28 May 2014

anarchy

[an-er-kee]

noun

1. a state of society without government or law.
2. political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control: The death of the king was followed by a year of anarchy.

Synonyms: lawlessness, disruption, turmoil.
3. anarchism – describes a number of political philosophies that generally promote stateless societies, ranging from extreme indivualism to collectivism.

4. lack of obedience to an authority; insubordination: the anarchy of his rebellious teenage years.

5. confusion and disorder: Intellectual and moral anarchy followed his loss of faith. It was impossible to find the book I was looking for in the anarchy of his bookshelves. Synonyms: chaos, disruption, turbulence; license; disorganization, disintegration.

Origin:
1530–40; (< Middle French anarchie or Medieval Latin anarchia ) < Greek, anarchía lawlessness, literally, lack of a leader, equivalent to ánarch ( os ) leaderless ( an- an-1 + arch ( ós ) leader + -os adj. suffix) + -ia -y3

Related forms
hy·per·an·ar·chy, noun
pro·an·ar·chy, adjective

Anagram

ya ranch

Today’s aphorism

One of the bibles of my youth was ‘Birds of the West Indies,’ by James Bond, a well-known ornithologist, and when I was casting about for a name for my protagonist I thought, ‘My God, that’s the dullest name I’ve ever heard,’ so I appropriated it. Now the dullest name in the world has become an exciting one.

– Ian Fleming

On this day

28 May 1908 – birth of Ian Fleming, British author of the ‘James Bond’ novels.

28 May 1964 – establishment of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), which was founded with the purpose of liberating Palestine through armed struggle. It has since rejected violence and been recognised as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by the United Nations.

28 May 1987 – West German, Matthias Rust, illegally flies his Cessna 172 from Finland to Moscow, landing in Red Square. Rust claimed that he wanted to build an imaginary bridge between the Soviet Union and the West. Rust was charged and convicted of hooliganism, disregard of aviation laws and breaching the Soviet border. He was sentenced to four years in a general-regime labour camp, but spent his imprisonment in the high security Lefortovo. During Rust’s imprisonment, US President Reagan and the General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mikhael Gorbachev signed an intermediate-range nuclear weapons treaty. As a sign of good faith following the signing of the treaty, the Supreme Soviet ordered Matthias Rust be released in August 1988.