Word: meant
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Walking with our guides, and the intimacy this encouraged, meant our knowledge of local tribal customs and habits was also constantly being furthered: we learned from the Samburu about the local form of messaging, which uses a cissus plant and an acacia thorn. The cissus leaf is like a thick, green pad, and you write by making indentations with the acacia thorn, passing on or leaving the leaf somewhere for the recipient. We also learned how the fibrous branches of sokotei tree can be used as an effective toothbrush and toothpick, and heard about the medicinal properties of plants like...
When German artist Ottmar Hörl created a gold-colored gnome giving the infamous Hitler salute earlier this year, he meant it as a satirical work, a mockery of Nazi ideology. When gallery owner Erwin Weigl put the gnome in the window of his Nuremberg store, he didn't even notice the Nazi connection - he just thought the gnome was waving. But when a local newspaper published a photo of the gnome, both Hörl and Weigl suddenly found themselves at the center of a criminal investigation that became a national talking point. Giving the Hitler salute...
...Harvard has constructed a private prayer space for Muslim students, and given Muslim women special hours for working out in the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center. My words fell on uncomprehending ears. I was as powerless as Royal to communicate my beliefs. The two friends did not understand what I meant when I spoke of "cosmopolitanism" or "multiculturalism." In the process of trying to talk about protecting traditional Islamic cultural practices, I had mangled their identities. Yasin's female friends in Istanbul do not wear head garb, or need special times to work out. In many ways, Royal...
...contrast, the America that I knew growing up in California seemed to operate under different premises. What I have observed is a constantly evolving society that meets the immigrant halfway, thereby taking the edge off of the cultural confrontation and facilitating assimilation. What it has meant to be an American has been a work-in-progress for 200-plus years. Immigrants arriving here generally join family and/or move into ethnically congenial neighborhoods. They typically work in a commercial culture where, if need be, they can get by only dealing with their fellow countrymen. Television, radio, music, church services...
Back then, amateur was an entirely positive adjective. An amateur pursuit meant something that one pursued - a field of study, an artistic enterprise, a craft - not unseriously, but out of love rather than merely to earn a living...