I am not Jeff and I do not attempt to be his substitute. I've taken a deliberately different path when I post game threads and recaps so as to hopefully distinguish between the two of us. It's not that I think my way or his way is superior to the other. I just find that mimicking his, or anyone else's, exact style to be rather boring. I'll take inspiration from them (cf. my parody of Jeff's Prince Fielder watch parodies or today's earlier post on number learnin'), but if I can't find a way to put a personal touch on it, then I'm left feeling unsatisfied and often the post dies in the virtual cutting room.
That whole introduction is a means for me to wash my hands of the rest of this post because I am going to copy Jeff's word learnin' series for realsies because I really enjoyed today's word. It's not exactly an exception that proves the rule (a phrase I really wish more people would understand correctly), since I'm stating the rule and then excepting it, but it's close. A-ha, but I will depart from Jeff on where my word is broadcasted from. I spurn dictionary.com and their choice of astringent. If you don't know that word, then tough nuggets because I already did and think of it as a fairly common word.
Instead, I turn to Merriam-Webster — perhaps the American* gospel of word learnin' — for their word of the day, nugatory. Here's the dictionary.com page for nugatory since that's free and M-W (as those in the word biz refer to them) has the gall to charge for your word learnin', a practice that Lookout Landing will never follow.
*Interestingly, Merriam-Webster is owned by Encyclopædia Britannica. More interestingly, Encyclopædia Britannica is an American company now and has been for a hundred years. This second interesting fact renders the first interesting fact quite less interesting. Also, they've decided to stop hard copy printing this year.
Nugatory [NEW-guh-tohr-ee] adj.
1. of little or no consequence or value; trifling; worthless
This usage dovetails nicely with a previous word of the day, pettifog, which means to quibble about unimportant matters. Watch:
The talking heads were arguing over nugatory matters and rather than engage with that pettifoggery, I instead decided to take a constitutional.
Just typing that sentence made me put on a monocle first so I could achieve a proper level of propriety. It does not stop there though with the usefulness. Nugatory's second usage is also particularly adept at fitting in with the Mariners.
2. of no force; ineffective; futile
Albert Pujols exerted a nugatory effort chasing after an 0-2 curveball in the dirt from Felix Hernandez.
I'm sure there are other relevant applications of the word with the Mariners, but none currently spring to mind.