May 14: Poole surfs back to the 1600s and 1700s for a logodaedalus, someone who is “a cunning wordsmith.” Oh, here in Australia, that’s a term we’d assign to the crossword maestro David Astle. I love logodaedalus but I’ll surely never use the word.
I read in an Australian Financial Review article by Christopher Joye about his “clients that are prepared to bet against hysteria and exploit the ineluctable regression to the mean in financial spreads.” Ineluctable? I’d heard the word but what exactly does it mean? Well, it seems the dictionary definition is “unable to be resisted or avoided; inescapable.” Is ineluctable better than “inescapable”? I think that when it is employed (and it shouldn’t be used every day), yes, ineluctable is a brilliant choice.
Source: A Word for Every Day of the Year by Steven Poole.