Barbara Walters announced her top ten most fascinating people of 2014 and the most fascinating person turned out to be Amal Alamuddin Clooney, which was most definitely surprising, but was she fascinating?  To many viewers and critics it seemed as if Barbara had invented a whole new meaning for the word fascinating. So, in the pursuit of clarity, we turned to current CEO Norah Webster of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, direct descendant of Noah, who started the major reference book in the 1700’s. “We have been watching this special for a few years now and to say the least, we have been troubled! We would really examine our definition of the word and with a very broad interpretation and one eye closed, we could usually accept her use of the word and so we let it go. I admit though, we have had some trepidation every year, and wondered if we were perhaps, out of step with America and their understanding of what actually is fascinating . Now, mind you, we have been in the business of defining words for a very long time, but Barbara has probably been doing her job a bit longer, so we bow to her experience, knowledge and gravitas. We decided finally, we could not leave our definition as it was, so you will see the following simplified, yet clear definition in our next publishing.”

Fascinating : (fas-uh-ney-ting) adj. 1. Of great interest. 2. Anyone who marries George Clooney