Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Word of The Week Wednesday: "Lackadaisical"

In the series of books that I have been reading going on for about 5 years now, The Sookie Stackhouse novels, Sookie always references her "Word of the Day" calendar that sits by her phone in her kitchen. She tries to use it in the narrartive of her life. It is sometimes comical of the word that is on the calendar because it seems to parallel with the adventurous activities going on in her life at the moment.

To break it on down, Sookie is a telepath. She has heard everyone's thoughts like a radio unable to find a station in her head all her life. She lives in a small town in Louisiana. Vampires have declared themselves as true beings and are attempting to contribute to society. She cannot "hear" the vampires thoughts which is unbelievably soothing to her. Sookie is in love with a vampire. She is a friend of the local werewolf pack in Shreveport. She is part fairy but she doesn't find this out until she starts hob nobbing with the vampires after they "come out of the coffin". She is a strong girl and her strength is constantly tested by her aquaintances with the supernatural world. She is learning to use her "disability" as something positive.

I absolutely love this series. For me to follow a series and read each book as it comes out religiouslly is saying something for my ADD brain. If this sounds a little familiar to you, they have made this into a HBO series called "True Blood". Personally, the t.v. show is good but the books blow it out of the water.

So in honor of Sookie, I am going to start having a "Word of the Week" post to enhance our vocabulary and stretch our brains a tad. This is possible because of my friends at allwords.com . I probably shouldn't use the words "my friends" because they have no idea who me or my blog is or that we even exist, but we are all friends here right?

This week's word is:

Lackadaisical
Definition--Lackadaisical- adj. lacking energy; listless; lazy.

 
Discussion-- Lackadaisical is one of my favorite words of all time. It has an interesting origin, stemming from the English interjection alas! or alack! It is an alteration of the phrase alack-the-day. It perhaps developed its current meaning through the influence of the word lax, meaning loose.


It not necessarily a bad thing to be lackadaisical, provided that you are doing so at appropriate times. For instance, perhaps it is a Sunday afternoon and all you want to do is sit around and watch golf on television. That's perfectly acceptable. However, there are certain places that you must not become lackadaisical, such as when you are at work. I have not met a boss yet that appreciated listless employees!


Etymology--Lackadaisical- See above for connection to lax, which means loose or slack. Here you can see the connection between the word lackadaisical and the popular slang term "slacker."

As I type all of this, I am wondering if someone is trying to tell me something here? Is this in any way paralleling with MY life?... Nah!

Enjoy your Word of the Week my little bloggies!

Love,
Kaci

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