What is that smell?
I recently parted with a huge amount of printed materials, reference books, and the like from my bookshelves. I was paring down to the critical few that I really wanted to keep because I use them from time to time. Most of what I can research today is online, so I even find myself not going to Webster's on the shelf so much, but the dictionary that is online when I need to look up a spelling or find the meaning / origin of the word. I recently had to go back to my trusty dictionary to look up an all too familiar word. I was surprised at the primary definition I discovered, as it really was not my first impression of the word. The word I sought out was "cynic". The primary definition is a person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions and then disbelieves in or minimizes selfless acts or disinterested points of view. I thought a cynic was a nay-sayer - one who just opposed things because they had a genuinely "sour" disposition in life! I al...