Word: niffnaw
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...Niffnaw...
TIME (July 24) gets to me two days ahead of time in publication date, but farther than that ahead in vocabulary. What is "niffnaw?" Webster's New International gives only 600,000 words, but not this...
...Niffnaw, a U.S. colloquialism, means a teapot-tempest. It may possibly be derived from the old Scottish dialect word niffnaff, meaning "trifle " example (from a poem by Scottish Poet Allan Ramsay...
...unprecedented niffnaw over the Vice-Presidency almost obscured the rest of the convention. The platform committee droned away in a vacuum after the delegates learned that it had already been written. For the ubiquitous Sam Rosenman had long ago drafted a platform of about 2,200 words. Then several Government experts had cut it down to about 1,200 words, and finally the President had rewritten it in 500-odd words, in line with his desire for a "postcard platform" that rested generally on the New Deal record, at home and abroad...
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