This week's theme
Words seen in their plural forms

This week's words
auspices
paparazzi
cognoscenti
mores
antipodes

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(pah-puh-RAT-see)

MEANING:

noun: Photographers who follow famous people to take their pictures for publication.

ETYMOLOGY:

Plural of paparazzo, from the name of a photographer in Federico Fellini's 1959 film La Dolce Vita. Fellini got the name via scriptwriter Ennio Flaiano who picked it from the 1901 travel book By the Ionian Sea. The book mentions a hotel owner named Coriolano Paparazzo. Fellini claimed at another time that the name Paparazzo suggested to him "a buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging". Earliest documented use: 1961.

USAGE:

"I wasn't even in the same ballpark as most of the fathers, who were tripping over each other to record their progenies' squeaky, off-key performances. It was worse than a restaurant full of drunken paparazzi realizing they'd caught the president."
Tony Hicks; The Parent Paparazzi; Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, California); Jan 30, 2012.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: