Ripped from the Headlines: November 2019: This Week In Words: November 2–8, 2019

Economists are unsure about the economy as different indicators show both healthy growth and significant slowing. While business investment and the manufacturing sector are down, job growth and consumer spending remain strong. Members of the Federal Reserve say that reducing uncertainty would give our economy a boost. Assuage is an Old French word from the same Latin root suavis, meaning "sweet", as suave.

Continued unrest in Hong Kong is causing serious stress among Chinese leadership. Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam to show support for her as people call for her resignation. China's responses to the protests have so far failed to stop the demonstrations, and have often made them more intense. In Latin, conclave means "with key", referring to a locked room, so it's easy to see how it describes a meeting held in private.

According to a report issued by Freedom House, a nonpartisan organization funded by the U.S. government, social media represents a threat to internet freedom. Widespread disinformation and propaganda may have influenced elections in as many as 24 countries in the last year. In addition, many governments monitor their citizens' use of these sites. Glean is an Old French word for harvest, so if you take a walk and pick blackberries, you gleaned them.

Brittany Kaiser, a tech consultant who featured in the documentary The Great Hack, has written a book about data privacy. She's advocating for banning political ads on Facebook, since data harvested from users' activity there can be harvested and used to influence elections, as happened in 2016. Guru is a Sanskrit word meaning "important" or "dignified", and came to mean "teacher", particularly in a spiritual sense, in Hindi. Now it can mean any influential expert.

Lev Parnas, the Ukrainian businessman tied to Rudy Giuliani and recently indicted for campaign finance violations, has agreed to cooperate with the Congressional impeachment inquiry after previously refusing to do so. The change happened after President Trump claimed not to know Parnas or his partner Igor Fruman; since there's abundant evidence the pair spent significant time with Trump people have speculated that Parnas was insulted by the comment and that motivated him to testify.

Disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is asking a judge to dismiss his case because of government misconduct. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his communication with the Russian Ambassador and is due to be sentenced next month. Inimical comes from inimicus, the same Latin root that gave us enemy.

Wisconsin is regarded as the ultimate battleground state in the 2020 Presidential election, with its 10 electoral votes possibly deciding the winner. Because it's such an evenly divided state, elections tend to be extremely close and both parties are spending heavily to influence the outcome. If you've heard the word lucrative, meaning "profitable", then you can see where lucre comes from.

Democrat Steve Beshear won the Kentucky Governorship, beating incumbent Matt Bevin in a deep red state where Republicans won all other state races. President Trump held a rally for Bevin — the only candidate he campaigned for — and the defeat was widely seen as a worrisome sign for Republicans in 2020. We get the words impugn, "to attack as false" and pugilist, meaning "boxer" from the same Latin root pugn for "fist" or "combative".

Democrats won majorities in both houses of Virginia's General Assembly. This victory, which received national attention, showed the dramatic transformation of the state from red to blue, driven by big changes in the suburbs which have national implications. A salvo means a bunch of guns firing simultaneously. It can also refer to something emphatic happening in a group contest, like a lot of voters making a dramatic statement at once.

A statement signed by over 11,000 scientists states that the world faces “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” without dramatic changes to world population growth, energy production, agriculture, and transportation, among other factors. The report says that there's still time to act, and that worst-case scenarios can be avoided. To equivocate is to say one thing and mean another; to be unequivocal means there's no doubt about what you mean.