Ex Cathedra Persiflage

A quick check on my StatCounter the other day showed a grand total of 0 (zero) readers that day, raising the philosophical question: If a blogger posts in the forest, and there is nobody there to read it, does it make a sound?

Some would say that perhaps a new post more often than every 12 days might generate a little more interest, and while I would tend to agree, I also think interesting content might be helpful. But there, of course, is the rub. I've tried multi-page ramblings on church history and ecclesiology, exhortations and pontifications religious and political, some attempts at humor, and pictures of my grandson Will.

So far, the best content idea has probably been the baby picture, but that last string of long words leads to another idea, a new feature sure to overload my StatCounter within days—once the buzz begins throughout the blogosphere: The Word-a-Day Vocabulary Practice post. I have on my desk the Workman Publishing daily tear-off calendar that features a new, often obscure, English word, its definition and a usually entertaining bit of background and instruction about proper usage. The only way to truly add to one's vocabulary is to deliberately use a new word in daily conversation, so about once a week (if I feel like it) I will be posting something that includes that week's Word-a-Day offerings. Here's a start. See if you can pick out this week's words, then as needed, head for dictionary.com:

When you think about it, most blog posts are little more than a pleasant causerie, carried on between friends and relatives. Occasionally they degenerate into a kind of mindless persiflage, but most jaded readers prefer even that to the sentimental treacle common to many of the posts we read. Not to be too stringent in what I demand of fellow bloggers and others, I'm truly suspicious only of those who in their own fevered imaginations claim to speak ex cathedra.