Recently a national-award-winning children's book made news. Any book that wins a prominent award should make news but this one did it for the wrong reasons. A controversy arose because the book included the word scrotum [From Latin scrautum (quiver)].
Some self-professed protectors of human sensibilities felt that the book ought not to be in libraries -- they felt the book was inappropriate for children. Imagine if kids learned a straightforward word to describe a part of human body! Who knows, they might be scarred for life. Well, this week's words are an antidote for such thinking. These are words that may sound risque but aren't. And if you find you haven't received the newsletter a few days this week, it's probably your email filter working hard to protect you from getting corrupted by these words. testaceous (teh-STAY-shuhs) adjective 1. Having a shell. 2. Having the reddish brown color of bricks or baked clay. [From Latin testa (shell).] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=testaceous -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "I am informed by Mr. F. Smith that the male ants of several species are black, the females being testaceous." Charles Darwin; The Descent Of Man; 1871. Sponsors' Messages: April 9 is the last day to make your voice heard to save the polar bear. Go to http://PolarBearSOS.org to help us reach our goal of 500,000 signatures. 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. ............................................................................ You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. -John Wooden, sports coach (1910- ) 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/testaceous.wav http://wordsmith.org/words/testaceous.ram Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/testaceous.html This message was sent to "[email protected]".
