Lexical Compendium

Wait... what is this? Sometimes I come across a word, phrase, idiom, quote, reference, bit of slang, person of interest, etc that either I don't know or I find amusing, interesting, etc. This is a collection of those items so that I can refer back to them in emails, texts, etc.

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down to raisins

An expression coined by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. It means something similar as "seeing the light at the end of the tunnel." In other words, a task or period is reaching its end.

When Lincoln was asked where this phrase came from, he told the story of a little girl who ate too much and then followed that up with a dessert of raisins. She became sick and, eventually, was throwing up only the raisins. Thus, she knew that she was nearly done.

I came upon this phase while watching Manhunt, S1E6.


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Tags: civil war, expression, lincoln

Date Added: 05 Jun 2024

pogrom

A pogrom is an organized (i.e. mob) attack of a particular ethnic group. Historically the word has been used to describe ethnic cleansing of Jews, but it can apply to any instance of violent, organized persecution against a specific group.

The word originates from the Russian word "погром," which means "to wreak havoc." It was first used in reference to the violent attacks on Jewish communities in the Russian Empire.

In 2024, as the Israel–Hamas war wages on, the word appeared in the news when on Sunday, 23 June, a protest turned violent in Los Angeles.

Demonstrators were protesting a real estate fair at a synagogue. The Pro-Palestinian protesters have been criticized as antisemitic as violence broke out and CNN's Van Jones called it a pogrom. And this rhetoric seems to be spreading.

The reason for the protest appears to be because the real estate event was promoting the sale of land located in the illegally-occupied Palestinian territories and restricting those sales to Jews. It's unfortunate that this hasn't been the headline in the news. How is this type of event even be allowed to happen??


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Tags: war, israel-hamas war

Date Added: 26 Jun 2024

COINTELPRO

Short for Counter Intelligence Program, COINTELPRO was a series of covert operations conducted by the FBI from 1956 to 1971 (when it was exposed). Its primary goal was to disrupt, discredit, and neutralize civil rights organizations, political activists, and other groups deemed "subversive" by the government. Targets included Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Panther Party, and anti-Vietnam War protestors.

Though I had some knowledge of the illegal tactics used by the FBI during this era, I first came across the term COINTELPRO after listening to the second season of SNAFU with Ed Helms.


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Tags: podcast

Date Added: 03 Dec 2024

Findlandization

Findlandization is the process by which a country maintains its formal independence while being heavily influenced or constrained by the policies of a more powerful neighboring state, especially in its foreign policy.

The name comes from Finland's relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, where Finland avoided antagonizing the USSR to preserve its sovereignty.

The term is used pejoratively.

I first heard this term in an interview President Biden gave to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell in which Biden recalled a conversation with Putin in which Putin was predicting the Findlandization of Europe.


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Tags: vocabulary, politics

Date Added: 21 Jan 2025

Leahy Law

From Wikipedia:

The Leahy Laws or Leahy amendments are U.S. human rights laws that ostensibly prohibit the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights with impunity.

In 2024, as the Israel–Hamas war wages on, the Leahy Law has been in the news a lot.


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Tags: international, legal, leahy, eponymous

Date Added: 30 May 2024
Date Modified: 12 Feb 2025

Stockdale Paradox

The Stockdale Paradox is a concept named after Admiral James Stockdale, who survived as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for over seven years. The paradox describes a mindset that balances unwavering faith in a positive outcome with the discipline to confront brutal realities. Stockdale observed that prisoners who relied solely on optimism -- expecting to be freed by Thanksgiving, then New Years, then ... -- often succumbed to despair when their expectations weren’t met. In contrast, those who survived, like himself, maintained hope while also acknowledging and adapting to the harshness of their circumstances.

I'm not sure that I would have read it otherwise, but I worked a company were we were all gifted the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. This is where I first came across the Stockdale Paradox.

I came across it again recently while listening to The Interview (a New York Times podcast) interview of Ed Yong. Ed brought up the Stockdale Paradox as a means for coping with the state of the world right now.


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Tags: eponymous, paradox

Date Added: 23 Feb 2025