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seasonal affective disorder: msg#00016

culture.language.word-of-the-day

Subject: seasonal affective disorder

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Decorate your game boards this season with new words from
The Official SCRABBLE(R) Players Dictionary, Fourth Edition!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?scrabdic.htm&3
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The Word of the Day for December 17 is:

seasonal affective disorder \SEE-zun-ul-a-FEK-tiv-dis-OR-der\ noun
: depression that tends to recur as the days grow shorter during the fall
and winter

Example sentence:
Call it seasonal affective disorder,
Call it the winter blues --
But what ever you call it,
Don?t let it get the better of you.

Did you know?
"Seasonal affective disorder" hasn't been recognized as a medical
condition for very long, and the term has only become part of the general
English vocabulary during the past two decades or so (its earliest documented
appearance in print dates from 1983). "Seasonal affective disorder"
(abbreviated SAD) is also sometimes called "Winter Depression," and some
researchers describe it as a "hibernation reaction" in which sensitive
individuals react to the decreasing amounts of light and the colder
temperatures of fall and winter. The term "seasonal affective disorder" is
sometimes used casually of the mild blahs that so many of us experience when
the days grow short, but true SAD actually goes beyond the poetic "winter
blues" -- it is a diagnosable form of depression that can be quite debilitating.







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