LABOR SAVING DEVICES (from) Commerce. Expensive, and generally complex, tools sold to American consumers for the home, garden and office. Many LSDs (labor saving devices) require large amounts of capital outlay that necessitate longer hours on the job in order to make the payments. In this country, we have more LSDs than anyone in the near galaxy, and recent surveys indicate that we still believe that we have less time to enjoy them because we are so busy. Another antietymopathism.

LABOR UNIONS (from) slavery. Support groups originally rejected by commerce as a threat, but later accepted on the merits that (1) groups of laborers would be represented by a few controllable individuals, and (2) the individual laborers will commiserate with each other and thus cause the employers less trouble. It has occurred to some that slaves are better treated as (valuable) property, and that if laborers are expendable, then what is to protect them, labor unions?

LABYRINTH (from) "House of the Double Ax," from labrys, the ceremonial ax used to sacrifice bulls to the Cretan Moon-Goddess. The mystic meaning of a labyrinthine design is a journey into the otherworld and out again. It is not a maze to get lost in but a ceremonial walk. (From the Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets). The 1938 Webster's Unabridged Dictionary indicates labyrinth to originate in Greek laura, labra, an alley, lane; makes no references to an ax or the sacrifice of bulls, and is synonymous with maze. The 1969 American Heritage Dictionary indicates the origin to be "akin to Greek labrus, double ax, perhaps a word borrowed from Caria," defines it as "the maze in which the Minotaur was confined," and makes no reference to the sacrifice of bulls. In conclusion, I am amazed that any culture would sacrifice bulls when it is obvious that sacrificing humans is so much holier.

LAUGH (from) Old English (from) Latin clang (from) Greek klaxon. To exhibit amusement at. The only sane way to deal with a world on the brink of disaster.

"The freedom of any society varies proportionally with the volume of its laughter." -- Zero Mostel

"A man isn't poor if he can still laugh." -- Raymond Hitchcock

LAW (from) Old English lagu, "that which is set down." The establishment of arbitrary rules by the few, governing the many, to discourage the wealthy from engaging in private wars. Other words from the same origin include: lie, lay, low, litter, belay, beleaguer and lager. For example, "I belayed my action on the assumption that lawyers would help me. I was told by my attorney to lie low, so I lay me down in the litter with a lager. Now, I am beleaguered by lawyers with lawsuits, and it suits me not."

"The insecurity of a people can be measured by the thickness of their lawbooks." -- Roger Henry

"The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." -- Lincoln

"The trouble with law and government is lawyers." -- Clarence Darrow

LAWNMOWER (from) American Agriculture. A dangerous implement of defense against Nature for decapitating grass and oppressing the obnoxious and ugly weeds that wage war against our cultured lawns. Lawnmowers, like chain saws, are designed to make so much noise so we can't hear the grass and trees scream.

LAWYERS (from) Law Schools. The ones who win in any lawsuit, regardless of which side they represent.

"A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady." -- Voltaire

LEISURE (from) Latin licere, to be lawful, be permitted. Having free time. Something that everyone wants (as leisure time) but feels guilty about since commerce makes no money from the people's leisure. The Bureaucracies allow little leisure since it is during free times that conspiracies begin, even though by definition, leisure is lawful.

"Leisure and solitude are the best effect of riches, because they are the mother of thought. Both are avoided by most rich men who seek company and business, which are signs of being weary of themselves." -- Sir W. Temple

LIBERAL (from) Latin liber, free. One who is a slave to an ideology opposed to conservativism.

LIBERTY (from) Latin liber, free. A rare commodity that all white males in America, Britain and Western Europe like to believe they have in abundance in their own countries. A relativistic slogan of nationalism that many political groups worldwide will kill and die for, dependent upon the amount of liberty their military governments allow, or withhold, from them. A condition characterized by reason and virtue that ends when it becomes the curse of our neighbors.

"True liberty consists in the privilege of enjoying our own rights, not in the destruction of the rights of others." -- George Pinckard

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." -- Thomas Jefferson

LIBRARY (from) Latin liber, book. Notice that free and book are the same Latin word. We are free to read, but what are we allowed, and by whom?

LIFE (from) Greek lipos, fat. Animating force without which we are not. Science abuses life by spending the fat of the land in experiments mutating it; the military in creating new ways to fry it; and religion fattens a few, knowing that however we disturb it in this life, we will be forgiven in the next one.

LIFETIME GUARANTEE (from) Madison Avenue. That part of any purchase that expires when the purchase is lost or broken, destroyed by an act of God, or the owner passes on to Consumer Heaven.

LITTLE LEAGUE (from) adults. An imbecilic sport for fathers of pre-pubescent males. Training whereby young men learn to swing sticks, bat balls, chew tobacco and shout appropriate invectives at each other while wishing for six figure incomes with the "big leagues."

LIVELIHOOD (from) Middle English, course of life. A more promising name for an occupation that will take several years off of your life. An antietymopathism for deadlihood.

LOBBYIST (from) Medieval Latin lobium, lobby, a monastic cloister. One employed to influence (beg) legislators to introduce or vote for measures favorable to the interest he represents. For example, "Lobbyists spend $91,000 per year per congressman cloistered in the 'monastery' in Washington."

LOCOMOTION (from) Latin loco, ablative of locus, place, + motion. For clarity, ablative is from ablation, indicating separation, direction away from. Locomotion is defined as the act of moving, or the ability to move, from one place to another. Used in front of weed, loco means crazy. The use of loco as place is (by this author) a crazy move away from the origin of the word. The Spanish derivation is much preferred when describing the huge iron horses that crossed the American west in the last century. The path was wide and interrupted the flow of animals and native peoples across it. It must have seemed crazy to the Native Americans to see great steam driven serpents travel an iron road that stretched from horizon to horizon. Locomotion changed the life of North America and was the impetus for another form of wheeled locomotion, the standardization of time.

LOVE (from) Old English lufu. The IndoEuropean origin is leubh-, from which came Latin libere, to be dear, pleasing, and libido, pleasure, desire. A similar IE word, leip-, came to be Old English libban, to live, and Germanic liben, to live. I see some connection here between the origins of love and life, for anytime humans have discovered that life is what all of us have most in common, we are inclined to love one another and the life that we all share. It is certainly what the world needs now.

"We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder." -- Andre' Maurois

LOWER CLASS (from) The Bureaucracy. Those menial laborers and other poverty stricken peons that will never make anything of themselves and don't deserve to help the upper class in America consume 1/3 of the world's resources.