Message-ID: <30734948.1075846761344.JavaMail.evans@thyme>
Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 07:08:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: susan.scott@enron.com
To: sunil.dalal@enron.com, benjamin.freeman@enron.com
Subject: This isn't necessarily a bad thing to be...
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The Word of the Day for May 19 is:=20

                  weird =01=07 \WEERD\ =01=07 (adjective)=20
                  *1 : of, relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the=20
supernatural
                  : magical=20
                  2 : of strange or extraordinary character : odd, fantasti=
c=20

                  Example sentence:
                  "Hagar, the witch, chanted an awful incantation over her
                  kettleful of simmering toads, with weird effect." (Louisa=
=20
May
                  Alcott, Little Women)=20

                  Did you know?
                  You may know today's word as a generalized term for anyth=
ing
                  unusual, but "weird" also has older meanings that are mor=
e
                  specific. "Weird" derives from the Old English noun "wyrd=
,"
                  essentially meaning "fate." By the late 8th century, the=
=20
plural
                  "wyrde" had begun to appear in texts as a gloss for=20
"Parcae,"
                  the Latin name for the Fates -- three goddesses who spun,
                  measured, and cut the thread of life. In the 15th and 16t=
h
                  centuries, Scots authors employed "werd" or "weird" in th=
e
                  phrase "weird sisters" to refer to the Fates. William
                  Shakespeare adopted this usage in Macbeth, in which the
                  "weird sisters" are depicted as three witches. Subsequent
                  adjectival use of "weird" grew out of a reinterpretation =
of=20
the
                  "weird" in Shakespeare.