Word: enthusiast
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...father was a Communist Party member in the Ukraine who worked for a time on a party newspaper. A chess enthusiast, Anatoli had a talent for mathematics that led him to study computer programming at the Moscow Physical-Technical Institute. When he applied for a visa to go to Israel, he was refused on the ground that he had been privy to state secrets while working for an oil and gas company that promptly fired him. His fiancee Natalya Stiglitz, who had applied to leave with him, received her visa. They decided to marry before she left for Israel...
...woman told me what fun my husband was on these re-enactments." True to historical accuracy, Mrs. Daigle became a camp follower, cooking, washing clothes and keeping the tent clean. She has marched with her husband to Bennington, Vt., Ridgefield, Conn., and Short Hills, N.J., and has become an enthusiast. "When we camp in the forts," she explains, "you can almost sense how it was. The walls have vibes...
...more than he intends. In action, he is fast and effective. Lillian Hellman describes Beatty as a "foul-weather friend," the first person to call in a crisis. Says Mike Nichols: "He can make 65 calls in three hours and plan anything." Beatty is also a health-food enthusiast and, as Nichols notes, "a postgraduate hypochondriac." He tells of the time that Beatty crossed wires making a call and overheard two strangers discussing the symptoms of a friend who was about to have her gall bladder removed. Beatty listened and then broke in: "Hey, she doesn't have gall bladder...
...ONLY THING that scares a narrow-minded person more than a nihilist is an enthusiast. For, while it has become fashionable to precede many intellectual discussions with a credo of disbelief (in the name of scientific abstraction), the old saw against those who wish to "destroy without first building an alternative system" is a great weapon for the entrenched self-righteous. It is much harder, though, to fight positive enthusiasm. One can do little more than snarl, "naive and simplistic pseudo-philosophy" when confronted with, say, a new religious sect...
Today, enthusiasm's original meaning has been diluted. In the 18th century, labelling someone an enthusiast could mean that they were either visionary or self-deluded or both. The word had a double edge...