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Discuss Email this Feedback RSS/XML Permalink A.Word.A.Day--fifth column "Everybody line up alphabetically according to your height." These words of Casey Stengel (1891-1975), U.S. baseball player and manager, sum up nicely the deep human need to arrange things in order, to sort, classify, and enumerate them. This week we'll see phrases that characterize concepts, in descending order from fifth through first. fifth column (fifth KOL-uhm) noun A group of traitors acting in sympathy with their country's enemies. [From Spanish quinta columna, from the column of supporters that General Mola claimed to have in Madrid while he was leading four columns of his army to invade the city during the Spanish Civil War.] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus. -Anu Garg (garg wordsmith.org) "[Justice Aaron] Ringera, you are starring in your own movie, and must be told to your face, that you are a bully of humility, a political warhorse, and a fifth column in the war against graft." Steve Ochuodho; Ringera vs His Conscience; Kenya Times (Nairobi); Oct 14, 2006 X-Bonus God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages. -Jacques Deval, writer and director (1895-1972)

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