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Saturday January 23, 2010

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germane [juhr-MAYN]

adjective

1. Relevant or appropriate; fitting.

• I was reading some information on MayoClinic.com the other day (what, it's not one of your regular Internet stops?) when an epiphany hit me harder than any tackle Asante Samuel has ever made. Here's the germane passage, the one that gives me pause:"You may need the drug just to feel good. As your drug use increases, you may find that it becomes increasingly difficult to go without the drug. Stopping may cause intense cravings and make you feel physically ill."
  John Gonzalez, "Take it one day at a time", Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan 18, 2010
• Chertoff did tell NPR and CNN interviewers when they asked. Lipton and Schwartz agreed that they should have asked Chertoff, but both expressed disappointment that he did not volunteer obviously germane information.
  Clark Hoyt, "The Sources' Stake in the News", New York Times, Jan 17, 2010
• It applies as much to the subject of good roads as to waterways, and the training of our people in citizenship is as germane to it as the productiveness of the earth. The application of common-sense to any problem for the Nation's good will lead directly to national efficiency wherever applied.
  Gifford Pinchot (1865 - 1946) The first Chief of the United States Forest Service. The Fight For Conservation (1910)

Origin of the Word

Germane, approximately 1350, derives from Middle English german "having the same parents," from Old French germain, from Latin germanus "of brothers and sisters."