Well, it's the middle of April and we've got showers in my neck of the woods. May they bring an efflorescence of May flowers!

Though teeth can theoretically be in a pre-carious state (no caries, as yet), which would make long term health prospects precarious, those "cariouses" aren't related. Unless there's some Proto PIE hiding out there.

This one's from PIE prek-/prok-, while t'other's from kere-. Wild.

Basically, yes. Now I'm also thinking that coterie may be in the middle, but it can go either way, depending on how it's deployed by the user and taken by the usee.

If a cabal is usually up to no good, and a clique is as much for the exclusion of others as for the inclusion of like minds, where does a coterie fall? Any thoughts?

Dr, Goodword has treated this word, here. Perhaps someone would like to be the first to post a reply to it?

Welcome to the Agora, by the way!

A pronunciation thought-let; when saying words in a vacuum, as individuals, I frequently pronounce them too distinctly. As an example, words that begin with ex-. In normal speaking, it probably comes out as eg-z or ig-z. As an individual word, eks-. Is that what others find in their speaking/reading?

The fuzzy GW for 4/10/24: • velutinous • Pronunciation: vê- lut -ên-ês • Hear it! [/url] Part of Speech: Adjective Meaning: Velvety, covered with a fine, soft, silky fiber. Notes: Today's Good Word is one that botanists have been hiding from us for centuries; it is most frequently used to refer to s...

For more on maundy money, see here.

On an infamous note, Volare was also used as the name of a Plymouth automobile that didn't have a great reception.

I remember well some summer eves, walking among the volitant swallows swooping about, gobbling up the pesky mosquitos.

For a double entendre , "Randy Gauntlet was quite taken with the little bibelot he picked up in the airport." I think I have a strange spell-check dictionary, neither entendre nor bibelot was in there until I put them there. There's probably some pun to be made with bibe-a-lot, too, but I ...

Speaking of pirates, there is a gag holiday called Talk Like a Pirate Day. It's on September 19, and next year will be its 30th anniversary.

Avast the word is quite popular with crossword constructors, too.

I don't usually reply first to my own suggestions, but as I just got back from experiencing totality, I figured I'd share. The difference between 99 and 100 percent is literally like turning out the only light in the room. Or more like turning a 3-way bulb down, if you could. Lights are on; go down ...

Bunny is at least a cutsey sounding term of endearment. I watched a movie yesterday, Cover Girl, where Gene Kelly's character called his girlfriend, Rita Hayworh, 'chicken'. Weird.

The relationship to hand goes further, too. After all, isn't a handler one who manipulates? Back in the day, when I got my first job at a pizzeria, we actually measured the ingredients for the sauce by hand. 3 cans of sauce, a manipule of X, a small manipule of Y, 3 more of Q, etc. Of course, we did...

Kowtowing is not a popular activity in the US

Except among certain conservative republicans, that is.