Addisonian (ad-uh-SO-nee-uhn) adjective

   1. Related to Joseph Addison or his writings.

   2. Clear and elegant writing.

[After Joseph Addison (1672-1719), English essayist and poet.]

   3. Related to Addison's disease, a condition caused by decreased secretion
      of cortisol.

[After Thomas Addison (1793-1860), English physician.]

   "He (Murray Kempton) enjoyed being in a group of reporters; he liked to
   try out ideas for columns, dropping fully formed Addisonian sentences into
   conversation to see which ones got a nod or a laugh. The winners turned up
   in the next day's paper."
   David Von Drehle, A Journalist's Singular Voice, The Washington Post,
   May 6, 1997.

Erratum: Monsieur Maginot, the eponymous subject of yesterday's word, was
twice French minister of war during the 1920s and 1930s, not during WWII. For
more information on the Maginot line, see June 1997 issue of Smithsonian
magazine. An abstract of this article by Rudolph Chelminski is available at:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian/issues97/jun97/maginot.html
Here is another site: http://www.ifrance.com/letunnel/maginot-e.html
-Anu

This week's theme: eponyms.

............................................................................
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. -Will Durant,
historian (1885-1981)

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Pronunciation:
http://wordsmith.org/words/addisonian.wav
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