GRE Question of the Day (November 4th)

Verbal

In the 1930’s, Pablum, the first pre-cooked, dried baby food, was sold in America. Pablum took its name from the Latin word pabulum, which meant “foodstuff,” and was also used in medicine to refer to a passively absorbed source of nutrition. While Pablum contained vitamin D and thus helped to prevent rickets in an era in which child malnutrition was still widespread, ironically, the word pablum—undoubtedly influenced by the negative connotation of the word pabulum as well as the physical reality of a mushy, bland, rehydrated cereal—today means “trite, naïve, or simplistic ideas or writings; intellectual pap.”

Which of the following best describes the irony of the shifting meanings of the word pablum?

(A) A word for a passively absorbed source of nutrition is used for a substance actively fed to babies.
(B) Many babies would have died of malnutrition without Pablum.
(C) A word derived from Latin is still in use in modern English, although the meaning has changed somewhat.
(D) A cereal designed to be nourishing now lends its name to a word for something lacking in substance.
(E) Just as babies are fed bland food, pablum today means “bland writing or ideas.”

Correct Answer - D - (click and drag your mouse to see the answer)

Question Discussion & Explanation