chimera

[sardith]

Dr. Goodword,

This morning, I ran across this James Madison quote and encountered a word I would like you to talk about sometime:

"To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea."

The more that I read from people who lived hundreds of years before us, the more I think that our vocabulary is somehow shrinking, because they seem to use so many more descriptive words than we do these days. Does anyone feel the same way?

Susan

[LukeJavan8]

I sure do.
I get people asking, all the time, what's that word mean?

Chimera: there was a CSI show a couple years back where
the perp had double DNA. Some things matched, other
things did not. I don't pretend to understand the
chemistry,nor the science, but it seems that, in the
womb, one twin had absorbed the other. He was
called a chimera.

[sardith]

Luke~

As your example shows, you may not need to use an obscure word very often, but sometimes it is the only word that does the job. That is the reason to keep ALL the words we can.

[LukeJavan8]

I totally agree. Even if they cannot be texted. Not that
I text.

[sardith]