts — for instance, by asserting “Then there was Obamacare. Even now nobody knows what it will actually cost,” which is literally true in the sense that precise cost estimates are always impossible, but sounds to his audience like a claim that the program will swell the deficit in vast, unknowable ways. But most of Romney’s speech doesn't even refer to the facts stated above. It's simply orthogonal to facts. It’s a story, one in which Obama increased the deficit because he loves big government and Europe and hates the private sector.

Elide: omit (a sound or syllable) when speaking; join together; merge

Orthogonal: statistical independent; of or involving right angles; at right angles

155. Ungelivable

Ungelivable

I saw this word on a post on my Facebook news feed. It’s basically Chinglish (blend of Chinese and English) which is frequently used on Chinese Internet. I don’t envision this word appearing on GRE any time soon. Nonetheless, it is evidence of the influence of globalization and the Internet on language and culture.

As defined in the Urban Dictionary, “Ungelivable is constructed by Chinese internet users literally meaning "forcefulness". It is used to express the feeling of unforceful, unsatisfactory, lousy, unpleasant, unfavorable, terrible.”

Schott’s Vocab, a NY Times online blog, on 11/18/10, wrote, Geili is a Chinese Internet buzzword which means “cool,” “awesome” or “exciting.” Literally, “giving power.”

The Shanghai Daily reported that a Chinese neologism, “geili,” which means, “cool,” “awesome” or “exciting,” had been granted the “official seal of approval” by appearing in The People’s Daily – the official paper of the Communist Party:

“Geili” is created from two Chinese characters “gei” and “li.” Literally, it means “giving power,” but is now widely accepted as an adjective describing something that’s “cool.”

A test of a Chinese jargon word’s trendiness is if users translate it into a foreign language, according to its pronunciation. “Geili” has been transformed into the English-sounding “gelivable,” and “ungelivable,” and the French “très guélile.”

221. Vicissitude

Bob Zoellick, World Bank President, on Fareed Zakaria’s program GPS, CNN, 3/14/12:

In response to Zakaria’s question as to his thoughts on overcoming poverty, Zoellick said,

“Growth is still the best antidote for poverty, but what we have learned over the years is that growth alone isn’t enough, so we try to talk about inclusive growth….

What inclusive growth means to me is that you also need an efficient social safety net so that when the vicissitudes of economies or world events strike, people at the bottom aren’t crushed or you don’t lose a generation through improper nutrition or education.”

Vicissitudes: a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant

220. Guileless

From, “How to Live Unhappily Ever After,” by Augusten Burroughs, 5/4/12, The Wall Street Journal:

"I just want to be happy."

I can't think of another phrase capable of causing more misery and permanent unhappiness. With the possible exception of, "Honey, I'm in love with your youngest sister."

Yet at first glance, it seems so guileless. Children just want to be happy. So do puppies. Happy seems like a healthy, normal desire. Like wanting to breathe fresh air or shop only at Whole Foods.

Guileless: innocent; naïve

219. Phenomenal

                                                                                                     [photo by JHM]

Happy Mother's Day

Today, all mothers have the right to say,

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

[Extract from Maya Angelou’s poem]

Phenomenal: remarkable; extraordinary

218. Exceptionalism

From, “America and the Value of 'Earned Success',”by Arthur C. Brooks, 5/8/12, The Wall Street Journal:

“…I concluded, what set the United States apart from Spain was the difference between earned success and learned helplessness.

Earned success means defining your future as you see fit and achieving that success on the basis of merit and hard work. It allows you to measure your life's "profit" however you want, be it in money, making beautiful music, or helping people learn English. Earned success is at the root of American exceptionalism.

Exceptionalism: the condition of being different from the norm; also : a theory expounding the exceptionalism especially of a nation or region

217. Remunerative

From, “Stephens: To the Class of 2012,” by Bret Stephens, 5/7/12, The Wall Street Journal:

In places like Ireland, France, India and Spain, your most talented and ambitious peers are graduating into economies even more depressed than America's. Unlike you, they probably speak several languages. They may also have a degree in a hard science or engineering—skills that transfer easily to the more remunerative jobs in investment banks or global consultancies.

Remunerative: for which money is paid; moneymaking

216. Gotcha

From, “Stuck With a $10,000 Phone Bill,” by Scott McCartney, 4/18/12, The Wall Street Journal:

Flight attendant Chuck Harris made a few calls home to New York so plumbers could fix a broken pipe while he was vacationing in the Dominican Republic. To his surprise, he got a bill for $400—not from the plumbers, from the phone company.

John Ellis, an adjunct professor of anesthesiology and critical care at the University of Pennsylvania, returned home from a trip to China to a $2,367 phone bill for downloaded data, even though he carefully tracked his usage. And one Texas A&M University employee got an even bigger welcome home gift after a trip abroad: a $10,000 cellular data bill.

When in roam, be careful with your phone. Smartphones and tablet computers set to automatically update data can trigger hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in expensive roaming charges.

Data plans have become a more expensive travel gotcha than expensive voice-call rates overseas—as high as $5 or more per minute. Even if your phone checks the local temperature, that'll cost you. AT&T T +0.06% and Verizon charge up to $20 per megabyte, so uploading a few photos, downloading a few attachments or watching three minutes of YouTube video can easily cost $100; watching a full-length feature movie through an Internet-based service can be an $18,000 show ticket

Gotcha: Slang from ‘I got you.’ In this context, it means an annoying or unfavorable feature of a product or item that has not been fully disclosed or is not obvious.

215. Termagant

From, “Seven Tickets to India, Please, and Reservations for an Adventure, ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,’ With Judi Dench,” by Stephen Holden, 5/3/12, The New York Times:

Muriel Donnelly (Ms. Smith), a xenophobic, racist termagant and retired housekeeper in need of a hip replacement, makes the trip because the surgery in India is cheaper and doesn’t entail a monthslong wait. The character has the screenplay’s meanest and snappiest lines, but it is beyond even Ms. Smith’s capacity to make Muriel’s eventual metamorphosis, from monster into sweet, caring old lady who befriends a low-caste Indian servant, remotely credible.

Termagant: a quarrelsome, scolding woman; a shrew

214. Malign

From, “Sex Is Bad,” by Evan Shapiro, 5/1/12, Huffington Post:

Welcome to TV in America, where violence, no matter how malicious or senseless, is just fine -- no matter the context or time of day -- but sex is decried, maligned, protested and verboten in all but the most secure corners of the schedule or dial. Programs that are intentionally violent appear in every part of the TV schedule -- primetime, daytime, weekends -- but TV's ban on sexuality not only covers scenes of nudity or sexual acts, but our very language itself. Since 1978, when the Supreme Court decided that George Carlin's Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television was too much for sensitive ears, enormous fines have been issued for uttering the word "fuck" on TV, even during live events.

Maligned: spoken evil of

213. Artisanal; Abut

From, “In Italy, Counterfeiting With Artisanal Care,” by Rachel Donadio, 4/30/12, The New York Times:

Italy appears to have a particular artisanal flair for the printing arts, even though the authorities have also found illicit euro operations in France, Spain, Eastern Europe and South America. Its most accomplished practitioners can be found in and around Giugliano, where concrete-block apartments abut orchards and car dealerships, and young African prostitutes stand amid the rushes on unkempt roads.

Artisanal: skilled in the arts

Abut: to border upon

Unkempt: disorderly; untidy

212. Benign

“From, Loyal Companion Helps a Veteran Regain Her Life After War Trauma,” by James Dao, 4/28/12, The New York Times:

The hovering aircraft was just a plain-vanilla traffic chopper, a benignly common species to Southern California skies. But its mere presence overhead was enough to make Tori Stitt stiffen.

More than a year ago, Ms. Stitt, a former Navy officer who did a tour in northern Iraq, might have made a beeline for her car, ducked under a table or broken down in panic merely from the chopping of rotors — a sound she still associates with combat casualties. But this time, she remained outwardly calm, breathing deep, while silently and strenuously massaging the ears of the service dog at her feet.

Benign: of a kind and gentle disposition; favorable; harmless

211. Nuance

From, “Passing Some Judgment on Talent-Show Arbiters,” by Craig Tomashoff, 4/20/12, The New York Times:

“Judging is first and foremost about credibility,” and the same goes for the job on television, Lance Ito, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, said by e-mail. He knows something about making rulings on camera, thanks to his daily appearances during the O. J. Simpson trial, and he has an appreciation for the experts on shows like “Dancing With the Stars.” He added, “While the judges for DWTS were not known to anyone outside the dance world when the show debuted, it was clear from their commentary they knew the technical and artistic nuances.” 

Nuances: A subtle or slight degree of difference, as in meaning, feeling, or tone