seanahan has looked up 26 words, created 14 lists, listed 543 words, written 2997 comments, added 75 tags, and loved 22 words.
Comments by seanahan
Comments for seanahan
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"Almost 4 years ago" you added some wonderful quotations from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you.
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You cannot escape the charge that you have previously engaged in the amazing pastime that is IDENTIFY THE WORDIE.
You are therefore prime target material for inviting to IDENTIFY THE WORDIENIK.
The whole of the bit of Wordnik that joins in on this would be truly honoured should you participate this time round.
Easily find the right page right now because it is currently the most commented on list shown on the Community page. -
"Sean has created 14 lists, listed 542 words, written 2,995 comments, and added 75 tags, 22 favorites, and 0 pronunciations."
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I read it last year and it was amazing. The breadth and depth was astonishing. Whether you are a fan of science fiction, fantasy, politics, history, science, or philosophy, there is something for you. There is even some fun word stuff.
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seanahan, have you read Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy? Recommended. I read Anathem last Spring and really enjoyed it. Very different direction for him. The guy's amazing...
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nice comments re "gaytarded." When we hold a word up to the light, it can lose its frightful character or perhaps provoke new, meaningful insights. A word is just a grouping of letters and has no power beyond what we assign to it. This is one of the underpinnings of semantics. I am with you.
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Seanahan, I saw that you were rather stung by the comment I made on the word gaytarded. I apologize for any hurt I caused you, which was not my intention in the least. I explain this more fully in a recent comment to the problematic word.
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Hi. Would you like to be on Identify the Wordie #2? You'll need to email identifythewordie@yours.com with your Wordie nick and the single word that best describes you. Cheers!
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Hi dude! Perhaps in the 'more about' seanahan box you could put a link to your blog. The 'also on' Blogger link dead-ends at a Profile Not Available page. And I like reading your blog!
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Greetings, Seanahan:
Intelligencer, apart from featuring as the title of certain newspapers, can also mean an informer or spy. -
Hi Seanahan,
I tend to invent words when i write short stories, if you visit my site and read e.g. Gruha's Snitzagraab, you'll get some prehistoric words.
xoox -
Awesome, thanks for your comment re Decemberists words.
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I wonder who's kissing her now. :)
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I have no idea what that is in reference to.
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Late response: I've heard engine pronounced with the first syllable as 'in'; 'ingine'. Most bizarre.
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Slumry, you can eliminate the "extras" by clicking on edit under each one. Then you'll see an option to delete. Unless, that is, you prefer the repetition. :-)
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Cudgel, cudgel cudgel. . .
Actually, the repetition was inadvertant--I just stumbled on this site today; obviously, I am not yet adept in using it!
Now that I think about it, though, it seems appropriate--repetition seems inherent in the word's meaning. -
Hey, check out WordPlay's profile!
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re: click 'n clack; i understand where you're coming from. they are clever letter concatenations that amuse me. they may go away, they may not. for the nonce, there they are and there they are...
i've renamed the list: 'pseudonyms:what's in a name?' if i get complaints, i'll consider deep-six-ing it. -
Thanks, I'll have to check this book out.
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re: "how do you get the number from the word"--"momgal" stands for 15-cubed = 3375. it comes from a system i found in the book "mathemagics" by arthur benjamin et al. on pg. 118. you'll find the nonsense sentence i've listed in wordie for 25 decimal places for pi in there as well. basically it's based on phonetics: t,d-sounds=1;n-sound=2;m-sound=3;r-sound=4;L-sound=5;J-sound=6;k-sound=7;f,v-sounds=8; p,b-sounds=9;s,z-sound=0.
there's a clever association given each for mnemonic purposes: "t" has a single shaft; "n" has two; "m" has three; "r" is the last letter in "four"; "L" is the shape between thumb and forefinger of the open 5-fingered hand; "j" is shaped like a six; part of "k" is shaped like a seven; "f" in cursive resembles eight; "P" is a backwards nine and zero begins with the "z" or "s" sound. there you have it. i can recommend the book: part of my permanent library.
seanahan commented on the word depoped
I feel like this is a necessary word, and from the twitter feed, it seems that others agree. Example
The newly depoped Catholic church is about to begin the frantic process by which it enpopes itself.
As always, it is pronounced, də-POPED.
Feb 28, 2013
seanahan commented on the word dodecahedraphobic
Fear of the dodecahedron. Useful to mix in when giving a list of other, normal phobias.
Dec 12, 2010
seanahan commented on the word adoxography
This word feels very British. There is an American sense that the British treat all subjects with equal gravitas, including things we would fine to be worthless.
Jun 27, 2010
seanahan commented on the list seanahan-s-words
Thanks nearsounds. In the early days, there was quite a competition to have the "most words". I never thought that was a good idea. These are my words because they mean something to me. Words are like friends. You can have a lot of them, but you only have a few good ones you are really close to.
May 27, 2010
seanahan commented on the user seanahan
I read it last year and it was amazing. The breadth and depth was astonishing. Whether you are a fan of science fiction, fantasy, politics, history, science, or philosophy, there is something for you. There is even some fun word stuff.
Jan 2, 2010
seanahan commented on the word books split over the new year
I never give any thought to the boundaries of my book reading. I rarely ever take more than a week to read a book, so it probably does come up that often. I think I read Cryptonomicon across New Year's last year.
Dec 31, 2009
seanahan commented on the word eskimo
From Wikipedia, it says the etymology is from the "Montagnais word meaning "snowshoe-netter", and the Inuit Circumpolar Conference used both Inuit and Eskimo. So apparently you are allowed to say Eskimo without offense.
Dec 31, 2009
seanahan commented on the word geodesy
I would say it (geo-DESsy) or (gee-AH-duh-see), but it looks like the Odyssey pronunciation is deemed "correct".
Dec 31, 2009
seanahan commented on the word cosm
Those words use the Greek cosmos which refers to order, or generally the universe as a whole. So your idea of cosm is pretty similar to that meaning.
Dec 31, 2009
seanahan commented on the word ainst
I don't think I can take a band seriously whose leader is an anagram of the band name.
Dec 31, 2009
seanahan commented on the word blarney rose
All over Ireland probably. Sionnach would know.
Dec 31, 2009
seanahan commented on the word boulanger
It can be a crutch for a writer who isn't good enough to convey the ambiance of a foreign land.
Dec 30, 2009
seanahan commented on the word racist
Bilby, is it the job of the Supreme Court to facilitate acknowledgment of racism?
Dec 30, 2009
seanahan commented on the list wilfred-j--funks--ten-most-beautiful-words-in-the-english-language--1932--1933
My chief objection is that I don't find these words particularly "beautiful". It can't be a measure of the inherit nature of the concept, because of hush, so it must be from the sounds?
Dec 21, 2009
seanahan commented on the word racist
Many people believe that a hate crime is worse than a crime, and I assume the laws in this case are such. The point is, is murder for racism worse that murder for fun?
Dec 21, 2009
seanahan commented on the word settler
In America, I would say that settler has a generally positive connotation.
Dec 21, 2009
seanahan commented on the word copacetic
We have a true mystery on our hands. It certainly seems like some of the expressions are crazier than others. The Native American would be from Washington state, which is way outside the bounds of where it was used. The Yiddish also seems ridiculous. French is somewhat reasonable, especially given the usage in Louisiana by people like Satchmo. Without finding some 19th century writing (very unlikely), we will never know.
Dec 20, 2009
seanahan commented on the word racist
My question is, who cares if he was racist? He should go to jail, both as punishment for his crime, and as a deterrent to others who might commit similar crimes. It's not illegal to hate an entire race, but it is illegal to attack them.
Dec 20, 2009
seanahan commented on the word surfline
Even in small print I read this as surf-line the first time. I can't imagine any native English speaker actually linking that fline is an acceptable morpheme.
Dec 20, 2009
seanahan commented on the word ǃʼOǃKung
Uselessness, that does actually sound kind of ethnocentric to me. I bet the Hawaiians think we went out of way to have too many hard to pronounce sounds. I would be interested to find out if the languages with "clicks" are closer to each other than all other languages (evolutionarily speaking, a clade), or if that has arisen independently multiple times.
Dec 20, 2009
seanahan commented on the word firearm
Yes, but guns make us safer.
Nov 10, 2009
seanahan commented on the word narwhal
From googling, it appears that "pod" is the more common term for narwhals. As with all of the exhaltation of larks, these are highly subjective and people like us are constantly coming up with new ones. All it takes (especially with the internet) is for someone to come up with a good one and have the meme catch on.
Nov 6, 2009
seanahan commented on the word cadiz
I'm trying to unravel the picaresque pun.
Nov 6, 2009
seanahan commented on the word stimthought
"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us...We need the kind of books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." - Kafka
Oct 31, 2009
seanahan commented on the word esteem
That's quite a stretch.
Oct 31, 2009
seanahan commented on the word fabulous
The word fabulist still has some zing.
Oct 31, 2009
seanahan commented on the word victualry
see seidel for citation.
Oct 31, 2009
seanahan commented on the word seidel
Plus one for victualry.
Oct 31, 2009
seanahan commented on the word fundagelical
In common American parlance, they are use interchangeably.
Oct 26, 2009
seanahan commented on the word chinese room argument
This is an important thought experiment, because it raises numerous questions about the nature of language, knowledge, and intelligence. Given that language is combinatorial, there are more possible utterances than could be stored in the brain, we must have rules to generate language. For a computer to "understand" language, it must have some sort of what to generate new utterances.
Unfortunately, David Cole doesn't seem to grasp the intricacies of this, and completely misinterprets what Searle's argument actually is.
Oct 19, 2009
seanahan commented on the user john
The scarier thing is to come up with something which I think is endlessly witty and rush to Wordie to post it, only to realize that I myself posted it two years ago. I don't look forward to my dotage.
Oct 19, 2009
seanahan commented on the word dexterity
I would say very rare; it seems the author forgot the word posterity.
Oct 19, 2009
seanahan commented on the word antihelmintic
It's conversations like this that make me love Wordie.
Oct 19, 2009
seanahan commented on the word castanets
and, I'll play the clarinet
use clam shells for castanets
we play with our bags on our shoulders
my sweet lady lioness
Oct 19, 2009
seanahan commented on the word simperer
I think that would make a good first line to a poem.
Oct 19, 2009
seanahan commented on the word quiet
It isn't trepidation on my part John. I've been off the grid for 96 hours and I returned to Wordie to only 3 pages of comments. We need to start up some new puzzles or contests.
Oct 12, 2009
seanahan commented on the word boulevardier
The dictionary definitions seem to disagree with WordNet. They seem to have a connotation of someone who goes around town partying, as opposed to just visiting.
Oct 9, 2009
seanahan commented on the word majoritarian
Doesn't this encompass most types of elections?
Oct 8, 2009
seanahan commented on the word epithalamium
"No one is born a baitman, I don't think, but the rings of Saturn sing epithalamium the sea-beasts dower." -- Roger Zelazny, "The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of his Mouth"
Oct 6, 2009
seanahan commented on the word saunterer
The etymology appears to be madeupical.
Oct 6, 2009
seanahan commented on the word umblowupable
unexplodable, perhaps?
Oct 6, 2009
seanahan commented on the word libatious
It appears that libational is the adjectival form.
Oct 4, 2009
seanahan commented on the word default
I'd say the "standard" option could do what you wanted. As for pronunciation, Americans would all probably know the correct pronunciation, but in casual speech let the vowel be shortened.
Oct 4, 2009
seanahan commented on the word pseudophagus
This sounds to me like someone simulates eating. Perhaps it could be used to describe bulimia.
Oct 4, 2009
seanahan commented on the word presdifigurators
It's pretty funny, because accountants deal with digits, numbers, not fingers, but the parallel is etymologically obvious. If they used the original word, it would be a clever pun on moving the digits around to mean what they wanted. Instead you have this ugly word that no one will ever use.
Oct 4, 2009
seanahan commented on the word glocal
This word is awful.
Oct 2, 2009
seanahan commented on the word william safire
The greatest of the language mavens.
Sep 28, 2009
seanahan commented on the word trove
Also a GNU package.
Sep 28, 2009
seanahan commented on the word sarah
Calm down Sarah, different people can spell names different ways. I too know what it is to have a name that is spelled a number of different ways, but you can't tell people that they are spelling their name wrong.
Sep 28, 2009
seanahan commented on the word wordnikie suggestion box
How will the links between pages work in Wordnikie? I like the current system of brackets in Wordie, but perhaps a more expressive system could be made. It would be nice to link to the Wordnik page normally, or to link to the comments section when referencing another comment, as well as to have special ways to reference lists or tags.
Sep 28, 2009