Edgar Degas – Ballet at the Paris Opéra

30 Days of Giveaways ~ Day 29

by Roseanna White | Jul 29, 2013 | Giveaways and Contests, Word of the Week

Weekend winners are:

Wowy zowy, it’s hard to believe we only have 2 days left! Which means not a whole lot of time to enter for this truly amazing book of prayers.

And of course, only 2 more drawings for Ring of Secrets! Why? Because then Whispers from the Shadows will officially release!! It’s already in stock in all the online retailers, and it should be showing up in your local bookstores any day, if it’s not there already. If anyone spots it on a shelf and wants to send me a picture, I’d be so grateful! We have no Christian bookstore in my town, and I never seem to make it an hour away to look in one…

But anyway. On with the day. =)

Many, many moons ago I got my hubby a little book called The Highly Selective Dictionary of the

Extraordinarily Literate. Yes. We’re just that nerdy. 😉 So naturally, we flipped through it, and one of the first words I read the definition of was a word I thought I knew.

Moot. Now, we hear this all the time, right? It’s a moot point. And I always took it mean something rather irrelevant, because it was purely hypothetical at that point.

And sure enough, it has come to mean that–but in fact, that meaning came from law circles. Why? Now that’s where it gets interesting.

The primary definition of moot is “debatable, doubtful.” Not what we usually think when a point is moot. Because that would imply we should debate it–right? But people today use moot to indicate that something should be dropped because it has already been decided.

But a moot point–an undecided, debatable point–is in fact something pretty entertaining to an academic crowd who just loves a good debate. They can spend hours–days–weeks–years!–talking about the same thing. So after a while, it becomes purely hypothetical.

And to the rest of the world, something hypothetical becomes…well…moot. 😉 Something to be dropped. Something about which debate should stop.

Confession: I’ve avoided using this word altogether in the last decade, because I didn’t want to use it incorrectly and knew my point would be missed if I used it as “debatable.” LOL.

My question to you today:

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30 Days of Giveaways ~ Day 15

by Roseanna White | Jul 15, 2013 | Giveaways and Contests, Word of the Week

Wow, halfway through our month of giveaways already!! How did that happen? LOL. We’ve had lots of winners already (most recently Kelsey Shade Perkins and bn100!), and just as many still to come! Remember, every day I’m doing a drawing for Ring of Secrets, book 1 in the Culper Ring Series, to celebrate the release on August 1 of book 2, Whispers from the Shadows.

And if you’re new to my books, you can get a free taste! Fairchild’s Lady is a free novella that comes chronologically between books 1 and 2, but which is a stand-alone. So download it today to see if you like my style!

Available from:
Amazon, CBD, B&N, iTunes, and GooglePlay

And our bonus prize this week is this beautiful Tea Light Garden by Elements. The drawing for that will be on Friday.

And now for your regularly scheduled program. 😉

 Ever wonder where the phrase “to run roughshod over” something came from? Apparently it’s a pretty literal expression.

Back in the 17th century, “roughshod” was what they called a horse’s (ahem) snow tires. LOL. When weather was bad, they would leave nail heads protruding from a horseshoe to it could dig into and break up the snow and ice. So a horse was literally shod with a rough shoe. Makes all the sense in the world, doesn’t it?

And yet, I don’t think I’d ever really paused to wonder where it came from…

So in honor of our equestrian friends, your question of the day is:

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30 Days of Giveaways! ~ Day 8

by Roseanna White | Jul 8, 2013 | Giveaways and Contests, Word of the Week

The winner of day 7’s drawing is:

As a reminder, every entry this week keeps you in each day’s drawing for a book, and also for winner’s choice of one of two necklaces from Inspired Novelties–so keep those entries coming, and please do share! Last week we ended up with over 1,000 entries, which was pretty awesome! =) Let’s see if we can get it even higher this week. =)

Now for today!

Word of the Week . . . Sleight

I admit it–this is one I’d never paid attention to before. I’m sure I’ve seen “sleight of hand” written out correctly like so, but I never paused to realize it was spelled with an ‘e’.

And I’m not the only one who has written this as “slight of hand.” Slight makes sense there, implying light, nimble fingers. There’s even a phrase from French that means “light of hand” literally, used the same way.

Sleight, however, comes from a whole different word. An Old Norse one that made its way to English waaaaay back in the 13th century. It means “cunning.” Which makes even more sense in “sleight of hand,” doesn’t it?

That phrase, by the way, has been around since 1400. Whodathunk it was so old?

My question for you today:

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