I am pretty darned sure that the REALTORS® I was presenting the class to this morning were more entertained than I was. It sounded like I was regressing to puberty. My throat hurts, my head hurts, my sinus cavity aches, and overall, I am just a mess. A hot mess at least, but a mess none the less. A 67 year old man with the voice of a 13 year old. There has to be some law or another that I have violated because of that. Whatever. I thought I would delight you with this picture of the sun going down behind some clouds. I know you can tell I did not put a lot of effort into this photo documentation, but it is what it is,,,
Sycophant -- Noun. a servile self-seeking flatterer. The new CEO has no use for sycophants - he prefers to surround himself with executives who won't hesitate to tell him what he needs to hear.
Did You Know? In the language of ancient Greece, sykophantes meant "slandered." The word derives from two other Greek words, sykon (meaning "fig") and phainen (meaning "to show or reveal"). How did fig revealers become slanderers? One theory has to do with the taxes Greek farmers were required to pay on the figs they brought to market. Apparently, the farmers would sometimes try to avoid making the payments, but squealers - fig revealers - would fink on them, and they would be forced to pay. Another possible source is a sense of the word fig meaning "a gesture or sign of contempt (such as thrusting a thumb between two fingers)." In any case, Latin retained the "slanderer" sense when it borrowed a version of sykophantes, but by the time English speakers in the 16th century borrowed it as sychophant, the squealers had become flatterers.
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