Trevor graduated at about the same time the acquisition closed, so in the course of 4 days he went from impecunious grad student to millionaire PhD.
In 1998, I had made an effort to do the whole "once a day, learn a random new word from the dictionary". I did that for exactly one day. The one word I learned was "impecunious." Up until now, I've never, ever, seen or heard that word used.
So in 1998, independent, near simultaneous events (Viaweb being acquired, and me learning a single word) were set in motion that would culminate 14 years later in me reading for the first time an actual legitimate use of that word, resulting in a very self-satisfied grin. Consider my day made.
When studying vocab, some words stick out as words you'll never see, and because of that you may fixate on that single word. For me it's eleemosynary. Still haven't seen it used. Once.
It's in the first sentence of Tom Jones, Axiak. I thought you knew that.
An author ought to consider himself not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary at which all persons are welcome for their money.
YCNews is sort of a public ordinary if you stretch things a bit.
For me it's gregarious (which I see used occasionally but not super often). It was used as an example for learning vocab by imagining a scene. In this one you imagined a guy "Greg Arious" who is the life of the party dancing around with a lampshade over his head.
In 1998, I had made an effort to do the whole "once a day, learn a random new word from the dictionary". I did that for exactly one day. The one word I learned was "impecunious." Up until now, I've never, ever, seen or heard that word used.
So in 1998, independent, near simultaneous events (Viaweb being acquired, and me learning a single word) were set in motion that would culminate 14 years later in me reading for the first time an actual legitimate use of that word, resulting in a very self-satisfied grin. Consider my day made.
It means "poor" btw.