About this column:
One of Havre de Grace's most clever and quick-witted duos joins Patch every so often to entertain us with Sesquipedalian—which, according to the dictionary our editor will consult for each of these columns, means "characterized by long words; long-winded." Now, it's also synonymous with "delightfully enlightening."This time, we thought that the namesake of this column should be discussed. Ses-qui-pe-da-li-an (noun and adjective) using long words very long: said of words Buried deep in this word is 'ped' which is Latin for foot. The etymology suggests a literal meaning of a 'foot and a half' which is why the word denotes greater length than usual. For anyone who is accustomed to putting his foot in his mouth (like the male writer of this column), sesquipedalian will allow for that and then some. Here are sentences with sesquipedalian in use.* His sesquipedalian entry in the Havre de Grace Library's …
Last column we warned about the dangers of cooping. Hopefully you declined that offer to have a drink at a local watering hole before voting. Otherwise you may have woken up hours later, disoriented, with multiple 'I Voted' stickers strewn across your body. With the excitement of Warriors spirit permeating the town, we thought that a football term would be appropriate. Encroach (intransitive verb): To trespass or intrude To advance beyond the proper, original or customary limits When used in football, we are most interested in the second meaning but instead of using it as a verb, it …
In the spirit of the Halloween and political seasons, the first word of the Sesquipedalian will satisfy ghosts, ghouls and gubernatorial enthusiasts.Cooping: The act of rigging an election by kidnapping potential voters, plying them with alcohol or drugs and forcing them to cast votes multiple times and at various polling sites.Disturbingly common during the 1800s in urban America, cooping has been proposed as a reason for the untimely death of Edgar Allan Poe (some theories have Poe on a train in Havre de Grace before dying in Baltimore). Poe may have been 'cooped' up with other imprisoned…
