word wonders

an alert reader circled a new word in the paper for me. "extirpated" which i've just discovered means to "pull up by the roots" or "totally exterminate". in the vocabulary department, i was very proud of my symphony conductor for his use of "penultimate" in ordinary conversation last evening. and of my students for building their glossaries without asking if they would get extra credit for looking up more words than required by the assignment. that would force me, afterall, to extirpate some of their penultimate comments.