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Showing posts with label brownies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brownies. Show all posts

Friday, September 26, 2008

Volition

The Word of the Day for September 26 is "volition."
volition: (noun) 1. The act or instance of making a conscious choice or decision.
      2.  A conscious choice or decision.
      3. The power or faculty of choosing; the will.

Synonyms: willing**

Usage: Without volition I leaned toward her, as a tree is swayed by the wind.

Relevance to my life: Stripped of my volition, I heeded the siren song of chocolate and, giving in, baked a batch of my Crisis Brownies.

It often comes conveniently pre-packaged in the expression "of one's own volition," which is a synonym for "willingly" as in:

The brutal case of pneumonia I had suffered that Estonian winter had left me so weakened and anemic that, one day upon entering the house and smelling the liver sizzling in the skillet, I rushed into the kitchen and, of my own volition, devoured a heaping helping of the iron-rich meat.*

What it is NOT: "violation" - I can only consider your reading my emails and IMs a volition of my privacy. wrong
* I hate liver. Offal is, well, awful. Hell, I was a Vegan for some years, but gave in because, dammit, sometimes I just want a juicy steak.

**Actually, I am not in complete agreement with TheFreeDictionary here. Technically, "willing" is not a synonym for "volition" since "willing" is an adjective and "volition" a noun. A better straight synonym would be the noun "will."

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Circumference

The Word of the Day for September 18 is "circumference."
circumference: (noun) 1. The boundary line of a circle.
2. a The boundary line of a figure, area or object
    b. The length of such a boundary.

Synonym: circuit, compass, perimeter, periphery

Usage: He had walked the full circumference of his land, repairing his fence along the way.

Relevance to my life: While the circumference of my patience may be an infinite loop, the virtue itself is quite finite.

Oh my god. I had a long post, including a stellar grammar tangent, but when I hit post, Tom's flying monkeys sent it spinning into the MySpace ether. I don't have the spirit to attempt to recreate it. *sigh*

I may have to bake another batch of Crisis Brownies, though I should probably start dragging my ass to the gym again and flog myself on the elliptical trainer instead.