The world's toughest language game.
Apr 2, 2025
This week’s theme
There’s a word for it
This week’s words
Photo:
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg
parish pump
PRONUNCIATION:
(par-ish PUHMP)
MEANING:
noun: A water pump shared by people within a small area.
adjective: Of local, often trivial, interest or importance.
ETYMOLOGY:
From parish (a small area, especially one that has its own church) +
pump, of uncertain origin. Earliest documented use: 1840.
NOTES:
Before there were curated feeds, there was the parish pump! A real
wellspring of information (and maybe misinformation). People didn’t just
come for H2O; they came to tap into the local grapevine.
This tradition of gathering ‘round the communal water source to swap
stories isn’t unique; sailors had their ,
Aussie soldiers their ,
and modern office dwellers have their water cooler.
The phrase “parish pump politics” describes issues that may seem like
small potatoes nationally but stir up a full-on boil at the local
level. In other words, trivial on tap, but drama on demand.
USAGE:
“[Patricia Anne Churchill] wanted the paper, through feature pages, to cover
subjects of greater interest ... and make the paper less parish-pump.”
Paul Elenio; Pat Tested Boundaries, Shaped the Post; Dominion Post
(Wellington, New Zealand); Aug 15, 2015.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
How far should one accept the rules of the society in which one lives? To
put it another way: at what point does conformity become corruption? Only
by answering such questions does the conscience truly define itself.
-Kenneth Tynan, theater critic and author (2 Apr 1927-1980)
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