3.13.2006

Maligner Notes

I learned a new word today. Well, new usage for a word. And it's not a hard one. And I hope you don't think me naive for not having known this. But I feel better now that this gap in my vocabulary has been spackled.

Regarding the (newly-dead) Slobodan Milosevic, Condi Rice said this weekend that he was

"one of the most malign forces in Europe in quite a long time."

Huh.
I've never thought of malign as an adjective. "Malignant", yes. But there it is in the dictionary. Harmful, evil, mean. Yup.

Huh.

3 comments:

ACoolKid said...

While you have the dictionary out,
is it pronounced differently? Do we have to say MAH-line? Or is it like Malignant where the syllable is more Muh than MAH?

Sometimes, it's the little things that make the big differences.

On another note, we overturned this man's government with an air strike campaign that cost under 3 billion dollars. We instituted peace quickly, and used UN and NATO powers to limit our involvement. No one thinks much of our time "fighting" in Yugoslavia, though it was only 6 years ago.

Yesterday, our total expenditures in Iraq topped 400 billion dollars. Saddam is, seemingly, at least 133 times more malign than ol' Slobo.

...

Today's secret code word for comment entry is "zzwrvh". Is that in the dictionary?

Eric "Babe" Morse said...

It's the same.
I like to say it like Ringo Starr saying "my line."

"What's that?"
"'at's m'line..."

400 billion is inconceivable to me. It may as well be a cajillion.

And, finally, "zzwrvh" is, I believe, what someone with lockjaw does to miss a deer.

ACoolKid said...

With comments like that,
people will think you've gone
Starkey Raving Mad!