{"id":5487,"date":"2020-04-05T07:52:32","date_gmt":"2020-04-05T07:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=5487"},"modified":"2020-04-06T03:54:56","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T03:54:56","slug":"word-of-the-day-gimcrack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2020\/04\/05\/word-of-the-day-gimcrack\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Gimcrack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to A Dictionary of the Language of Shakespeare by Swynfen Jervis (John Russell Smith, 1868, p. 143) is gimcrack<\/em>. A gimcrack<\/em> is, according to www.dictionary.com<\/a>, \u201ca showy, useless trifle; gewgaw.\u201d The word can also be used as an adjective, though that usage is less common. According to www.etymonline.com<\/a>, the word can also be spelled \u201cjimcrack<\/em>, \u2018trifle, knick-knack,\u2019 by c. 1820, earlier \u2018mechanical contrivance\u2019 (1630s), originally \u2018showy person\u2019 (1610s), of uncertain origin. Perhaps an alteration of Middle English gibecrake<\/em>, the name of some kind of ornament on wooden furniture (mid-14c.), which is perhaps from Old French giber<\/em> \u2018to rattle, shake\u2019 + some special sense of Middle English crak<\/em> \u2018sharp noise, crack.\u2019 In 18c.-19c. gimcrack<\/em> also could mean \u2018person who has a turn for mechanical contrivances.\u2019”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to www.finedictionary.com<\/a>, there is an example of the use of the noun in the play The Coronation<\/em>, a comedy ascribed early on to Beaumont and Fletcher though more likely to have been written by James Shirley, and first printed in 1640: \u201cThere is gimcracks in’t, the Queen is wise Above her years.\u201d But even earlier than that, in Henry VI<\/em>, Part 1, believed to have been written around 1591, Shakespeare has Reignier, the Duke of Anjou, say,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think, by some odd gimmors or device<\/a>
Their arms are set like clocks, stiff to strike on;<\/a>
Else ne’er could they hold out so as they do.<\/a>
By my consent, we’ll even let them alone.<\/a> (1.2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1899, Alfred Blalock was born in Culloden, Georgia. Blalock was a bit of a prodigy. He entered the University of Georgia as a sophomore at the age of 15 and graduated when he was just 19. But he wasn\u2019t a nerd. He played golf and tennis and was involved in the school\u2019s social life\u2014a well-rounded individual. He then entered Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he finished at in 1922. In 1930, at Vanderbilt University, he hired a black man named Vivien Thomas as his lab assistant. Although listed as a janitor, Thomas became a valuable partner in Blalock\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1941, Johns Hopkins invited Blalock to return and become the head of surgery. He accepted, and insisted that Thomas join him there. While there, Blalock and Thomas developed a shunt to bypass the aorta when the aorta was congenitally too narrow (called coarctation of the aorta). Dr. Helen Taussig then brought to Blalock the problem of \u201cblue babies,\u201d babies who suffered from a lack of oxygen due to congenital heart defects. In part because of the development of the shunt, Blalock won numerous awards, and he and Thomas have been the focus of two award-winning films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also born on this date, this time in 1951, was Dean Kamen. Kamen was born in New York, the son of a comics illustrator. He attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but he dropped out before he could graduate. But while he was at school, he worked on an infusion pump for people with diabetes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the thing Kamen is most famous for is the invention of \u201can electric, self-balancing human transporter with a computer-controlled gyroscopic stabilization and control system\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dean_Kamen<\/a>). This device, balanced on two wheels and controlled by shifts in the rider\u2019s body weight, is called the Segway. The Segway was meant to revolutionize human transportation, but it has not really gotten past the novelty stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are a society driven by new inventions. Some of the richest people in America got that way by inventing something that other people thought worth spending money on. Some of those inventions had a profound influence on life in America and the world, like Alfred Blalocks contributions to surgery, and especially child surgery. Others were things that were just gimcracks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image is of Dean Kamen on the Segway. And while it is a gimcrack, I would not mind at all were one of my readers to make it a gift to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to A Dictionary of the Language of Shakespeare by Swynfen Jervis (John Russell Smith, 1868, p. 143) is gimcrack. A gimcrack is, according to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[249,170,250],"class_list":["post-5487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-gimcrack","tag-invention","tag-surgery","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5487","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=5487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5489,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5487\/revisions\/5489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}