29 June 2015

• Prodigious: Extra ordinary in size, amount, extent, degree, force etc. 
• The book, at once complex and endlessly available for revisits, allows the mind to achieve an act of prodigious control. (Tim Parks- Paris Review) 
• Thrall: A person who is morally or mentally enslaved by some power, influence, or the like
• Rather than submitting ourselves to a stream of information, in thrall to each precarious moment of a single reading, we can gradually come to possess, indeed memorize, the work outside time. (Tim Parks- Paris Review)
• Piketty, who separated from the mother of his daughters some years ago and recently married Julia Cage, a 31-year-old French economist whom he met at the Paris School of Economics, is not in thrall to money. (Anne-Sylvaine Chassany-FT) 
• Tenet: Any opinion, principle, doctrine, dogma etc. especially one held true by members of a profession, group, or movement
• Data is another key tenet of what's make our decision making so successful. (John Kaplan in McKinsey & Company)

27 June 2015

• Reticulated: Resembling, covered with, or having a form of a net.
• It is not a very hard thing to go off into the wilderness and kill an elephant, or white rhino, or a reticulated giraffe, or giant eland; but it is a very hard thing to get good photographs of them, and still a harder thing to cure and transport the skins and skulls of a number of such specimen. (Theodore Roosevelt) 
• Distill: To extract the essential elements of; refine; abstract
• Where does intelligence-much less wisdom-really begin? Let me distill the heart of the question: what's the difference between dumb and stupid? (Umair Haque) 
• Siphon off: To embezzle or steal something a little at a time.
• He warns, however, that London needs to realize, that Europe is " not about profiting from the free circulation of goods of your neighbors while siphoning off their fiscal base." (Thomas Piketty in FT) 
•  Stand-in: Any substitute
• Self-improvement after all can serve as a stand-in for salvation. (Ainsley O' Connell) 
• Vitality: Exuberant physical strength or mental vigor
• Roosevelt on safari burned with exuberant vitality.  (Mark Jenkins) 
• My life's work is to make the link between the way you pay attention and your vitality more obvious. (Ellen Langer- Interview Business + Strategy)
• Flail: Flounder; struggle uselessly
• Most executive know that how they respond to the challenge of sustainability will profoundly affect the competitiveness-and perhaps even the survival-of their organizations. Yet, most are flailing around, launching a hodgepodge of initiatives without overarching vision or plan. (David A. Lubin & Daniel C. Etsy)    

26 June 2015

• Obliterate: To remove or destroy all traces of; do away with, destroy completely
• Death may be the great equalizer, but Americans have long believed that during this life, " the spread of education would do more than all things else to obliterate factitious distinctions in society." (Andrew Delbanco) 
• Couple recalled their hurried trip to Ethiopia in the hope Samya might have survived or that she or her effects might be recoverable. But the plane and its passengers were obliterated on impact. (Edward Helmore).  (Added on 17 June 2019)
• Factitious: Not spontaneous or natural; artificial; contrived
• Death may be the great equalizer, but Americans have long believed that during this life, " the spread of education would do more than all things else to obliterate factitious distinctions in society." (Andrew Delbanco) 
• Recuperate: To recover from sickness or exhaustion; regain health or strength
• We gave them white sheets to recuperate in if they survived, and when they didn't, those white sheets became their shrouds.  (Mohammed Hanif) 
• Patois: A regional form of language, especially of French, differing from the standard, literary form of the language. 
• Kotler reads the academic work of Thomas Piketty and other economists but expresses his argument in the more accessible patois of a columnist such as Thomas Friedman. (Deepali Srivastava) 

24 June 2015

• Pantomime: The art or technique of conveying emotions, actions, feelings etc. by gestures without speech. 
• So why were they booing him-and were their actions harmless pantomime fun, or something altogether more dispiriting? (Sarfraz Manzoor) 
• Regale: To entertain lavishly or agreeably; delight
• When I was growing up in 1980s, my father would regale us with stories about the great fast bowler Fazal Mahmood, who helped Pakistan beat Len Hutton's England at The Oval in 1954. (Sarfraz Manzoor) 

21 June 2015

• Thrown down the gauntlet: To challenge, to defy
• The former president seems to have thrown down the gauntlet. (Zahid Hussain-Dawn)
• Imbrication: An overlapping, as of tiles or shingles. 
• Far from being characterized by a growing externality of economy and sociality, capitalism operates through their imbrication: morality, faith, power, and emotion the distinctive qualities of human association, are interiorized into the logic of economy. (Martijn Konings)
• Unbridled: not controlled or restrained 
• Capitalism, with its unbridled appetite for expansive consumption and the production that feeds it, would be viewed as the core problem. (John A. Mathews) 

20 June 2015

• Sardonic:Characterized by bitter or scornful derision; mocking; cynical; sneering.
• But often the language itself had personality, and a clear voice came through: sardonic, witty, self-deprecating, with a tarp of sad earnestness over it, all of which I liked, so I found it easy to read the pages they gave me and to encourage them.  (Deb Olin Unferth)

19 June 2015

• Ethos: The fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period; the character or disposition of a community, group, person, etc.
• Now 81, he explains his ethos in a memoir out this month: " I feel a great obligation to be helpful to a society from which I've received so much."  (Alison Beard-HBR)
• Trappings: Conventional adornments; characteristic signs; the accessories and adornments that characterize or symbolize a condition, office, etc.   
• He writes, " Hybrid cars, LED light bulbs, wind farms, and green buildings, these are all just the trappings that convince us that we are doing something when in fact we are fooling ourselves and making things worse." (John R. Ehrenfeld & Andrew J. Hoffman) 
• Vantage: A position, condition, or place affording some advantage or a commanding view
• From this vantage point, Portes and Vickstrom's critique can be read as directed at the traditionalistic, Gemeinschaft form of social capital, which indeed is often assumed to be the defining quality of community itself. (Seok-Woo Kwon & Paul S. Adler-AMR)
• Wok: A large bowl-shaped pan used in cooking Chinese food
• An herbal doctor in Niushikou, near the city of Chengdu, recommended that my parents hold me over a wok filled with boiling herbal water every morning and every evening. (Liao Yiwu)

18 June 2015

• Convoluted: Twisted; coiled; complicated; intricately involved
• In a quest to answer this complex and convoluted question there is a need to identify possible changes, their consequences, and strategies to meet such challenges through planning and preparation. (MZR-JISR)

16 June 2015

• Pedantic: Ostentatious in one's learning; overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, especially in teaching
  
• Societal is the pedantic alternative to social. (Mark Nichol)

15 June 2015

• Carbon footprint: The amount of carbon dioxide or other carbon compounds released into the atmosphere as a result of the activities of a particular individual, organization, or community.
• It's worth emphasizing that the few companies that are making material progress on their carbon footprint are those with explicit emissions reduction  commitments measured in absolute terms. (Gregory Unruh) 

14 June 2015

• Temporal: Enduring for a time only, temporary; transitory.
• Certainly there has been variability, particularly on a regional scale, but, at the global scale, we have developed-indeed, thrived-during a temporal island of climatic stability. (Howard-Grenville, Buckle, Hoskins, George) 
• Tipping point: A point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change. 
• Taken together, the data suggest, that sustainability movement is nearing a tipping point, the point at which the substantial portion of companies are not only seeing the need of sustainable business practices but are also deriving financial benefits from these activities. (MIT Sloan Management Review and The Boston Consulting Group)

13 June 2015

• Magical thinking: Believing that one event happens as the result of another without a plausible link or causation.
• This way of not looking at the world is what developmental psychologists call "magical thinking," of which the best-known example is the child who covers her eyes and believes it makes her vanish from sight. (Mellisa A. Berman) 
• Smug: Contentedly confident of one's ability, superiority or correctness; complacent
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• Hard-nosed: Hardheaded or tough; unsentimentally practical
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12 June 2015

• Bionic: Having extraordinary strength, powers, or capabilities; superhuman
• He has finished the presentation with bionic speed. (SWA)
• Silo: A process, system, department etc. that operates in isolation from others.
• One should not work in silo. (SWA)

11 June 2015

• Effulgent: Shining forth brilliantly; radiant. 
• It was an effulgent and thriving concern that Maddox bequeathed to his successor. (Walter Gratzer) 
• Stasis: A state or condition in which there is no action or progress; static situation.
• Under the stewardship L.J.F. (Jack to his inmates) Brimble a certain stasis has set in. (Walter Gratzer)
• Pedestrian: Lacking in vitality, imagination, distinction, etc.; commonplace; prosaic; dull. 
• True, there had been some notable (always very brief) communications, most memorably perhaps that by Watson and Crick on the structure of DNA but most contributions were pedestrian.  (Walter Gratzer) 
• Fustian: Pompous or pretentious speech or writing
• Maddox lost no time in tearing down the journal's fustian image. (Walter Gratzer)

10 June 2015

• Red herring: Something intended to divert attention from the real problem or matter at hand; misleading clue
• Since the problem is not intended to be straightforward, the narrative may include additional information, including "red herrings" , that the students must consider as they search for the key issues. (International Records Management Trust) 
• Steven Finn and Jake Ball are the most vulnerable as England look to make space for the return of James Anderson (whose absence here is a red herring; England lost because of weak batting not the absence of another swing bowler) and Stokes. (George Dobell) July 17'  2016.

9 June 2015

• Watershed: An important period or factor that serves as a divided line.
• Charles now counted the case as a watershed in the section's development.  (HBR)
• Tour de force: An exceptional achievement by an artist, or author, or the like, that is unlikely to be equaled by that person, or anyone else; stroke of a genius
• Janet had performed an analytic tour de force smashing the case wide open in the last minutes of the class. (HBR)
• Rashomon Effect: The effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible account of it.
• Sustainability is similar to a concept in cinematography called Roshoman Effect.           (Whitfield & McNett)
• Value Proposition: (In marketing) an innovation, service, or feature intended to make a company or product attractive to customers. 
• Thought leadership has long been a cornerstone of BCG's value proposition. (BCG)
• Steve knows that successful business strategies from winning value propositions-the benefits a product offers  to a target segment of the market, along with actions that deliver those benefits. (Bill Barnett) 

8 June 2015

• Raconteur: A person who is skilled in relating stories and anecdotes interestingly. 
• Professor Owen Glendower, a celebrated scholar and raconteur, gave two formal lectures each week. (Abby Henson)
• Cull: To choose; select; pick
• She took a few hours each week from her own dissertation research to read literary criticism on the plays and cull excerpts to present her sections. (Abby Henson)
• Riffle: To turn hastily; flutter and shift 
• Jack slouched in his seat, looking away from me, and riffled the pages of his text. (Abby Henson)
• Snicker: A laugh in a half-suppressed, indecorous or disrespectful manner. 
• Snickers came from the side of the room. (HBR)

7 June 2015

• Avuncular: Of, relating to, or characteristic of an uncle 
• Some diplomats who have met both with both Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Nayef in recent months said the senior prince appeared avuncular toward his younger cousin. (David D. Kirkpatrick) 
• Finding a way to replicate the avuncular Evans, the charismatic heart of the course, will be on of their primary challenges. (Ainsley O'Connell)

6 June 2015

• Postulate: To assume without proof, or as self-evident; take for granted
• Responsibility for future generations is easily postulated in the abstract but it is much more difficult to set it to work in the concrete. (routeledge.com) 

5 June 2015

• Short shrift: Give (or receive) cursory attention or little time.
• Etsy, for example, is concerned that "paired with social agenda, the environment tends to get short shrift. (Dyllick & Hockerts)

4 June 2015

• Inordinate: Not within proper or reasonable limits; immoderate; excessive; unrestrained in conduct, feelings etc.  
• I am a little tired of all the apologies, and qualifications that hover around translation. Sure, it requires an inordinate supply of humility. (Peter Cole)
• Scads: A large quantity of anything
• Josh died of a heroin overdose when Mann was just 13, leaving behind a big, unfulfilled ambitions and scads of self-castigating notebooks. (Joe Fessler) 
• Angst: A feeling of dread, anxiety, or anguish
• When I first encountered J.R. Ackerley's My Dog Tulip, I was in a particularly angsty phase of my graduate-school career.(Joe Fessler)
• Wince: To draw back or tense the body, as from pain or from a blow; start; flinch
• I winced each time someone found out my chosen genre and asked me, with a sneer, "Oh, so what horrible event brought you here?"(Joe Fessler)
• Sneer: To smile. laugh, or contort the face in a manner that shows scorn or contempt
• I winced each time someone found out my chosen genre and asked me, with a sneer, "Oh, so what horrible event brought you here?"(Joe Fessler)
• Maudlin: Tearfully or weakly emotional; foolishly sentimental
• But as I wrote about baseball and about my family, two topics that can easily verge into the maudlin or the insular, I faced more than literally self doubt-I exhausted myself questioning whether the things I cared about were worth care in the first place. (Joe Fessler)
• Insular: Detached; standing alone; isolated
• But as I wrote about baseball and about my family, two topics that can easily verge into the maudlin or the insular, I faced more than literally self doubt-I exhausted myself questioning whether the things I cared about were worth care in the first place. (Joe Fessler)
• Purgatory: Any condition or place of temporary punishment, suffering, expiation or the like; serving to clean, purify, or expiate 
• At first, the reader is suspended in a sort of of purgatory of literary expectation. (Joe Fessler)
• I spend over a year in purgatory before eventually being welcomed back into the field. (Dorie Clark: The Long Game)
• Crescendo: A steady increase in force or intensity 
• Ackerley had been building to a crescendo without me even noticing it. (Joe Fessler)
• Operatic: Of relating to opera; exaggerated or melodramatic behavior, often thought to be characteristic of operatic acting. 
• But look how quickly he turns from the matter-of-fact to the operatic, as he shows us how much he worries for her.(Joe Fessler)
• Ominous: Portending evil or harm; foreboding; threatening; inauspicious
• Every word is ominous.(Joe Fessler)
• Rectitude:Rightness of principle or conduct; moral virtue
• This is the question whether our state has a moral rectitude, or realizing what a state has to do, and how to do. (Dawn) 

3 June 2015

• Afoot: Astir; in progress
• This article is fair warning to economic development practitioners that change is afoot and time remaining to differentiate your community on sustainability is growing short. (Don Schjeldahl) 
• Nimble: Quick and light in movement; moving with ease; agile; active; rapid
• Friedman and others argue that where historical and geographical divisions once protected local business interests, companies must now be globally aware and nimble to remain competitive. (Don Schjeldahl)

2 June 2015

• Imbue: To impregnate or inspire, as with feelings, opinions etc.
• Honesty and specificity have the power to redeem the banal, imbuing our smallest private moments with significance. (Joe Fessler) 
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1 June 2015

• Tacit: Understood without being openly expressed; implied
• Even the most avowedly open-minded organizations place tacit constraints on what can be said or even thought. (CMR) 
• Such tacit benevolence out not continue, however. (HBR)
• Bereft: Deprived
• Universities have been bereft of performance improvements. (CMR) 
• Unobtrusive: Not obtrusive; inconspicuous; unassertive; reticent
• Unobtrusive, the couple lived the couple lived quietly in an apartment on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, enjoyed high-society life and vacationed in Europe. (Clarke Simmons)  
• Exacting: Rigid or severe in demands or requirements 
• Henry Leland, the exacting patriarch of Cadillac and later Lincoln, mentored Sloan on quality control. (Clarke Simmons) 
• Behemoth: Any creature or thing of monstrous size or power 
• Sloan systematically organized a chaotic early GM into a smooth-running, industrial behemoth  of such scope and profit that it was seen as a proxy for American economic might at large. (Clarke Simmons) 
• Metrics: A standard for measuring or evaluating something, especially one that uses figure or statistics
• Corporations define sustainability for themselves in the absence of standards, and it may be years before widely accepted metrics emerge.  (Don Schjeldahl)  
• Deride: To laugh at in scorn or contempt; scoff or jeer at; mock.
• Deriding choice, Ford offered basic transportation with his "universal car" at ever lower prices. (Clarke Simmons)
• Nebulous: Hazy; vague; indistinct; or confused 
• Strategic decision making is difficult because the problems that firms confront are nebulous. (Ram Shivakumar)
• Abstract: Reticent: Reluctant; or restrained 
• However, this position abstracts from various sources of imperfection that destruct market systems from maximizing social welfare; that is, from achieving the highest possible level of well-being in society. (Werner Hediger) 
• Heuristic: Serving to indicate or point out; stimulating interest as a means of further investigation; encouraging a person to learn, discover, understand or solve problems on his or her own, as by experimenting; evaluating possible answers or solutions, or by trial and error 
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• Dyadic: Of or consisting of a dyad; being a group of two 
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