In this paean to everything Chicago, Gene Kennedy is long on word analysis:
Noble fits Daley in other ways as well. Its root is gno and means “to know how to” — as in knowing how to run a large city that, when he took office, had been termed “Beirut on the Lake” because of the “City Council Wars” and the racist and stuttering management of the previous years.
Or:
Who could argue that noble applies to Daley in its meaning, “possessing heraldic rank in a political system”? The Daleys have also displayed the “greatness and magnanimity” that the term connotes. Both father and son brought a love for Chicago into their fifth floor office in City Hall.
But it is short on backup data, as in this, among many instances:
Against all calculations and claims to the contrary, Chicago probably has the cleanest elections in the country if only because they are watched so intently by all interested parties and some disinterested ones — such as the Feds and the State’s Attorney’s office.
Probably? There’s no way to check?
Blithe Spirit 