https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melungeon

I had never heard this word until today.

Melungeon = Member of a triracial (black, white, native) group that supposedly is most prominent around Cumberland Gap, not that far from where I grew up.  I saw an article suggesting that Abraham Lincoln was a melungeon.

The melting pot effect: we're all related whether we admit it or not.

It's not really a word, rather a phrase, but has a meaning distinct from its relative "de facto" which means existing without legal authority.  I presume is it Latin.  Pro facto is literally translated as "for the fact", but it rather means considering or assuming a stated proposition as if it were fact.  As if.  That is to say, in doing so you realize that there is uncertainty, but you go with the best explanation until there is a challenge.  Ruiz would suggest that we ought to avoid assumptions, and just admit to not knowing.  But the world is much easier to manage when you have a framework for it.

What provoked me to look this up is the fact that the organization known as Oregonians for Science and Reason has a newletter by that name.  What exactly did they mean whean choosing that title?  That they were admitting that we are going with a working understanding of things that is subject to challenge, perhaps?

Please correct me if I have the shades of meaning wrong.  Gracias.

Glutard = a person who avoids gluten because they believe it is the key to their health, without any evidence to support that belief.  There are those who would argue that Naturopathic doctors go around creating glutards.  There is a lot to know about food sensitivities and gluten specifically, which I will not address here.  Suffice it to say that some people do not need to avoid gluten but instead they focus on it with a neurotic intensity that earns them this label.  Many people are crazy around the subject of food.  This word has entered my vocabulary thanks to Laura Sol, welder and metal fabricator.

Actually
But
Just
Always
Never
Should

SOURCE
http://www.inc.com/christina-desmarais/6-words-to-remove-from-your-vocabulary.html

Idle words are characterless and die upon utterance. Evil words rankle for a while, make contentions, and then die. But the hopeful, kind, cheering word sinks into a man’s heart and goes on bearing fruit forever. How many beautiful written words—words in book and song and story—are still inspiring men and making the world fragrant with their beauty! It is just so with the words you write, not on paper, but on the hearts of men. I wish there were room to mention here the testimonies of great men to the power of some hopeful, encouraging word they had spoken to them in youth and in the days of struggle. But every autobiography records this thing. Booker T. Washington tells how the encouragement of General Armstrong saved the future for him. I know a young man who is to-day filling a large and useful place in the world, who was kept to his high purpose in a time of discouragement by just an encouraging word from a man he greatly admired. That man’s word will live and grow in the increasing influence of the younger man. This world is full of men bearing in their minds deathless words of inspiration heard in youth from lips now still forever. Speak hopeful words every chance you get. Always send your young friends from you bearing a word that they will take into the years and fulfill for you.
--from The Enlargement of Life (1903) by Frederick Henry Lynch

Have you been noticing it? It seems that every author, journalist, pundit and commentator these days is juxtapositing things, as if to show off how they can use a five syllable word (with an X in it!). Two syllables will suffice. The word is CONTRAST. Excellent writing uses an economy of words. Great writing streamlines syllables. Let us remember high school English, when we learned to compare and contrast, and stop trying to sound brainy by wasting syllables on stupid words. Please?

I now await the comments comparing and contrasting "contrast" with "juxtaposit".

The name plaques given to graduates of my school denotes us each as an alumnus, and I was just informed by a fellow graduate that this use is incorrect. I looked it up. By my assessment it is correct enough. In the English language it is quite traditional to lump females under the male gender term when combining genders in a word. My personal hobby of using she/her as the generic is still quite radical and is likely to be misunderstood. It is worth noting that the gender distribution at NCNM is significantly female preponderant.

Alumnus = a (male or generic) graduate or former student of a specific school, college, or university, or a former associate, employee or member of a group. Alumni is the male or generic plural. Alumna is the feminine individual noun and alumnae is the feminine plural. The word originates from the Latin for foster son or pupil, dating back to 1635–45. Back then girls were even less likely to get edumacated.

Philanthropist (n.) - Someone who spends his own money to advance his version of Utopia.
Socialist (n.) - Someone who spends your money to advance his version of Utopia.
--unknown

sapiosexual = one who is sexually attracted to intelligence in others