With the Passing of Time

spurious
\SPYUR-ee-us\ | adjective

1 : of illegitimate birth
2 : not genuine : false

I’ve only ever heard of the second meaning attached to this word; making a spurious claim and all that. The first one is funny to me. It’s like an alternative to bastard but would confuse everyone if you used it. “You spurious SOB!”

The link I found is for a blog called Spurious and it really interests me. It’s mostly someone’s original fiction writing, I think, mixed with some essay and observation. I mostly skimmed (read through three or four posts in full) but what I read intrigues me. I like the writing style, I’m curious about the writer. I wonder why no one seems to be commenting (maybe s/he keeps them all screened) and am amazed at how long this person has maintained the blog (since December 2003). I’ve bookmarked the page and plan on spending some time reading it.
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subvention
\sub-VEN-shun\ | noun

1a : the provision of assistance or financial support: as
1b : endowment
1c : a subsidy from a government or foundation

Maybe this is one of those situations where we liberals need to take a lesson from the conservative fucktards and begin renaming things to suit our purposes. Welfare? No such thing. We provide subvention, nothing more.

I really like that almost all the first links have to do with publication subvention, and all for scholarly research. That’s very cool. Yes, I probably wouldn’t think it was cool if the research was in proving some Republican asshattery but then I wouldn’t consider any of that scholarly. That’s just spin no matter how much they try and pretend there’s anything unbiased about it.
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malinger
\muh-LING-gur\ | verb

1 : to pretend or exaggerate incapacity or illness (as to avoid duty or work)

There have been times when my inability to go to work has been genuine stress and depression. But there have also been times when I have been malingering. I know this word all too well, I’m afraid. It’s a really good word, sounds like what it means to me. It’s like to linger is fine, but add that ‘mal’ bit in there and it goes all wrong.

There’s an actor whose last name is Malinger. I think I’d consider changing that. What subliminal message are you sending to casting agents. There are several people with that last name. I’d prefer my plain, “everybody in the country has my name” name. At least it doesn’t conjure up anything negative.
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eclogue
\ECK-log\ | noun

1 : a poem in which shepherds converse

Another new word for me, although I prefer Wikipedia’s definition (a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject) or the Encyclopedia Brittanica (which simply says its usually written in dialogue) because the shepherds converse part, while very interesting as a form of poetry, does seem more than a little out dated.

One of the classics is The Eclogues by Virgil, and you can find eclogues in art and even music. I’m glad I know this word but I don’t have much to say about it today. Maybe next month when things have died down a bit. In the meantime, two nice pictures that come up on Flickr: one of a cat drinking from a sink (they quote from Virgil in the notes; only reason I can think of why it comes up in a search) and one of a lovely bucolic scene.