Learning | Excoriate

A recent online headline caught the attention of a few of us at the library. It referred to a professional baseball player being "excoriated" for training for a position he no longer plays.  Never mind the controversy about the player's motives for training; it just seemed like an unnecessarily big word for a sports story headline.

Excoriate. From Richard King's photostream on Flickr.com.
Some rights reserved

Excoriate comes from the Latin word excoriatus,  which in turn is derived from the prefix ex- (meaning out or from,) and the Latin word corium (meaning skin or hide.) Both excoriatus and excoriate mean to flay, or strip off the skin or hide. In the eighteenth century, the word started to be used figuratively, meaning to censure or denounce. 


So why didn't the news agency use a shorter word like censure or denounce? I don't  have a good answer for that. Journalists used to try to write news stories that could be read at a sixth grade level.  Perhaps that reporter and editor did not know about that practice, or didn't care.


A search for excoriate in our Shiny New catalog found no results. Instead, I'll leave you with a list of books about that controversial baseball player.

Just Life| My Happiness Project!

I want tons of happiness this year. I want happiness for me, for my family, and for my friends. I wish happiness for all of the decent human beings of the world.

For foes, let's leave them to Dementors. Yep, I have been watching too many Harry Potter movies lately. 

A few years ago, to boost my happiness, I started reading the" The happiness project " by Gretchen Rubin. 

Unfortunately, I never finished reading it. This January, I am going to read this entire book to boost my happiness.

Happiness is so important and sometimes so elusive.

This book has twelve chapters; one chapter for each month of the year. 

The book starts with January. The aim of this month is to " Boost energy". Each chapter of this book is focused on one specific topic.

The month of June is called " Make time for friends". That is something that I have got to work on.

Gretchen Rubin, also wrote another book called Happier at home. I have got to read this one too. You can visit her website at www.gretchenrubin.com

She also has a new book coming up this year called: " Better Than Before. Mastering the Habits of Our everyday Lives".

So, this new year, lets try to be happier. Here are a few books on happiness:

Code to joy : the four-step solution to unlocking your natural state of happiness

The myths of happiness

The wisdom we're born with : restoring our faith in ourselves

Signing off until next Monday- Panteha