A new word came to me last week for which I am always grateful because despite its signaling an area of ignorance it also indicates that an old dog can learn new vocabulary. The word came out of an unlikely place.
Newspapers tend to shy away from new vocabulary.
We journalists have somehow let ourselves be kowtowed by the legalists in the public sector. But I digress. I also learned, of course, that anyone familiar with the language of vegetarianism or of kosher meal preparations probably knows this word well. Pareve, by the way, is derived from the Yiddish word parev , and it has to do with food prepared without dairy or milk products. It's a very important term for Jews in the preparation of kosher meals.