Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Today's English

Asperity: 1. a. Roughness or harshness, as of surface, sound, or climate: the asperity of northern winters.
b. Severity; rigor.
2. A slight projection from a surface; a point or bump.
3. Harshness of manner; ill temper or irritability.

"(Ernest) Renan's final judgment on the evils afflicting France: the essence of modern democracy is a lack of abnegation and asperity in demanding individual rights, and war is its polar opposite."
-Federico Chabod, Italian Foreign Policy: The Statecraft of the Founders


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