As long as we’re on the subject of politics, let’s continue on current events and shift focus for a moment from the USA to Brazil. At the time of writing this entry, Brazil is in the middle of one of the biggest political events of its history: while millions of Brazilians are taking to the streets in protest (both anti- and pro-government), their Congress is voting on whether or not to continue the process of removal of the country’s president, Dilma Rousseff (the latest chapter in a long story that you can learn more about here). In a nutshell, her removal from office is being debated because she’s currently involved in Brazil’s most serious corruption scandal to date. With such a bad reputation and a less-than-10% approval rating by the population, it’s no wonder so many Brazilians are calling for her “impeachment”!
The “impeachment” of something as a general term refers to the questioning of its validity or integrity, while the “impeachment” of a public official is a charge of misconduct against them, usually followed by the removal of said official from office. This word is the noun form of the verb “impeach” (“call into question the integrity or validity of a practice”), which arose in Late Middle English in the sense “hinder” or “prevent”. This verb derives from the Old French verb empecher “to impede”, which in turn stems from the Latin verb impedicare, meaning “to catch” or “to entangle”.
In modern history, “impeachment” seems to have become synonymous simply with the removal of a public official from office, though it’s important to note that the more thorough definition refers to a trial against said official for unlawful activity. In British English, the word can also refer to “a charge of treason or another crime against the state”. If you write stories with politicians who commit serious crimes against the population, then like the Brazilian people, your characters may want to call for “impeachment”!
Bonus: for those of you who prefer your news funny and concise, Brazil’s political situation has also been covered by John Oliver in this hilarious three-minute segment on Last Week Tonight. Enjoy!
What are your thoughts on this word? Any suggestions for future “Word of the Week” featured words?
Above ground, the sounds of the waves fill the air.
But underwater, you can only hear your own heartbeat.
I’d wanted to see one my whole life.
Now was my chance to find them.
Through the reef we slowly dove.
Until we finally saw them.
Huge, distant moving shapes.
We stared, spellbound.
Colossal beauties.
Whales.
This piece is based on What If? Exercise 93: “Ten to One”. The exercise is to write a 55-word story in which the first sentence has ten words, the second has nine, etc., until the last sentence has only one word. The objective is to show that precision and thrift in writing can produce surprisingly powerful results. I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
While we’re on the topic of comedy, why not help yourself to some new “What If?” Writing Prompts to go with the theme? To inspire your whimsical side, here’s a new batch of prompts in the humor genre! See what silly stories you can write from these ideas! Enjoy!
What if… you were walking outside when it suddenly started raining chocolate?
What if… you were trying to get a song out of your head, but people kept humming it everywhere you went?
What if… every answer you gave had to rhyme with the question?
What if… you knew someone was going to prank you… and you had to figure out a way to make it backfire on them?
What if… every day were April Fools’ Day?
Good luck writing some more humorous tales!
If you have any “What If?” writing prompt suggestions (for any theme), please feel free to share them in the comments below. Ideas I like may be featured in future “What If?” posts, with full credit and a link to your blog (if you have one)! Also, if you’ve written a piece based on an idea you’ve found here, be sure to link back to the respective “What If?” post. I would love to see what you’ve done with the prompt! Thank you!
First off, I have to thank Robert Kirkendall for recently reminding me of this word. I usually try to avoid getting political on my blog, but much like the case of the word “gerrymander“, current events have proven too fascinating to leave out of my Word of the Week segment. Anyone following the American presidential race may at one point or another have heard today’s vocabulary word being used in reference to a certain candidate who’s been dominating the polls. Dangerous as this is, of course, I suppose it makes sense; appealing to a majority of voters who want all their desires fulfilled and prejudices validated is a sure way for a “demagogue” to get elected!
A “demagogue” is a politician whose popularity comes from appealing to potential supporters’ prejudices and wishes as opposed to using rational arguments. The word arose in the mid 17th century and comes from the Greek noun dēmagōgós, meaning “popular leader”. This noun comprises two roots: the noun dêmos “people” and the adjective agōgós “leading”.
The word “demagogue” has a long history behind it; in Ancient Greece and Rome, it referred to “a leader or orator who espoused the cause of the common people”. It was originally a neutral word to define a leader of the common people, but has since morphed into a pejorative term for politicians considered to be harmful, manipulative, and/or overly prejudiced. If you write political fiction with characters who will say or do anything to gain supporters, you definitely have at least one “demagogue” lurking in your stories!
What are your thoughts on this word? Any suggestions for future “Word of the Week” featured words?
I’d have sworn my project was like any other of its kind: collect samples in the field, run DNA tests, analyze and discuss the data, write the paper. Simple as that. Ironically, evolutionary studies don’t usually qualify as groundbreaking, just substantiating at best. We’re all trying to support the same idea: that life is constantly changing.
I studied reef fish biogeography and evolution for half my years at college, so by the time I got into grad school, I knew their patterns pretty well. I didn’t expect anything different when I took on a project about yet another reef fish species. Evaluate its genetic connectivity along the coast, that’s all there was to it. My project was a simple matter of collecting specimens from different locations and comparing their DNA to get a picture of how it was evolving in a given biogeographic province.
Nothing out of the ordinary came up during the sampling and amplification periods. The surprise came when I analyzed the data.
I remember that moment distinctly. Exhausted from weeks of amplifying DNA, reading papers, and writing and rewriting the first parts of my thesis, I was finally sitting down at my computer to compare the sequences. I took a sip of coffee just as the program finally finished running the data… and almost spit it out at the sight of the phylogenetic tree that appeared on the screen. Where I had expected to see a single branch containing all my sequences, there were two separate clades dividing the samples collected from the northern and southern coastal regions. Two geographically close populations that should have been almost identical somehow had a 10% genetic divergence between them. Was that even possible?
An excitement like I hadn’t felt in years overcame me, but I still had to be sure. I ran the data again using three different parameters. All three trees produced the same result: North here, South there. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Yet there it was on my screen, plain as the nose on my face. The results were clear beyond a shadow of a doubt: I was dealing with…
“A new species?!”
I jumped up from my chair and ran next door to my professor’s office. Within the minute, I was showing him the trees on my computer and watching his expression change from puzzled to amazed. I knew exactly why we should be so excited by this result; it meant there were other evolutionary processes at play that we hadn’t expected. In anticipation of the stimulating discussions ahead, I knew the grin on my face wouldn’t disappear for at least a week. My project had just gotten way more interesting.
Science never ceases to surprise me. And I hope it never will.
J.C. Wolfe is a fiction writer, biologist, and aspiring novelist of science fantasy and romance. A natural-born American and graduate in Marine Ecology from a university in Brazil, J.C. now writes for a living in California while spending free time blogging and penning stories and poetry.
J.C. Wolfe is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
What if… you were walking outside when it suddenly started raining chocolate?
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