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Word of the Day for Sunday, July 6, 2008palaver \puh-LAV-uhr; puh-LAH-vur\, noun: 1. Idle talk The spaceship crew settles down for a long bout of philosophical discourse that sounds suspiciously like teatime palaver in an Oxford University common room: "Time is a construct of thought too. In High Space this is all more nakedly obvious, is it not? Space isn't a thing. As Kant said . . . ." For me, a young writer about to have yet another commencement address inflicted on him, it was a wonderful surprise -- an honest and detailed talk, free of the usual piety and palaver that clutter those speeches. He is glad to palaver of his many adventures, as a boy will whistle after sundown in a wood. Palaver derives from Late Latin parabola, "a proverb, a parable," from Greek parabole, from paraballein, "to compare," from para-, "beside" + ballein, "to throw." | |||||||||
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