Happy Chinese New Year! This week begins the year of the pig, according to the Chinese calendar. If you were born in 1995, 1983, 1971, 1959, 1947, 1935, 1923, or 1911, congratulations! This is your year. In Chinese astrology a pig signifies intelligence, honesty, strength, and fortitude.
It's so unfair that in many cultures pigs symbolize all things uncultured. In English we have idioms such as to pig out (to overeat), to be pigheaded (stubborn), to be piggish (greedy or slovenly), to hog (take more than one's share) -- all reflections of our bias. In truth, pigs are the most intelligent animals after primates. See more at http://www.goveg.com/f-hiddenlivespigs.asp This week we'll celebrate the Chinese New Year with a few porcine words -- words that have little piggies in their spellings. pignus (PIG-nuhs) noun, plural pignora 1. A pledge. 2. Something held as security for a debt. [From Latin pignus (pledge).] -Anu Garg (garg wordsmith.org) "I hear a threat? You hear a pignus of your committal. No more." Anthony Burgess; A Dead Man in Deptford; Carroll & Graf; 1995. Sponsors' Messages: Always find the right word with the Visual Thesaurus. Wordsmith readers save 10%. Try it free! http://www.visualthesaurus.com/?code=qv9&ad=aw Subscribe to http://delanceyplace.com -- a carefully selected non-fiction book excerpt free to your email each day. It's the thinking person's daily quote. ............................................................................ Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone. -Gladys Browyn Stern, writer (1890-1973) Discuss this week's words on our bulletin board: http://wordsmith.org/board Remove, change address, gift subs: http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscriber.html Pronunciation: http://wordsmith.org/words/pignus.wav http://wordsmith.org/words/pignus.ram Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/pignus.html This message was sent to "[email protected]".
