Coincidence is an amazing thing. My current bed-time reading is Speaking For Themselves
, the personal letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill, edited by their daughter.
Chapter VI on The Dardanelles, has an introduction which includes a comment about Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher being initially enthusiastic in his support of the plan, but then obstructing all Churchill's efforts to send Naval reinforcements.
Churchill stated: 'Wildly supportive of any plan at one moment, and as violent in his opposition to it the next, the 70 year old Admiral's tergiversations made him a difficult colleague - and an impossible one when events started to go awry.'
Having read this, the following day I read that tergiversate, a word I had never previously come across in my 77 years had been chosen as the word of 2011.
, the personal letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill, edited by their daughter.Chapter VI on The Dardanelles, has an introduction which includes a comment about Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher being initially enthusiastic in his support of the plan, but then obstructing all Churchill's efforts to send Naval reinforcements.
Churchill stated: 'Wildly supportive of any plan at one moment, and as violent in his opposition to it the next, the 70 year old Admiral's tergiversations made him a difficult colleague - and an impossible one when events started to go awry.'
Having read this, the following day I read that tergiversate, a word I had never previously come across in my 77 years had been chosen as the word of 2011.
My dictionary (Concise Oxford) entry for the word of the year reads:
tergiversate v.i. Turn one's back on something, be apostate, change one's party or principles; equivocate, make conflicting or evasive statements; hence or cogn. ~A'TION, ~ator, ns [f. L tergiversari turn one's back (tergum back vertere vers- turn) + -ATE]
never heard that word b4 either
ReplyDeleteGood one! I'd never heard of this word, either. Off to see how it's pronounced!
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