• egregious •
Pronunciation: ê-gree-jês • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Flagrantly bad, outrageously offensive.
Notes: Today's is a highly vowelled word, containing all the vowels of the alphabet except A but doubling up on E to compensate for the omission. Try to keep them in order. The meaning of egregious goes beyond that of flagrant and refers only to something excruciatingly flagrant. The noun is egregiousness and the adverb, egregiously.
In Play: We hope that nothing egregious ever happens to you but if it does, today's Good Word will stand you in good stead to talk about it: "Referring to the archbishop as 'dude' was such an egregious error of judgment, I can't believe I heard you say it!" Remember, the sense of today's word goes beyond even outrageous: "When I told Ally Katz that Fairchild had died in a car accident over the weekend, her egregious response was to ask if she could have his company parking space."
Word History: Today's Good Word started out in life with a much more gleaming meaning. It is an English makeover of Latin egregius "outstanding, exceptional" from ex- "out of, from" + grex (greg+s) "the herd," i.e. "standing out from the herd." Of course, that sense is rather ambiguous since good or bad behavior separates us from the herd; over time the implication has slid from standing out in a good sense to standing out in a bad sense. The root here, greg-, is visible in a series of other English words referring metaphorically to herding: congregate from con- "together, with" + greg implies gathering as a herd, segregate from se- "apart" + greg implies separation from the herd, and aggregate from ad "to(ward)" + greg implies adding to the herd. (At no time does Susan Lister stand out more from the herd than when she sends us sterling Good Words like today's.)
EGREGIOUS
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EGREGIOUS
Last edited by Dr. Goodword on Sat May 05, 2012 10:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
• The Good Dr. Goodword
Ha! By no means! In fact, I was out standing in my field just a few minutes ago...Therefore, better to confine oneself to herd mentality than to risk being outstanding in one's field?"...but, alas, the wildebeest leaves the safety of the herd." A rather egregious error...
I'm more a believer in Thoreau's statement about marching to a beat of a different drummer. Obvious from my off-center postings...
But, if someone's a wildebeest--leaving the herd would be a problem...of an egregious nature.
"Taking a gnu step, uttering a gnu word, is what people fear most." -with apologies to Dostoyevskya wildebeest of a different snout. I think they'd all like to stay in the herd but sometimes their differences force them out.
"The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking gnu landscapes, but in having gnu eyes." -with apologies to Proust
-gailr
dancing to the beat of a different trumpet...
That's it isn't it? everyone is expected to conform, even non-conformists end up conforming to their own brand of non-conformity.Only if you're part of the herd in the first place.But the big bad thing is if someone thinks differently or swims upstream, they must be cut out of the herd.
mark e-gre-gious Bailey
mark playing-the-drums BaileySkinem--dancing to a kazoo
Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
kb
The quandry of adolesence--the desire to be different but not too different. Thus clicks are formed and so is born the rebel without a clue...or cause. Not that that is usually egregious (just to strike a glancing blow upon the topic) but it is all too common.That's it isn't it? everyone is expected to conform, even non-conformists end up conforming to their own brand of non-conformity.
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