Liminal Is Not a Fancy Word

Liminal Is Not a Fancy Word â€Å"Liminal† Is Not a â€Å"Fancy Word† â€Å"Liminal† Is Not a â€Å"Fancy Word† By Maeve Maddox The other morning I heard someone on NPR use the word liminal. He immediately referred to it apologetically as â€Å"a fancy word.† Granted, liminal is not an everyday word, but it is one that adult readers encounter if they progress very far beyond the Ayres List. (The Extended Ayres List is a list of 1500 of the most common words, ranked by difficulty. It’s widely used as a spelling and vocabulary benchmark in US schools.) A cursory Web search indicates that the NPR announcer is not alone in feeling he must apologize for using the word liminal. The following examples are typical: Liminal  is a  fancy word  for having to do with a boundary. The academics have a  fancy word  for this space; they call it the â€Å"liminal†.   Liminal is a fancy word that means â€Å"1: of or relating to a sensory threshold; 2:  barely perceptible; 3: of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition:  in-between,  transitional.† The noun liminality gets the same treatment: Liminality is a fancy word meaning â€Å"a place of in-between-ness. The adjective liminal and the noun liminality are used with specialized meanings in psychology and cultural anthropology, but the words have found their way into the general vocabulary and have been in frequent use at least since the 1980s. Here are the general-purpose definitions: liminal adjective: characterized by being on a boundary or threshold, especially by being transitional or intermediate between two states or situations. liminality noun: a transitional or indeterminate state between stages of a person’s life; an indeterminate state between different spheres of existence. At least some writers targeting a popular audience are able to use liminal without apology: He’s wrecked, too, by his liminal  ­racial status: His father was an Irishman, his mother was black and he comfortably claims neither.- The NY Times. They [people mistakenly declared dead by government bureaucracy] basically can end up like Tom Hanks in â€Å"The Terminal,† wandering around in terrible liminal state of boredom and frustration, except without Catherine Zeta Jones for company.- The Washington Post film  noir occupies a  liminal  space somewhere between Europe and America, between high modernism and â€Å"blood melodrama,† and between low-budget crime movies and art cinema. More than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts, James Naremore, University of California Press. Knowing the etymology of liminal makes it especially easy to learn. It derives from limen, the Latin word for threshold, the narrow part of a doorway that lies between two rooms or between the outside and the inside of a house. A person standing framed in a doorway is â€Å"in a liminal state† between larger spaces intended to be occupied. Words represent meaning. Some are more common in general usage than others, but any reader can learn any word. I don’t think that liminal is harder to learn than any other word that has entered the general vocabulary from the sciences. I’ve never noticed a speaker or a writer refer to neurotic or psychotic as â€Å"fancy words.† Writers who apologize for using unfamiliar words seem to assume that their readers are ignorant and wish to remain that way. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Compared "to" or Compared "with"?Whenever vs. When EverUsing "May" in a Question

The Tariff of Abominations of 1828

The Tariff of Abominations of 1828 The Tariff of Abominations was the name outraged southerners gave to a tariff passed in 1828. Residents of the  South believed the tax on imports was excessive and unfairly targeted their region of the country. The tariff, which became law in the spring of 1828, set very high duties on goods imported into the United State. And by doing so it did create major economic problems for the South.  As the South was not a manufacturing center, it had to either import finished goods from Europe (primarily Britain) or buy goods made in the North. Adding insult to injury, the law had obviously been devised to protect manufacturers in the Northeast. With a protective tariff essentially creating artificially high prices, the consumers in the South found themselves at a severe disadvantage when buying products from either Northern or foreign manufacturers. The 1828 tariff created a further problem for the South, as it reduced business with England. And that, in turn, made it more difficult for the English to afford cotton grown in the American South. Intense feeling about the Tariff of Abominations prompted John C. Calhoun to anonymously write essays setting forth his theory of nullification, in which  he forcefully advocated that states could ignore federal laws. Calhouns protest against the federal government eventually led to the Nullification Crisis. Background of the 1828 Tariff The Tariff of 1828 was one of a series of protective tariffs passed in America. After the War of 1812, when English manufacturers began to flood the American market with cheap goods that undercut and threatened new American industry, the U.S. Congress responded by setting a tariff in 1816. Another tariff was passed in 1824. Those tariffs were designed to be protective, meaning they were intended to drive up the price of imported goods and thereby protect American factories from British competition. And they became unpopular in some quarters because the tariffs were always promoted originally as being temporary measures. Yet, as new industries emerged, new tariffs always seemed necessary to protect them from foreign competition. The 1828 tariff actually came into being as part of a complicated political strategy designed to cause problems for President John Quincy Adams. Supporters of Andrew Jackson hated Adams following his election in the Corrupt Bargain election of 1824. The Jackson people drew up legislation with very high tariffs on imports necessary to both the North and South, on the assumption that the bill would not pass. And the president, it was assumed, would be blamed for the failure to pass the tariff bill. And that would cost him among his supporters in the Northeast. The strategy backfired when the tariff bill passed in Congress on May 11, 1828. President John Quincy Adams signed it into law. Adams believed the tariff was a good idea and signed it though he realized it could hurt him politically in the upcoming election of 1828. The new tariff imposed high import duties on iron, molasses, distilled spirits, flax, and various finished goods. The law was instantly unpopular, with people in different regions disliking parts of it, but the opposition was greatest in the South. John C. Calhouns Opposition to the Tariff of Abominations The intense southern opposition to the 1828 tariff was led by John C. Calhoun, a dominating political figure from South Carolina. Calhoun had grown up on the frontier of the late 1700s, yet he had been educated at Yale College in Connecticut and also received legal training in New England. In national politics, Calhoun had emerged, by the mid-1820s, as an eloquent and dedicated advocate for the South (and also for the institution of slavery, upon which the economy of the South depended). Calhouns plans to run for president had been thwarted by lack of support in 1824, and he wound up running for vice president with John Quincy Adams. So in 1828, Calhoun was actually the vice president of the man who signed the hated tariff into law. Calhoun Published a Strong Protest Against the Tariff In late 1828 Calhoun wrote an essay titled South Carolina Exposition and Protest, which was anonymously published. In his essay Calhoun criticized the concept of a protective tariff, arguing that tariffs should only be used to raise revenue, not to artificially boost business in certain regions of the nation. And Calhoun called South Carolinians serfs of the system, detailing how they were forced to pay higher prices for necessities. Calhouns essay was presented to the state legislature of South Carolina on December 19, 1828. Despite public outrage over the tariff, and Calhouns forceful denunciation of it, the state legislature took no action over the tariff. Calhouns authorship of the essay was kept secret, though he made his view public during the Nullification Crisis, which erupted when the issue of tariffs rose to prominence in the early 1830s. The Significance of the Tariff of Abominations The Tariff of Abominations did not lead to any extreme action (such as secession) by the state of South Carolina. The 1828 tariff greatly increased resentment toward the North, a feeling which persisted for decades and helped to lead the nation toward the Civil War.

How to Style Titles of Compositions

How to Style Titles of Compositions How to Style Titles of Compositions How to Style Titles of Compositions By Mark Nichol Navigating the formatting rules about titles of compositions books and chapters, movies and TV shows, albums and songs, and the like can seem like negotiating a minefield. Here’s a handy map to help you maneuver through the terrain: In print, two primary formats exist for identifying a creative work. Titles of entire bodies of work such as a book, a TV series, or an album are often italicized, while titles for components of each book chapters, TV episodes, or songs are usually enclosed in quotation marks. Easy enough, but what about creations such as paintings and poems? A painting is a discrete work, but it is also often displayed as part of an exhibition. What do you do? In this case, italicize the painting’s title but style the title of the exhibition in roman, or ordinary, type. (However, single ancient works of art, such as the Venus de Milo, are simply styled in roman.) As for short poems collected in an anthology, style their titles like those of book chapters, but italicize the titles of book-length poems. Photographs are considered elements of a larger work, such as a book or an exhibition, and their titles are simply enclosed in quotation marks. And what about capitalization? Generally, in a title, always capitalize the first and last words regardless of part of speech, plus nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and long conjunctions (those other than and, but, for, nor, and or.) Lowercase prepositions (over, under, through, etc.) unless they are key to the title (A Walk Through Time) or as part of an adverbial or adjectival phrase (Turn Up the Volume). The initial definite or indefinite article in a title can be preempted by a nonitalicized article if it conflicts with the sentence structure. For example, write â€Å"The Wizard of Oz audio book is a best-seller.† But if this style looks awkward, just relax the sentence: â€Å"The audio-book version of The Wizard of Oz is a best-seller.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Synonyms for â€Å"Leader†Expanded and ExtendedStarting a Business Letter with Dear Mr.

Applied Social Marketing Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Applied Social Marketing Project - Essay Example It is root to many other crimes that are being committed such as robbery, as addicts want money to purchase the drug, violence at home when they are under the effect of the drug and many more such crimes and acts of violence. Throughout the length of this paper, the details related to drug abuse have been discussed. The symptoms that we should look for in a person who is an addict are also mentioned. There are some causes as to why a person would take up the drug such as peer pressure, stress or even violence at home. These causes are looked into in this paper. We have justified our position as to stop the use of drugs through campaigns that should be launched to increase the awareness of the risks of using and drugs and the health problems that are associated with it. The paper is about social marketing; let's explain what social marketing is: social marketing is an approach through which we try and achieve a social good through behavioral goals which are clearly identified and explained. It is not only a short term process but it also looks at the long term and tries to solve the issue for a longer period of time. This is done by using marketing techniques which can help achieve the goal. There are six features of this approach: customer or customer orientation, behavior and behavior goals, intervention mix and marketing mix, audience segmentation, exchange and competition. The process involves stages which are: scope, develop, implement, evaluate and follow-up. (http://www.nsms.org.uk/public/default.aspxPageID=10) The social issue that we have focused upon in this paper is drug abuse; drugs are a chemical substance which affects the way a normal body operates. Drugs can be sniffed, smoked, licked and injected. There are many substances such as mushrooms and alcohol which can be confused as drugs because they also affect the way the body functions. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act definition of "drug" includes "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or other animals" and "articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals." (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, http://www.fda.gov/opacom/laws/fdcact/fdcact1.htm) Drug abuse is when the drugs are consumed more than the required amount and when they are consumed without any medical or health reason for consumption. Drug dependence can take three forms: tolerance, habit and addiction. Tolerance is when the body becomes used to a drug and to achieve the same effect we need to take higher and higher quantities of the drug. The condition worsens when the drug is used continuously for a long period of time. Withdrawal symptoms are experienced by the addict or dependent person when the use is stopped. Habit is when the person desires the drug. He physically may not require the drug but psychologically he wants to keep having it. The drug becomes a part of life; the person eventually may require the drug to function normally. Addiction is when the person starts to crave for the drug and existence without it seems impossible to the addict. Drugs can be classified into six types: The first type is alcohol and tobacco and their use is extensive by many people. They are consumed on a daily basis. The effect of these drugs starts to take place after consumption is continued for years. The second

How to use a Rubber in Mobile Phones Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

How to use a Rubber in Mobile Phones - Essay Example This paper focuses on mobile technology. Some of the factors to consider when choosing materials for developing a mobile device will include, weight, girth, flexibility of the material and its fitness for the intended purpose. The mobile device market has over the past years evolved to unimaginable extents. There has been the development of space age smartphones with unimaginable capabilities and processing speeds. There has also been vast improvement in the display of such devices in both clarity and size. Many mobile devices have been unveiled by different manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung, HTC, Apple, Motorola and many more competing for the consumers available. One thing that has been an issue is the safety of such expensive devices when they get to fall or submerge in water. To solve this problem, we focus on Nokia’s N9 and the use of rubber by Nokia to act as a protector to this flagship device. Then Nokia n9 uses an 8 megapixel rear camera that is used for photography. The type of lenses used is Carl Zeiss by Nokia with autofocus and image stabilization property. This camera also comes with a dual led flash light to assist in photography in dark conditions. It is one of the most crucial parts of the phone. The battery in the Nokia n9 is what sustains the life in it. It a lithium ion battery that is internal to the mobile phone. It has a large capacity so that it can power up the large display and the processor together with other auxiliary components. This is the N9’s AMOLED gorilla glass curved screen that covers the whole of the N9 front face. This is a touch screen used for both input and output in this system. It not delicate as such since it is curved hence can resist a little bit of damage. The N9 case is made of polycarbonate that is well brushed. This is where all the components of the phone are housed and firmly head. It is the chassis of the whole device therefore providing the shape and character of this marvelous

History of ISIS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

History of ISIS - Essay Example The group’s origin dates back in 1999-2003 during the Iraq war, and a time when Sadam was under scrutiny by the US Government. The group was formed to promote the existing war in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites, where Shiites were supposed to die because it was heretic. In addition, the group wanted to expand its control over Iraq and Syria. It emerged from Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which was a major character in Sunni insurgency. The group was then under the leadership of Musab al-Zarqawi then. However, after his death, the group merged with other extremist groups to form the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). However, in 2007, things lost balance in the group after many Iraq Sunni groups differed with ISI because of boundary disagreements. In 2011, the group emerged after foreign troops withdrew from Iraq and when Abu bakr al-Baghdadi was appointed the group’s new leader, who chose former Ba’athist military and intelligence officials as his personal assistants. However, in 2012, it adopted a new Moniker and branded itself the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). The group has 7,000 members, 3,000 of whom are foreigners mainly from Britain and Belgium. According to reports published on CBS News website, ISIL (S) uses social media to recruit most of its members, especially from the west. In addition, it has a multilingual media group called Al Hayat, which specializes in printing and distributing glossy magazines and videos that aim at influencing people into being part of the group. Its main sources of finance are smuggling, extortion, and outlawed crimes. It is estimated that the group can make up to $8 million per month. The group’s organizational structure is composed of a supreme leader, wh o currently is Al-Baghdadi, who has two deputies, one in charge of Syria, and the other in charge of Iraq.  

Employee Empowerment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Employee Empowerment - Essay Example (Kotelnikov, 2008) In relation to the importance of employee empowerment within a flat organization, several strategic ways that will effectively prepare employees to become empowered and self-efficient as an individual employee and in group decision-making process will be thoroughly discussed. Employee empowerment is about enabling employees to make important decision-making without having the need to go through several management layers for approval. For employees to be able to make quick and effective decisions, employered employees are expected to have the following characteritstics: (1) innovativeness; (2) creativeness; and (3) resourcefulness (Chaturvedi, 2008). knowledge and skills development which can be acquired by making each employee undergo proper training programs, it is important for managers and organizational leaders to be able to develop and implement an effective organizational learning culture. Organizational learning is actually referring to the ability of employees to acknowledge the importance of learning and eventually develop a continuously learning habit to enable them to transform into a more competitive individual. (Columbia University, 2008) As a result of having an effective organizational learning culture, competitive and empowered employees are expected to be able to continuously learn new skills and be able to easily adopt with the changing market environments. The transformation of organization practice from a traditional high bureaucratic organizational structure into a flat organizational structure can result to a lot of organizational conflict because of the possibility that some of the existing employees may have resistance to major organizational change. For this reason, managers should have a good leadership and communication skills to enable the leaders to easily control and convert internal organizational pressures into positive employee behavior and acceptance to