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Fire Escape Partners
3465 25th Street, Suite 17
San Francisco, CA 94110 | (noun, transitive verb)
[PAR-ah-gon', PAR-ah-gahn] 
noun
1. a model of excellence or perfection of a kind; one having no equal; 'a paragon of beauty'; 'a paragon of virtue': "Jasmine was a paragon of fitness and she continued to run 10k races into her early seventies."
2. a perfect diamond weighing at least 100 carats
3. a very large, perfectly spherical pearl
transitive verb
4. to compare with or match; to parallel; to rival; to equal
Origin:
Approximately 1548; borrowed from Middle French, 'paragon': a model; from Italian, 'paragone': a touchstone to test gold, from 'paragonare': to test on a touchstone, to compare; from Greek, 'parakonan': to sharpen, to whet ('para-': on the side, alongside + 'akone': whetstone). In action:
"Since top executives Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., Russell T. Lewis and Michael Golden ascended to take over the New York Times Co. in 1997, they have aggressively pushed an expansion strategy across multiple media platforms and several continents based on one idea: the credibility of the Times brand.
More than 150 years old, the Times has a well-deserved reputation as the nation's newspaper of record, a paragon of authority and accuracy in the news business. As the Times Co. has grown -- printing versions of the paper in places including Mexico, India and Denmark; sinking $100 million into a digital cable channel with Discovery Communications Inc.; taking control of the International Herald Tribune in Paris -- the company has sailed on the strength of its name.
Now, as the company struggles with the scandal created by former reporter Jayson Blair, which led to yesterday's resignation of the paper's top editors, Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd, it must assess what damage may have been caused to its brand."
Frank Ahrens. "Times Co. Tallies Damage to Brand Done by Scandal," The Washington Post (June 6, 2003).
"For many in the US, it will seem inconceivable that this paragon of good taste and sophistication could end up behind bars. Ms Stewart is Nigella Lawson, Charlie Dimmock and Carol Vorderman all rolled into one.
If you wanted a beautiful house, with a beautiful garden, and planned to host wonderful dinner parties, you turned to the ubiquitous Martha. She dispensed advice through a retail media empire that consisted of her syndicated TV programme, magazines, books and website.
Born to a working-class Polish-American family in New Jersey, she worked her way up as a model, stockbroker and caterer to eventually reign over a $1bn (�600m) empire.
Despite, or because of, her success, Ms Stewart inspires devotion and loathing in equal measure. While fans eagerly imbibed her fashion, household and food tips, others were sceptical, finding something chilling about her obsession with domestic perfection and detail."
Mark Tran. "Martha Stewart not cowed by prospect of jail: America's domestic goddess faces imprisonment for fraud but still finds time to demonstrate the many uses of dishcloths." The UK Guardian (June 6, 2003).
"To be a social success, do not act pathetic, arrogant, or bored. Do not discuss your unhappy childhood, your visit to the dentist, the shortcomings of your cleaning woman, the state of your bowels, or your spouse's bad habits. You will be thought a paragon (or perhaps a monster) of good behavior."
Mason Cooley (b. 1927). U.S. aphorist. City Aphorisms (1992).
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