Word for the day: WAIN

I read in Spurgeon this morning:
"The firstfruits were the pledge of the harvest. As soon as the Israelite had plucked the first handful of ripe ears, he looked forward with glad anticipation to the time when the wain should creak beneath the sheaves."

I've read of wainscoting and figured from the context that it was something on a wall, but hadn't ever looked it up, and hadn't ever heard of a "wain" before...


WAIN


a large and heavy vehicle for farm use : WAGON, CART *a hay wain on a meadow*


WAINSCOT
from Middle Dutch wagenschot, probably from wagen cart + schot shot, crossbar, wooden partition; akin to Old English shot


Britain: a fine grade of oak imported for woodwork
(1): a wooden lining of an interior wall usually paneled
(2): a lining of an interior wall irrespective of material *a tile wainscot*
c: the lower three or four feet of an interior wall when finished differently from the remainder of the wall (as with wood panels, tile, or marble slabs)


WAINSCOT
transitive verb


to line (as a wall) with or as if with boards or paneling
*wainscoted with looking glass*

So that's the proper term for the walls in the dinette of the house I grew up.  The lower half was paneling with wood patterns, and the upper half was wallpaper.

Cool.

Sarcasm or Irony

I recently saw a t-shirt that said, "Sarcasm is just one of the free services I offer."



I thought I was the sarcastic type, but when I looked up the word, I'm not!


Definition: 

SARCASM: a keen or bitter taunt : a cutting gibe or rebuke often delivered in a tone of contempt or disgust 2: the use of caustic or stinging remarks or language often with inverted or ironical statement on occasion of an offense or shortcoming with intent to wound the feelings

That's not me!  I don't ever intend to wound anyone's feelings.  Of course I do hurt someone's feelings, that just breaks my little heart… hahahaha. 
No, really.  It does.

There’s a better word for what I do.

IRONY: feigned ignorance designed to confound or provoke an antagonist : dissimulation : humor, ridicule, or light sarcasm that adopts a mode of speech the intended implication of which is the opposite of the literal sense of the words (as when expressions of praise are used where blame is meant) : a state of affairs or events that is the reverse of what was or was to be expected : a result opposite to and as if in mockery of the appropriate result *the irony of fate*

IRONY applies chiefly to a way of speaking or writing in which the meaning intended is contrary to that expressed on the surface *beset with confusion and humiliation he said in blunt irony, *I am certainly enjoying myself** but in a more literary or dramatic sense it implies a deeper perception of the discrepancies implicit in life and character or applies to the actual discrepancies (as between appearance and reality, what is promised and what fulfilled, what is intended and what achieved, what seemingly should be and what actually is), applying frequently to a situation in which what results is the direct, often tragic, opposite of what was desired, intended, or worked for *the dramatic irony of the play in which the hero intent upon the greatest good he knows achieves by his very pursuit of it destruction and death* *the patient had sought violent death, but, with the usual irony of life, it was the doctor whom sudden death overcame Havelock Ellis* *an irony of nature that our teeth, which decay so painfully while we live, stop decaying at our death, and outlast all the rest of us Leonard Woolley*
SARCASM applies chiefly to a type of humor intended to cut or wound, often employing ridicule or bitter irony *the satire has become in some instances sarcasm * and heavy sarcasm at that John Woodburn*

Okay, you were dying to have that distinction made, and the confusion cleared up, right? 

I think most people who say they are "sarcastic" are using the word incorrectly.  This is irony: