{"id":4832,"date":"2020-01-09T21:06:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T21:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=4832"},"modified":"2020-01-09T21:12:21","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T21:12:21","slug":"word-of-the-day-superannuated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2020\/01\/09\/word-of-the-day-superannuated\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Superannuated"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day comes courtesy of Word Genius, and it is the adjective superannuated<\/em> (actually, it was their word of the day yesterday, but I was not feeling well and did not get this written, so it became today\u2019s). Superannuated<\/em> means \u201coutdated or obsolete,\u201d according to Word Genius. According to www.dictionary.com<\/a>, it also means \u201cretired because of age or infirmity\u201d or \u201ctoo old for use, work, service, or a position\u201d or \u201cantiquated.\u201d The emphasis is on the third syllable: \/ \u02ccsu\u2009p\u0259r\u02c8\u00e6n\u2009yu\u02cce\u026a\u2009t\u026ad \/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to www.etymonline.com<\/a>, the word enters the English language at the height of interest in \u201cink horn\u201d terms,\u201d in the \u201c1630s, \u2018obsolete, out of date;\u2019 1740, \u2018retired on account of old age,\u2019 from Modern Latin superannuatus<\/em>, alteration (perhaps by influence of annual<\/em>) of Medieval Latin superannatus<\/em> (which meant \u2018more than a year old\u2019 and was used of cattle), from Latin super<\/em> \u2018beyond, over\u2019 (see super-<\/strong>) + annus<\/em> \u2018year\u2019 (see annual<\/strong> (adj.)). Earlier in same sense was superannate<\/em> (c. 1600), from Medieval Latin superannatus<\/em>.\u201d It\u2019s interesting to me that it technically means \u201cover one year old,\u201d but it has come to mean \u201cout of date.\u201d Still, in certain academic disciplines, like computer science, the \u201cmore than one year old\u201d is pretty much the same as \u201cout of date\u201d when it comes to scholarly research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday, on January 8, we marked the first publication of what is purported to be the oldest continually published newspaper in the world, the Haarlems Dagblad<\/em>, which, under another title, the \u201cWeeckelycke Courante van Europa (Weekly Newspaper of Europe),\u201d began published as a weekly in 1656. It started publishing as a weekly, moved to publishing 2 or 3 days a week, for a while published as a monthly, was forced to merge with Haarlems Dagblad<\/em>, another newspaper, by the Nazis, and continues to publish under the latter name today. Over 350 years is a long time (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Haarlems_Dagblad<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1847, the first subscriptions of the California Star<\/em> newspaper were first delivered. The California Star<\/em> was published by Sam Brannan, one of the first English-speaking settlers of the area of California that would later become known as San Francisco. He and other Mormons sailed from New York to California, a distance of approximately 24,000 miles, and landed in the bay area. On the ship, Brannan brought along a variety of \u201cmodern\u201d inventions, including a Franklin portable printing press. He actually printed his first paper in October of 1846, but the subscription delivery did not begin until January. The California Star<\/em> became the voice of San Francisco and the Gold Rush after gold was discovered in 1849 (https:\/\/www.californiastar.com\/about.html<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1947, Elizabeth Short was seen alive for the last time, except by her killer. Her body was found, severed in half, on January 15. The coroner determined that she had been dead for less than 24 hours at the time of her discovery. The case was dubbed, by the local newspapers, like The Los Angeles Herald-Express<\/em> and The Los Angeles Examiner<\/em>, the Black Dahlia, after the film The Blue Dahlia, a film noir movie written by Raymond Chandler which came out in 1946.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a passage from the wiki on Elizabeth Short\u2019s murder: \u201cImmediately following Short’s identification, reporters from William Randolph Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner<\/em> contacted her mother, Phoebe Short, in Boston, and told her that her daughter had won a beauty contest. It was only after prying as much personal information as they could from Phoebe that the reporters revealed that her daughter had in fact been murdered. The newspaper offered to pay her airfare and accommodations if she would travel to Los Angeles to help with the police investigation. That was yet another ploy since the newspaper kept her away from police and other reporters to protect its scoop. The Examiner<\/em> and another Hearst newspaper, the Los Angeles Herald-Express<\/em>, later sensationalized the case, with one article from the Examiner<\/em> describing the black tailored suit Short was last seen wearing as “a tight skirt and a sheer blouse”. The media nicknamed her as the “Black Dahlia” and described her as an \u2018adventuress\u2019 who \u2018prowled Hollywood Boulevard\u2019. Additional newspaper reports, such as one published in the Los Angeles Times<\/em> on January 17, deemed the murder a \u2018sex fiend slaying\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know about you, but after reading about how the Los Angeles papers treated Elizabeth Short and her mother, I\u2019m really kind of glad that the entire newspaper industry, which was been around for over 350 years, is finally superannuated. Newspapers have always had great power to affect public opinion. What many newspaper people have not understood is that, as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image is \u201cExtracted from a police bulletin distributed by the Los Angeles Police Department, accessed on the official website for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Dated from 15 January 1947, the day Ms. Short’s body was discovered in Los Angeles County.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day comes courtesy of Word Genius, and it is the adjective superannuated (actually, it was their word of the day yesterday, but I was not feeling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4833,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4832","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\/4832","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=4832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4835,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4832\/revisions\/4835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}