Word of the Day

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Today's Word: doyen

This week's theme: People to learn from.

doyen

(noun) [doi-EN, DOI-en, dwah-YAN]

1. a man who is the senior member of a group: "Chris, please give your seat to the doyen." Feminine form: doyenne

Origin

Approximately 1422; from French; from Latin, 'decanus': person in charge of ten others.

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In Action

"Tornadoes never happen in Britain. Press reports are either exaggerations, or just figments of the imagination brought on by the stress caused by severe thunderstorms. That was the view of most meteorologists until less than 50 years ago.

Ernest Bilham, the Met Office's senior climatologist at the time, wrote a 350-page book The Climate of the British Isles. It was Britain's foremost reference volume on the subject until about 1980 and the word 'tornado' did not appear once.

Even the more credulous Prof Gordon Manley, the doyen of university climate experts, mentioned only four examples in 300 years in his classic book of 1952, Climate and the British Scene."

Philip Eden. "Classic studies of British weather twist the truth on tornadoes," UK Telegraph (July 30, 2005).

"When she was about eight, January's father met up with Indian classical dance doyen Ramli Ibrahim and got to know what SDT was all about. Perhaps seeing something worthwhile there, Mr Low asked his eldest daughter if she would like to take classes.

'I said, 'No, I don't want to go.' But my dad asked me to just go for one of their rehearsals. So I watched one and was transfixed. I don't know what I saw then, because I was so young. But I've been here ever since.'

Which translates to roughly 12 years. In that time, January became one of the youngest dancers to do a solo (she was 13 then). She performed with Ramli for the first time at 15, and went on a dance tour of India."

"Hooked by the Muse," Malaysian Star Magazine (July 31, 2005).

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