Fwd: "doryphore, n." - Word of the Day from the OED

[Dave Monroe]

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Date: Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 7:30 PM
Subject: "doryphore, n." - Word of the Day from the OED
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Your word for today is: doryphore, n.

doryphore, n.
Pronunciation:/ˈdɒrɪfɔː(r)/
Forms:Also  doriphore.
Etymology: <  French doryphore Colorado beetle (also used fig.), <
Greek δορυϕόρος spear-carrier.
The English sense was introduced by and particularly associated with
Sir Harold Nicolson (1886–1968).
  One who draws attention to the minor errors made by others, esp. in
a pestering manner; a pedantic gadfly.
1952  H. Nicolson in Spectator 22 Aug. 238/1 Often have I tried to
supplement my vocabulary by inventing words, such as ‘couth’, or
‘doriphore’, or ‘hypoulic’, feeling that it is the duty as well as the
pastime of a professional writer to make two words bloom where only
one bloomed before.
1952  H. Nicolson in Spectator 17 Oct. 500/1 The doriphore‥is the type
of questing prig, who derives intense satisfaction from pointing out
the errors of others.
1960  H. Nicolson Age of Reason xii. 223 Boileau was so hurt by this
reproof on the part of a female doryphore that he never set foot in
Reuilly again.
1960 Daily Tel. 9 Dec. 19/3 The idiomatic implications of such a word
as doryphore in his [sc. Sir Harold Nicolson's] own text is left for
the ignorant to guess. (It means a Colorado beetle and, hence, a
pest.)
1970 Times Lit. Suppl. 4 June 615/3 The editor‥must‥shrug off the
pricks of professional doryphores.
1989 New Yorker 3 Apr. 99/2 When [the editors]‥took me to lunch, they
were rigidly abstemious, lest they fuddle their minds and give
hostages to subsequent doryphores on returning to work.

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