The Dictionary.com Word of the Day for yesterday (July 1) was
"ratiocination"; one of the examples of its use reads:


<fontfamily><param>Lucida Grande</param><color><param>3333,3333,3333</param><x-tad-smaller>There
is no question that Joyce and Nabokov. . . brilliantly explored and
expanded the limits of language and the structure of novels, yet both
were led irresistibly and obsessively to cap their careers with those
cold and lifeless masterpieces, "Finnegans Wake" and "Ada," more to be
deciphered than read by a handful of scholars whose pleasure is
strictly
</x-tad-smaller><bold><x-tad-smaller>ratiocination</x-tad-smaller></bold><x-tad-smaller>.

</x-tad-smaller></color><x-tad-smaller>

</x-tad-smaller><color><param>3333,3333,3333</param><x-tad-smaller> --
"How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love 'Barry Lyndon'",
</x-tad-smaller></color></fontfamily><italic><fontfamily><param>Verdana</param><color><param>1111,6666,9999</param><x-tad-smaller>New
York
Times</x-tad-smaller></color></fontfamily></italic><fontfamily><param>Lucida Grande</param><color><param>3333,3333,3333</param><x-tad-smaller>,
January 11, 1976

</x-tad-smaller></color></fontfamily>

<fontfamily><param>Lucida Grande</param><color><param>3333,3333,3333</param><x-tad-smaller>I
have never even attempted "Finnegans Wake" despite strong
encouragement from an English Literature teacher 50 + years ago, but
how anyone could label "Ada" "cold and lifeless"...


Earl Sampson


</x-tad-smaller></color></fontfamily><fontfamily><param>Geneva</param><smaller>Art
is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, but because it
wishes to be art.

     - Donald Barthelme

</smaller></fontfamily>