travesty

[Benjamin Barrett]

Outside of "travesty of justice," I don't think I'm familiar with this term and always assumed it meant something like a tragic miscarriage. It's not in the pile of words that I actually use, though, so perhaps people are just using it around me and I don't notice.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

On Jan 15, 2013, at 10:44 AM, David A. Daniel <dad at POKERWIZ.COM> wrote:

> Just as a matter of interest, travesti (spelled with an i on the end, I
> suppose because Portuguese didn't have a y until recently) means a female
> impersonator in Brazilian Portuguese. In English I have always and only used
> travesty with the dictionary meaning. Or am I missing something?
> DAD
>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: travesty
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
>
> On Jan 15, 2013, at 9:32 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
>
>> I mentioned this in 2010. It means "an outrageous occurrence or
> situation."
>> Like a tragedy but different.
>>
>> CNN characterizes the plight of Syrian refugees forced over the border
> into
>> Turkey as simply "a travesty."
>
> I wouldn't have known the dictionary meaning if I hadn't seen this e-mail
> and looked it up. No idea it was supposed to be different from a tragedy. (I
> wouldn't want to try to use it with the dictionary meaning, either....)

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