Words

Bob Baffert strode into the Preakness stakes barn Friday morning, shouting toward Orb's trainer Shug McGaughey loud enough so all could hear. "OK, Shug, I'm here to take away that media spotlight for you," he said. Baffert, indeed, is one of the few people in the sport who could have swiped some of the attention from McGaughey and his heavily favored colt this week . Baffert has won the Preakness five times, and on three occasions he's moved on to Belmont with a chance at the Triple Crown.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: BLANDISHMENT All of us are susceptible to persuasion, but some methods are more effective than others. We can be persuaded to write that memo or file that form by nagging or outright threats, but most of us would probably prefer blandishments. Blandishment (pronounced BLAND-ish-ment)

If you're a big fan, you already knew what was coming in the season finale. But it didn't make it any easier -- or less heartbreaking -- to watch. The majority of the Season 3 "Downton" finale, or the "Christmas special" as its called in the U.K., took place in Scotland, where the whole family (minus Branson) visits the Highlands home of the Dowager's niece, Susan, and her husband, Shrimpy. Most of the trip included bagpipes, hunting, more bagpipes and Scottish reel dancing. But more on that later (and more on O'Brien meeting her Scottish lady's maid doppelganger)

In the days leading up to the Super Bowl, Joe Flacco was criticized for saying at a news conference that the idea of a cold-weather Super Bowl was “retarded,” something the Ravens quarterback apologized for a day later. This past weekend, Flacco -- and fellow Ravens players Ed Dickson and Gino Gradkowski -- signed a pledge to eliminate the use of the "r-word.” Special Olympics Maryland tweeted out a photo of the players on Saturday. After he was drafted by the Ravens in 2008, Flacco quickly established a relationship with Special Olympics Maryland, hosting several events and even jumping into the frigid Chesapeake Bay at the Polar Bear Plunge.

On Thursday, the day the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, a 47-year-old Baltimore woman went to the drugstore, and pulled out her debit card to pay for a prescription refill. But she didn't have enough money in the account to cover the $425 charge. So she asked the pharmacist and staff for a favor. "I asked them to break up the prescription to give me one-third," says the woman, who would not allow her name to be published because she didn't want to disclose her medical conditions.

Want to express yourself on a license plate? Go ahead. The state will gladly take your $50 per year. You can't say any old thing, though. The Motor Vehicle Administration has cataloged more than 4,000 words, phrases and letter-number combinations it won't put on a tag. The agency's Objectionable Plate List, as it's called, is a compendium of vulgarities, obscenities and other no-no's aimed at keeping tags out of the gutter. The Baltimore Sun requested the information last week, hoping to share what the MVA doesn't want you to see on the road.

I LEAN BACK in my chair. I talk to my computer. It types what I say. And. I. Do. Not. Have. To. Talk. Like. This.Computer dictation software has typically used a limited vocabulary or required you to train yourself to use "discrete" speech, pausing unnaturally after every word, or both.Recognizing large-vocabulary continuous speech, the way we normally talk, has long seemed a goal unreachable until some Jetsonian future. Until now.Dragon Naturallyspeaking, from Dragon Systems Inc., is the first program I have seen that really does let you dictate to a personal computer in an unforced way. It is far from perfect, but it is nonetheless the first speech recognition system I would seriously consider using in my work.

The judge's words Excerpts from Judge Dennis M. Sweeney's statement: •"Simply put, Ms. Dixon leaves the office in total disgrace after a career that saw her become the first woman elected to that office." •"The agreement allows the City of Baltimore to move forward from this painful and dispiriting episode." •"Before this trial began, many said that a Baltimore City jury like the one picked in this case would never be able to deal with it. ... In contrast ... all the jurors took the case very seriously, put aside their personal biases and worked very hard together."

Thank you for printing the full text of David Simon's Georgetown University commencement address. It was the best I have read, excepting Woody Allen's, of course. If Mr. Simon made anyone uncomfortable, good. Because it needed to be said, and it needed to be said now. I thank him for being gutsy enough to say it. Rosellen Fleishman, Baltimore

The ever-game Steve Kleinedler of the American Heritage Dictionary took on one of those chores that regularly fall to lexicographers: He appeared on Boston's WBUR to talk about words people want deleted from dictionaries .  Literally  and impacted  left my eyebrows level. Yeah, yeah. And some unduly excitable types, you'll see in the comments, got exercised when the executive editor of the American Heritage Dictionary , in the unbuttoned atmosphere of conversation uttered "a whole nother.

As a journalist, I'm a big believer in free speech, but also in the idea that bigotry and wrongdoing are fair game for scrutiny. Regardless of your political leanings, it's fair to say that publicly ridiculing others in a confrontational and unconstructive way deserves calling out. Today is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, a campaign to confront bigotry as it exists across the globe. According to its 2012 annual report, the campaign launched in 2004 and chose May 17 "to commemorate the World Health Organization's decision in 1990 to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: TOUT Newspaper headline writers love the word tout , as they all short verbs (well, almost all), and it is a common piece of journalese in text when some public official is putting forth a proposal or praising his own accomplishments. You're not likely to see it very often outside newspapers, unless you go to the track.

By now you've surely seen the video, below, of Tom Brady getting super, duper excited about Orb winning the Kentucky Derby. In it, he runs over to congratulate Ogden Phipps II, son of co-owner Ogden Mills "Dinny" Phipps. I'm not sure how they know each other. Maybe Brady just really revels in the good fortune of other fantastically rich people. Also, he apparently bet $4,700 on the colt and won $25,000 . (In some versions of the video you can see the other co-owner, Maryland resident Stuart Janney, roam through the shot in a tan rain coat and Orb hat, looking for all the world like maybe he'd mistakenly arrived in that place at that time.

With the 18th pick in the seventh round of last month's NFL draft, the first - and only - Maryland football player went off the board. Kevin Dorsey , whose long wait ended two Saturdays ago with a call from the Green Bay Packers, is set to take part in his first rookie minicamp later this week. Dorsey, a Forestville grad, was a consensus four-star recruit for the Terps in 2008. He bided his time behind Torrey Smith and other veteran receivers before breaking out as a junior with 45 catches for 573 yards and three touchdowns in 2011.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: LATITUDINARIAN The original Latitudinarians were Church of England divines during the reign of Charles II. With the destruction of the English Civil War and attendant religious disputes fresh in memory, they were disposed to be indulgent of differing religious views.

Jason Kalirai doesn't just reach for the stars. He pulls them close and studies them - and encourages others to do so, as well. For two years, Kalirai, an award-winning astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, worked with the Hubble Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope in history. Now he is the deputy project scientist developing Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be 100 times more powerful. "Astronomy is my passion, and the James Webb Space Telescope is the most exciting astronomy project ever," said Kalirai, 35, of Ellicott City.

You've likely heard the speech by now, but body language experts saw much more than the words of Tiger Woods. Patti Wood, author of "Success Signals," told UsMagazine.com Friday that she was surprised by how tense Woods was when he spoke publicly for the first time since his sex scandal broke in November. "He could have prepared more," she said of his 13 1/2-minute apology before friends, family and a worldwide TV audience. "The fact that he chose to read so much as opposed to committing to memory - his voice got singsongy.

THE Los Angeles Times' new "Guidelines on Racial and Ethnic Identification," for its writers and editors, bans or restricts some 150 words and phrases such as "birth defect," "Chinese fire drill," "crazy," "dark continent," "stepchild," "WASP" and "to welsh."Defying such politically correct sensibilities, the Economist allows the use of variants of "he" for both males and females (as in "everyone should watch his language"), and "crippled" for disabled people.One side says that language insidiously shapes attitudes and that vigilance against subtle offense is necessary to eliminate prejudice.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: RADDLED There is a connection between sheep and looking overtired. Be patient. The word comes from ruddle , a red pigment used for marking sheep. Raddled originally meant "colored red," then came to be associated with rouge, and then with women wearing rouge to conceal, with varying success, the ravages of time.

The Last Word is an occasional Baltimore Sun Q&A series that checks in with outgoing Maryland football and men's basketball players.                          Matt Furstenburg came to College Park in 2008 as a well-regarded prep school tight end . Five years later, the Flemington, N.J., native leaves Maryland as the Terps' top NFL draft prospect. Furstenburg, who finished his Maryland career with 60 catches for 769 yards and five touchdowns, is ranked the No. 11 draft-eligible tight end by CBSSports.com . The 6-foot-4, 242-pound prospect, who earned a bachelor's degree from Maryland in family science, was the fastest tight end at the NFL scouting combine with a 4.62 40. Furstenburg spoke with The Baltimore Sun this week about his Maryland career, his NFL prospects and more.