A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg
While growing up in India, I watched many puppet performances, dramas, and movies. And my favorite: the magic shows!
In the magic shows, besides the standard fare -- sawing a girl in half, making rabbits disappear, and the like -- there was a serial performance called The Water of India. After every few acts, the magician would walk to a pitcher on the table in one corner of the stage, lift it up dramatically and announce, "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Water of India!"
He would turn the pitcher upside down to let water pour out. The vessel was supposedly empty then, but after 15 minutes he would repeat this action, and more water would pour from the jug. While he performed that trick and I marveled at the magic pitcher that replenished itself, his assistants would set up the next trick.
Well, consider this week's miscellaneous words theme the AWAD equivalent of The Water of India. So, Ladies and Gentlemen, enjoy these assorted words (while we put together next week's show of words, definitions, etymologies, usage, pronunciations, quotations, and more).
otiose
PRONUNCIATION:
(O-shee-ohs, O-ti-) 
MEANING:
adjective:
1. Superfluous.
2. Futile.
3. Indolent.
ETYMOLOGY:
From otium (leisure).
USAGE:
"I hung around that summer until my presence became otiose. Friends' parents started asking me how long I would be in town."
Ian Frazier; Out of Ohio; The New Yorker; Jan 10, 2005.
"The measure is entirely otiose. There are already laws against harassment."
Dominic Lawson; What Fearful Hypocrites Ministers Are; The Independent (London, UK); Feb 9, 2007.
Explore "otiose" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
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