Welcome to another installment of SHANE’S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.
But why all these new words?
Why not the old, familiar, comforting words, like the ones you’re sure to hear at Democratic Party fundraising bowl-a-thons?
It’s because a healthy vocabulary isn’t about intimidation through erudition. Rather, it’s about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one’s pay grade or station in life.
Even remuneration-engorged municipal corporate attorneys are eligible for this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, as we await an explanation that will never come as to why City Hall insists on awarding no-bid monopolies to Louisville companies, when our own community has the know-how to do it ourselves, all we have is deadening stretches of down-low time — and the opportunity to learn something, if we’re so inclined.
The adjective “sardonic” is a perennial favorite, and one that lies very close to the front of any responsible New Gahanian resident’s Book of How to Cope.
sardonic
[sahr-don-ik]adjective
1. characterized by bitter or scornful derision; mocking; cynical; sneering.
Origin of sardonic
1630-40; alteration of earlier sardonian (influenced by French sardonique) < Latin sardoni(us) (< Greek sardónios of Sardinia) + -an; alluding to a Sardinian plant which when eaten was supposed to produce convulsive laughter ending in death.
It’s almost a default condition among the ruled.
“I flashed a sardonic grin when my councilman referred to me as a malcontent, and reminded him that his undemocratic principles were showing.”
