A reader asks: Can you explain clearly the difference between urgency and exigency? Thank you. Also, any thoughts on the concept or process of “moonshoot”? Heard the term when President Biden was talking about cancer. The nouns urgency and exigency are not synonyms, but they are related in thought. Exigency An exigency is an urgent … Read more
A reader, wondering about the pronunciation of caricature, asks if I would consider including the phonetic pronunciation of words I discuss. Many years ago, when I first began writing for DWT, I provided phonetic transcriptions and talked rather a lot about pronunciation. Two considerations led to my dropping the transcriptions and treading carefully on matters … Read more
A web search for the term “crisis of truth” brings up more than a million hits. Public figures have always lied in order to advance their careers, but in former times, they had the grace to be embarrassed when caught in their lies. Nowadays, political candidates and their lawyers caught up in lies are quick … Read more
The writer of an article in the Washington Post about the funeral arrangements for the late Queen Elizabeth II remarked that the events were “seeped in tradition.” It may have been an inadvertent typo, but it may have been the result of not looking up the word to check its meaning. An event may be … Read more