“She endured cancer in ‘A Wedding invitation,’ as well as amnesia and a brain tumor in ‘The Stolen Years,’ with stoical ebullience.” So reported Variety in a recent film review, using a commonly used and well-understood word that the OED defines as ‘enduring pain and hardship without showing one’s feelings or complaining.” There’s little ambiguity in stoicism‘s sense of calm, grim endurance. But does this stiff-upper-lip adjective retain any of the meaning of its origins — in an Ancient Greek school of thought born in the shade of an Athens portico? Continue reading →