if you're trying to hack my computer, here are some ideas (just kidding, but you already knew that didn't you?)

Today at work I spent some time trying to find a definition of "sheweth". I had a pretty good idea based on the context, but I was looking for something a bit more definitive. No luck on the net. In face one website, after admitting it had no definition for such a word, suggested I might have meant Edward Shevardnadze, former foreign minister of the equally former Soviet Union (though I think he was also a president, Georgia maybe). Anyway, the reason I wanted to know is so that I could replace it with a word that people wouldn't have to look up to get.

Rather ironically, it being an old word and all, I hard to turn to my trusty dictionary--yes an actual book, which tells me that "shew" is an archaic for "show", but I guess not that archaic because it made me think of Ed Sullivan or maybe just an impression of him done by Johnny Carson or something.

And then, weirdly enough, just as I got bored and decided to surf (wouldn't you?), I came across this article on CNN about resistance to removing unused words from the dictionary. Good thing I guess otherwise we'd never understand what Ed Sullivan was talking about before. But then again, you practically need a translator for Shakespeare anyway.

But back to the dictionary...I noticed that shibboleth was a couple of words below shew and it made me think of that excellent episode of the West Wing, which was how I learned with shibboleth meant. I really like that word. Say it three times fast: shibboleth, shibboleth, shibboleth.

*from my dictionary: Hebrew shibboleth stream: used as a password by the Gileadites to distinguish the fleeing Ephraimites, because they could not pronounce sh (Judges 12: 4-6)