{"id":6424,"date":"2024-01-28T15:53:55","date_gmt":"2024-01-28T15:53:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=6424"},"modified":"2024-01-28T15:55:14","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T15:55:14","slug":"word-of-the-day-ineluctable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2024\/01\/28\/word-of-the-day-ineluctable\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Ineluctable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of Vocabulary.com, is ineluctable<\/em> (https:\/\/www.vocabulary.com\/word-of-the-day\/<\/a>), which defines the adjective as \u201cimpossible to avoid.\u201d Dictionary.com defines it as \u201cincapable of being evaded; inescapable\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/ineluctable<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Etymonline defines ineluctable as \u201c\u2019not to be escaped by struggling,\u2019 1620s, from French in\u00e9luctable<\/em> (15c.) or directly from Latin ineluctabilis<\/em> \u2018unavoidable, inevitable,\u2019 from in<\/em>– \u2018not, opposite of\u2019 (see in-<\/a> (1)) + eluctabilis<\/em> \u2018that may be escaped from,\u2019 from eluctari<\/em> \u2018to struggle out of,\u2019 from ex<\/em> \u2018out, out of\u2019 (see ex-<\/a>) + luctari<\/em> \u2018to struggle\u2019 (see reluctance<\/a>)\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=ineluctable<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1958, the Lego Group patented its design of interlocking bricks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lego company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891-1958). Christiansen was a carpenter. Initially, he made furniture, but the Great Depression, which was a world-wide phenomenon and not limited to the United States, hurt his business. So in 1932, he began making toys, naming his new company Lego. The name comes from contracting two Danish words, leg godt<\/em> \/l\u0251j\u02c0 \u02c8k\u028ct\/, which translate as \u201cplay well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a warehouse fire destroyed some of the company\u2019s inventory, the company looked to move toward plastic toys. Christiansen purchased his first plastic injection machine in 1946. Then he got the idea of making interlocking plastic bricks, which initially were called Automatic Binding Bricks, a not-very-appealing name for children\u2019s toys, and the Danish (automatisk bindesten<\/em>) isn\u2019t much better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the official Lego website, Christiansen had to convince his sons of the usefulness of these bricks: \u201c\u2019Have you no faith? Can\u2019t you see that if we do this right, we can sell these bricks all over the world?\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/www.lego.com\/en-us\/aboutus\/lego-group\/the-lego-group-history<\/a>). In 1953, the Automatic Binding Bricks are renamed Lego\u00ae Mursten (Lego bricks), and the word Lego is printed on every brick from that point forward. In 1955, Christiansen\u2019s son, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, introduced the Lego\u00ae System in Play, allowing the blocks to be added to and added to. Christiansen said, \u201cOur idea has been to create a toy that prepares a child for life\u2014appealing to their imagination and developing the creative urge and joy of creation that are the driving forces in every human being\u201d (https:\/\/www.lego.com\/en-us\/aboutus\/lego-group\/the-lego-group-history<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how successful has the Lego Group been. In 2017, after experiencing the first reduction in revenues since 2004, the Lego Group announced layoffs. But according to Insider Monkey, an investment website, the Lego Group is now the world\u2019s largest toy manufacturer, with 2022 sales revenue of over $8 billion (https:\/\/www.insidermonkey.com\/blog\/5-biggest-toy-companies-in-the-world-1147291\/5\/<\/a>). I suspect that at least part of the turnaround at the Lego Group relates to the COVID-19 pandemic that forced people to stay home more. But I have no statistics to back that up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There must be something addictive about Legos, at least for some people. For instance, my wife and my second daughter got interested in Legos a few years ago. The excuse was my grandson, but Lego sets have become the go-to gift choice for not only grandchildren but even children (all of whom are grown) and other family members. My sister-in-law has a display case devoted to put-together Lego sets. We have a Lego room in both my house and my daughter\u2019s house. My wife takes Legos with her on car trips and \u201corganizes\u201d pieces. She also buys random collections of bricks from thrift stores and websites as well as the sets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do know one thing about Legos: they have changed my life in one particular way. I now wear something one my feet when I get up at night. Why? If there is one thing that is ineluctable about Legos, it is that some will be left on the floor. And my bare feet will find them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image today is from the Heads Up<\/em> website of Scout Life. It\u2019s a picture of a life-sized X-Wing from Star Wars, built out of over 5,000,000 Legos: \u201cThe X-Wing was built at the Lego Model Shop in Kladno, Czech Republic, taking 32 \u201cmaster builders\u201d 17,336 hours to construct\u201d (https:\/\/headsup.scoutlife.org\/the-worlds-largest-lego-model\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of Vocabulary.com, is ineluctable (https:\/\/www.vocabulary.com\/word-of-the-day\/), which defines the adjective as \u201cimpossible to avoid.\u201d Dictionary.com defines it as \u201cincapable of being evaded; inescapable\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/ineluctable). Etymonline […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[238,395,522,523,284],"class_list":["post-6424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-ineluctable","tag-legos","tag-linguistics","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6424","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=6424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6426,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6424\/revisions\/6426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}