Bill W

Spermatozoon is derived from Greek: sperma (seed) and zoion (animal) - It was adapted into English in the 19th century.

Spermatozoon (singular) spermatozoa (plural)

From the Latin pejor 'meaning worse' to the Late Latin pejoratus meaning 'to become worse' or 'to make worse'. More commonly you might hear the word pejorative used. It can be either or noun or adjective. It also comes from pejor 'meaning worse' to Late Latin pejorare 'to make worse' to French pejoratif, which in the late 19th century became pejorative pejorative means to express contempt or disapproval - synonyms for pejorative are disparaging, derogatory, deprecatory. Pejorative in a sentence: The team captain came under fire for making pejorative comments about his/her teammates.

Me too. I'm up all night and usually sleep during the day, which is hard when I have doctor or dentist appointments. Most times I end up going on very little sleep. I usually go to sleep between 8:00 and 10:00 and then wake up before 7:00, but I'm wired today and working on a project. I'll probably just doze of in my office chair.

nyctophilia is the condition of being happy or comfortable in the dark.

Strange things can happen at night in the dark. Nocturnal is derived from a list of Latin words. nox, noct (meaning night), nocturnus (of the night), nocturnalis (belonging to the night), and then in the late 15th century it was adopted by the Middle French as nocturnal.

Both of those observations are very true. @sandrewn posts some incredible photos of spiders and tarantulas, and the photographers that take the photos must have a great deal of patience. However, I can't see that there would be much money in a profession of taking photos of arachnids.

Just as some parents won't accept a homosexual or transgendered child, thinking they are defective or they're spawn of the devil, maybe Mac feels he'd be pushing it if he told them he was a skinwalker and can change into all these different forms. Mac's parents don't even know about Devin and his father, so throwing this at them that they are skinwalkers and cannot merely transition into creatures as small as a mouse and as large as bigfoot may be something more than they can handle. And that's not even considering that their son and his partner are going to live for hundreds of years, like Noah and Methuselah, especially since they've lost two other children. It may seem unfair and unnatural.

I think @drpaladin my have mentioned this yesterday, but dichotomy comes from the Greek, dikhotomia, were dikho means 'in to, or apart', and tomia means 'cutting'.

When I woke up this morning and saw The Word of the Day, I experienced deja vu, since we had talked about this yesterday. But then I realized we merely talked about its use, not the meaning, so a 👍 to @Myr.

Yes, you're correct about that, so hopefully they'll recognize the problem and do more to correct it. However, you must realize that her husband stays with her a lot. He refuses to go on most of the trips with his dad and grandfather, and he only goes to the office to meet clients or cover for his dad and grandfather when they're away. He stays with Doris the rest of the time, and that's not much different than any married man that has a job. The only difference is when they all go out for a run in the evening, and that's when she's left alone. I think the thought bothering her most is that she'll die long before her husband, and no married couple knows for certain which of them will die first.

Hmmm, maybe, but you'll have to wait and see what happens next.

Is she an English teacher as well?

Sorry, sandrew, my English teachers used to use the word dichotomy very often when discussing books, shorts stories, and poetry.

Yes, Terry, you can look ravishing when you dress nicely, possibly for a special social event. Or the Vikings went through many parts of the world ravishing the women of the areas they attacked.

Ok, I took it that you were referring to Devin's family, and as I said for someone else, I doubt Mac will tell his parents unless he or Devin slips up when they're with them. In that case, Mac and Devin just have to remember to be careful when they're with Mac's parents.

At least you didn't have to live in a room filled with vampire spiders when you where in those countries, and I'm glad the contact with malaria wasn't fatal.

Yes, secrets are hard to keep, but in this case you have to remember one factor. The shaman told them that they intended to keep the population of good skinwalkers low, so there won't be a lot of them at one time. Most will mate with women from the normal population so they won't die out, and since they can change their appearance to look any age, they can appear to age with their wives and die out after that, so the general public won't notice them as being different. Hopefully, their wives won't inform anyone else about this, but if she did, would anyone else believe her? It would create a problem, though, especially if other women made the same claim about their husbands. That's why the men have to be very careful when choosing a spouse and eventually sharing this information with them, such as Gramps, Pops , and Devin's dad have done.

Yes, even though being a skinwalker had helped them when they faced the mother elk with her calves in the woods, she seemed to dwell on the fact that her husband will outlive her. I guess that would be a tough situation for someone if they were in a similar circumstance, so we'll have to see how she handles this in the future. At least Devin and Mac won't have that same problem. Yes, I'm sure things will get interesting for the boys, since they'll be leaving to go off to college now, after spending a brief time with Mac's parents. I'm glad you enjoyed this chapter.

Yes, it's understandable why Devin's mom feel that way, and now she's lost Mac who could commiserate with her when the others went out for a run. She could have a daughter, but not with Devin's father. Skinwalkers can only have one male child - no female babies.

No, he won't, unless as I said to @weinerdog something happens where he or Devin or he and Devin happen to transition in front of them. In that case, he won't be able to avoid telling them.

That is a strange coincidence where the names of the dogs are concerned, but Devin transitions into a black lab and Mac is the Siberian husky. And Mac will only tell his parents if something happens and he is forced to disclose that information. Yes, no matter how creepy it sounds, it would be possible for one of them to do as you suggest.

The ironic that the Navajo women can become a shaman, so some of the original evil skinwalkers might have been women. Now, when considering this today, although the Navajo don't have a problem with same sex relationships, they are against same sex marriage. This leads me to believe that although they allow a woman to become a shaman, they may not be ready to allow them to become good skinwalkers.

Chapter 37 – Returning to the Cabin Devin’s parents were sitting on the porch when the SUV pulled up in front of the cabin. As we were getting out, we said a quick hello to them first, before we started getting our belongings out of the SUV, and then Devin’s dad spoke. “We’re glad you boys are back and it’s great to see you again, but we didn’t expect you to return so soon.” “I know and we’ll tell you all about it in a minute,” Devin replied, “but we need to get our things o

It's either the hand jive or that game we played as kids where you alternate stacking your hands on top of each other, pull the bottom hand and and place it on top - and then you just keep going.