"No nation can be destroyed while it possesses a good home life." -- J. G. Holland

NATURE (from) Latin natus, to be born. A natural event that makes all human beings equal, based on how we are dressed at birth.

NAUGHT (from) Old English nawiht : na, no + wiht, creature, thing. No thing. Nothing. Worthless. If I, the writing creature, can think of no thing now, the effort is worth less than what? What a naughty entry to an otherwise brilliant work.

NAUGHTY (from) Old English nauhty, from nauht, worthless. The 1929 New Century Dictionary lists as obsolete the definitions poor, worthless, of little value, morally bad, wicked, and evil. Naughty was, and is, equivalent to bad when used in speaking to children or teasing older persons. I remember childhood behavior being referred to as naughty when it involved certain reproductive and/or eliminative fixtures. Can't say the reprimands were worthless; it brought unprecedented attention to structure and function that keeps us from being full of shit, and brings us little children to tell silly stories to. That's not so naughty.

NAVEL DESTROYER (from) 1950s fad. A Hula Hoop with a nail in it.

NAZI (from) German, phonetic shortening of National-Sozialist. Originally a workers' party, it came to power in 1933 under Adolph Hitler and was "dissolved" by the Allies by 1945.

"If you want the sympathy of broad masses then you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things." -- Adolph Hitler

NEAT (from) Latin nitere, to shine. For example, "Isn't sunshine neat?"

NEAT (from) Old English, a bovine animal < Germanic nauta, "a thing of value" < IndoEuropean neud, to make use of, enjoy. The English obviously valued cows and made good use of them, but having spent some time behind them they are anything but neat!

NEIGHBOR (from) Old English, near dweller. It's a small planet, isn't it?

NERVOUS BREAK DOWN (from) stress of modern times. Technically known as neurasthenia (Greek neur, nerve + a, without + sthenos, strength), it was once thought to be exhaustion of the nervous system. I intend to confound the argument over whether it is inherited or environmental by recommending to any and all that if you haven't had yours yet, sign up right away to take a two year cruise and forget about all the things making you crazy. Have your Nervous Break Down while you can make decisions about the conditions of your recovery, and avoid the mind numbing drugs!

"The mind ought sometimes to be diverted, that it may return the better to thinking." -- Phaedrus

NEUROSIS (from) Greek neuron, tendon, nerve + -osis, condition or process. Nerve condition (without any obvious organic lesion or change). Anxiety over the undesirable end to the end of desire.

NEWS (from) The Bureaucracy. New information about anything previously unknown. I read history, and believe we are damned to repeat it as long as all we get is the state controlled "news." What we are allowed is the same old shit, altered occasionally, to serve the military/industrial complex and its purpose, war. Stop reading, watching and listening to all "news" for a couple of months and see how much better you feel.

NEWSPAPER (from) the need of the people to know. A publication that should inspire us to anger and/or laughter.

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." -- Thomas Jefferson

"I am not the editor of a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not make me one." -- Mark Twain

NOBILITY (from) Latin nobilis, known, from IndoEuropean gno, to know. To the common folk of Earth, nobility sounds rather like a contraction of "no ability," save to serve one's self. It is well known among the common folk that no ability is hereditary.

NOSE (from) Old English nosu The apparatus for breathing. It has been a common belief in the Far East for thousands of years that we should no more breathe through our mouths than we should eat through our noses. The typical American diet overloads the body's elimination system, plugs the sinuses, and leaves the sufferer a mouth breather. Mouth breathing is debilitating, but why am I telling you all this? Ask your doctor.

NUCLEAR FAMILY (from) Commerce. A way to insure that more appliances and domestic goods are distributed throughout the population.

NUKALEPSY (from) Nuke + -lepsy, a fit or seizure. A fatal disease that only strikes once. For example, "If the bureaucrats who pretend to run this planet ever have a nukaleptic attack, we can kiss our asses good-by."

NUKE (from) Latin nux, a nut. An obscene gesture performed by pointing angry missiles rather than an angry finger. What we will not do to the planet since it only takes one nuke to shut down an opposing (as well as our own) country's entire communication, defense and business systems. These systems are computerized and easily destroyed by the electromagnetic pulse (emp) emitted by exploding nukes. Nuclear warheads are actually expensive, militarily protected depositories for plutonium. Plutonium is a by-product of the nuclear power industry, and the most harmful substance known to man, which is why it cannot be allowed into any other kind of storage. It therefore costs the American taxpayer several hundred million dollars a year for this storage, funded under the ruse "nuclear defense." This military/industrial connection is made most obvious by the fact that domestic nuclear power is the first great industry of its kind to be allowed to operate without total liability insurance. The estimates of damage from a meltdown in this country are incalculably high, yet the industry has been allowed to operate (by the Price-Anderson Act, 1954) with a ceiling on "damages" of only $157 million, which is probably less than 2% of what the damages would actually be. I try not to think on these things, lest I go nux.

NUMBER (from) Latin numerus < IndoEuropean nem-, to assign, allot; also, to take. For example, we take the numbers the Bureaucracy allots us. Other words from the same origin include: numb, nemesis, noma (spreading ulcer) and nomad. Often used with up, for example, when our number is up, we generally know it.

NUMMI NUMMI (from) Adults. An expression of taste that adults offer to infants as reason to eat certain foods. There are three possible origins: numb, number (both from IndoEuropean nem- ) and numen (from IE neu- ), a nod of the head, or approval. My choice is numen. It is difficult to dismiss the other two, so, I offer this example, "When the gods give the nod to our struggle for a greater piece of the pie, we are eventually numbed to what is really nummi nummi."

NURSE (from) Latin sneu, to suckle, flow. To feed at the breast. The word nutrition has the same origin. By the way, baby humans should no more drink pasteurized cow milk than baby cows should drink pasteurized human milk.