{"id":4612,"date":"2019-11-19T21:55:41","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T21:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=4612"},"modified":"2019-11-20T02:55:33","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T02:55:33","slug":"word-of-the-day-brobdingnagian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2019\/11\/19\/word-of-the-day-brobdingnagian\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Brobdingnagian"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many people who have read Jonathan Swift\u2019s Gulliver\u2019s Travels<\/em>, published in 1725, are familiar with book 1, in which Lemuel Gulliver encounters the Lilliputians, those cute, vicious little people. But fewer people are familiar with book 2, in which Gulliver meets the people of Brobdingnag (yes, it\u2019s very difficult to say). These people are giants\u2014the physical relationship of Gulliver to the Brobdingnagians is the same as that of the Lilliputians to Gulliver. And from this group of characters we get the Word Genius Word of the Day, Brobdingnagian<\/em>, an adjective meaning either \u201cof or related to the fictional land of Brobdingnag\u201d or \u201cgigantic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, while we trace many English words to their sources in other languages, and while we study the way the meanings of these words change through time, Brobdingnagian<\/em> is different because we know exactly where it came from and when, and it has not changed its meaning in the almost-300 years since the word came into the language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this day in 1986, Major League Baseball announced the\nrecipients of some of its annual awards. And in this particular group was the\nNational League\u2019s Most Valuable Player, Michael Jack Schmidt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mike Schmidt, born September 27, 1949, was the son of\nparents who owned an aquatic center in Dayton, OH. He led Ohio University to its\nonly appearance in the College World Series in 1970. He was then drafted in the\nsecond round of the 1971 Major League draft. He played the 1971 and 1972\nseasons in the Phils\u2019 minor league system, first at AA and then AAA, but in\nSeptember of 1972, he was promoted to the major league club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his first full season with the big club, Schmidt hit just\n.196, below the Mendoza line, with 18 home runs and 52 RBI\u2014not an auspicious\nbeginning. But the next year he hit .282-36-116, a pretty spectacular season,\ngood enough to get him to the first of his 12 All-Star appearances. The next 3\nyears, his average dropped some, as well as his RBI, but he hit 38 homers in\neach year. In 1976, he also won a Gold Glove Award, given to the best fielder\nat each position in each league; he won that each year through 1984, and then\nwon it again in 1986. After a bit of an off year in 1978, Schmidt hit more than\n30 homers in nine consecutive seasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His career stats are pretty impressive: a .267 batting\naverage, 548 home runs, 1595 RBI, but in addition to that 10 Gold Glove awards\nand 12 All Star appearances, and 3 MVP awards. He was elected to the Hall of\nFame in 1995, his first year on the ballot, with 96.5% of the voters selecting\nhim. In 1997, the Baseball Writers\u2019 Association named him to the Major League All-Time\nteam as the third basemen, essentially labeling him the greatest third basemen\nin baseball history. In 1999, he was named the 28th<\/sup> best player in\nbaseball history by The Sporting News, in their ranking of the 100 Best All\nTime, and the highest ranking 3rd<\/sup> basemen as well as the highest\nranking player whose career began after 1967. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Baseball-Reference.com ranks his mustache as the 6th<\/sup>\nbest of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grew up near Philadelphia, rooting for the Phillies. Our\nchurch, where my dad was the pastor, made an annual trip to Connie Mack Stadium\nfor a ballgame. Mike Schmidt was a hero for the Phillies, for Philadelphia, and\nfor those of us who were and are fans. He was a player of Brobdingnagian\nproportions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image is a 1984 Topps All-Star card.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many people who have read Jonathan Swift\u2019s Gulliver\u2019s Travels, published in 1725, are familiar with book 1, in which Lemuel Gulliver encounters the Lilliputians, those cute, vicious little people. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4614,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4612\/revisions\/4614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}