Word for the Wise, January 21

[Uadzit]

Topic: John Moses Browning

Today we mark the birth of one John Moses Browning, the son of a Mormon gunsmith. The young Browning built his first gun as a teenager and went on to be granted more than 100 gun-related patents before he died in his son’s office while at work on another weapon.

Among the more notorious guns designed by Browning is the FN Model 1910 handgun, the gun used to assassinate Archduke Prince Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie and which, it may be said, was the first shot of the first world war.

Browning also invented the pump shotgun, designed the Colt 45 automatic, and worked with gun manufacturers across the world. While his surname appears in the name of various firearms, it also appears in a line written by Nazi playwright Hanns Johst, in his 1933 drama dedicated to Hitler: "Whenever I hear the word 'culture' I release the safety catch of my Browning."

This sentence is interpreted as an instance of misomusism, a word sometimes credited to Milan Kundera but actually first conceived of in the mid-17th century. The Greek misos means "hatred," while muses comes from mousa, meaning "learning," the source of the nine Greek muses of arts and science. Misomusism is understood as a hatred of learning, of culture, and of intellectualism.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.  

[Rosenfall]

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