Word: kernel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...first definition from a variety of languages, including old High German, Swedish and Russian ("Zhernov"), and means "a simple apparatus for grinding corn." The second definition is "a large piece of ice." These are not illuminating; but "obsolete variant of kern" leads directly to "corn," and to "kernel," of which "cornel" is a disused form. Has the butterfly been caught? Not necessarily. It should not be overlooked that "kern" in its old Celtic sense means "a band of foot soldiers," which suggests "infantry," which (by a leap of sound past sense) suggests "infants": slack freshman faces staring in sweet stupefaction...
...what, Harry Truman would have asked, is wrong with the American tourist? He never pretended; better than most men, Truman knew himself. He possessed some hard inner kernel of conviction-partly moral, partly intellectual, partly folk wisdom -that was neither proud nor ashamed. It made him secure...
...improve their taste, the preservatives to increase their shelf life and the processing that may rob them of their nutrients. Some items pushed by the granddaddies of today's faddists have proved highly beneficial. They long ago touted wheat germ, the vitamin-rich embryo of the wheat kernel, and such health store staples as safflower oil, nuts and unsweetened juices...
...CONVINCED, HOWEVER, that "dominoism" does contain one important kernel of reality. For as I review the record of our Indochina involvement. I detect--as Daniel Ellsberg has put it--one crucial domino that seems to have obsessed each American President since Mr. Truman: namely, the Administration in power in Washington. By this I mean that each President has sensed a "lesson" from the Democrats' so-called "loss of China" in 1949 and their defeat at the polls in 1952--and has concluded that the "loss" of South Vietnam to communism will bring about his own Administration's downfall...