SINCERE The practice of patching flaws in marble sculptures with bits of wax was originally developed during the Renaissance. A stature without flaws, and therefore without the camouflage of wax, was called a ‘sculpture sin cera’: without wax.The phrase later came to mean anything true and honest without hidden defects.

ANEMIOUS, from Greek anemos meaning wind, is term for flora that grows and thrives in windy conditions. (a another series within Parallel Text using rather eso-teric words that appear to be of common usage.)

SHORE/COAST Shore is the edge of the water- Coast is the edge of the land. Two words often interchanged and misidentified - in New York one goes to the shore; in Texas one goes to the coast though meaning the same thing.

To be precise, the true name for a photograph of a cloud is NEPHOGRAM

EONISM: When a man adopts the manners and clothing of a woman it is called eonism after Chevalier d’Éon who was a spy and soldier that passed the second half of his life as a woman.

VILLAIN At Catholicism’s beginning, the church’s fear of those who lived in rural ‘villes’ and still clung to the old practices was so strong that the once innocuous word for vil-lager – villan – came to be synonymous with someone evil.

Earlier it was believed that many diseases were caused by bad air from decompos-ing organic matter, as in a swamp. Malaria, for example, is named from Italian mala aria (bad air). The germ theory of disease has put the bad air theory to rest though the photo is in honor of the Venetian ‘medico della peste’ who wore the mask when in contact with the sick - one of the mask’s functions was to cover the ‘bad air’ by filling the beak with aromatic herbs.

ANIMUS is Latin for spirit or mind. In Jungian psychology it is the name for the masculine part of a woman’s subconscious meaning also, hostility or governing spirit.

BUTT is a series of photographs within Parallel Text utilizing just euphemisms.

CATARACT comes from the Latin, cataracta, meaning waterfall. The whitish appearance seen in the rushing water of a waterfall is exactly what a dense cataract looks like through a pupil.

DELIRIUM In Latin lera means the ridge left by ploughing. The verb de-lerare means to make an irregular ridge when ploughing. A delirius was one who couldn’t make a straight farrow when ploughing and thus came to mean a crazy or disoriented person.

From Tamil paraiyar, plural of paraiyan (drummer), from parai (drum, to tell). Because the drum players were considered among the lowest in the former caste system of India, the word took on the general meaning of an outcast. Earliest documented use: 1613.

The word carousel originates from the Italian garosello and Spanish carosella (“lit-tle battle”), used by crusaders to describe a combat preparation exercise and game played by Turkish and Arabian horsemen in the 12th century. In a sense this early device could be considered a cavalry training mechanism; it prepared and strengthened the riders for actual combat as they wielded their swords at the mock enemies.

PAGAN comes from the Latin, paganus, meaning a modest country dwell-er. During the 1200’s, the Catholic church in its effort to wipe out the old rural religion and practices turned a simple word for a farmer into a nega-tive connotation with an evil undertone.

A series withing Parallel Text based on words that have strange multi-meanings. PURLICUE - 1. The space between the extended forefinger and thumb. 2. A flourish or curl at the end of a handwritten word.

SHOOTING LIP is an American term usually used to express the notion of someone an-nouncing opinions usually not well thought out. A lot like shooting from the hip: misdi-rected and badly aimed.

BLUE RIBBON Using a blue ribbon as a prize for first place dates back to the mid 1300’s when England’s Order of the Garter was begun. Within the order a garter was given as a badge of honor and was always blue.

ORTHOPAEDIC is the branch of medicine dealing with the correction of deformities of bones and muscles but originally is was specific just to children. From the Greek; ortho – straight + paedic – child

MUTATE. The opposite of ceteris paribus is mutatis mutandis, which means ‘those things having been changed that are to be changed.’ While this is also an expression used by economists, it is amusing that the Italian word for underwear is mutande (which is derived from the same Latin verb mutare, to change) therefore, a mutatis mutandis is, in essence, a change of underwear.