Interesting Words, Etc.

When I ennobled "facetious" as a $10 word, I got some flack, but a friend of mine pointed out that "facetious" has a special property that very few English words have. "Facetious" contains all five vowels of common English - a, e, i, o and u - in the alphabetical order. He also wrote that at least four other words have that property: abstemious, abstentious, adventitious and parecious. I have a good idea about the meaning of "abstentious", but all clearly are $10 words, except "parecious" which is a $100 word at least.

He also wrote at least six English words have all the common vowels in reverse alphabetical order: duoliteral, quodliteral, subcontinental, uncomplimentary, unoriental and unnoticeably. I know the meanings of the last four of those, but for the first two I'll have to check the dictionaries to be certain.

Hmmm ... some of these would be good selections for this week's "Words of the Day".

Markets

The big rally last week held. Futures are up this morning as were Asian markets and European markets in early trading.

WaMu got a $5 billion capital infusion. Mining stocks are strong.

Barron's intermediate grade bond index fell by 7 bps to 8.35%, a good sign if it continues. FNMA 30-year fixed rate conventional loan rates fell 21 bps on the week to 5.67%; Freddie Mac's comparable rate fell 18 bps to 5.35%. All this is good news.

For all the screeching, I think the jobs picture is muddled. ADP provides hard numbers. I read that the US jobs number is compiled from forms filled out by human resources departments. So one must ponder why there are inconsistent readings. Or are the diferences statistical measuring errors for changes in very large numbers ? Time will tell.

Holding all stocks and looking for a few more. Alpha Fund is 150% long.

Words of the Day

"Adventitious" - adjective [$10]
Adventitious means 1. acquired by accident, not inherent. 2 (biol.) appearing in an unusual place or in an irregular manner.
Sentence: (A) If it survives for 500 years, the Giant Sequoia tree in Bunkerman's front yard might be seen in the future as an adventitious specimen of Massachusetts arboreal diversity.

"Misprision" - noun [$10] pronounced mis prizh' en, all short vowels.
Misprision is a term of law meaning 1. maladministration of public office; 2. neglect in preventing or reporting a crime.
Sentence: [from Shakespeare's sonnet #87, lines 11-12]
"So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgement making."

Another usage comes to mind for misprision, viz. describing the pardons of Bill Clinton in the final days of his presidency.