Ripped from the Headlines: September 2020: This Week In Culture: Current Events Vocab for September 26–October 2, 2020

How much does the universe weigh? Could there be aquatic life under the Martian surface? How many baseball games in one day is too many? These and other questions are answered by stories that contributed timely words to this week's list of vocabulary from the tech, sports, and culture worlds.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. boggle
    overcome with amazement
    How much matter is there in the universe? It’s a mind-boggling question, and involves a daunting amount of maths – but California scientists say they have figured it out.
    – Yahoo News (Sep 29, 2020)
    Astronomers have measured the mass of the universe and found that visible matter and energy — things we can see and measure — make up about a third of the total. The rest is believed to be dark matter, which is not well understood in large part because it cannot be seen or measured yet.
  2. brine
    water containing salts
    "These experiments have demonstrated that brines can persist for geologically significant periods of time even at the temperatures typical of the Martian polar regions (considerably below the freezing temperature of pure water)," said co-author Graziella Caprarelli, from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia.
    – BBC (Sep 29, 2020)
    Scientists have discovered three new underground lakes on Mars, which may be part of one larger body of water. They used radar data from the MARSIS orbiter to locate a lake 20km wide that's about 1.5km beneath the surface near the planet's south pole, and which is surrounded by smaller bodies of water. Water is essential to life as we know it, so if Mars ever had life on its surface some may remain in this water.
  3. corpulence
    the property of excessive fatness
    Fans are already campaigning for their favorites, like last year’s “Queen of Corpulence,” bear 435 (aka Holly).
    – The Verge (Sep 30, 2020)
    Alaska's Katmai National Park has begun its 6th annual Fat Bear Week, where fans can tune in to the park's webcam and watch enormous bears gorge on salmon as they store up energy for their long winter hibernation. Viewers can vote on their favorite bear each day, with a winner being announced on October 6, designated "Fat Bear Tuesday." Some of the bears have been given names and have devoted fans.
  4. gratuitous
    unnecessary and unwarranted
    Vanessa Bryant is suing the department over the “gratuitous images” that “soon became talked about within the department, as deputies displayed them to colleagues in settings that had nothing to do with investigating the accident,” according to her complaint filed in a Los Angeles Superior Court last week.
    – Vibe (Sep 30, 2020)
    California Governor Gavin Newsom signed "Kobe Bryant's Law," making it illegal for unauthorized first responders to take pictures at a crime or accident scene. The bill was introduced after LAPD officers took pictures of Bryant's body after his helicopter crashed and shared them with colleagues and members of the public. Bryant's widow Vanessa is suing the LAPD over the photos.
  5. internment
    the act of confining someone in a prison
    "Does Netflix agree that the Chinese Communist Party's internment of 1.8 to 3 million Uyghurs in internment or labor camps based on their ethnicity is unacceptable?"
    – Salon (Sep 30, 2020)
    A group of Republican Senators wrote a letter to Netflix asking the network to reconsider its decision to produce a show based on Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem trilogy. Liu, the first Asian author to win the Hugo Award, has expressed support for the Chinese government's brutal treatment of the Muslim Uyghur minority, which has drawn international condemnation.
  6. liturgy
    a rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship
    Each night of the 20-date trek, which grossed $116 million, a total of nearly a million ticket buyers around the planet witnessed a thumping opening liturgy at the top of the K-pop band’s set in the form of the song “Dionysus.”
    – Variety (Sep 30, 2020)
    BTS and other K-pop bands are a huge economic force in South Korea. A 2018 study showed that BTS alone contributed nearly $5 billion a year to the country's economy. Big Hit, the company that created the band, will begin selling stock in October, and combined with the band's roughly 30 million followers on Twitter and Instagram, is establishing a direct-to-consumer model for music as the new normal.
  7. moniker
    a familiar name for a person
    (MLB’s trying to play into the idea of the former by invoking a March Madness vibe with its chosen moniker for this week, “Fall Frenzy,” but… it’s not hard to see the latter.)
    – Sports Illustrated (Sep 30, 2020)
    Because of the shortened season, Major League Baseball is creating its own version of March Madness, known as "Fall Frenzy." Eight playoff games were scheduled for one day, leading observers and fans to wonder if it will be a bounty of great TV or a chaotic mess with too much going on. Moniker is another word for "nickname," and its origins are unknown.
  8. muster
    summon up, call forth, or bring together
    The highest-scoring team in the regular season mustered just three goals in its four losses to Chicago, including a shutout in the Cup clincher.
    – ESPN (Sep 28, 2020)
    The Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup, beating the Dallas Stars 2-0 for their first championship. Instead of having the cup handed only to team captain Steven Stamkos, the whole team gathered together to hold the cup. Muster comes from the Middle French mostre or monstre meaning "display," "show," or "manifestation," in the last case specifically referring to troops lining up for inspection.
  9. teetotaler
    someone who abstains from drinking alcoholic beverages
    “Obviously a lot of what is around now is heavily influenced by my aesthetic, my style, my delivery,” Fantano, a vegan teetotaler, said recently over FaceTime, where he was as long-winded as in his videos, which often top 10 minutes.
    – New York Times (Sep 30, 2020)
    Anthony Fantano, a 34-year-old Connecticut resident, has built a huge following for his music reviews on YouTube. His channel, called The Needle Drop, has 2.26 million subscribers, and his videos have been viewed more than 900 million times. The music industry was undergoing dramatic changes before the pandemic shut down live music altogether, and his DIY model may be the future of music criticism.
  10. unequivocal
    admitting of no doubt or misunderstanding
    “I believe that voting in the 2020 US elections is key to upholding the arrow of time and its unequivocal one-way direction, against the turning back of the clock.”
    – Guardian (Sep 30, 2020)
    A New York-based nonprofit called TRANS> has created a group of 50 stamps, each designed by a different artist, for people to stick on their mail between now and the election. The stamps have no monetary value, and are meant as a way of showing the importance of the Post Office and the power of imagery and messaging to change the world.
Created on Wed Sep 30 11:36:11 EDT 2020 (updated Fri Oct 02 08:45:28 EDT 2020)

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