“Embedded within Chinese leaders' convoluted, yet vague statements to Washington about North Korea is a simple message: Talk with Pyongyang.” – AP
Does “convoluted, yet vague” strike anyone else as being somewhat redundant, in that they probably made the statements deliberately convoluted so that they would be vague?
Anparsy (noun) - (1) Boys, in repeating their alphabet, would say ". . . X, Y, Z, anparsy." They did not know what it meant, but pointed in their spelling books to the character &, also termed parsy-and.
--M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892
(2) Anpasty, another name for ampersand. It means and past y.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
– from a daily calendar version of “Forgotten English”, Jeffrey Kacirk
“All of the sudden, I had a sluggish digestive system and on the daily was plagued with chronic abdominal discomfort.”
“I figured if it didn’t have gluten, it was healthy, so I ate my weight in grains, especially corn (psuedo grain), on the daily.”
– blog post
Is this a regionalism? I’ve not before heard the expression “on the daily” subbing for “daily.”
A Yiddish word meaning "to mumble", most often used to mean “to be evasive”; can also mean “to putter aimlessly” or “to waste time.”
Some common spellings: 'phumpher' and 'fumpher', to a lesser extent 'pfumpher' and 'pfumpfer', and very rarely, 'pfumfer'. Never 'phumfer'. The most common is 'phumpher', followed closely by 'fumfer'.
– Allwords.com
Paddy Cheyefsky, interviewed (1977) on Dinah Shore’s old talk show: “I was interviewed in London and somebody asked me a question and it threw me completely, and so I just chattered and talked and, uh, what we call in the industry, ‘phumphered.’ I phumphered and phumphered and phumphered – I must have phumphered for twenty minutes. Fortunately they cut it down to 10 seconds and I sounded sensational.”
Sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and MSG are all Poor Food ingredients that these companies are choosing, no, demanding be added into their products with the express intent of increasing what is known as their product’s “stomach share”- the amount of digestive space any one company’s brand can grab from the competition.
– http://caltonnutrition.com/article.aspx?pid=105
“Excelsior” is the most parodied of Longfellow’s poems. Indeed it is almost a parody of itself. For Longfellow, “Excelsior” meant “higher and higher,” as the youth struggles upward only to die without gaining his objective. Longfellow wrote the poem in 1841, inspired by the New York State seal, which bore a shield with a rising sun and the motto Excelsior.
Oliver Wendell Holmes thought that “the repetition of the aspiring exclamation…lifts every stanza a step higher,” but Irvin Cobb thought the exclamation should be “Bonehead!” Harvard students used to sing a song, and maybe still do, with each stanza ending in “Upidee!” and lines laced with “la la’s.” Bret Harte wrote a parody in which each stanza ended with “Sapolio!” – the name of a soap.
—Best Remembered Poems, Martin Gardner
"causing the formation of monsters," 1879, from teratogeny (1857), from comb. form of Greek teras (genitive teratos) "marvel, monster" + -genic, producing, forming
– online etymology dictionary
Sworn to the reviewer’s oath of not revealing too much about a mystery film, yet wanting to drop a few hints to the kinoscenti, I’ll just add that "Side Effects" summons references to other Hitchcocks — "Spellbound," "The Wrong Man," "Vertigo," "Marnie" — and such Hitchcock-tribute films as "Obsession," "Dressed to Kill," "Raising Cain" and "Passion" made by the director’s No. 1 fan, Brian De Palma.
– Richard Coliss, Time, 2/8/13
Feb 18, 2013
Comments for danama
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danama commented on the word taradiddle
For shame, oroboros! You’ll have us all turning scarlett.
May 18, 2013
danama commented on the word şerefe
Turkish: Cheers! (lit.: “honor”)
May 18, 2013
danama commented on the list unenthusiastic-interjections
Thanks, arby.
May 6, 2013
danama commented on the list unenthusiastic-interjections
meh?
Actually, I think if you were to give emphasis to meh, you would end up with the world’s shortest oxymoron: meh!
May 1, 2013
danama commented on the word convoluted
“Embedded within Chinese leaders' convoluted, yet vague statements to Washington about North Korea is a simple message: Talk with Pyongyang.” – AP
Does “convoluted, yet vague” strike anyone else as being somewhat redundant, in that they probably made the statements deliberately convoluted so that they would be vague?
Apr 14, 2013
danama commented on the list sluts-and-bitches
a woman of easy virtue?
Apr 14, 2013
danama commented on the list shifty-words
manual? stick?
Mar 29, 2013
danama commented on the word ampersand
Anparsy (noun) - (1) Boys, in repeating their alphabet, would say ". . . X, Y, Z, anparsy." They did not know what it meant, but pointed in their spelling books to the character &, also termed parsy-and.
--M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892
(2) Anpasty, another name for ampersand. It means and past y.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
– from a daily calendar version of “Forgotten English”, Jeffrey Kacirk
Mar 29, 2013
danama commented on the word daily
“All of the sudden, I had a sluggish digestive system and on the daily was plagued with chronic abdominal discomfort.”
“I figured if it didn’t have gluten, it was healthy, so I ate my weight in grains, especially corn (psuedo grain), on the daily.”
– blog post
Is this a regionalism? I’ve not before heard the expression “on the daily” subbing for “daily.”
Mar 29, 2013
danama commented on the word phumpher
A Yiddish word meaning "to mumble", most often used to mean “to be evasive”; can also mean “to putter aimlessly” or “to waste time.”
Some common spellings: 'phumpher' and 'fumpher', to a lesser extent 'pfumpher' and 'pfumpfer', and very rarely, 'pfumfer'. Never 'phumfer'. The most common is 'phumpher', followed closely by 'fumfer'.
– Allwords.com
Paddy Cheyefsky, interviewed (1977) on Dinah Shore’s old talk show: “I was interviewed in London and somebody asked me a question and it threw me completely, and so I just chattered and talked and, uh, what we call in the industry, ‘phumphered.’ I phumphered and phumphered and phumphered – I must have phumphered for twenty minutes. Fortunately they cut it down to 10 seconds and I sounded sensational.”
Mar 14, 2013
danama commented on the word stomach share
Sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and MSG are all Poor Food ingredients that these companies are choosing, no, demanding be added into their products with the express intent of increasing what is known as their product’s “stomach share”- the amount of digestive space any one company’s brand can grab from the competition.
– http://caltonnutrition.com/article.aspx?pid=105
Mar 14, 2013
danama commented on the word excelsior
“Excelsior” is the most parodied of Longfellow’s poems. Indeed it is almost a parody of itself. For Longfellow, “Excelsior” meant “higher and higher,” as the youth struggles upward only to die without gaining his objective. Longfellow wrote the poem in 1841, inspired by the New York State seal, which bore a shield with a rising sun and the motto Excelsior.
Oliver Wendell Holmes thought that “the repetition of the aspiring exclamation…lifts every stanza a step higher,” but Irvin Cobb thought the exclamation should be “Bonehead!” Harvard students used to sing a song, and maybe still do, with each stanza ending in “Upidee!” and lines laced with “la la’s.” Bret Harte wrote a parody in which each stanza ended with “Sapolio!” – the name of a soap.
—Best Remembered Poems, Martin Gardner
Mar 14, 2013
danama commented on the word teratogenic
"causing the formation of monsters," 1879, from teratogeny (1857), from comb. form of Greek teras (genitive teratos) "marvel, monster" + -genic, producing, forming
– online etymology dictionary
Feb 19, 2013
danama commented on the word kinoscenti
Sworn to the reviewer’s oath of not revealing too much about a mystery film, yet wanting to drop a few hints to the kinoscenti, I’ll just add that "Side Effects" summons references to other Hitchcocks — "Spellbound," "The Wrong Man," "Vertigo," "Marnie" — and such Hitchcock-tribute films as "Obsession," "Dressed to Kill," "Raising Cain" and "Passion" made by the director’s No. 1 fan, Brian De Palma.
– Richard Coliss, Time, 2/8/13
Feb 18, 2013