Thursday, September 27, 2012

Adventures in Logophilia Day 15: Quidnunc

Today's word is...


A quidnunc (noun) is a person who seeks to know all the latest gossip or news, in other words a busybody.  In Latin, it is literally "what now?"

I think we all have quidnunc moments (it can be a verb - I've decided), and I don't mean this in a bad way.  Not every is "up" on celebrity gossip, but when events sweep the nation or the world, we can't help but chatter about it - turn around to our neighbor in the next cubicle or inquire of a roommate if they "heard" about that thing the president said or what the weather looks like: "Man, if we don't get rain soon..." It's only human nature to twitter about these things... which is why something like, well, Twitter exists.  We were tweeting long before it required an email address and a password, long before ampersands and hashtags.  We do it everyday, whether it's from a blog like Daedalus or over morning coffee.  News spreads like wildfire, and we've become very good at producing a faster, more intense burn.

I just love how Latin works its way into our era.  See?  Whoever said Latin was dead obviously didn't like words like this gem!

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