OED Online Word of the Day

Today while at work I had to look up the ordinary and legal meaning of the word "vexatious" and I also decided to sign up to receive the Oxford English Dictionary word of the day.

As an aside, I have been asked to consider the creation of an offence for "vexatious letter writing". My instincts as a lawyer and as a legislator (a person who has been involved in the promulgation of legislation for many years now) tells me that the appropriate response to this request is a resounding NO. NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I admit that the person who made the request (whom I will call the Responder) has had an annoying job of responding to many letters from a person whom I will call the Writer. The Writer had became fixated on particular issues concerning himself and I could see that it must have been extremely difficult and increasingly frustrating for the Responder when trying to reason with the Writer due to the Writer having particular psychological issues. Despite the Responder having provided many common sense responses it seemed impossible for the Writer to comprehend any logic emanating from the Responder. Indeed, as I recall the Writer's correspondence dealt with the various descriptions of the Writer in a psychiatric report and the Writer's attempts to have the report perceived in a different manner by the Responder.

One day at the end of her tether the Responder came to me for advice, specifically whether she could she simply stop responding to the Writer. I advised the Responder that as a public servant it was best practice if she did not simply stop responding and then I advised her bearing in mind that were the manner ever to be elevated to court or scrutinised by the public the ideal way to deal with the situation was for the Responder to be the model litigant (taken from the rule that the Crown should always be the model litigant). My reason being that if the Responder acted with equanimity then the Responder's role in this would always be open to scrutiny and there would be nothing in her responses which she would fear such as any hint of rudeness or sarcasm or unhelpfulness.

I suggested that initially her responses should be comprehensive and methodical and deal with each issue raised by the Writer so that eventually when the Writer began going over old ground the Responder could provide copies of earlier correspondence or simply refer to earlier correspondence until hopefully one day the Writer would tire and stop or more likely take his issue somewhere else.

Anway this is the situation where I guess that the request for an offence concerning a "vexatious letter writer" had emanated from.

As I was doing my research ostensibly so I could justify my recommendation with more than a No. No. Noooooooooooo. I decided to also sign up for the OED "Word of the Day". Not long after doing so I was very happy to discover that I had been provided with the said daily email. In anticipation of broadening my vocabulary (and my Scrabble abilities) and discovering a world of obscure words that I have scant appreciation of, I eagerly opened my email only to discover that the word today is..........................................

annual, a. and n. SECOND EDITION 1989
(ænjul) Also 4-7 annuel(l. [a. OFr. annuel, ad. later L. annul-em (= cl. annl-em); refashioned after the L. c 1500.]
A. adj.
1. a. Of or belonging to the year; reckoned, payable, or engaged by the year; yearly.


Whoopee Do (sarcasm - is there an emotive for that?)

Is whoopee in the dictionary?

Yes it is:

Definition
whoopee
exclamation
a loud, excited shout of happiness:

Whoopee, it's the holidays!


(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)


I would have been happier with the word "Whoppee" than "Annual"


I guess the moral of the story is "Beggars can't be choosers"