I found the word, “houseman,” in Peter Gomes’ obituary. The sentence was “He worked as a houseman to help pay for his education.”
When I use the “define-colon” google search command these two definitions pop up:
Definitions of houseman on the Web:
- intern: an advanced student or graduate in medicine gaining supervised practical experience (`houseman’ is a British term)
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn- Houseman was a term previously used for a junior British hospital doctor now known as a house officer.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houseman
But when I click on the little question mark that pops up when I highlight the word on the New York Times article, the apparently correct definition came up:
house·man (hous‘m?n‘, -m?n)
n.
A man employed for cleaning, maintenance, and other general work in a house or hotel.
Weird.
I had a very busy day yesterday. I made quiche and salad to take to share with my staff, exercised, accompanied two ballet classes and then met Eileen for drinks and supper at the pub.
Recently I purchased new shoes that have special supports in them. When the sales-person examined my feet he said that usually people with my kind of feet have a lot of back pain and other kinds of pain as a result. I don’t have any of this, but since walking and exercising in my new shoes I am experience a lot of soreness. Hopefully this is temporary.
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Supreme Court: AT&T can’t keep bad behavior a secret
This article by Nate Anderson on the Ars Technia website begins with this hilarious paragraph:
The Supreme Court decided (PDF) today that AT&T can’t keep embarrassing corporate information that it submits to the government out of public view; “personal privacy” rights do not apply to corporations. “We trust that AT&T will not take it personally” concluded the ruling.
Who knew the Supreme Court could be so witty?
Hopefully these rulings represent a trend.
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Proposed Texas immigration law contains convenient loophole for ‘the help’ – Yahoo! News
Thanks to the Davepaul for this link. A bill proposed by the same person (State Representative Debbie Riddle) who “made headlines last year when she claimed unnamed FBI officials had told her that pregnant women from the Middle East were traveling to America as tourists to give birth, and then raising their children to be terrorists who could later enter the U.S. freely as citizens — so-called “terror babies,” a devious offshoot of “anchor babies.” She became somewhat infamous on the web when she stumbled repeatedly in a CNN interview about the claims, complaining later that host Anderson Cooper’s line of questioning was more intense than she had prepared for.”
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Slashing Community Service – NYTimes.com
Specifically “AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, Teach for America, City Year, Foster Grandparents and others.” I can’t understand the blind anger that is driving our Congress to cut programs for the weakest in our society. It seems to me misinformed, at best and bigoted at worst.
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Why Your Boss Is Wrong About You – NYTimes.com
I love it that this article appeared the day I had a staff meeting.
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