Wednesday, April 7, 2010

A word worth keeping

Poet William Wordsworth was born on this day in 1770. Wordsworth was said to have coined the word pedestrian, the noun meaning someone going on foot. That could be, however, just another of the pedantries (anagram of pedestrian) of certain word scholars.

Pedestrian comes from the Latin pedester, going on foot (from pedes, foot).

Has A PRESIDENT (another anagram of pedestrian) ever been a pedestrian of note? Our current one is pedestrian (adj.), to be sure -- meaning dull and mediocre -- but no modern Presidents have been walkers, to speak of, except maybe Eisenhower, who walked along golf courses.

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