A.Word.A.Day--nudnik
nudnik (NOOD-nik) noun
A boring pest.
[From Yiddish nudyen (to bore), from Polish nudzic + -nik (suffix denoting a person associated with a particular quality, group, etc.]
"(John) Kerry's freefall is so pronounced ... that even Dana Milbank, the Washington Post nudnik who specializes in needling President Bush on the most picayune details, has tossed Kerry overboard." Russ Smith; Kerry's Last Stand; New York Press; Dec 9, 2003.
"Alfred E. Neuman, the magazine's red-haired, freckle-faced, dentally challenged mascot, is famous for saying, 'What, me worry?' Alfred, the nudnik who has campaigned for U.S. president since 1956, should be worried." Tom Hawthorn; 'What, me advertise?': Mad Magazine Has a Legacy of Tweaking the Establishment; Vancouver Sun (Canada); Apr 17, 2001.
This week's theme: words borrowed from Yiddish.
X-Bonus
Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; Some blunders and absurdities crept in; Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
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