Word of the Day for Tuesday April 5, 2005 shibboleth \SHIB-uh-lith; -leth\, noun: 1. A word or pronunciation that distinguishes a particular class or set of persons from another. 2. A word or saying identified with a group or cause; a slogan; a catchword. 3. A saying or belief identified with a particular group and usually regarded by outsiders as meaningless or untrue. 4. A custom, practice, behavior, etc. regarded as distinctive of a particular group. In the late '60s, however, the loud, open use of the "F" word became a true shibboleth, dividing the student radicals from the Establishment "pigs" they delighted in tweaking. --Elizabeth Austin, "A small plea to delete a ubiquitous expletive: can't we all get along without the 'f' word?" [1]US News & World Report, April 6, 1998 Newspapers accused the West of trying to foment anti-Russian feelings and revive the cold war, substituting the old "Soviet threat" with the new shibboleth "Russian mafia." --Michael Satchell, "Kremlin gilt - or is it guilt?" [2]US News & World Report, September 20, 1999 Most cases, she says, involve the charges of secular humanism -- a "shibboleth invented by far-right organizations and others who object to textbooks, library books and curriculum materials that do not promote their particular brand of religion." --Thomas S. Elliott, "Fight heats up over censoring schoolbooks," [3]US News & World Report, February 20, 1984 Class size is another shibboleth: First, small class sizes do not increase learning, and, second, class sizes have become quite small anyway. --Jay Nordlinger, "The Anti-Excusers," [4]National Review, October 27, 2003 This could not be stated, because the doctrines in the name of which the revolution was carried out -- and which, ironically enough, the revolution did so much to expose and discredit -- were too strongly ingrained as official radical shibboleths to which lip-service was still paid. --Isaiah Berlin, [5]The Sense of Reality Christmas church attendance will be the last shibboleth of Christian devotion in Europe to fall: it has a wealth of sentiment, mid-winter cheer and good tunes to keep pulling the crowds. --Madeleine Bunting, "Paralysed by panic," [6]Guardian, December 20, 2004 _________________________________________________________ Shibboleth is from Hebrew shibboleth, "stream, flood," from the use of this word in the Bible ([7]Judges 12:4-6) as a test to distinguish Gileadites from Ephraimites, who could not say 'sh' but only 's' as in 'sibboleth'. References 1. http://www.usnews.com/ 2. http://www.usnews.com/ 3. http://www.usnews.com/ 4. http://www.nationalreview.com/ 5. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374525692/ref=nosim/lexico 6. http://www.guardian.co.uk/ 7. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/index.php?search=judges%2012:4-6 Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=shibboleth