5474  apodictic: M-W's Word of the Day

Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:41:35 -0800
From: Ed Loomis <TangoBear@pobox.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] apodictic: M-W's Word of the Day
To: tango-L@mit.edu

The apodictic tone of many posters on the Tango-L reflects their complete
lack of modesty or even a modicum of humility which might leave room for a
civilized discourse about anything. Ed

On 19 Jan 2008 10:07:25 -0000, word@m-w.com wrote:

The Word of the Day for January 19 is:

apodictic \ap-uh-DIK-tik\ adjective
: expressing or of the nature of necessary truth or absolute certainty

Example sentence:
The apodictic tone of Liza's writing reflects her complete confidence
in the correctness of her statements.

Did you know?
There's something remarkable about a word which, when periodically
dusted off, proves to have retained its freshness over 350 years -- and that's
the case with "apodictic." It's a handy word that can describe a conclusive
concept, a conclusive person, or even that conclusive person's conclusive
remarks. The best known close relative of "apodictic" is "paradigm" ("an
outstandingly clear or typical example"); both words are built on Greek
"deiknynai," meaning "to show." More distant relatives (from Latin "dicere," a
relative of "deiknynai" that means "to say") include "diction," "dictate,"
"edict," and "predict."