Thanks, Bill B. I'm hoping to come back here in the autumn because, indeed, there is something about Paris that lifts my foxy spirits. Plus, I love learning French, which is a step above Thpanish in difficulty. But I intend to subdue it and bend it to my will. Because until that is done I can't move on to Italian.
I would post this on your profile, but you are invisible to us all here in the material world. Do marsupials ever leave the DUMPP (down-under marsupial protection program)?
Ahem! First chained bear has taken to calling me "big ears' over on Facebook; now reesetee appears to be confusing me with bilby.
I am not a marsupial. Sure, I've fantasized about it a little, even dabbled in marsupialism in my wild college years. But I would like to assure all of my fans, on either side of the placental divide, that this fox is 100% placental*. Those "birthers" who argue to the contrary are shapeshifting eco-terrorists, in the pay of big agribusiness.
*: physical evidence is, naturally, difficult to produce as, in accordance with the best prevailing vulpine midwifery practices at the time, my mother ate it in a delicious casserole.
It is more common (and more useful) to add comments pertaining to individual words on a list to the words themselves (just click where it says 'x comments', next to the word).
I am guessing that if this spelling were given in the final round of the spelling bee, it would be an automatic FAIL. Surely the word you are looking for is volkerwanderung?
Existence is not something which lets itself be thought of from a distance: it must invade you suddenly, master you, weigh heavily on your heart like a great motionless beast --- or else there is nothing more at all.
During the last century a famous controversy took place between Charles Kingsley and Cardinal Newman. It began by Kingsley suggesting that truth did not possess the highest value for a Roman Catholic priest; that some things were prized above truth. Newman protested that such a remark made it impossible for an opponent to state his case. How could Newman prove to Kingsley that he did have more regard for truth than for anything else, if Kingsley argued from the premiss that he did not? It is not merely a question of two persons entertaining contradictory opinions. It is subtler than that. To put it baldly, Newman would be logically 'hamstrung.' Any argument he might use to prove that he did entertain a high regard for truth was automatically ruled out by Kingsley's hypothesis that he did not. Newman coined the expression poisoning the wells for such unfair tactics...The phrase poisoning the wells exactly hits off the difficulty. If the well is poisoned, no water drawn from it can be used. If a case is so stated that contrary evidence is automatically precluded, no arguments against it can be used.
the pigs into which Jesus cast the demons that had possessed a madman, and which as a result ran down a steep cliff into the sea and were killed; from this, gadarene means involving or engaged in a headlong or potentially disastrous rush to do something.
I don't think tea chest belongs on this list, at least not the way I understand this list. I don't know whether such set phrases as "flotsam and jetsam" belong or not. Then there are phrases like lily-livered poltroon, which might just be natural juxtapositions in my head, but not in anyone else's. :-)
This list seems to have some partial overlap in its intent with my own "amber words" list.
I'd favor rolig's first hypothesis, if only on the basis that Spanish engages in this kind of metathesis all the time, e.g. milagro for miracle, or - my personal favorite - regaliz for "licorice".
Though we tend to associate swine with impossibility, "when pigs fly", cows tend to feature more prominently in this context in other cultures: "when cows fly", "at Easter of the horses and at the wedding of the cows", "when the cow coughs".
French also is quite fond of cows when it comes to expressions, e.g. "La vache !" (Dammit!); "vachement" as an adverbial intensifier, etc. An interesting discussion of this phenomenon is found here .
Personally, I agree with she/her on this one; pastiche has too many inescapable pejorative connotations for me ever to consider it a positive designation. Instead of hodge-podge, how about salmagundi? Or the ever-pleasing gallimaufry?
This year's national bilby day falls on the 10-year anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. I imagine this will give the conspiracy theorists something to dig into, so to speak.
The breathtakingly arrogant, dismissive, phrase used by Jean-Francois Kahn, one of France's best-known intellectuals of the left (co-founder of the leftist weekly magazine "Marianne" and no relation to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, though a longstanding friend of his wife, Anne Sinclair), to describe what he "felt sure must have happened" in that hotel suite in Times Square.
It can be roughly translated as "lifting the skirt of a domestic", evoking the kind of "droit du seigneur" behavior of those golden days when the right of the (male) ruling class to engage in unconsensual sex with the help went unquestioned.
I am pleased to relate that this particular remark triggered a firestorm of criticism here in France, to the extent that this week's edition of "Marianne" contains a blathering, self-pitying column by Monsieur Kahn, wherein he claims to have been the victim of a witch-hunt, and - sadder, but one hopes a little bit wiser - announces his retirement from writing his weekly column for the magazine.
The misogynistic arrogance of the the caste that constitutes France's "intellectual elite" is, as I said, just breathtaking. There was also the public pronunciation by former culture minister, Jacques Lang, to the effect of "why jail a man, it's not as if anyone was killed", not to mention the nauseating special pleading of douchebag Henri-Bernard Levy, complaining that the American justice system was corrupt, because of its failure to recognize the special status of his VIP buddy, Strauss-Kahn.
It all makes me sick to my stomach.
Google-translate misses the point as usual, rendering the phrase "un troussage de domestique" as "of a sweeping domestic". But then it translates "droit de seigneur" as "law lord", so what can you expect?
I have favorited this list, and anxiously await future additions. In fact, you could say I await them with baited breadth. But then you would expose yourself to the mockery of others.
I could keep a Beretta in my biretta. Though, actually, as far as cardinal garb is concerned, it's the red socks that interest me more. But then I've always harbored a weakness for ecclesiastical haberdashery.
My dream is to be the guy in the Vatican whose job it is to make up new Latin words for modern things/phenomena that didn't exist in Roman times. I might have to kill a few cardinals to accede to the position, though. :-)
My cousin, the black sheep of the family, was caught up in a bit of an embezzlement imbroglio at work and had to emigrate to Australia to escape the wrath of the authorities. Now we refer to him as Sin-Oz-Mick.
After my mother died, in 1985, I inherited one of her china services. It was all packed up and shipped to New Jersey, where I was living at the time, in a tea chest. Because back in those days, that was what one used to ship things in. I still have the entire set, fully intact. It's been used maybe a total of five times. Guess I don't throw enough dinner parties for twelve people.
It's another one of Foxy's infamous grammar rants , this time about the hideosity of prepositional verbs in general, with special attention given to the ludicrosity of Russian verbs of motion, and the mondo bizarro of the infamous bog of Irish prepositional pronouns.
You're entirely welcome. Though sionnach would like to point out that this delightful illustration was really brought to us by the Paschal bilby. I just lifted it from the kopi luwak page, where the big-eared marsupial of Easter first deposited it. Santa Fox can claim no credit here.
"Ibsen's positively abominable play entitled Ghosts....An open drain: a loathsome sore unbandaged; a dirty act done publicly....Gross, almost putrid indecorum....Literary carrion.... Crapulous stuff" - Daily Telegraph
"Lugubrious diagnosis of sordid impropriety....Characters are prigs, pedants and profligates....Morbid caricatures.... Maunderings of nookshotten Norwegians" – Black and White
"As foul and filthy a concoction as has ever been allowed to disgrace the boards of an English theatre....dull and disgusting....Nastiness and malodorousness laid on thickly as with a trowel." – Era
"Ninety-seven percent of the people who go to see Ghosts are nasty-minded people who find the discussion of nasty subjects to their taste, in exact proportion to their nastiness" – Sporting and Dramatic News
"The socialistic and the sexless....The unwomanly women, the unsexed females, the whole army of unprepossessing cranks in petticoats....Educated and muck-ferreting dogs.... Effeminate men and male women..... They all of them–men and women alike–know that they are doing not only a nasty but an illegal thing.... The Lord Chamberlain (the censor) left them alone to wallow in Ghosts.... Outside a silly clique, there is not the slightest interest in the Scandinavian humbug or all his works.... A wave of human folly" – Truth
(And, no, thank you, Wordnik genie, I was not looking for the English press reaction to ibsen's ghost)
Refers specifically to the fingering used to play a piece of music, but it also has the extended meaning of "skill" or "finesse"; equivalent of the German Fingerspitzengefühl.
"Diving into Strindberg is a descent into Hell. The Hell of class struggle and the battle between the sexes. The Hell of paranoid delirium and complete breakdown... a long day's journey into night, into the heart of darkness ..."
From the program notes for "Mademoiselle Julie", which I saw earlier this evening.
A phrase that has been ubiquitous this past week, generally in reference to the fall from grace of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. But see also Mademoiselle Julie.
"I'm just now working on a book about a Confederate general, and his corps is on its way to Gettysburg in search of shoes".
You see, I'd been reading this as "his corpse is on its way to G." and thinking this was just another one of them zombie civil war novels that reesetee is always toiling away at. But now I realise that was just a hilarious misunderstanding. By the way, I hope it was reesetee's comment that earned this entry a place on Pro's "Wordies talk about themselves" list. Because, let's be clear, Sharny McSquibals is entirely fictional, and is not meant to be a stand-in for me.
Personally, I drink coffee prepared only from the finest unicorn fewmets:
So, I says to him .... "How dare you come to the door like that in your dressonion?" . And do you know what the caffler has the cheek to say to me next? He says to me, 'When I want your ipingowne, I'll ask for it'! The bloody nerve of some people!!
Not to be confused with dump-gutteral, the term used to describe the flesh of a beast found on the side of the road.
Or stump-guttural, the term used by linguists to describe the odd fricative-plosive snort made by (certain) Wordniks in response to Doctor Jamieson's more bizarre flights of fancy.
Of course, as part of the revolting media circus surrounding what the French refer to as l'Affaire DSK, we are all being treated to salacious re-interpretations of the singing nun's only hit: "Dominique-nique-nique-nique-nique-nique-nique-nique.."
Several varieties of so-called coffee are made from fewmets and other coprological preparations. The best of these in our estimation is moose nugget coffee. This is made from dried moose excrement, which are roasted, like the genuine coffee berry, ground, mixed with egg, and prepared for the table exactly in the same manner, and in like proportions as the best Java or Mocha. If prepared with the care and skill usually bestowed on coffee making, it is a most palatable and nutritious beverage, and has won the praises of many reformed coffee drinkers who would not now exchange it for their old-time drink charged with caffeine.
Other former caffeine addicts maintain that the best brew is made with buffalo chips. Sharny Mc Squibals swears by it:
"After I've dropped the kids off at the pool, there's nothing I like better than to sit back, light up a Bondi cigar, and snack on a piece of delicious tappen pie, accompanied by a steaming hot cup o' buffalo chip coffee. Sometimes I'll add some cowblakes to the brew, for a little extra flavour, though you have to get the mix just right, else you'll have yourself a pot of fizzy gravy!"
On edit, after reading rolig's astute comment: the very regular pattern of change from one form to the other between 1840 and 1940 is still striking, and suggests that the American usage was well-established by 1940. I wonder when the AP Style guide was first published.
In France, censorship is personified by the ugly old woman Anastasie, generally portrayed wielding an enormous pair of scissors (les ciseaux d'Anastasie). This personification became popular in the second half of the 19th century; the caricature by Andre Gill (above) was particularly influential. The word is probably derived from the name of Pope Anastasios I, who was known for the fervor with which he attempted to suppress the publication of books he considered did not conform adequately to Catholic dogma.
Try typing in anything beginning with 'ana' into google search and this is what comes to the top of the autocomplete queue. It's an anagram of 'anagram', evidemment.
This list raises the interesting question - what was the first word you listed?
Now, it appears that this question may be easier for some Wordies to answer than for others. Because if, like me, you were a lazy slob back in the early days, your first list may be your default catchall list and have more than 3,000 words in it. It used to be that one could list one's words in the order added; now it seems that one can only list them in the reverse order added. Which means I would have to scroll through 30+ screens to get to my very first word. Which I am not interested enough to do.
Tries desperately to assemble clever play on words involving the phrases "le Duc D'Orleans", "New Orleans", "N'awlins", and "gawlins", but fails miserably...
No, I was not. And I speak as someone who actually used a functional analytical version of the Brouwer Fixed Point Theorem to prove one of the major* results in my dissertation.
*: well, it was major to me. And it seemed to impress the committee members.
I suppose it would be enormously politically incorrect to interject a remark involving the term "Saudi prostitutes" at this point.
But, honestly, so many items on this list sound so ... dirty what goes on between them dutch strickle sheets ... know what I'm sayin', rosina boi? nudge, nudge, wink, wink
g'shtupaful lew'r yourself, you salacious bawd! and keep your feelthy mitts off my kartoffel ballen.
Oh, wait, this is actually a SNL sketch starring Alec Baldwin
"Who decided all this, and why couldn't they have used a logical system?"
They tried that after the French revolution. Didn't work out so well for them, as I recall. But then they were trying to incorporate 10-day weeks and 10-hour days as well; so much for the Enlightenment. Napoleon scrapped it all eventually and went back to the old system.
My first thought was "dord", but the thought process underlying the parallelism is different. Along the lines of "inadvertent inaccuracy versus deliberate inaccuracy designed to ferret out copyright cheaters".
This was really more fun than the proverbial barrel-o-monkeys. Kudos to gangerh for the exciting, Eurovision-style, nailbiting countdown. And those fiendishly effective cred herrings. And congratulations to yarb and ruzuzu and ptero!
I guess I will just have to console myself by buying some kind of tacky mug with the Eiffel Tower on it. Because I will be here in Paris for another 7 weeks. Not that I would ever gloat about it; no, not me!
It's got the same cheesiness factor. But the prestige of entire nations is at stake. Purists like myself prefer the old days before the breakup of the Soviet union added about a dozen new entrants.
The voting is notorious for countries voting either for their neighbors, or deliberately slighting ancient enemies. And Luxembourg always seems to have an inordinate number of votes, given that nobody actually lives there, and the whole country can be rented out for parties. (Or is that Liechtenstein?)
on edit: Oh, poor sweet innocent 'zuzu, I don't think there's much ambiguity there.
This is more long-drawn-out than the finale of "Top Chef, France". And that went on until midnight. It's 10:50pm here now, and I have to be in class by 9am tomorrow. He is tormenting us....
Oooh! This is like watching the results of the Eurovision Song Contest, except that the stakes are much higher.
*Still remembers fondly the year (1970) when sweet, innocent, gap-toothed Dana, from County Derry, won it for Ireland with the heart-rendering (sic) ballad, "All Kinds of Everything":
Well, yarb, I think this question comes up every year, and I believe the probability of getting none right approaches 1/e (where e is the base for natural logs) as n gets larger and larger. So the answer to your question is 1 - (1/e) = roughly 63.2%
Well, if frindley isn't alexis, bury me in a bog and call me sphagnovulpine. Y'all are obviously not reading my frogblog, because if you were, you'd know I was staying in the Marais, which means the marsh. I am a boggy froggy right now.
All my other choices were pure guesswork and/or following ze herd. Except for tear-resistant, which may be a very clever cred herring indeed. And heartstringplucker, which had enough of the STF about it to remind one of gangerh. mediaeval was tempting for chained_bear, but seemed too obvious.
Installs self next to telephone to await notification of being declared winner, munching on cupcakes and fufluns...
I still think there should have been a rule preventing Wordnikoyennes who are really just birds trained to hunt and peck on the keyboard (you know who you are Madame R.T. Distingue) from passing themselves off as, you know, real virtual people.
(Written with the bitterness of someone who has wasted countless hours trying to teach Boris and Natasha to type with their little kitty-paws -- they always end up just chewing their little kitty-booties to shreds.)
Would it help anybody's decision to change anything, or not, if I told you that a brief scan of entries revealed that all of you were mostly wrong, or mostly right? Mwahahahaha!
Oh, you see that's just plain silly. It's quite sufficient to have the verb "to neigh"; there's no conceivable reason to have a special verb for starting the process. One can just say "Gluebones cleared his horsey throat, because he was feeling a bit catarrhy ...."
Thanks, db: I think "burrowing" is a correct, but unimaginative, translation of rataconniculation, as it fails to capture the animal connotations of the latter,having to do with rats, puppies & bunnies. "Cannicula" is, according to Webster's, a common misspelling of "Canicula", another name for Sirius, the dog-star, and related to the Latin word for puppies; "Karnickel" is also a German word for "bunny", which is derived from the word "cunicula", which I think means "rabbit" in Latin.
By the way, though I don't necessarily agree with you on the particular instance, I greatly admire the passion of your lexicological rant over on gasometer. As somebody else mentioned, everyone is entitled to a few particular pet peeves (see discussion under data, for instance), and what is Wordnik for, if not to allow one to vent one's frustrations about one's word-related peeves?
The name given to the ridges or grooves often found on the sides of parsnips:
assumed by cryptozoovegetologists to be the result of the fanged depredations of the dreaded Bunnicula as it lays waste to Farmer McGregor's carrot patch.
The process of producing aforementioned ridges or grooves.
In the French text, the word robidilardicque is footnoted as appearing as robilardique in some versions. The latter word seems more consistent with the coinage that duckbill suggests.
Suprême NTM (or simply NTM) is a French hip hop group formed in 1989 in the Seine-Saint-Denis département. The group comprises rappers Joey Starr (born Didier Morville) and Kool Shen (born Bruno Lopès). Their six albums were released by Sony Music Entertainment.
The group takes its name from the French slang "NTM", an abbreviation for "Nique Ta Mère" ("Nique" is derived from the shortening of the French word "forniquer" (fornicate)) meaning "F*** Your Mother". NTM is known for their hostility towards the police, violent lyrics, and legal battles with the French authorities. Their musical style is predominantly hardcore rap, although later albums include funk, soul and reggae influences.
The group is outspokenly critical of racism and class inequality in French society, and while their earlier music is violent, some of their later work, such as "Pose ton Gun" ("Put down your Gun"), is explicitly anti-violent.
In 1998, the group released its last album of original material under the NTM moniker, as both Joey Starr and Kool Shen started their own labels, promoting new bands and branching out in other fields such as the clothing industry (2High is Kool Shen's brand, Com-8 is Joey Starr's).
While officially the band still exists, and its well-known name was used in 2001 to promote a 'duel' album pitting the two label's artists against each other, Kool Shen was quoted in 2004 saying "on a fini avec NTM en 98" ("We were done with NTM in 1998").
The group is known for its gritty, dark and sometimes violent lyrics, as well as for the contrast between the two rappers' styles. While Joey Starr (also known as Jaguar Gorgonne and Double-R) has a relatively slow flow, aggressive lyrics and a deep, booming voice (which he sometimes uses to yell such as in "Pose ton Gun"), Kool Shen has a funkier flow as well as witty and rather melancholic lyrics.
adjective meaning French, in a slightly self-mocking kind of way; can have connotations of old-time traditional French (if applied to music), or pertaining to cliched French images, such as baguettes, berets, and camembert.
I think the last two comments do a grave injustice to the advertising geniuses at Denny's. Paraphrasing from their website:
"At some point Baconalia sizzled out. Bacon historians contend that this could have been the result of a simple spelling mistake. Baconalia, the celebration of swine was misspelled "Bacchanalia", and confused with the Roman celebration of wine, which people then began to mistake for the original feast."
It's things like this that make me regret my career choices. Instead of co-authoring a book that causes me to receive e-mail from earnest pharmacokineticists in Uganda and Sweden, I could have made a real contribution by going into advertising and coining words like "Baconalia". Which is sheer bloody genius, I think you'll agree.
"do not comment on your intentions anywhere on this site as most of the words submitted have been published and the sharper participants will pick up on the fact that your word is in the last few listed".
I'm betting all of the sharper participants have seen "The Princess Bride" and will get totally bogged down in their own mental reverse-reverse-reverse psychology games if they attempt to follow that line of reasoning. Or do I mean reverse-reverse-reverse-reverse psychology games?
No, there is nothing antropophagic going on here. My trusty visual French-English bilingual dictionary is quite clear that le diplomate is the word for everyone's favorite delicious dessert, trifle. This fact appears not to have made it to the synapses of the magnificent neural network that lurks within the heart of Google-translate, which insists on rendering the sentence above as: "Nous avons mangé la bagatelle". But that's what you get when you settle for the soulless machine-translation approach to life.
Note, however, that le diplomate can also mean "the diplomat", so if you find yourself travelling among, say, the Fore tribe of New Guinea, you might want to provide sufficient context to avoid any possible ambiguity.
Well, that's the interwebs for you. It's still a mystery why the AT&T support guy in Bangalore can get into my Yahoo e-mail account with the new password, but I can't access it from here, using the same password.
I had to fiddle with it for a while, but eventually what seems to work is to go to the list in question, then find its exact address in your browser and copy that exactly into the href= part of the relevant HTML syntax. I think the reason that this works, where other possibilites don't, is that Wordnik replaces spaces in the list names with hyphens, as well as possibly making some other changes. If that makes sense ...
Our boy Vardenis made it into the list description, but somehow not onto the list itself. I will rectify this when I have more time (and am less exhausted).
No, I would look for Seachtain na Gaeilge; last time I checked, the genitive form of Gaeilge was still Gaeilge. Gaelige is not an admissible form; try running "Seachtain na Gaelige" through google's fine translating machine and you will be given the gmail address of some entity called "Groundwork muirmaid", which I think we can all agree is more than a little fishy
So, I get it. You've entered the witness protection program somewhere theredownunda (where women glow and men chunder). But aren't those big floppy leather ears a dead giveaway in the WPP?
Prolagus is just playing a belated April fool's joke on us. Nothing he, or anyone, can say can convince me that ingegnosità is an actual word. It looks like the kind of furball a cat might throw up on one's freshly carpeted apartment.
While this list remains one of my all-time favorites, I must confess to being baffled by its title. And who the hell is "Parker Smith", and what has he done with uselessness?
Ah, those were the good old days, weren't they? The halcyon days of "about 4 years ago".....
Because a certain antipodal marsupial never visits my new blog. Is it the lack of candy-pooping animals? The absence of posts related to Operation Baked Goods? One tries one's very best. But nothing seems interesting enough to attract the attention of a certain chocolate-bearing marsupial.
One of my favorite scientific papers that I read while in graduate school was on the estimation of trunk volume of loblolly pines based only on serial measurements of tree circumference. An important topic if you care about forestry inventory management, apparently.
Continuing on the them of impressive words, there is something about the word bulbul that is very appealing. Or the sound that nightingales traditionally make - jugjug. But perhaps these ruminations already exist in the comments for philomelian.
Then there's the word Banba, an old designation for Ireland. Seems relatively unremarkable, until you consider that its genitive singular form is Banban, which confers on it a kind of lurking charm, all the more impressive for being initially hidden.
What happens to unsuccessful contestants on "The Amazing Race". Like certain other TV-spawned words (e.g. cheftestants for competitors on "Top Chef"), this term fills me with inordinate delight, bordering on glee.
That guy at the bottom of the Perdue link seems to have unnaturally large fingers. One imagines a company-wide egg-holding contest for the honor of being featured on the homepage...
I can't believe it's "about 3 years" since I added this. I had so many more brain cells back then. Sigh.
I would like to clarify that the preceding post is in no way meant to imply that Prolagus is not clever. Having met P. in person, I can attest to the fact that he is not only super-smart, but also even more charming in real life than on the interwebs.
I think that having an anagram that uses all the letters and gives the same meaning as the original word is pretty special. Even if one doesn't feel such a word is worthy of the designation "perfect", maybe it deserves a lesser designation, e.g. "impressive". What numbers might be considered impressive?
No, because words don't have factors. The words that can be formed by the letters within a word aren't essential properties of the word.
# 21 days ago Prolagus said
From marco_nj's profile:
In mathematics, a perfect number is defined as a positive integer which is the sum of its proper positive divisors, that is, the sum of the positive divisors excluding the number itself. Is there a linguistic equivalent?
Mollusque is, of course, technically correct here. Words don't have factors. Nonetheless, is it wise to discard the whole idea, which seems at the very least to have the germ of an interesting question, out of hand?
I am reminded of the delightful chapter in Hofstadter's "Le Ton Beau de Marot" in which he takes the initially unpromising question of how one might play chess on a board with hexagonal "squares" and develops it in a way that turns out to be extremely intellectually satisfying.
Is there a re-interpretation of the definition of "perfection" that makes sense, even if only by distant analogy? I am reminded of the idea of kangaroo words, where a particular word contains a shorter word with the same meaning (the joey). Extending this idea, one might imagine a perfect word to be defined as one whose letters can be anagrammed into a word or phrase with the same meaning as the original word (excluding the trivial case). I can't think of a good example offhand, but I'm sure somebody can.
Say it ain't so! Some of my most inspired bullshit was on the mi-vox page. "What is that noise?", you ask. It is the agonized screaming of hideous deformed flipper-people as they vanish into a wordhole, never to be heard from again.
Right now, on Sunday February 20th (or 21st if you live in bilbyland) 2011, you can find the following on a certain leather-eared marsupial's profile:
about 3 years ago bilby said
I'll be scarce on Wordie for the rest of January 2007 ... global crossings, unbroadbanded parents, temporal dislocation and all that kind of thing. Hope to be the careless match in your box of firecrackers again too soon!
*mwah*
Note the odd discrepancy in dates. What happened to that other year? Bilbo's use of the phrase "temporal dislocation" seems oddly prescient.
This is, of course, just a very extreme instance of a previously noted phenomenon. Those of us who suffer from an addiction to words and reading are indeed subject to bizarre temporal dislocations - the sudden inexplicable loss of a whole afternoon, in extreme cases, even a three-day weekend. The vanishing of an entire year confirms my suspicion that regular users of Wordie are at a considerable elevated risk for a more severe type of temporal anomaly. My working theory is that Wordie, in its function as a portal to the great wide world of words, tempts regular users - logonauts if you will - to venture farther and farther afield in the lexiverse. This exploration is not risk-free - sometimes an intrepid logonaut may stumble, or be lured, into a wordhole. Though the phenomenon is not fully understood, a wordhole may be thought of as a type of singularity, or tear, in the fabric of the chronolexiverse, sometimes known as a vanwinklerip*. Falling into a wordhole is not necessarily fatal, but the few cases documented in the literature suggest that it is a life-transforming experience -- in addition to the time distortion experienced by survivors, glossolalia is a common side effect, as well as a baffling tendency to identify with small burrowing animals, and a need to hibernate in cold weather. Instances of distorted perception of one's own body size have also been reported (e.g. Swift, Carroll), though care should be taken to distinguish between genuine travel across the chronolexiverse and mere hallucinations following the ingestion of psychoactive agents (Coleridge, Thompson, Castaneda).
Bilby is one of the lucky ones. Regular site users should be cognizant of the risks associated with extensive, unsupervised wandering in the chronolexiverse. Logonauts beware!
* as described, e.g. in Irving, W. (1819).
(I've copied this comment over from the Zeitgeist page)
Right now, on Sunday February 20th (or 21st if you live in bilbyland) 2011, you can find the following on a certain leather-eared marsupial's profile:
about 3 years ago bilby said
I'll be scarce on Wordie for the rest of January 2007 ... global crossings, unbroadbanded parents, temporal dislocation and all that kind of thing. Hope to be the careless match in your box of firecrackers again too soon!
*mwah*
Note the odd discrepancy in dates. What happened to that other year? Bilbo's use of the phrase "temporal dislocation" seems oddly prescient.
This is, of course, just a very extreme instance of a previously noted phenomenon. Those of us who suffer from an addiction to words and reading are indeed subject to bizarre temporal dislocations - the sudden inexplicable loss of a whole afternoon, in extreme cases, even a three-day weekend. The vanishing of an entire year confirms my suspicion that regular users of Wordie are at a considerable elevated risk for a more severe type of temporal anomaly. My working theory is that Wordie, in its function as a portal to the great wide world of words, tempts regular users - logonauts if you will - to venture farther and farther afield in the lexiverse. This exploration is not risk-free - sometimes an intrepid logonaut may stumble, or be lured, into a wordhole. Though the phenomenon is not fully understood, a wordhole may be thought of as a type of singularity, or tear, in the fabric of the chronolexiverse, sometimes known as a vanwinklerip*. Falling into a wordhole is not necessarily fatal, but the few cases documented in the literature suggest that it is a life-transforming experience -- in addition to the time distortion experienced by survivors, glossolalia is a common side effect, as well as a baffling tendency to identify with small burrowing animals, and a need to hibernate in cold weather. Instances of distorted perception of one's own body size have also been reported (e.g. Swift, Carroll), though care should be taken to distinguish between genuine travel across the chronolexiverse and mere hallucinations following the ingestion of psychoactive agents (Coleridge, Thompson, Castaneda).
Bilby is one of the lucky ones. Regular site users should be cognizant of the risks associated with extensive, unsupervised wandering in the chronolexiverse. Logonauts beware!
I, for one, certainly hope that this list is working up to a grand finale of casu marzu. Perhaps served with a delicious glass of baby mice wine.
Anyone who looks up baby mice wine on google image should be sure to have made prior preparations for the projectile vomiting that is the likely result.
I just recently learned that the "Happy California Cows" ad that runs so frequently on TV was, in fact, filmed in New Zealand, with NZ cows. I feel deceived, disillusioned, and disappointed.
Is that one of them dreaded Croissanwich atrocities?
It's still not too late to agitate for the return of the Burger King sausage biscuit, whose cruel and sudden discontinuation in August 1983 almost proved fatal to the completion of my doctoral dissertation. The final section, fueled by demonstrably inferior Hardee's biscuits, is perceptibly more stupid than the rest of the document.
I imagine that elevation above sea-level might have a substantial impact on the boiling temperature of bagels as well. For the same reason that making a decent cup of tea on Mount Everest is well-nigh impossible.
You might think this is due to Boyle's Law. You would be only tangentially correct.
hernesheir encourages me to make some kind of comment here, asserting precedence of coinage, but as noted below, there are other coinages of which I am more proud. Still, I know that there is a diligent cohort of Wordnikians for whom panvocalics hold a certain fatal fascination - God bless 'em.
I always thought that mithridatism referred to the practice of building up a tolerance to a specific poison by successive ingestion of larger and larger doses.
Fortunately I have no need to stand in line at the apothecary's -- I just look to Boris and Natasha** to provide me with bezoars as needed.
** who naturally feast on a diet of unripe persimmons.
Chained_bear expressed the hope this list would be comprehensive. A little research shows this to be a forlorn hope indeed. But for anyone interested in tracking down complaints not listed here there is the mother of all resources:
St. Roch, as previously noted. But you can hedge your bets by requesting the intercession of the following: St. Beuno, St. Sebastian, St. Erhard of Regensburg.
The Fourteen Holy Helpers are a group of saints venerated together in Roman Catholicism because their intercession is believed to be particularly effective, especially against various diseases. This group of Nothelfer ("helpers in need") originated in the 14th century at first in the Rhineland, largely as a result of the epidemic (probably of bubonic plague) that became known as the Black Death.
The basic 14 are:
Saints-
Agathius, Barbara, Blaise, Catherine of Alexandria, Christopher, Cyriacus, Denis, Erasmus, Eustace, George, Giles, Margaret of Antioch, Pantaleon, Vitus (Guy)
For one or another of the saints in the original set, Anthony the Anchorite, Leonard of Noblac, Nicholas, Sebastian, Oswald the King, Pope Sixtus II, Apollonia, Dorothea of Caesarea, Wolfgang of Regensburg, or Roch were sometimes substituted. In France an extra "helper" is added, the Virgin Mary.
There's something very weird going on with this entry. It seems to have generated a phantom entry without the "hemorrhages in general" part after the "end". Comments show up on the phantom entry page. I'm guessing it has to do with the quotes.
I have an Italian question for you? Does "ad horas" mean "at short notice"?
I am making preparations for the big French adventure, scheduled to launch in March. Paris, here I come. Le renard va s'ébattre dans l'ombre de la Tour Eiffel.
I hope all is well chez Prolagus - I have fond memories of our visit to the Morgan Library. I do worry about the possibility of your getting mauled as you trap assorted critters in Central Park. Be sure to wear a pith helmet.
A confidence trick used to finagle a free meal for a man and a dog. From Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811):
This rig consists in feeding a man and a dog for nothing, and is carried on thus: Three men, one of who pretends to be sick and unable to eat, go to a public house: the two well men make a bargain with the landlord for their dinner, and when he is out of sight, feed their pretended sick companion and dog gratis.
By extension the term came to mean general trickery and skullduggery, see e.g.
The most notorious jump in horse racing, Becher's brook is part of the most demanding steeplechase on earth, the (British) Grand National at Aintree. The jump actually has to be negotiated twice during the race – as the sixth and twenty-second fences.
It takes its name from Captain Becher, who famously took refuge in the small brook running on the landing side of the fence. This was during the very first Grand National, when he was unseated by his horse, Conrad. The brook is now concealed under a line of cast iron drain covers.
A milliard is the European term for what wimpy Americans call a billion, that is, one thousand million, or 10 to the 9th power. In recent years, the British have also adopted the American terminology, rendering the term milliard essentially obsolete in English. (It still appears in French and German).
The divergence becomes self-perpetuating. In English, 10**9 is a billion, 10**12 is a trillion, and 10**15 is a quadrillion. In the European system you need 10**12 to be called a billion, and 10**18 to be considered a trillion. And the word for that intermediate case of 10**15? You've guessed it, that number is called a billiard.
A hobbet was originally a Welsh unit of capacity, later redefined as a unit of mass. Actual numerical values for the amount it represented appear to have varied by exact geographic location (and possibly the particular commodity being measured).
Hobbitses, as is well known, live in New Zealand, have furry feet, and a marked predilection for secreting things in their pocketses.
A mutchkin is a "a Scottish unit of liquid measure equal to slightly less than one pint".
A munchkin is a diminutive resident of Munchkin County (or, if you prefer, Munchkinland) located in the kingdom of Oz. Some well-known munchkins are Algernon Woodcock, Nick Chopper, Jinjur, Ojo the lucky, and Queen Orin of the Ozure Isles. On November 20, 2007, the Munchkins were given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Having a specific region of one's brain permanently dedicated solely to monitoring all input for the possible occurrence of a new specific excrement term. Because we live in hope.
Academic "hotshot" Richard Quinn, exposed as being too lazy to develop his own exams, does a little "strategic management" of the situation by accusing his students of cheating. Warning: the hypocrisy in the linked video may cause emesis.
Discussion of the fermented herring starts at around the 10-minute mark, but the first part of the clip is also worth watching, for the discussion of hybristophilia (Bonnie and Clyde syndrome), the origins of heckling and, of course, the hilarious Kate Winslow dream and tomato-and-spider-pizza segments.
November 19th might indeed be World Toilet Day, children, but did you know that the Japanese Toilet Association has designated November 10th as National Toilet Day, because 11/10 in Japanese sounds like the characters for "clean toilet"? *
Here on Wordnik we bring you the news that matters.
*: source - "The Big Necessity" by Rose George, one of the most under-appreciated nonfiction works of 2008. No bathroom should be without a copy.
Gosh, this new modem I was forced to buy to stop the red flashing light and get access to the interwebs is having all kinds of unexpected side effects. My phone line has developed a background wheeze suggestive of Darth Vader with pleurisy, and now it appears to be redacting out key on-screen text, in a disturbingly primitive cold-war kind of way.
Pssst! Prolagus is even more charming in person than online. Hard to believe, I know. But those are the facts. I just report them.
The only slight imperfection in my otherwise most delightful recent sojourn in New York City was my failure to win BIG in the Cash Cab. Possibly related to the Cash Cab's negligence in not picking me up in the first place.
It was nonetheless reassuring to know that, had I been in the C.C., risking everything to come up with the term guyliner for "the kind of eye makeup favored by emo kids and Captain Jack Sparrow", my guess of manscara would also have been considered acceptable.
got your message. In case we don't reach each other by phone, 12:30 on Thursday by the entrance to the Empire State Building sounds fine. I will be there.
I met Debussy at the Cafe Riche the other night and was struck by the unique ugliness of the man. His face is flat, the top of his head is flat, his eyes are prominent, the expression veiled and somber and, altogether, with his long hair, unkept beard, uncouth clothing and soft hat, he looked more like a Bohemian, a Croat, a Hun, than a Gaul. His high, prominent cheek bones lend a Mongolian aspect to his face. The head is brachycephalic, the hair black ...
Again I see his curious asymmetrical face, the pointed fawn ears, the projecting cheek bones- the man is a wraith from the East; his music was heard long ago in the hill temples of Borneo; was made as a symphony to welcome the head-hunters with their ghastly spoils of war.
In 2002, Richard James of St. Albans agreed to change his name to Mr. Yellow-Rat Foxysquirrel Fairydiddle in exchange for a pint of beer. He paid $70 to make the change official, then realized he didn’t have enough money to change it back.
Lights are indeed lungs. When I was growing up I used to have to pick up the lights from the butcher so that Pussy 3-legs wouldn't go hungry. Malnourished mongrel dogs would track me all the way home.
James Laver, famous costume historian and a past Keeper of the Robes at the London Victoria and Albert Museum, was a noted authority on dress and its relationship to society.
This article makes an argument for hyphenation, i.e., finger-blast, but is ultimately unpersuasive. I find the arguments presented in this comment more cogent.
Obviously, the same considerations about hyphenation apply to the term fingerbang, which is apparently currently less favored.
Deficit owls believe that there is no structural deficit, and that most of the present deficit will go away when the recession ends. They also believe that in times of unused productive capacity like these, deficits are caused by the state of the economic system and that explicitly managing them by taxing more or spending less will not improve its condition, but only result in a downward economic spiral making conditions still worse. On the other hand, if real economic problems like unemployment, alternative energy capacity and production, infrastructure renewal, education, and industrial innovations are addressed through Government spending, then aggregate demand spurring private sector business activity ending the recession will result, and the deficits will largely go away except for those resulting from excessive private sector saving in the economy. In addition deficit owls believe that in a fiat money system, where there is no debt in foreign currencies, and no “peg” to such currencies, solvency is never a problem for the Government, and that while inflation partly caused by Government deficit spending can become a problem in such a system, this can only happen when full employment is achieved.
I would like to apologize for my earlier peevishness, and especially for using the word "betrayal", which was quite uncalled for and inaccurate. Obviously there was no such intent, though I believe there has been a breach of trust, for reasons I will try to explain.
I respect all the work that has been done on the new site. I don't, however, believe that my recent frustration is an over-reaction. The content that made Wordie a rewarding site to visit represented a lot of effort by its members, whose enthusiastic, smart, thoughtful and highly idiosyncratic contributions had built up some genuinely interesting ongoing discussions. I recognize that integrating that material into a website with different architecture and higher traffic must pose some technical challenges; however, I believe that eliminating access to intellectual content, even temporarily, for the very people who built up that content, is fundamentally wrong. To do so for a period in excess of 6 months is completely indefensible and can only be described as an epic fail. User participation on a site like this is predicated on an expectation of reasonably uninterrupted access to one's own previous contributions (at an absolute minimum). When that expectation is repeatedly violated, it feels like a serious breach of faith by those who run the site. Arguing technical complexity doesn't really excuse it -- I'm sure it's complicated for Yahoo to store all my e-mails since 2001, but what the hell - giving me uninterrupted access is their job. It's what they do.
So, while I certainly apologize for the acrimonious tone of earlier comments, I believe that my expectation to be able to access previous content is reasonable and that the site's ongoing failure to meet that expectation is a legitimate reason for deep disappointment.
I look forward to participating more actively once this issue has been addressed satisfactorily.
Usage example: Tellurantimony your Da borrowed her Topsy Tail styling kit to get ready for his hot date tonight, and that he'll bring it back in the morning.
persico played a major role in sionnach's misspent youth, when he spent two summers working in the Berlin factory that manufactured and bottled it. It's sickly-sweet; the name derives from Pfirsich, German for peach.
For years, animators have struggled with a problem dubbed the uncanny valley, in which a computer-generated face looks almost, but not quite, lifelike, triggering a sense of revulsion among human observers.
"Top of my wishlist for some time now would be the ability to scroll back through earlier comments on my profile page, and on discussion pages for words/lists with extensive commenting. A lot of people's earlier contributions are still inaccessible. "
I wrote that 3 months ago. I'm asking for it again. How hard can it be? Really.
There are comments that were made on my profile during my first year as a visitor to Wordie that I would really like to be able to read again. If they have been lost, then just say so, and I won't bring it up again. Otherwise, please at least acknowledge this request.
My favorite Bobbsey Twins book was the one where they went to Hawaii. At one point Freddy and Flossy had to flee barefoot from the ever-accelerating lava flow that was headed their direction.
I think the eruption resulted from Pele's anger because some tourist had made off with one of her favorite lap-robes.
The third great lineage of living beings is the archaea. At first glance, they look like bacteria — and were initially presumed to be so. In fact, some scientists still classify them as bacteria; but most now consider that there are enough differences between archaea and bacteria for the archaea to count as a separate realm.
The most prominent of these differences lies in the structure of the ribosome — the piece of cellular machinery that is responsible for turning the information contained in DNA into proteins. Indeed, it was the discovery of the archaeal ribosome by the biologist Carl Woese in the 1970s that led to their being recognized as the third branch of the tree of life.
What else sets them apart? They sometimes come in peculiar shapes: Haloquadratum walsbyi is rectangular, for example.
The actual (official) mascots rejoice in the unlikely monikers of Wenlock and Grommit, er, I mean, Mandeville. The Guardian readers had some entries that were clearly superior, however:
It's almost as if there were some kind of blockage in your voicebox, preventing you from completing the full word and forcing you to repeat, overandoverandoverandover...
Yes, indeedy. Many people look for Santa to be dressed as a portly, bearded older gentleman, ignoring the opportunity to chat with that charming fox lounging by the hearth. Little do they know, the unlucky bums ....
passementerie (10 S. viii. 448).— I am not sure that I know what " passementerie " is, but I think it is akin to gimp, and I imagine that "a hundred passementerie " may mean so many devices made of wire enclosed in a casing of silken threads, or of thread or cord sufficiently strong to be twisted into shape without metallic support. " Two doz. abeill pasmenterie " were perhaps twenty-four bits of trimming, more or less, in the form of bees (abeilies). They may have been for badges.
Bechdel's Test is a way of judging movies based on the following criteria:
1) there are at least two named female characters, who
2) talk to each other about
3) something other than a man.
The rule was first introduced to the world by cartoonist Allison Bechdel in 1985 in a comic from her popular strip, Dykes To Watch Out For. According to Bechdel, it should be called The Liz Wallace Test, as her friend actually came up with it. The test, or rather the difficulty in finding movies that pass it, is a testament to the shocking (not really) lack of diversity in Hollywood production, even in 2010.
Indioman's frustration is understandable. It's not just uncommon words that lack a definition. And it's one thing to have a dream of being the internet's most comprehensive dictionary at some undefined, possibly receding, point in the future. But right now, the front page trumpets the claim that Wordnik *is* already the most comprehensive dictionary in the universe, a statement so woefully untrue that it guarantees that the user will be disappointed.
Anyway (I've said this before), why the current choice of listing the 4 dictionary definitions, while hiding the Onelook link under "elsewhere on the web", should be considered preferable to just providing a link to Onelook is not clear.
There's something Microsoft-like about claiming superiority when there are no definitions for many words, and when the examples listed are often silly or meaningless.
Perhaps I should go look up curmudgeonly to see if it has a definition. Oh, I see, "like a curmudgeon". Well, that's helpful...
Much as I abhor Twitter on principle, I must confess that there is something about this Twijote project that I find positively endearing. Its - ahem - quixotic nature, perhaps?
The autoexpanding comment boxes are appreciated. However, if you try to edit a comment, the autoexpand feature doesn't kick in, so that you can only see/edit the first four lines.
“Criterature”, will combine an accessible reading experience with the comforting presence of stuffed animals or stuffed toys in a new way so that a child can literally discover reading while holding a comforting stuffed animal in the shape of an animal, creature, character, element etc. featured in a book pouched within the stuffed animal or stuffed toy. The book will also be in the shape of an animal, creature, character, element etc., featured in the book. The book will be pouched via a reseal able opening and pouch that will be as undetectable as possible beneath a deep, plush coat or cover. Children of all ages and adults can be engaged and inspired together by “Criterature” that will combine a hidden treasure of a pouched book with the warmth of a huggable stuffed animal or stuffed toy that will serve as a safe and convenient way to transport and store literature that can lead to further reading and learning experiences including those via “Criterature Critters,” “Criterature” books, “Criterature” video adventures, dvds, broadcasts, web links etc.
In 1996, residents in the British town of Scunthorpe were initially banned from registering with internet service provider AOL because the town's name contained an obscenity.
This became known as the Scunthorpe problem.
Elsewhere in England, residents of the South Yorkshire town of Penistone and Lightwater in Surrey had the same trouble.
Could we please have comment boxes that expand? I have been trying in vain to edit my previous comment to capitalize Scunthorpe effect, but am unable to do so, because only the first 4 lines are visible in the comment box.
This is an example of a particular subclass of Crash blossoms - those that arise as a result of what we might refer to as the clbuttic mistake, when a spam filter replaces a word (or letter combination) deemed to be "rude" or "obscene" with a "less obscene" variant. For instance, "ass" is replaced by "butt", "tit" by "breast", and so on.
The athlete whose name gave rise to the confusion? U.S. sprinter Tyson Gay.
Still, just as you probably do, I have a slew of unanswered questions that have yet to be addressed by researchers. What makes some domestic species—such as horses and dogs—more common erotic targets for zoophiles than others, such as, say, cats, llamas, or pigs? (Okay, okay, cats would be a problem.) Do zoophiles find particular members of their preferred species more “attractive” than other individuals from those species, and, if so, are they seduced by standard beauty cues, such as facial symmetry in horses? What is the percentage of homosexual zoophiles (those who prefer animal partners of the same sex) over heterosexual zoophiles? How do zoophiles differentiate between a “consenting” animal partner and one who isn’t “in the mood”?—aside from the hoof marks on their foreheads, that is. Why are men more likely to be zoophiles than women? Are zoophiles attracted only to sexually mature animals—and if not, does this make them “zoopedophiles”? What about cross-cultural differences? Is the tendency to become a zoophile heritable?
A heatpad is something you apply to some part of your body to alleviate pain. The potholder-trivet distinction is an important one because, while the expression right as a trivet is a good and sensible simile, right as a potholder is just plain silly. As silly as a one-legged chafing dish in a thunderstorm.
Dale Peck is, of course, a bitter untalented assmarmot. The kind of resentful minor talent that stoops to calling his collection of book reviews "Hatchet Jobs" in a desperate bid for attention.
regarding "Infinite Jest": it is, in a word, terrible. Other words I might use include bloated, boring, gratuitous, and -- perhaps especially -- uncontrolled.
"especially when the context of my entire page/account here would/could have been taken into consideration".
I have no idea what this could mean. Do you have some kind of special user status that precludes comments? This isn't really that kind of site. Maybe you could buy one of those notebooks with a lock on it and furtively enter your super-secret hot guy names in it. After checking that nobody has followed you to the super-secret hideaway for the notebook, of course.
An astonishingly dull book, remarkably devoid of intellectual content.
Here's what you can learn from this book.
Chapter 1: Most 'spoonerisms' are probably apocryphal.
Chapter 2: There is less to Freudian slips than meets the eye.
Chapters 3-5: Mistakes and hesitation are an intrinsic part of verbal communication. Everybody makes mistakes, and while the particular pattern of doing so is specific to an individual, ascribing some deeper significance to verbal 'disfluisms' is generally misguided. In other words, the answer to the question implicit in the last part of the book's title is "precious little".
The origin of verbal mistakes lies in the fact that speaking is essentially complicated. People who are tired, or distracted, are prone to more frequent errors; similarly, variation in frequency of errors with age follows a predictable, unsurprising pattern.
Chapter 6: The Toastmasters hold speakers to a higher, error-free, standard than is actually consistent with normal human speech.
Chapters 7 and 9: People are often amused by other folks' hilarious bloopers, particularly when committed by celebrities and captured on camera.
Chapter 8: (probably the only chapter with the germ of an interesting idea) the frequency of occurrence of particular mistakes does shed some useful light on how the brain acquires language.
Chapter 10: President Bush makes a boatload of verbal blunders.
Amazingly, the author manages to stretch this thin gruel over a total of 270 pages.
If most of the revelations above strike you as either blindingly obvious or completely banal, then you will understand why I give this book only a single star.
Got something to say? Chances are you'll be needing a verb. In your native language, you won't really have to think about it - the correct tense and form should bubble up to the tip of your tongue, unprompted. If you're trying to navigate a foreign language, then you'll have to build a little reference table in your head, and do a quick table look-up to retrieve the correct form. The sneaky part: in many languages the most commonly used verbs are irregular, requiring extra memorization of the specific associated forms. The perverse truth is that, generally speaking, the more common the verb, the greater the degree of irregularity.
Which is part of what gives books like this one their appeal. Wander over to the foreign language section in any bookstore, and you're almost guaranteed to find books which promise:
101 verbs
201 verbs
501 verbs
"fully conjugated in all the tenses".
Psychologically, buying one of these books is a little bit like buying an insurance policy - it feels like a hedge against future problems, and depending on how ambitious you're feeling, you can invest in a greater or lesser degree of protection (I've even seen numbers as high as 1001, presumably designed for the true super-achiever).
Of course, continued investment in this kind of book (and I have them for every foreign language that I've ver studied) also represents the triumph of hope over experience. As the cashier rings it up, you have a clear vision of yourself, spending large amounts of well-organized time with your new purchase. Just like in high school, when we cycled through the 250 or so irregular German verbs, on a 5-a-day schedule, which started afresh when we reached "zwingen".
Problem is, without some external pressure to enforce the necessary discipline, it's pretty much a given that your resolve will start to slip, usually somewhere around week 3. I have to think that this is the explanation for the odd phenomenon that my command of irregular verb forms in several languages decreases as one goes down through the alphabet. Furthermore, I'd be willing to bet that this is a fairly general phenomenon.
Strictly speaking, one should not hold the authors of books like this one responsible for readers' failure to engage with their product in a fully efficient manner. So let me hedge my rating as follows:
if you are that rare person with the discipline to use the book regularly: 4 stars
if you are like the rest of us: 3 stars.
If you are foolish enough to be learning Russian, you will (of course) want to augment this book with a more specialized book dealing with those pesky verbs of motion. But that's a whole 'nother story.
At times, when they were undergoing a particularly grim spell, the densely imbricate warty leaves were the only sustenance the Bronte siblings saw for months on end. No wonder Heathcliff was so prickly.
Dios mio! Que esta pasando con Skippy? Lo habran secuestrado u algo asi, porque no se puede comunicar con el, a pesar de que nos ha dejado algunas huellas, se supone como pruebas de vida. Pobrecito! Espero que los criminales no le corten una oreja.
"There is nothing so important as the legs in determining the kangaroolity of a woman".
Flann O'Brien: At Swim-Two-Birds
(pages 105 - 106 in my edition; used several times in the first exchange between the Pooka MacPhellimey and the Good Fairy, as they discuss the possibility that the Pooka's wife might be a marsupial)
My mission is to empower aspiring entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams
My dream is to develop a "killer app" which will quietly but efficiently deliver a deadly neurotoxin to the monitor of anyone retarded enough to type the kind of cliched drivel that you are peddling in any public internet forum, thereby eliminating your like from the gene pool and from the planet, where you are obviously taking up space and resources that could be used for the greater good. Now please just go away, take your high quality brand name rubbish and shove it up your bloody arse, idiot!
I like gull-cries and the twittering together of fine cranes. I like the surf-roar at Tralee, the songs of the three sons of Meadhra and the whistle of Mac Lughaidh. These also please me, man-shouts at a parting, cuckoo-call in May. I incline to like pig-grunting in Magh Eithne, the bellowing of the stag of Ceara, the whinging of fauns in Derrynish. The low warble of water-owls in Loch Barra also, sweeter than life that. I am fond of wing-beating in dark belfries, cow-cries in pregnancy, trout-spurt in a lake-top. Also the whining of small otters in nettle-beds at evening, the croaking of small-jays behind a wall, these are heart-pleasing. I am friend to the pilibeen, the red-necked chough, the parsnip land-rail, the pilibeen mona, the bottle-tailed tit, the common marsh-coot, the speckle-toed guillemot, the pilibeen sleibhe, the Mohar gannet, the peregrine plough-gull, the long-eared bush-owl, the Wicklow small-fowl, the bevil-beaked chough, the hooded tit, the pilibeen uisce, the common corby, the fish-tailed mud-piper, the cruiskeen lawn, the carrion sea-cock, the green-lidded parakeet, the brown bog-martin, the maritime wren, the dove-tailed wheatcrake, the beaded daw, the Galway hill-bantam and the pilibeen cathrach. A satisfying ululation is the contending of a river with the sea. Good to hear is the chirping of little red-breasted men in bare winter and distant hounds giving tongue in the secrecy of god. The lamenting of a wounded otter in a black hole, sweeter than harpstrings that.
This list worries me, frankly. I imagine all visitors to weirdnik unlucky enough to stumble across it, sitting petrified at their terminals as they succumb to the effects of undetectable (essentially zero) amounts of the various toxins not included on the list. Any practitioner of homeopathy will tell you that these dangerously low levels of exposure must correspond to a massive overdose.
Readers of this page are urged to cover the mouth with a handkerchief, to avoid breathing in, and to back away from the monitor. Slowly, slowly, slowly.
I almost never use this feature, because it almost always returns utter garbage in my experience. Sure enough, one try just now led me to the non-existent 'ekisha', with its monumentally stupid associated Vexample text. Complete rubbish.
Now that I have become aware of the ASBO Fairy Tales book, I just have to have it!
I have so many questions about ASBOs. How much fly-tipping before the balance is tipped from an ASBO to a CRASBO? What is the threshold decibel level for the lady who got the 'loud sex' ASBO? Does one suicide attempt automatically qualify, or do you have to be a serial self-killer?
Whistling, for God's sake? Whistling can get you an ASBO? What has been happening in Britain under Blair and Brown?
My list of lists seems to be intact. Sometimes I get the strong sensation that particular words that I entered have gone missing, but this is probably nothing more than the onset of senility.
Come for the cheap relief of the morning after pill; stay for the Severe allergic reactions (rash; hives; itching; difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue); chest pain; depression; lumps in the breast or under the armpits; partial or complete loss of vision or changes in vision; shortness of breath; slurred speech; sudden loss of coordination; sudden or severe headache; swelling of fingers or ankles; tenderness, pain, or swelling of the calf; weakness, numbness, or pain in the arms or legs; yellowing of the skin or eyes.
Or choose among Acne; changes in menstrual flow, including breakthrough bleeding, spotting, or missed periods; dizziness; drowsiness; fever; headache; hot flashes; nausea; nervousness; pain; rash; sleeplessness; stomach pain; weakness; weight gain or loss.
Maybe you'll be one of the lucky 1% to develop galactorrhea, melasma, chloasma, convulsions, changes in appetite, gastrointestinal disturbances, jaundice, genitourinary infections, vaginal cysts, dyspareunia, paresthesia, chest pain, pulmonary embolus, allergic reactions, anemia, drowsiness, syncope, dyspnea and asthma, tachycardia, fever, excessive sweating and body odor, dry skin, chills, increased libido, excessive thirst, hoarseness, pain at injection site, blood dyscrasia, rectal bleeding, changes in breast size, breast lumps or nipple bleeding, axillary swelling, breast cancer, prevention of lactation, sensation of pregnancy, lack of return to fertility, paralysis, facial palsy, scleroderma, osteoporosis, uterine hyperplasia, cervical cancer, varicose veins, dysmenorrhea, hirsutism, unexpected pregnancy, thrombophlebitis, deep vein thrombosis.
Macmeds, may you develop all of the above and may the bowlegged teratogenic mutants that you spawn form a cult whose central tenet is the ritual disembowelling and cannibalism of the parent.
P_u: You should be able to fine-tune the size by adding width="ww" height="hh" options as part of whatever HTML statement you used to include it (if that's how you included it).
Although my main purpose in visiting the site is to warn the lexicographical community about the dangers of putting bananas in the refrigerator, I quite enjoy seeing a little poetry flash by on the Zeitgeist page. My own talents tend more toward doggerel, but each of us has to work with what we are given.
Vanish, you cretinous clarty-paps, you flambuginous fireship, you scaurous, shardborn snivelard. We have no need of your kind of hellbound hogminny here.
I'm trying to imagine the parade and floats for this; specifically the moment where they put the crown on the lucky young lady whose porcine charms have resulted in her being crowned Miss CRoP, Sow's Lick, North Carolina. Thereby perpetuating a cherished family tradition. See her wave her gaily manicured trotters as the throng explodes in spontaneous grunts of collective piggy adulation!
The nth taxicab number Ta(n) is the smallest number representable in n ways as a sum of positive cubes.
The name is derived from the second taxicab number, Ta(2) = 1729, which can be represented as both the sum of 10 cubed and 9 cubed and the sum of 12 cubed and 1 cubed. Ta(2), also known as the Hardy-Ramanujan number, achieved immortality following an incident where Hardy visited Ramanujan in hospital. According to Hardy:
I remember once going to see him when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi-cab No. 1729, and remarked that the number seemed to be rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavourable omen. "No", he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."
The whole 'eruv' thing leaves me completely bafflegasted. Why make truly restrictive prohibitions a part of one's belief system, pretend that honoring them is important, then actively seek all possible manner of ways to avoid honoring them by concocting a web of elaborate loopholes that fools nobody? It makes no sense to me, on any level.
(I am reminded that I am one of the few site members who has earned the right to deploy the silent 'p' without paying a toll to ptero - I hope the rest of you are keeping up with your dues...)
My beef is not with you, 'zuzu, ma cherie. You are free to make whatever lists you choose. It is the official weirdnik endorsement* of what I consider to be a poor definition that frosts my eyeballs.
But I daresay that I have given this particular peeve as much public petting as could be considered tolerable in polite society. Henceforth I shall just mutter inaudibly under my breath and wave my shillelagh at the monitor when possessed by pique.
*: "Endorsement" not by specifying a definition, but by its elevation to WOTD or LOTD status, I forget which.
If you consider its pronunciation in the phrase "Honey chile", then it's a capitonym (according to the rigorous definition*, not the ridiculously sloppy version of "capitonym" promulgated here on Weirdnik)
*: a word whose pronunciation changes depending on its capitalization status. See this list
John the Baptist's herb, Hypericum perforatum, or Saint John's Wort. It features in Irish oral tradition as a remedy against interference by the fairies -- specifically when experienced as depression.
Geoffrey Grigson's, The Englishman's Flora , 1975.
Well, I'm not about to make room for putative units "defined" only in terms of inequalities on my list. Maybe reesetee, or his robot-captor Reese Tee, can give it a home.
What the hell are these mysterious phpects? And why are they suddenly sprouting everywhere on the interwebs? They're ubiquitous, as likely to crop up on a website about tourism in Melbourne as on the homepage for business consultants ABP International. Oops! Another sighting, this time at the Mater Hospital in South Brisbane. Is there any significance to their being sighted in the Urology department. What is going on here?
Let's take a closer look:
The following discussion reveals some useful phpects of shopping in Melbourne.
At the Mater Hospital, South Brisbane, he has a clinical practice in adult urology, focusing on these phpects of urological cancer.
The examples offer a hint. It would seem that the word that makes most sense in context is aspects. So what is causing this particular manifestation of the Cupertino effect?
Not that the pretty violet gadget-thingy isn't delightful in its own way, but the suggested price tag of $3,300 would indicate that it is an accessory only for the super-gullible. Sure, it's got 16 "red laser diodes" and soothing violet LEDs. But a cursory search seems to indicate the availability of red laser diodes elsewhere on ze intranets at considerably less than ten bucks a pop.
If the term "scalar wave" confuses you, an individual called Tom Bearden has written on the topic. However, be warned of Tom's apparent belief that Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism have been censored to hide the possibility of infinite free energy.
As the New Scientist points out, this "confluence of vibrational healing and free energy raises the alarming possibility of a Grand Unified Fruitloop Theory (GUFT)".
To think that once I could take pride in sharing the stewardship of this list with reesetee. But now, there's new management, and my status has apparently reverted to that of chopped liver.
Not that I blame reesetee, who has apparently succumbed to a more sinister fate, to be replaced by some kind of bot-creature known as Reese Tee.
This is the brave new world that technological advancement brings.
The pasilalinic-sympathetic compass, also referred to as the snail telegraph, was a contraption built to prove the belief that snails create a permanent telepathic link when they touch. The belief was developed by French occultist Jacques Toussaint Benoit and colleague Monsieur Biat-Chretien in the early to mid 19th century. The telepathic bond was theorised to have no physical limit, with communication being possible over any distance. By touching one half of the snail partnership the other will sense the contact and will itself move.
The apparatus consists of a square wooden box containing a large horizontal disc. In the disc are 24 holes, each containing a zinc dish lined with a cloth soaked in a copper sulphate solution; the cloth was held in place by a line of copper. At the bottom of each of the 24 basins is a snail, glued in place, and each associated with a different letter of the alphabet. An identical second device holds the paired snails.
To transmit a letter the operator touches one of the snails. This causes a reaction in the corresponding snail which can be read by the receiving operator.
The story is the old story. There are the old raptures about mountains and cataracts. The old flimsy philosophy about the effect of scenery on the mind; the old crazy mystical metaphysics; the endless wilderness of dull, flat, prosaic twaddle.
The enviably attractive nephew who sings an Irish ballad for the company and then winsomely disappears before the table-clearing and dishwashing begin.
For Mr. Whistler’s own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of wilful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.
Whistler sued for libel, won the case, but was awarded only a farthing in damages.
Top of my wishlist for some time now would be the ability to scroll back through earlier comments on my profile page, and on discussion pages for words/lists with extensive commenting. A lot of people's earlier contributions are still inaccessible.
Implying the decadence and affectation of artists, as supposedly embodied in the Aesthetic Movement of the late 19th century. Coined by Gilbert & Sullivan in "Patience":
Azure pupils, eh? Now there's something you don't see every day. Marcel needed to get out more, instead of slurping down interminable infusions in that bloody cork-lined room, reminiscing about maman tucking him in every night, the snivelling little toad.
Pro and bilby: Thanks for responding. I don't have particularly strong feelings on the matter. The FAQ page does leave some leeway about what type of comment is welcome, so I can understand the potential for some confusion among new users.
I don't know what the website is about, but if your first comment is a link, you are spamming.
Well, yes and no. Maybe (not). I'm not arguing for or against this particular site, but it seems to me that we need to cut new users a little slack before pouncing. Not everyone is a spammer. In the past we seem to have been more willing to grant the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's worth not abandoning that spirit.
Pro and bilby - don't mean to single you out here. It's just a thought. It's not as if the site comes with particularly clear instructions, so some confusion on the part of new users regarding what is and is not appropriate is understandable. (Sorry, John and co.) Maybe I'd better stop before I piss off anybody else...
QRA is based on the Omura Bi-digital O-Ring Muscle Reflex Test, a university-proven muscle testing technique of medically accepted reflex points. This form of muscle testing is simple yet proven in dozens of research studies to be reliable and accurate.
Don't just take our word for it. Read these moving testimonials from the LOLCATS: QRA - WTF?
A recent biography of Leavis by Ian MacKillop explains that, after he had delivered his insulting lecture, calling Snow as intellectually undistinguished as it is possible to be, the Spectator wanted to publish it. Lawyers warned that it was libellous, so Sir Peter Medawar - a friend of Snow’s - was sent as an intermediary, to obtain permission. As Snow was suffering from a detached retina he could not read it himself, but his wife read it to him and, although evidently hurt, he immediately said it should be printed in full, displaying admirable magnaminity, a virtue completely alien to Leavis.
It was generally agreed that literary critic F.R. Leavis went a little bit over the top in his 1962 response to C.P. Snow's 1959 Rede lecture on the "two cultures". In his identification of the widening gulf between the cultures of science and the humanities, Snow, despite his credentials as a novelist, had let his pro-science bias shine through in a way that obviously got Professor Leavis's goat. F.R. Leavis's reply was memorable, though possibly more for the sheer vituperation of his attack than for the quality of his arguments. According to Leavis, Snow
doesn’t know what he means, and doesn’t know he doesn’t know. The intellectual nullity, is what constitutes any difficulty there may be in dealing with Snow’s panoptic pseudo-cogencies, his parade of a thesis: a mind to be argued with that is not there; what we have is something other. ... As a novelist, he doesn’t exist; he doesn’t begin to exist. He can’t be said to know what a novel is.
Actually I just stopped by in search of a definite or indefinite article. But I can see that I've come to the wrong place.
But perhaps skybluecredit56 is really a resident of one of those mysterious other dimensions predicted by string theorists, one which has no need of such vestigial effluvia as articles. Either that, or s/he is a Russkie.
It would be a bit labor intensive for the sheepdogs if they (the sheep) did suffer from wool blindness; in addition to the sheepdogs, each sheep would need its own personalized seeing-eye dog.
I have traveled the country since age 6 from behind the dasykakosteatopygian rump of the family's licentious rickshaw driver, Finn McCoolie, and - let me tell you - that mofo sure could cut the cheese. In this situation, mapquest driving directions were of no use whatsoever.
The vicious Grub Street hyenas liked to portray his fall from grace as if it had happened overnight, but that was just further prove of their inexhaustible malice and duplicity", thought the former governor tetchily; "an objective review of events made it clear that the road from the Governor's mansion to the crack house, his via doloris of the previous nine months (with occasional detours along the Appalachian trail and the Avenida Rivadavia), was as slow, flexuous, anfractuous and tortured as the ascent to Calvary itself
My natural shyness (and a healthy fear of cocaine-addicted poodles) has prevented me from joining the cosmic disaster that continues to unfold on this page. However, c_b's veiled reference to the infamous Van Halen "no brown M&Ms" contract rider prompts me to share something I learned in my random reading this past week. In his most excellent little book "The Checklist Manifesto", the uber-talented Awul Gawande explains that the notorious rider was not actually a manifestation of spoiled rockstar caprice, but that it had in fact been inserted as a deliberate (and very important) quality control check. In his memoir Crazy from the Heat David Lee Roth explained that Van Halen had been the first band "to take huge productions into third-level markets", that they would pull up with nine 18-wheelers full of equipment into venues used to dealing with bands whose gear filled a couple of vans. The logistics of getting the elaborate stage sets in place, correctly, safely, and on time was enormously complex. Failure to follow the detailed safety checks set out in the contract could be potentially dangerous to the welfare of both the band and the fans. So the "no brown M&M" provision was just a clever way of making sure that the logistics team at the given venue had observed appropriate caution when setting up the stage arrangements.
I am a fount of random useless information of this kind. Go ahead. Just ask me.
Thanks, r_t. I have so far managed to resist Facebook. But at least I now understand what has been generating all those quadruple comment notifications in my e-mail inbox.
Hoping that this comment doesn't show up in quadruplicate in other people's e-mail...
Have to register my disagreement with your spelling here, hh: this particular variant is not (and could not be) a legitimate Gaelic spelling. It violates the rule that vowels on either side of a consonant are required to be of the same type, that is they must either both be slender ('e' or 'i') or both must be broad ('o', 'a', or 'u'). I've seen both 'ciotog' and 'ciothog' in practice, but never 'cithog'.
The term verborum bombus is used by the sixteenth-century English rhetorician Richard Sherry in his 1550 book A treatise of Schemes & Tropes. In it, Sherry says
Verborum bombus, when small & triflyng thynges are set out wyth great gasyng wordes. Example of this have you in Terrence of the boasting souldiar.
In bullfighting the most classic movement with the cape is called the Veronica, the cape being swung so slowly before the face of the charging bull that it resembles St Veronica's wiping of the face of Christ.
The pseudonym that a Hollywood studio slaps on a film's credits if the original director insists on having his name removed from the project.
An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (the onscreen title is simply Burn Hollywood Burn) was made in 1997 and released in 1998. It was regarded as one of the worst films of all time, and scooped five awards (including Worst Picture) at the 1998 Golden Raspberry Awards. The film had an estimated budget of $10,000,000 and grossed $45,7791, which, accounting for inflation, is less than Plan 9 from Outer Space (often labeled "The Worst Film Ever Made") made during its release. The film's creation set off a chain of events which would lead the Directors Guild of America to officially discontinue the Alan Smithee credit in 2000. Its plot (about a director attempting to disown a movie) eventually described the film's own production; director Arthur Hiller requested that his name be removed after witnessing the final cut of the film by the studio.
A pseudonym used in London theatre when a part has not been cast, an actor is playing two parts, or an actor does not want his or her real name to appear in the programme.
david agnew, traditionally used on BBC TV drama programmes in the 1970s on occasions when a writer's name could not be used for contractual reasons; and alan smithee, used between 1968 and 1999 by Hollywood film directors who no longer wanted to be associated with a film they had originally directed.
A term for any group of three things or people, such as the three First World War medals (1914-1915 Star, War Medal and Victory Medal). The names are those of three animal characters, a dog, a penguin and a baby rabbit, in a Daily Mirror comic strip that ran from 1919 to 1953. Wilfrid, the baby, could only say 'Gug' and 'Nunc' (for 'Uncle') and a fan club was formed with members known as 'Gugnuncs'.
The time signal on BBC Radio, consisting of five short pips and one longer one on the hour, the exact hour beginning at the start of the latter. Until 1990 they were officially known as the Greenwich Time Signal.
(Brewer's)
When a leap second occurs (exactly one second before midnight), it is indicated by a seventh pip. In this case the first pip occurs at 23:59:55 (as usual) and there is a sixth short pip at 23:59:60 (the leap second) followed by the long pip at 00:00:00. The leap second is also the explanation for the final pip being longer than the others. This is so that it is always clear which pip is on the hour, especially where there is an extra pip that some people might not be expecting. Before leap seconds were conceived the final pip was the same length as the others.
It is frowned upon at the BBC to talk, play music or otherwise make noise while the pips sound, and doing so is commonly known as crashing the pips.
"He disapproved of music-hall and in Podsnappish vein told Marianne Richards, 'I have a dream of Bowdlerising Bowdler', that is 'editing a Shakespeare that shall be absolutely fit for girls'."
meaning: stiff-starched and extremely proper
Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass", Hugh Haughton.
It is true that one of the fundamental concepts in mathematics is the idea of a one-to-one correspondence between elements of two distinct sets. Satisfactory accommodation is nothing more than establishing such a correspondence between guests and available rooms, so bilby is not far off the mark, despite his regrettably cavalier attitude about the use of apostrophes.
The pigeonhole principle states that if n pigeons are put into m pigeonholes, and if n > m, then at least one pigeonhole must contain more than one pigeon. Another way of stating this would be that m holes can hold at most m objects with one object to a hole; adding another object will force you to reuse one of the holes. The first statement of the principle is believed to have been made by Dirichlet in 1834 under the name Schubfachprinzip ("drawer principle").
Das Brockengespenst ist ein optischer Effekt, der zuerst auf dem Brocken von Johann Esaias Silberschlag im Jahre 1780 beobachtet und beschrieben wurde:
Wenn der Schatten des Beobachters auf eine Nebel- oder Wolken-Schicht fällt, wird der Schatten nicht durch eine feste Fläche abgebildet, sondern durch jeden Wassertropfen des Dunstes einzeln. Dadurch kann das Gehirn den Schatten nicht stereoskopisch sehen und überschätzt die Größe deutlich. Durch Luftbewegungen bewegt sich der Schatten, selbst wenn der Beobachter still steht. Dieses scheinbar eigene Wesen kann zudem schweben, ohne sichtbaren Kontakt zum Boden zu haben. Die anderen physikalischen Bedingungen auf dem Berg, kühle und feuchte Luft, Stille, sowie die fehlende Orientierung durch mangelnden Weitblick und fehlende Nachbarberge, verstärken den subjektiven Eindruck der scheinbaren Existenz eines "Gespenstes".
A type of ghostly light (or monster-shadow?) phenomenon first identified in the Harz-Brocken mountains; it also features in the Walpurgisnacht ceremonies in Goethe's "Faust".
So you've been reviewing Edith Sitwell's last piece of virgin dung, have you? Isn't she a poisonous thing of a woman, lying, concealing, flipping, plagiarizing, misquoting, and being as clever a crooked literary publicist as ever?
Poor Henry James! He's spending eternity walking round and round a stately park and the fence is just too high for him to peep over and he's just too far away to hear what the countess is saying.
No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. Named for statistician Stephen Stigler, it was first formulated by sociologist Robert K. Merton.
If it were thought that anything I wrote were influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes. … a more sententious holding-forth old bore, who expected every hero-worshipping adenoidal twerp of a student-poet to hang on his every word, I never saw.
Yellow Dog isn't bad as in not very good or slightly disappointing. It's not-knowing-where-to-look bad. I was reading my copy on the Tube and I was terrified someone would look over my shoulder (not only because of the embargo, but because someone might think I was enjoying what was on the page). It's like your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating.
"I always thought Miss Minnelli's face deserving — of first prize in the beagle category. It is a face going off in three directions simultaneously: the nose always en route to becoming a trunk, blubber lips unable to resist the pull of gravity, and a chin trying its damnedest to withdraw into the neck."
I like Wagner's music better than any other music. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage.
My comment immediately preceding this one was dealt with very swiftly (thanks, guys!), allowing me to enter and comment on a bunch of words on the list in question. Unfortunately, the glitch has now reappeared, so that I have been unable to comment on the most recent additions to the list.
My comment immediately preceding this one was dealt with very swiftly (thanks, guys!), allowing me to enter and comment on a bunch of words on the list in question. Unfortunately, the glitch has now reappeared, so that I have been unable to comment on the most recent additions to the list.
Here is Miss Seward with six tomes of the most disgusting trash, sailing over Styx with a Foolscap over her periwig as complacent as can be - Of all Bitches dead or alive a scribbling woman is the most canine.
Mr Wordsworth, a stupid man, with a decided gift for portraying nature in vignettes, never ruined anyone’s morals, I suppose, unless perhaps he has driven some susceptible persons to crime in a fury of boredom.
A hack writer who would not have been considered a fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven 'sure-fire' literary skeletons with sufficient local colour to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.
... a gap-toothed and hoary ape, who now in his dotage spits and chatters from a dirtier perch of his finding and fouling: coryphaeus or choragus of his Bulgarian tribe of auto-coprophagous baboons, who make the filth they feed on.
I can add entries to my "Everyone's a critic list', but once they are added I can neither view them singly nor add individual comments. This seems like a serious error to me; the ability to view and comment surely represents a core funcionality, and not just some esoteric frippery.
As you can imagine, it managed to change my mood from excitement about starting a new list to disappointment and frustration.
The frequency of human rights violations in a country is an inverse function of the number of complaints about human rights violations heard from that country. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.
I take major umbrage at that suggestion, c_b. But, in fact, the comments do show up in my e-mail.
Thank you all for your kind remarks. I'm not sure what precipitated yesterday's outburst, but I have resolved to stick around and try to participate more.
In fact, it must be time to start a new list. And somebody needs to take a flight down under to give bilby some remedial spelling and grammar lessons.
And yes, c_b, I am indeed old. Practically ancient, in fact. Though I have yet to master the steps required to prepare the magical, mystical dublin coddle.
It's been what - about 4 months now since the body blow. I imagine this is how death from internal bleeding must play out.
This morning, as on previous occasions, I am unable to scroll beyond the first 100 comments in the Zeitgeist history. It is still impossible to generate an accurate alphabetized view of any list containing more than 100 elements. This despite repeated requests for a remedy, spanning a couple of months now. It is baffling to me that this could be difficult.
I love my former Wordie colleagues, but see absolutely no reason to keep coming back to this exercise in futility.
Read about Bono's plan to achieve world peace by haranguing aggressor nations from on high as he conducts a round the world balloon trip. Should it end in (a) spontaneous combustion of a narcissist (b) the group's assumption into heaven, speaking in tongues and surrounded by tongues of fire, or (c) a fiery Hindenburg-like conflagration? Vote early and often at the book's website www.burnbonoburn.com
Is this really a regional variation? I thought that it was common practice in all parts of Germany to use 'zwo' rather than 'zwei' when quoting phone numbers, to avoid any potential confusion with the digit 'drei'.
You know what I find? People who engage in frequent umbrage-taking really get my goat. The explanation for this is a little murky, but I think it has something to do with the beast's incorrigible tendency to wander into the umbrage patch and start nibbling. Next thing you know, it's been hustled into the thieving rascals' umbrage sack.
The names given by composer Robert Schumann to personifications of differing aspects of his personality - Florestan is impetuous, flamboyant and outgoing, while Eusebius is more reserved and contemplative.
"Removing the tip from a wedge of brie (the most desirable part)"
Is this received wisdom handed down from on high by the Select Council on brie-manging? Is there no room for a kind of Jack Sprat & consort scenario wherein peace would reign supreme and pointing would be irrelevant? Frankly, I've never given all that much thought to which part of the brie I was nibbling.
Hernesheir: Rumor has it that the mathematics department in Berkeley has been collaborating with local dairymakers in the construction of - fractal cheese wedges ! So that might pose some problems for your algorithm.
Like a one-woman vigilante, Martha Brockenbrough exposes assorted crimes against the English language and offers crisp, witty advice on spelling, grammar, and usage to the offenders. Her favored tactic is the open letter, wherein she points out the mistakes in (gently) mocking fashion, then goes on to suggest remedies. All with infinitely greater wit than that bore Lynne Truss, in this reviewer's opinion.
Her point of view is stated with admirable clarity on page 3:
"It is time for those of us who love and respect our language to take it back. Clear, grammatical communication is society's foundation. It is what helps us understand and be understood. If we let that bedrock crumble from neglect, or if we actively chip away at it in a misguided fit of anti-intellectualism, then we run the risk of watching the world around us collapse."
Ms Brockenbrough covers familiar terrain, efficiently and entertainingly, in ten chapters (250 pages):
Grammar for spammers and pop stars.
Vizzinis, Evil Twins, and Vampires.
You Put a Spell on Me.
Vulgar Latin and Latin Lovers.
$%&*#$ Punctuation
No, You Can't Has Cheezburger? The Parts of Speech and How Sentences Form.
Things that Make Us Tense.
Cliches - why Shakespeare is a Pox Upon Us.
The Enemy Within - Flab, Jargon, and the People in your Office.
Rules that Never Were, are no More, and Should be Broken.
Whether taking David Hasselhoff to task for describing his life story as 'heart-rendering' or enumerating all 21 errors in Congressman Mark Foley's now-infamous erotic text message to a congressional page ("the word is not spelled 'buldge'; 'one-eyed snake' needs a hyphen; 'hand job' has only one a"), Martha Brockenbrough is never less than entertaining.
This book is both a welcome, witty salvo in the war against bad English and a hilariously helpful guide on how to avoid it.
Various editions of this book are available online in digitized form. But that shouldn't stop you from getting your own physical copy. Nothing can rival the joy of browsing through it - you're bound to learn something fascinating along the way. As Terry Pratchett says in the Foreword, it's a storehouse of "little parcels of serendipitous information of a kind that are perhaps of no immediate use, but which are, nevertheless very good for the brain."
First published in 1870, Brewer's has flourished for over a century. It has always been the reference book that "reaches the parts others cannot", the option you try if what you are looking for is not in a standard dictionary or encyclopedia. Even if you don't find what you're looking for, chances are you'll uncover something even more interesting. The fact that it has reached its 17th edition (published in 2005) suggests that it clearly meets a need, even if its exact scope can be hard to pin down precisely. Certainly, one need look no further with a question about ‘traditional’ myths and legends – from the Erymanthian boar to the Swan of Tuonela, from Aarvak and the Abbasids to zombies and Zoroastrians, they’re all covered. The latest edition updates the mythical pantheon to include such creatures as the Balrog and Nazgûl, Voldemort and Dumbledore, the Psammead and Zaphod Beeblebrox, to name only a few.
This edition incorporates many new features to tempt the reader -- a listing of idioms from Spanish, French, and German, first lines in fiction, assorted sayings attributed to Sam Goldwyn, curious place names in Great Britain and Ireland, the dogs, horses, and last words of various historical and fictional figures. So, while looking for information on freemasonry, you may find yourself diverted to learn that French people don’t dress to the nines – instead they put on their thirty-one, perhaps in preparation for a bout of window pane licking (window shopping). And if that femme fatale you met last night stands you up this evening, it may be that she has other cats to whip. Or it could be that she has received a messenger from Rome (who might be called Aunt Flo by an English speaker).
But as always, it’s the weird tidbits, stumbled across by sheer accident, that are the real delight. For instance, I could certainly have gotten through my entire life without knowing about the blue men of the Minch . But knowing that they are legendary beings who haunt the Minches (the channels separating the Outer Hebrides from the rest of Scotland), occasionally bothering sailors, enriches my life. The added information that they are either kelpies or fallen angels, and are reputed to drag mariners to the bottom of the sea if they fail to answer questions in rhyming couplets (in Gaelic, naturally), fills me with unutterable glee.
As do most of the entries in this terrific reference book.
The best parts of this intermittently fascinating book by Michael Adams are those where he gives free rein to his enthusiasm for the recondite details of slang for a hugely diverse array of "language communities". The specific slang terms that he includes, from sources such as
* inhabitants of the Buffieverse (Professor Adams is an acknowledged expert on Slayer slang)
* restaurant jargon
* stamp-collecting
* snowboarding
* soccer moms
* raver culture
* "hip" and "raunch" cultures
* different online social networks
are hugely entertaining and are by far the best part of this book.
For those who just get a kick out of language, but who have neither a background in linguistics nor any professional involvement, the main attraction of this book will probably lie in these concrete examples (and the author's obvious delight in presenting them). Professor Adams does have his academic career to consider, so the book also contains a certain amount of - how to put this delicately - less accessible prose (you know, the kind of headache-inducing bumf that members of the academy seem to feel obliged to cobble together to confuse/intimidate/bore their colleagues and rivals into submission). I've never really been clear about why academic prose is so uniformly impenetrable. Since I am disposed to like Professor Adams, who establishes himself as a genial guide with a good sense of humor in the first two chapters, I will spare everyone the cheap shot of picking out a particularly bad sentence to mock as part of this review. Professor Adams has mercifully confined most of the worst academic jargon to the final chapter (roughly the last 40 pages out of 200), and for all I know, if you are steeped in Chomsky's linguistic theories and have a particular interest in cognitive linguistics (heck, if you even know what that is), it might be smooth sailing for you. But it's a safe bet that most people will have tuned out well before they reach that final tormented (and more or less incomprehensible) "slang as linguistic spandrel" metaphor.
In a way, I felt kind of sorry for Professor Adams, that he felt the need to get all theoretical on us towards the end. At the outset, he appears to set himself a baffling, and completely unnecessary challenge, namely to come up with a definition of "slang". Not too surprisingly, he fails to do this in any convincing way, but I think perhaps he was just using the definition challenge as a device around which to structure his thoughts about slang. Other than the Chomsky-fest in the final chapter, the author's general remarks about slang (it represents a deliberate break with established conventions, often with the intent of defining a particular 'in'-group; commonly serves as a vehicle for people to show off their linguistic prowess/indulge their pleasure in language games) don't go beyond anything you hadn't already figured out for yourself.
There were two specific points where I just couldn't share the author's enthusiasm (which just seemed endearingly goofy, but weird).
Homeric infixing (the reference is to the Simpsons, not the Odyssey), exemplified by "edumacation", "saxamaphone", or the hideous Flanders variation where the infix is 'diddly', is neither as clever or as fascinating as Professor Adams appears to think. The amount of space devoted to this single linguistic tic was vast, baffling, and lethally boring.
The phrase "how's it going, protozoan?" might have seemed clever, once, when some member of the author's family coined it at the breakfast table. It is not a phrase that deserves to appear in print more than once. That it appears repeatedly throughout the book, often in conjunction with even more regrettable phrases, such as "Please don't pout, my sauerkraut" and "Don't rock the boat, you billy goat!" is unfortunate, to say the least. It was as if Teddy Ruxpin had suddenly joined the debate.
I was perfectly happy to excuse these lapses, given that the author provided several more entries to add to my list of euphemisms for the specific activity variously known as:
bash the bishop, grip the gorilla, paddle the pickle, punish the pope, rub your radish, wave your wand, jerk the gherkin, tickle the pickle, yank the plank, jerk your jewels, gallop the antelope, etc etc etc...
Other pleasures included the hundred or more slang terms for ecstasy included in the first chapter, the primer on dating and sex terms used by young soccer moms ('perma-laid', 'flirt buddies', 'coin-slot shot', 'spliff'), slayer slang, and snowboarding jargon. Not to mention learning such necessary urban survival terms as 'bagpiping', 'maple bar', 'lobbin' and 'cherryoke'. That last one is what you lose at your first karaoke performance - the others you'll have to research for yourself.
Read this book for the fun examples and Michael Adams's infectious enthusiasm for language. The final 40 pages should be attempted only if you are feeling particularly masochistic.
This is an undisciplined dog's breakfast of a book. David Crystal, the author of such previous books as "How Language Works", and "The Stories of English" is a highly respected commentator on language. For the life of me, I have never been able to figure out why - he has a flair for dullness that is remarkable.
The blurb on the back cover describes this book as "a jaunty Bill Bryson-esque exploration of (the English) language by a foremost expert on the subject", which I probably should have interpreted as a warning of the sloppy, disorganized, stream-of-consciousness muddle within. I don't know much about the publishers of this mess, the Overlook Press, but the available evidence suggests that their budget didn't actually run to hiring an editor.
For almost 300 pages, Professor Crystal wanders the backroads of Wales and the west of England (with an occasional excursion to Silicon Valley and to Lodz) and bores us with his random free-associations about local place names and language communities as he does so. Unfortunately, these observations never rise above the pedestrian - the chapter about San Francisco is almost lethally soporific, and the only adequate description of his occasional efforts at wit is the phrase "epic fail".
This book seemed like a throwaway effort from an author whose previous books were far better.
The term used for the herpetological version of the Nibelungen saga.
Also, the activity (speaking with a snake) that got Adam and Eve expelled from the garden of Eden; what JK Rowling refers to as speaking in Parseltongue (see also fourchelang.
Well, if young Matt is any relation to Tanya Harding's skater-wacking boyfriend Jeff, he's got all the white trash genes of a discommodious jackanapes.
"in my head was that other potent place, conjured up by the smell of dung and paraffin, the felt-shod tittuping sound of a donkery's hooves, kites floating in a Wedgwood blue skay, the baroque gaiety of Arabic script".
The moon tiger is a green coil that slowly burns all night, repelling mosquitoes, dropping away into lengths of grey ash, its glowing red eye a companion of the hot insect-rasping darkness.
I miss Wordie as well. So many things here that seem completely basic still don't work. The inability to get complete listings of comments on lists and profiles is particularly irritating - how hard can this be? And, as I have noted previously, for a site that bills itself as being primarily an online dictionary, the sparseness of definitions is astonishing. Previously available functionality (e.g. onelook and the other buttons) is either unavailable, or hidden so well that you could spend an afternoon trying to find it. Adding words, adding comments, finding comments - all harder than before. It's disappointing.
Also known as erotomania, a type of delusion in which the affected person believes that another person, usually a stranger, is in love with him or her.
This disorder plays a key role in Ian McEwan's novel "Enduring Love".
A traditional Vietnamese verse form. "Lục bat" is Sino-Vietnamese for "six eight", referring to the alternating lines of six and eight syllables. It will always begin with a six-syllable line and end with an eight-syllable one.
Got a crying baby? Here’s an urawaza – a quirky, everyday tip from Japan – on how to stop a baby from crying instantly: make a slurpy sound with a mouthful of water!
Comments by sionnach
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sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Thanks, Bill B. I'm hoping to come back here in the autumn because, indeed, there is something about Paris that lifts my foxy spirits. Plus, I love learning French, which is a step above Thpanish in difficulty. But I intend to subdue it and bend it to my will. Because until that is done I can't move on to Italian.
I would post this on your profile, but you are invisible to us all here in the material world. Do marsupials ever leave the DUMPP (down-under marsupial protection program)?
June 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the list things-that-get-way-more-fun-when-you-add-a-p-to-them
Ahem! First chained bear has taken to calling me "big ears' over on Facebook; now reesetee appears to be confusing me with bilby.
I am not a marsupial. Sure, I've fantasized about it a little, even dabbled in marsupialism in my wild college years. But I would like to assure all of my fans, on either side of the placental divide, that this fox is 100% placental*. Those "birthers" who argue to the contrary are shapeshifting eco-terrorists, in the pay of big agribusiness.
*: physical evidence is, naturally, difficult to produce as, in accordance with the best prevailing vulpine midwifery practices at the time, my mother ate it in a delicious casserole.
June 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the word prussia
Rupssia as a nation was a direct result of the rupssia of the U.S.S.R.
June 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the list french-fruits
See also French expressions involving fruits and vegetables
June 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the list french-vegetables
See also French expressions involving fruits and vegetables
June 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the list mateusz-wasilenia
It is more common (and more useful) to add comments pertaining to individual words on a list to the words themselves (just click where it says 'x comments', next to the word).
Thanks!
June 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the word volkderwanderung
I am guessing that if this spelling were given in the final round of the spelling bee, it would be an automatic FAIL. Surely the word you are looking for is volkerwanderung?
June 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the word a great motionless beast
Existence is not something which lets itself be thought of from a distance: it must invade you suddenly, master you, weigh heavily on your heart like a great motionless beast --- or else there is nothing more at all.
Jean-Paul Sartre, "Nausea"
June 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the word poisoning the wells
During the last century a famous controversy took place between Charles Kingsley and Cardinal Newman. It began by Kingsley suggesting that truth did not possess the highest value for a Roman Catholic priest; that some things were prized above truth. Newman protested that such a remark made it impossible for an opponent to state his case. How could Newman prove to Kingsley that he did have more regard for truth than for anything else, if Kingsley argued from the premiss that he did not? It is not merely a question of two persons entertaining contradictory opinions. It is subtler than that. To put it baldly, Newman would be logically 'hamstrung.' Any argument he might use to prove that he did entertain a high regard for truth was automatically ruled out by Kingsley's hypothesis that he did not. Newman coined the expression poisoning the wells for such unfair tactics...The phrase poisoning the wells exactly hits off the difficulty. If the well is poisoned, no water drawn from it can be used. If a case is so stated that contrary evidence is automatically precluded, no arguments against it can be used.
June 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the word gadarene swine
the pigs into which Jesus cast the demons that had possessed a madman, and which as a result ran down a steep cliff into the sea and were killed; from this, gadarene means involving or engaged in a headlong or potentially disastrous rush to do something.
June 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Coachella
There is no such word as coachella.
What did Cinderella go to the ball in, then? A pumpkin?
Oh, wait. Never mind. :-)
Interesting. Thanks, Thetan!
June 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pornithology
Try using cooter muffaloon to get there!
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word weyant jelly shoes for cats who enjoy jello-wrestling at the south pole
Well, this must certainly get on the 'trending words' list, for sure!!
*Cackles foxily*
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word cang
Browsing the 'can' page of the dictionary, are we, r-t?
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word homme politique
French word for politician
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word high dudgeon
Is there any other kind?
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the list collection-o-collocations
I don't think tea chest belongs on this list, at least not the way I understand this list. I don't know whether such set phrases as "flotsam and jetsam" belong or not. Then there are phrases like lily-livered poltroon, which might just be natural juxtapositions in my head, but not in anyone else's. :-)
This list seems to have some partial overlap in its intent with my own "amber words" list.
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pedum
Hint to blafferty - try looking at the definition page. It may be effortful, but I'm sure you can manage it, by hook or by crook.
*pedum-tshhh
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the list enjoy-online-casino-bonus-casinos-and-casinos-internet
You can sit in your own place and have the fun.
This sounds like an incitation to immoral behavior to me. Not to mention, SPAM!
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word a cancerous moth slowly try to make his way up your Venetian blinds
Siegfried's death scene, in the Opera Bastille's production of Götterdämmerung.
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word le crépuscule des dieux
See also a cancerous moth slowly try to make his way up your Venetian blinds.
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word le crépuscule des dieux
Valhalla at the Bastille
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word comfortable
I'd favor rolig's first hypothesis, if only on the basis that Spanish engages in this kind of metathesis all the time, e.g. milagro for miracle, or - my personal favorite - regaliz for "licorice".
June 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word arsy-farcy
Elizabeth loved Mr Darcy
I trust you are with me so far, see
The whole of the plot
Is to get to the spot
Where he loves her too. Arsy-farcy.
June 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word rump and coke
Now, if you just add this to the "things that get way more fun when you add a "G" to them" list, you'd have yourself a grump and coke.
June 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word swine
Why don't humans drink swine milk?
Duh, delicious bacon!
June 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word swine
Though we tend to associate swine with impossibility, "when pigs fly", cows tend to feature more prominently in this context in other cultures: "when cows fly", "at Easter of the horses and at the wedding of the cows", "when the cow coughs".
French also is quite fond of cows when it comes to expressions, e.g. "La vache !" (Dammit!); "vachement" as an adverbial intensifier, etc. An interesting discussion of this phenomenon is found here .
June 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pastiche
Personally, I agree with she/her on this one; pastiche has too many inescapable pejorative connotations for me ever to consider it a positive designation. Instead of hodge-podge, how about salmagundi? Or the ever-pleasing gallimaufry?
June 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word basin
Do you think the Hogwarts sorting-hat had to spend time in the sizing-kettle?
(Why does that sound vaguely dirty?)
June 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the word robot hoedown
See jello-wrestling at the south pole.
June 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the word jello-wrestling at the south pole
as seen here
*Secretly hopes this may be adopted as a 'trending word', like jelly shoes*
June 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the word cant dog
Synonym for peavey?
Antonym for can dog, a particularly aggressive political campaign manager?
June 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the word eckle-feckle
Doctor J. had a servant, Mick Muckle
A name, you'll agree, worth a chuckle
When Hyde was a dick
It was all up to Mick
I can't finish this - who the f###'ll?
June 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the word eckle-feckle
You have to feel bad for Doc Jeckle
As a youth he was covered with freckles
Meanwhile, growing insyde
was the mean Mister Hyde
who was anything but eckle-feckle.
June 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Halicephalobus mephisto
Deep in the mines of Moria, it's the subterranean worm from hell!
June 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the word eckle-feckle
One might be tempted to argue that Doctor Jeckle was the eckle-feckle counterpart of Mister Hyde.
June 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the word dingledousie
A stick ignited at one end, and foolishly given as a plaything to a child.
That might depend on the particular child, no?
June 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the word herald-duck
Maybe we should arrange a play-date. Might be kind of noisy, though.
June 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hump-glutteral
Please note that the corresponding meleagrine term is plump butterball.
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the word cruggles
Lord Voldemort's a bit of a swine.
In fact you could say he's porcine.
He made all of the muggles'
cows come down with cruggles.
Bessy now looks like a porcupine.
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the word inspidity
"This coffee is very inspid", said Vlad, "c'est le pipi du chat".
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the word blog
I wrote a book this morning, and I'll probably write another one after dinner.
Oh, sorry. I meant a paragraph.
Oops! Make that a sentence.
Word.
@
Cede the language to the pea-brained and we can all just go quietly extinct.
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the word herald-duck
I call my herald-duck Gabriel.
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the word habbowcraws
Wouldn't it be more effective to shout "Giant Pterodactyl Alert!!"?
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the list dity
One wonders why 'horrid'and 'fervid' (and 'squalid' and 'torpid', to some extent) took another path in the etymological forest.
And what about this sentence: "The unusual degree of cuspidity of Dogboy's canines gave him a particularly lupine cast"?
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the word ororotundity
This is a word? Rilly?
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pea coffee
How Mr Gooding takes his coffee makes no nevermind to me.
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the list wordlist-wordoperation-test--5
*horkety-hork*
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the list one-person-s-holiday-is-another-s
National bilby day, the day of the jackal, day of the locust; even the dead have their day. Why no day of the fox?
An important question, without a satisfactory answer. Fortunately, even if there is as yet no day of the fox, there is a fox of the day .
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the list one-person-s-holiday-is-another-s
This year's national bilby day falls on the 10-year anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. I imagine this will give the conspiracy theorists something to dig into, so to speak.
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the word un troussage de domestique
The breathtakingly arrogant, dismissive, phrase used by Jean-Francois Kahn, one of France's best-known intellectuals of the left (co-founder of the leftist weekly magazine "Marianne" and no relation to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, though a longstanding friend of his wife, Anne Sinclair), to describe what he "felt sure must have happened" in that hotel suite in Times Square.
It can be roughly translated as "lifting the skirt of a domestic", evoking the kind of "droit du seigneur" behavior of those golden days when the right of the (male) ruling class to engage in unconsensual sex with the help went unquestioned.
I am pleased to relate that this particular remark triggered a firestorm of criticism here in France, to the extent that this week's edition of "Marianne" contains a blathering, self-pitying column by Monsieur Kahn, wherein he claims to have been the victim of a witch-hunt, and - sadder, but one hopes a little bit wiser - announces his retirement from writing his weekly column for the magazine.
The misogynistic arrogance of the the caste that constitutes France's "intellectual elite" is, as I said, just breathtaking. There was also the public pronunciation by former culture minister, Jacques Lang, to the effect of "why jail a man, it's not as if anyone was killed", not to mention the nauseating special pleading of douchebag Henri-Bernard Levy, complaining that the American justice system was corrupt, because of its failure to recognize the special status of his VIP buddy, Strauss-Kahn.
It all makes me sick to my stomach.
Google-translate misses the point as usual, rendering the phrase "un troussage de domestique" as "of a sweeping domestic". But then it translates "droit de seigneur" as "law lord", so what can you expect?
June 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the list a-myriad-of-irii
I have favorited this list, and anxiously await future additions. In fact, you could say I await them with baited breadth. But then you would expose yourself to the mockery of others.
May 31, 2011
sionnach commented on the list a-myriad-of-irii
I could keep a Beretta in my biretta. Though, actually, as far as cardinal garb is concerned, it's the red socks that interest me more. But then I've always harbored a weakness for ecclesiastical haberdashery.
May 31, 2011
sionnach commented on the list a-myriad-of-irii
My dream is to be the guy in the Vatican whose job it is to make up new Latin words for modern things/phenomena that didn't exist in Roman times. I might have to kill a few cardinals to accede to the position, though. :-)
May 31, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
French Animal Expressions : Special Pussycat Edition
May 30, 2011
sionnach commented on the word biscotti
Croustisnacks!
May 30, 2011
sionnach commented on the word biscotti
Those frogs are adorable!
May 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pleasantly plump
Type II diabetes is like a vampire - it can't take over your body unless you invite it in.
May 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pleasantly plump
May 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pleasantly plump
I've always been partial to rubenesque, myself. A little zaftig, with a tendency toward embonpoint.
May 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the list ovoloovoloovoloovoloovoloovoloovoloovoloovoloovoloovoloovoloovoloovoloovolo
egg and tongue sounds a bit risque.
May 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word othello dolly!
Obviously, this is a mistake. It's meant to be "Othecko, Docky!"
May 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Saif Al Islam Ghadaffi
Given that 20,000 people attended his funeral a month ago, it's a fair bet that Saif actually is dead.
I've heard the same thing about Elvis. That doesn't mean it's true.
May 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word ingrain
More like a discombobulated gerund.
May 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word urban fox
link to address from which this image is taken is Urban Fox by Pirate Technics
May 27, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Italians with white mice
A recurring theme in Victorian literature (Middlemarch, Little Dorrit, The Woman in White)
May 27, 2011
sionnach commented on the word lesser-known proofreading marks
I just followed the trail of virtual caviar droppings ..... :-)
May 27, 2011
sionnach commented on the list french-fruits
French fruits
May 27, 2011
sionnach commented on the word lesser-known proofreading marks
There once was a bodyguard named Vlad
Whose face was ineffably sad
Vlad was like Mona Lisa
But then he met Teresa
Then Vlad went from being sad to glad!
May 27, 2011
sionnach commented on the word vulpine diorama
Wait until Mothra arrives!
May 27, 2011
sionnach commented on the word synosmic
My cousin, the black sheep of the family, was caught up in a bit of an embezzlement imbroglio at work and had to emigrate to Australia to escape the wrath of the authorities. Now we refer to him as Sin-Oz-Mick.
May 27, 2011
sionnach commented on the word synosmic
And if the resulting flavour is so out-of-this-world deliciously yummy that it's a guilty pleasure, you could call it syncosmic.
May 27, 2011
sionnach commented on the word vulpine diorama
Fox and friends.
May 26, 2011
sionnach commented on the list collection-o-collocations
Too tired to correct that ludicrous ambiguity in that last post. But I was living in a rented apartment, not in a tea chest.
May 26, 2011
sionnach commented on the list collection-o-collocations
After my mother died, in 1985, I inherited one of her china services. It was all packed up and shipped to New Jersey, where I was living at the time, in a tea chest. Because back in those days, that was what one used to ship things in. I still have the entire set, fully intact. It's been used maybe a total of five times. Guess I don't throw enough dinner parties for twelve people.
May 26, 2011
sionnach commented on the word bellical
Scots term, my Roman arse!
May 26, 2011
sionnach commented on the list gangster
Marky, are you familiar with the inspirational pimp business plan ?
May 26, 2011
sionnach commented on the word muck-ferreting dogs
as seen here
May 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Maunderings of nookshotten Norwegians
As seen here
May 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
It's another one of Foxy's infamous grammar rants , this time about the hideosity of prepositional verbs in general, with special attention given to the ludicrosity of Russian verbs of motion, and the mondo bizarro of the infamous bog of Irish prepositional pronouns.
May 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pea coffee
You're entirely welcome. Though sionnach would like to point out that this delightful illustration was really brought to us by the Paschal bilby. I just lifted it from the kopi luwak page, where the big-eared marsupial of Easter first deposited it. Santa Fox can claim no credit here.
May 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the word the English press reaction to Ibsen's "Ghosts"
From Wikipedia:
"Ibsen's positively abominable play entitled Ghosts....An open drain: a loathsome sore unbandaged; a dirty act done publicly....Gross, almost putrid indecorum....Literary carrion.... Crapulous stuff" - Daily Telegraph
"Lugubrious diagnosis of sordid impropriety....Characters are prigs, pedants and profligates....Morbid caricatures.... Maunderings of nookshotten Norwegians" – Black and White
"As foul and filthy a concoction as has ever been allowed to disgrace the boards of an English theatre....dull and disgusting....Nastiness and malodorousness laid on thickly as with a trowel." – Era
"Ninety-seven percent of the people who go to see Ghosts are nasty-minded people who find the discussion of nasty subjects to their taste, in exact proportion to their nastiness" – Sporting and Dramatic News
"The socialistic and the sexless....The unwomanly women, the unsexed females, the whole army of unprepossessing cranks in petticoats....Educated and muck-ferreting dogs.... Effeminate men and male women..... They all of them–men and women alike–know that they are doing not only a nasty but an illegal thing.... The Lord Chamberlain (the censor) left them alone to wallow in Ghosts.... Outside a silly clique, there is not the slightest interest in the Scandinavian humbug or all his works.... A wave of human folly" – Truth
(And, no, thank you, Wordnik genie, I was not looking for the English press reaction to ibsen's ghost)
May 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the word le doigté
Refers specifically to the fingering used to play a piece of music, but it also has the extended meaning of "skill" or "finesse"; equivalent of the German Fingerspitzengefühl.
May 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the word DOM-TOM
départements d'outre-mer et territoires d'outre-mer
(French overseas departments and territories)
May 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pea coffee
Oh, all right, 'zuzu. If you insist:
Does that help?
May 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes
Duh. Thanks, Bill B.
Rolig, you are so droll! Guffaw.
May 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes
Society garlic?
??
May 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Mademoiselle Julie
"Diving into Strindberg is a descent into Hell. The Hell of class struggle and the battle between the sexes. The Hell of paranoid delirium and complete breakdown... a long day's journey into night, into the heart of darkness ..."
From the program notes for "Mademoiselle Julie", which I saw earlier this evening.
May 24, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Way after "Midnight in Paris" and Foxy isn't even remotely sleepy. Damn you, August Strindberg, with your disturbing plays!
May 24, 2011
sionnach commented on the word fumées de licorne
Unicorn fewmets!
May 24, 2011
sionnach commented on the word la descente aux enfers
A phrase that has been ubiquitous this past week, generally in reference to the fall from grace of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. But see also Mademoiselle Julie.
May 24, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Bernard-Henri Lévy
The personification of French "public intellectual" assmarmotry.
May 24, 2011
sionnach commented on the word cushat
My cushat is addicted to kumquats and the bills are becoming preposterous. Should I try paraquat?
Anguished Geordie.
May 24, 2011
sionnach commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes
"looks like this list already contains house"
Well neener, neener! Stamps little foxy paws, sulkily.
May 24, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pea coffee
"I'm just now working on a book about a Confederate general, and his corps is on its way to Gettysburg in search of shoes".
You see, I'd been reading this as "his corpse is on its way to G." and thinking this was just another one of them zombie civil war novels that reesetee is always toiling away at. But now I realise that was just a hilarious misunderstanding. By the way, I hope it was reesetee's comment that earned this entry a place on Pro's "Wordies talk about themselves" list. Because, let's be clear, Sharny McSquibals is entirely fictional, and is not meant to be a stand-in for me.
Personally, I drink coffee prepared only from the finest unicorn fewmets:
Fumees de licorne
May 24, 2011
sionnach commented on the list snose-words
Is snot-nosed too .... I dunno ... too something? obvious, or vulgar, or tautologous.
May 24, 2011
sionnach commented on the word ingowne
So, I says to him .... "How dare you come to the door like that in your dressonion?" . And do you know what the caffler has the cheek to say to me next? He says to me, 'When I want your ipingowne, I'll ask for it'! The bloody nerve of some people!!
May 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word insucken multure
Not to be confused with bloodsucken vulture* or turducken culture** or hoboken sepulture***
*: First we insuck you, then we mulct you, then we outspit you.
**: Don't ask.
***: Where Jimmy Hoffa is really buried.
May 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hunk
Well, I'm damned if it's going on my Fireships and fizgigs list!
May 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hunk
Oh, pshaw, hh! Stuff and nonsense. Balderdash. Poppycock. Fiddlesticks.
May 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hump-glutteral
Not to be confused with dump-gutteral, the term used to describe the flesh of a beast found on the side of the road.
Or stump-guttural, the term used by linguists to describe the odd fricative-plosive snort made by (certain) Wordniks in response to Doctor Jamieson's more bizarre flights of fancy.
May 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hubbie
Isn't there a Ben & Jerry's ice-cream flavor called Chubbie hubbie?
May 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Send the creep running in a barrage of grapefruit!
I <3 Rebecca Solnit!
May 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word perfect
"A luxury hotel chain needs to trademark this word immediately. "
As in:
Are you one of the power elite? Then think of the Sofitel Manhattan. Perfect for your next intimate rendezvous.
May 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word bunniculastriation
Wow. "Bunniculastriation" already gets 32 google hits!
May 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word perfect
Bilby beat me to my comment. Also, shouldn't that be per-pfucking-pfection?
May 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word fewmets
Why is lars_bo spamming the fewmets page? But more to the point, we are in a position to show for the very first time, an extremely rare photo of
unicorn fewmets!
May 21, 2011
sionnach commented on the word molotov cocktail waitress
Squee!
May 21, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Nique Ta Mère
Of course, as part of the revolting media circus surrounding what the French refer to as l'Affaire DSK, we are all being treated to salacious re-interpretations of the singing nun's only hit: "Dominique-nique-nique-nique-nique-nique-nique-nique.."
Subtle, it's not.
May 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hosterage
When hernesheir tells us that hosterage
Is how Scotsmen refer to an osterage,
Foxy shuffles and pouts,
Protests "I have my doubts.
In fact, the whole thing is preposterage!"
May 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word how sheep
a shepherd's call to his dog to incite him to pursue sheep.
Or to his pig, presumably. Baa, ram, ewe!
May 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hinkumsnivie
This seems odd. It's clearly related to Hookum Snivey, which has an entirely different meaning.
May 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hiving-sough
Not to be confused with the shriving-cough, a peculiar sound made by some priests before they shrive or fast.
May 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hoarsgouk
And herrings. Though it's possible that all of these "words" that hh has been entertaining us with lately are red herrings. A snipe hunt, if you will.
May 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word herring drewe
There once was a herring named Drewe
Who hung out with a dubious crewe
He said "Maybe I'm erring,
But I'm just a young herring,
Who doesn't know what he should dewe".
May 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pea coffee
Speaking of coffee, today is the birthday of Honore De Balzac, who has some well-chosen remarks on the subject:
Du Cafe (added hilarity courtesy of google-translate)
May 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hankie
One has to wonder if Dr. Jamieson had been hitting the Jameson's when he wrote this "definition".
May 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word cicurant
What a great blog, fbharjo!
May 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word contumely
My very first Wordie/Wordnik word!
May 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Fleiſʒiger Foxy
May 19, 2011
sionnach commented on the word weimaraner
— My weimaraner is barking a lot at cars going buy. I dont want to get is vocal cords removed so what should i do?
Really, Wordnik examples? Is this kind of illiterate drivel the best you can do?
May 19, 2011
sionnach commented on the list spinning
OK. I know there is a discussion about yarn-bombing somewhere on Wordnik. Why can't I find it?
May 19, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pea coffee
Gawd. Y'all are so demanding. I was doing my best. Anyway kopi luwak has its own page, surely?
May 19, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pea coffee
Several varieties of so-called coffee are made from fewmets and other coprological preparations. The best of these in our estimation is moose nugget coffee. This is made from dried moose excrement, which are roasted, like the genuine coffee berry, ground, mixed with egg, and prepared for the table exactly in the same manner, and in like proportions as the best Java or Mocha. If prepared with the care and skill usually bestowed on coffee making, it is a most palatable and nutritious beverage, and has won the praises of many reformed coffee drinkers who would not now exchange it for their old-time drink charged with caffeine.
Other former caffeine addicts maintain that the best brew is made with buffalo chips. Sharny Mc Squibals swears by it:
"After I've dropped the kids off at the pool, there's nothing I like better than to sit back, light up a Bondi cigar, and snack on a piece of delicious tappen pie, accompanied by a steaming hot cup o' buffalo chip coffee. Sometimes I'll add some cowblakes to the brew, for a little extra flavour, though you have to get the mix just right, else you'll have yourself a pot of fizzy gravy!"
May 19, 2011
sionnach commented on the list how-to-make-a-facebook-game
This list is indeed awesome. Thanks!
May 19, 2011
sionnach commented on the word toward
This is fascinating; thanks, qroqqa!
On edit, after reading rolig's astute comment: the very regular pattern of change from one form to the other between 1840 and 1940 is still striking, and suggests that the American usage was well-established by 1940. I wonder when the AP Style guide was first published.
May 19, 2011
sionnach commented on the word anastasie
Censorship
In France, censorship is personified by the ugly old woman Anastasie, generally portrayed wielding an enormous pair of scissors (les ciseaux d'Anastasie). This personification became popular in the second half of the 19th century; the caricature by Andre Gill (above) was particularly influential. The word is probably derived from the name of Pope Anastasios I, who was known for the fervor with which he attempted to suppress the publication of books he considered did not conform adequately to Catholic dogma.
May 19, 2011
sionnach commented on the word nag a ram
Try typing in anything beginning with 'ana' into google search and this is what comes to the top of the autocomplete queue. It's an anagram of 'anagram', evidemment.
Oh, google, you're so droll!
May 19, 2011
sionnach commented on the list first-lists
This list raises the interesting question - what was the first word you listed?
Now, it appears that this question may be easier for some Wordies to answer than for others. Because if, like me, you were a lazy slob back in the early days, your first list may be your default catchall list and have more than 3,000 words in it. It used to be that one could list one's words in the order added; now it seems that one can only list them in the reverse order added. Which means I would have to scroll through 30+ screens to get to my very first word. Which I am not interested enough to do.
But maybe there is another way? Any hints?
May 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the word giblich
Oops! It was King Gibich, not King Giblich...
May 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the word giblich
Aren't there gibliches in the Ring Cycle? Isn't Gunter the son of the King of the Giblichs?
May 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the list why-i-spend-so-much-time-on-wordie
I can't see the ʇɐq ʇınɹɟ either!
May 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the word gawlin
Aw shucks! Thanks, Bill B!
May 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the word gawlin
Tries desperately to assemble clever play on words involving the phrases "le Duc D'Orleans", "New Orleans", "N'awlins", and "gawlins", but fails miserably...
May 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the word exploding watermelon syndrome
charging baby tapirs! what are you doing here
May 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the word witchwich
We've got sourdough, focaccia, and whole wheat. Which witchwich would you like?
May 17, 2011
sionnach commented on the word kitchen bitch
See, e.g. I'm not your bitch, bitch
May 16, 2011
sionnach commented on the word morra
How are things in Glocca morra?
appalling, geographically impossible, "Celtic" ditty written by people born apparently without shame
May 16, 2011
sionnach commented on the word mucoadhesive
See proctofoam, if you dare!
May 15, 2011
sionnach commented on the word proctofoam
mucoadhesive is a word that just doesn't seem to come up all that much in casual conversation ...
May 15, 2011
sionnach commented on the user chained_bear
Congratulations, c_b! This means your new cub shares a birthday with my sister.
May 15, 2011
sionnach commented on the word peigner la girafe
to do something useless (literally, "to comb the giraffe")
May 14, 2011
sionnach commented on the word choogala moogala
Ahem! Did you say spider monkey juice?
May 14, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Pas piqué des hannetons
Merci, Bill B !
May 14, 2011
sionnach commented on the word ortolan bunting
Infamously, one of the menu items at Francois Mitterrand's "Last Supper":
MMM. Endangered Songbirds! Crunchy!!
May 11, 2011
sionnach commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes
not sure how we got from Hans to device, but I offer "squad" as the next entry
May 11, 2011
sionnach commented on the word feather
You mean, like this:
May 10, 2011
sionnach commented on the word bullfit
sounds like bullsit to me!
May 10, 2011
sionnach commented on the user trivet
Yeah! trivet is back! Oh frabjous day!
May 10, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hairy ball theorem
Were you looking for hairy Ball theorem?
No, I was not. And I speak as someone who actually used a functional analytical version of the Brouwer Fixed Point Theorem to prove one of the major* results in my dissertation.
*: well, it was major to me. And it seemed to impress the committee members.
May 9, 2011
sionnach commented on the word TUNA
eeek!
May 9, 2011
sionnach commented on the word lock
Hey-day!
May 7, 2011
sionnach commented on the word i poked a badger with a spoon
This has been looked up 40 times?! Seriously??
(Revises former sunny notion about fellow Wordies)
May 7, 2011
sionnach commented on the list pennsylvania-dutch-of-stolid-country-cookery
I suppose it would be enormously politically incorrect to interject a remark involving the term "Saudi prostitutes" at this point.
But, honestly, so many items on this list sound so ... dirty what goes on between them dutch strickle sheets ... know what I'm sayin', rosina boi? nudge, nudge, wink, wink
g'shtupaful lew'r yourself, you salacious bawd! and keep your feelthy mitts off my kartoffel ballen.
Oh, wait, this is actually a SNL sketch starring Alec Baldwin
May 6, 2011
sionnach commented on the word stepped on a little frog
Reality is a club that smacks even the one who is holding it.
Experience is a comb that nature provides to bald men.
May 6, 2011
sionnach commented on the list mnemonics-days-in-the-month
this is the version I learned growing up
30 days hath September,
April, June and November,
All the rest have 31,
Excepting February alone.
Which only has but 28 days clear
And 29 in each leap year
"Who decided all this, and why couldn't they have used a logical system?"
They tried that after the French revolution. Didn't work out so well for them, as I recall. But then they were trying to incorporate 10-day weeks and 10-hour days as well; so much for the Enlightenment. Napoleon scrapped it all eventually and went back to the old system.
May 6, 2011
sionnach commented on the list lost-for-word
My first thought was "dord", but the thought process underlying the parallelism is different. Along the lines of "inadvertent inaccuracy versus deliberate inaccuracy designed to ferret out copyright cheaters".
May 6, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
*Makes note to shop for souvenir tiara for 'zuzu.*
(fortunately, a return trip to Versailles is planned, with my next visitor from back in the U.S.)
May 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the list so-near-and-yet-so-far
This glimpse into how my mind functioned "about 4 years ago" is terrifying to me now!
May 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
This was really more fun than the proverbial barrel-o-monkeys. Kudos to gangerh for the exciting, Eurovision-style, nailbiting countdown. And those fiendishly effective cred herrings. And congratulations to yarb and ruzuzu and ptero!
I guess I will just have to console myself by buying some kind of tacky mug with the Eiffel Tower on it. Because I will be here in Paris for another 7 weeks. Not that I would ever gloat about it; no, not me!
May 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
So I think I have 5 right, and if fbharjo is chrestomathic, maybe 6.
But is it enough for the win? And why in hell didn't I put prodigal for seanahan, like the voice in my head was telling me to?
But I have to go to bed now.
May 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
What's Eurovision? Is it like American Idol?
It's got the same cheesiness factor. But the prestige of entire nations is at stake. Purists like myself prefer the old days before the breakup of the Soviet union added about a dozen new entrants.
The voting is notorious for countries voting either for their neighbors, or deliberately slighting ancient enemies. And Luxembourg always seems to have an inordinate number of votes, given that nobody actually lives there, and the whole country can be rented out for parties. (Or is that Liechtenstein?)
on edit: Oh, poor sweet innocent 'zuzu, I don't think there's much ambiguity there.
May 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
This is more long-drawn-out than the finale of "Top Chef, France". And that went on until midnight. It's 10:50pm here now, and I have to be in class by 9am tomorrow. He is tormenting us....
May 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Time for a shower. Back soon.
See ... that's just plain ... wrong!
Gnaws at fuflun anxiously, while wondering where to place mug ...
May 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
ooh, goody! I am above average!!!
May 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Le jury du Luxembourg donne deux votes a hernesheir et deux votes a Prolagus...
May 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Oooh! This is like watching the results of the Eurovision Song Contest, except that the stakes are much higher.
*Still remembers fondly the year (1970) when sweet, innocent, gap-toothed Dana, from County Derry, won it for Ireland with the heart-rendering (sic) ballad, "All Kinds of Everything":
Snowdrops and Daffodils *
May 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Well, yarb, I think this question comes up every year, and I believe the probability of getting none right approaches 1/e (where e is the base for natural logs) as n gets larger and larger. So the answer to your question is 1 - (1/e) = roughly 63.2%
May 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
So, in other words, I was led down the garden path at every turn.
Come on, gangerh, time to post the results already! You're just playing with us now ......
Though, with an average of fewer than 4 correct identifications per entrant, maybe there is some hope, just by sheer chance?
May 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word address
"The English used the U.S.A is defiled beyond believe"
What kind of semi-literate nonsense is this, pray tell?
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word dinosaur sentence
Described here
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Yes, it was. But I moved it elsewhere, so maybe it's visible now?
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Abbottabad
A recent article by Stephen Moss in "The Guardian" suggests this as a candidate for the worst poem ever written, commenting:
"One begins to suspect satirical intent – or perhaps brain damage."
Does Major Abbott out-Mcgonagall Mcgonagall? You be the judge:
Abbottabad text
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word 227
Methinks that, en espanol, the term "cousin prime" is a redundancy. Now, kissing cousin primes, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
I am keeping my eyes on you all:
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Well, if frindley isn't alexis, bury me in a bog and call me sphagnovulpine. Y'all are obviously not reading my frogblog, because if you were, you'd know I was staying in the Marais, which means the marsh. I am a boggy froggy right now.
All my other choices were pure guesswork and/or following ze herd. Except for tear-resistant, which may be a very clever cred herring indeed. And heartstringplucker, which had enough of the STF about it to remind one of gangerh. mediaeval was tempting for chained_bear, but seemed too obvious.
Installs self next to telephone to await notification of being declared winner, munching on cupcakes and fufluns...
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
I still think there should have been a rule preventing Wordnikoyennes who are really just birds trained to hunt and peck on the keyboard (you know who you are Madame R.T. Distingue) from passing themselves off as, you know, real virtual people.
(Written with the bitterness of someone who has wasted countless hours trying to teach Boris and Natasha to type with their little kitty-paws -- they always end up just chewing their little kitty-booties to shreds.)
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word heiligenschein
Doesn't it also just mean "halo"?
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word briss
And here I thought it was an especially sibilant circumcision.
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word colepixy
The second Century definition given for this word is puzzling, to say the least.
Furthermore, the lack of images on Flickr is disappointing.
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Would it help anybody's decision to change anything, or not, if I told you that a brief scan of entries revealed that all of you were mostly wrong, or mostly right? Mwahahahaha!
No, it would not.
May 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hummer
Oh, you see that's just plain silly. It's quite sufficient to have the verb "to neigh"; there's no conceivable reason to have a special verb for starting the process. One can just say "Gluebones cleared his horsey throat, because he was feeling a bit catarrhy ...."
May 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Ping! That was the sound of yarb changing his "ming", muffled by the walls of his mortsafe, natch!
May 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
* hugs Prolagus right back *
* dusts off phony umbrage and winks at dontcry *
* sits back and wonders what one has to do to get either (a) a cupcake, (b) a fuflun, or (c) some slop around here *
* enjoys ze mounting tension *
May 2, 2011
sionnach commented on the user rolig
Yes, rolig -- we miss your wit and rigor. Not to mention the Slovenian updates!
May 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the word žvrkljati
not to be confused with ženo Mućkalica, a wifebeater
May 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
@dontcry:
And what am I? Chopped Liver?
Sob! sob! sob!
April 30, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Naw! It's an illusion.
I have absolutely no idea for most of them.
But yarb does live in mortal fear of bodysnatchers, that much is true.
April 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
bilby is hidelugged
blafferty is ascian
chained_bear likes a wodge
dontcry is tear-resistant
erinmckean is calepinerienne
fbharjo is chrestomathic
frindley is alexis
frogapplause is a slopseller
gangerh is a heartstringplucker
hernesheir is balsamaceous
mollusque is systematic
oroboros is protean
possible_underscore is prodigal
The only Wordie I have actually met in person is sweet, charming, witty, loves animals and is a harlequin
pterodactyl is boggy
reestee est distingue
ruzuzu = lunette (aucune idee pourquoi)
seanahan is sinistral
I am sionnach
Wordnicolina is a greenhorn
Wordplayer is playful
yarb sleeps in a mortsafe
April 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Qui??? Moi!!!
Pas du tout!
April 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
And I thought my word was *simple* this time. Apparently not!
April 25, 2011
sionnach commented on the word saute-mouton
leap-frog (literally "leap-sheep")
April 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word easter bilby
Bonne Pâques au bilby Pâques!
April 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Thanks, db: I think "burrowing" is a correct, but unimaginative, translation of rataconniculation, as it fails to capture the animal connotations of the latter,having to do with rats, puppies & bunnies. "Cannicula" is, according to Webster's, a common misspelling of "Canicula", another name for Sirius, the dog-star, and related to the Latin word for puppies; "Karnickel" is also a German word for "bunny", which is derived from the word "cunicula", which I think means "rabbit" in Latin.
By the way, though I don't necessarily agree with you on the particular instance, I greatly admire the passion of your lexicological rant over on gasometer. As somebody else mentioned, everyone is entitled to a few particular pet peeves (see discussion under data, for instance), and what is Wordnik for, if not to allow one to vent one's frustrations about one's word-related peeves?
April 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word bunniculastriation
Comment # 10,000 (drumroll, please):
The name given to the ridges or grooves often found on the sides of parsnips:
assumed by cryptozoovegetologists to be the result of the fanged depredations of the dreaded Bunnicula as it lays waste to Farmer McGregor's carrot patch.
The process of producing aforementioned ridges or grooves.
April 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word robidilardic
In the French text, the word robidilardicque is footnoted as appearing as robilardique in some versions. The latter word seems more consistent with the coinage that duckbill suggests.
April 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word fanfreluches
I'm reasonably sure that fanfreluche means a frill, or possibly a furbelow. We saw the word in class my first week here in Paris.
April 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word anthropophagodidymosiamailurophobia
Shhh! Don't tell duckbill about this "word".
April 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Nique Ta Mère
Suprême NTM (or simply NTM) is a French hip hop group formed in 1989 in the Seine-Saint-Denis département. The group comprises rappers Joey Starr (born Didier Morville) and Kool Shen (born Bruno Lopès). Their six albums were released by Sony Music Entertainment.
The group takes its name from the French slang "NTM", an abbreviation for "Nique Ta Mère" ("Nique" is derived from the shortening of the French word "forniquer" (fornicate)) meaning "F*** Your Mother". NTM is known for their hostility towards the police, violent lyrics, and legal battles with the French authorities. Their musical style is predominantly hardcore rap, although later albums include funk, soul and reggae influences.
The group is outspokenly critical of racism and class inequality in French society, and while their earlier music is violent, some of their later work, such as "Pose ton Gun" ("Put down your Gun"), is explicitly anti-violent.
In 1998, the group released its last album of original material under the NTM moniker, as both Joey Starr and Kool Shen started their own labels, promoting new bands and branching out in other fields such as the clothing industry (2High is Kool Shen's brand, Com-8 is Joey Starr's).
While officially the band still exists, and its well-known name was used in 2001 to promote a 'duel' album pitting the two label's artists against each other, Kool Shen was quoted in 2004 saying "on a fini avec NTM en 98" ("We were done with NTM in 1998").
The group is known for its gritty, dark and sometimes violent lyrics, as well as for the contrast between the two rappers' styles. While Joey Starr (also known as Jaguar Gorgonne and Double-R) has a relatively slow flow, aggressive lyrics and a deep, booming voice (which he sometimes uses to yell such as in "Pose ton Gun"), Kool Shen has a funkier flow as well as witty and rather melancholic lyrics.
April 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word franchouillard(e)
adjective meaning French, in a slightly self-mocking kind of way; can have connotations of old-time traditional French (if applied to music), or pertaining to cliched French images, such as baguettes, berets, and camembert.
April 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word spring
Here in Paris, the French media use the phrase "le printemps arabe" constantly.
April 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
No, but I am gradually inching towards a comment milestone, my own self.
Nominations accepted for shiny comment #10,000. No poop-related suggestions, please!
April 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the user reesetee
Reesetee has written 20,259 comments; Wordnik is billions of words, 943,480,593 example sentences, 6,603,031 unique words, 216,253 comments.....
20,259/216,253 = (furrows brow, counts on little foxy paws) = 9.368% of all Wordnik comments.
A contribution which dwarfs my own paltry vulpine 4.58%.
It's the parrots, isn't it? They are forced to enter little psittacine comments before they get their millet*.
Interestingly, Reesetee has entered *no* pronunciations. It's the parrots, isn't it?
*: A gen-u-wine capitonym, and not one of them fake ones.
April 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Es grünt so grün, wenn Spaniens Blüten blühen
goulash écureuil
April 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Babar
April 21, 2011
sionnach commented on the word baconalia
You are my people and I love you all more than I can say. More than a maple bacon sundae or a BBBLT.
One-two-three-four
let's do the sizzle!
April 21, 2011
sionnach commented on the word baconalia
I think the last two comments do a grave injustice to the advertising geniuses at Denny's. Paraphrasing from their website:
"At some point Baconalia sizzled out. Bacon historians contend that this could have been the result of a simple spelling mistake. Baconalia, the celebration of swine was misspelled "Bacchanalia", and confused with the Roman celebration of wine, which people then began to mistake for the original feast."
April 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word maple bacon sundae
See baconalia.
April 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word the sizzle
See baconalia.
April 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the word baconalia
as seen here:
Baconalia
It's things like this that make me regret my career choices. Instead of co-authoring a book that causes me to receive e-mail from earnest pharmacokineticists in Uganda and Sweden, I could have made a real contribution by going into advertising and coining words like "Baconalia". Which is sheer bloody genius, I think you'll agree.
April 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Nice try, 'zuzu! Too bad that everyone here knows your pure heart and sunny disposition render you completely incapable of guile.
April 19, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Jeez. You really have gone underground down under, floppy ears. Now we can't even send you a friendly pre-Paschal greeting on your profile.
Maybe that Swensen's murder really is catching up with you after all these years. There must be some reason for the deep cover.
April 19, 2011
sionnach commented on the word deflowered vegemite virgin, without furballs
Were you looking for deflower vegemite virgin without furballs?
No. I most definitely was not.
April 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the user polashkhandokar
Dogsvomit handmade spam shipped to your door by some wretched internet spambot.
April 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
"do not comment on your intentions anywhere on this site as most of the words submitted have been published and the sharper participants will pick up on the fact that your word is in the last few listed".
I'm betting all of the sharper participants have seen "The Princess Bride" and will get totally bogged down in their own mental reverse-reverse-reverse psychology games if they attempt to follow that line of reasoning. Or do I mean reverse-reverse-reverse-reverse psychology games?
mwahahahaha!
April 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the user reesetee
Bonne anniversaire!
April 16, 2011
sionnach commented on the list irish-english-thats-not-in-american-english
There's also this list:
irish english
from which my favorite phrase is probably turf accountant.
April 16, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pwdr sêr
Mmmm. That dog's vomit slime mold sure looks toothsome.
April 16, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pwdr sêr
Not a valid Scrabble word? Zut alors!
April 16, 2011
sionnach commented on the word flea-rake
Updates "Kenny kens kenning" list.
April 16, 2011
sionnach commented on the word bon-vivants wearing fancy pants
May, we! floppy-ears.
April 16, 2011
sionnach commented on the word le diplomate
as in the phrase: "Nous avons mangé le diplomate"
No, there is nothing antropophagic going on here. My trusty visual French-English bilingual dictionary is quite clear that le diplomate is the word for everyone's favorite delicious dessert, trifle. This fact appears not to have made it to the synapses of the magnificent neural network that lurks within the heart of Google-translate, which insists on rendering the sentence above as: "Nous avons mangé la bagatelle". But that's what you get when you settle for the soulless machine-translation approach to life.
delicious diplomate
Note, however, that le diplomate can also mean "the diplomat", so if you find yourself travelling among, say, the Fore tribe of New Guinea, you might want to provide sufficient context to avoid any possible ambiguity.
April 15, 2011
sionnach commented on the word rakeheckonian
Obviously, this is the adjective derived from rakeheck.
April 15, 2011
sionnach commented on the word rakehellonian
Hmmmm. Rushes to update "Hecko reesetee!" list.
April 15, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Well, that's the interwebs for you. It's still a mystery why the AT&T support guy in Bangalore can get into my Yahoo e-mail account with the new password, but I can't access it from here, using the same password.
Thank God for Gmail! :-)
April 15, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
I had to fiddle with it for a while, but eventually what seems to work is to go to the list in question, then find its exact address in your browser and copy that exactly into the href= part of the relevant HTML syntax. I think the reason that this works, where other possibilites don't, is that Wordnik replaces spaces in the list names with hyphens, as well as possibly making some other changes. If that makes sense ...
April 15, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Here are links to the previous two competitions:
Identify the Wordie 2!!
Identify the Wordie!!
April 15, 2011
sionnach commented on the list identify-the-wordienik
Squee! Count me in. Furrows brow, ponders list of shiny possible words...
April 15, 2011
sionnach commented on the word zwartbles
I am horrified that this word isn't listed in the "Z" section of my trusty French dictionary.
Horrified, I tell you.
April 13, 2011
sionnach commented on the list worse-than-they-sound
Why is spizzerinctum on this list? It seems like it would be a better candidate for the "not quite as bad as they sound" list.
Just sayin'
April 12, 2011
sionnach commented on the user bilby
Getting ready for those arduous Paschal responsibilities, oh floppy-eared one?
All the Parisian bells are clearing things with air traffic control in Rome for their flight back with the chocolate.
April 11, 2011
sionnach commented on the list the-man-without-qualities
Our boy Vardenis made it into the list description, but somehow not onto the list itself. I will rectify this when I have more time (and am less exhausted).
Thanks, 'zuzu.
April 11, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
There are muffins today. But otherwise I am too exhausted for creativity.
My brain feels full.
April 11, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Whipping Cats has an exciting new feature, which may be of interest to all you Wordnik logonauts:
Geek's Corner
Or possibly, Geeks' Corner, should anyone else care to comment.
April 7, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Some of you will probably enjoy this link:
10 best obnoxious responses to misspellings on facebook
April 7, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
That is a lovely little ditty indeed, albeit a teensy bit baffling in parts.
April 7, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Seachtain na Gaelige
Were you looking for "seachtain Na gaelige"?
No, I would look for Seachtain na Gaeilge; last time I checked, the genitive form of Gaeilge was still Gaeilge. Gaelige is not an admissible form; try running "Seachtain na Gaelige" through google's fine translating machine and you will be given the gmail address of some entity called "Groundwork muirmaid", which I think we can all agree is more than a little fishy
April 7, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Sansculottide
Why, yes. Yes, they are.
April 6, 2011
sionnach commented on the word moran
I'll trouble you to keep a civil tongue in your head there, yarrrrrrrrrrrb!
April 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the word moran
Would a very stupid, dyslexic, married warrior qualify as well?
April 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hilarious misunderstanding
My first French hilarious misunderstanding
Contextual note: my apartment back in S.F. has just been repainted, hence my leap to thinking of paint colors.
April 5, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Sansculottide
Make mine a kir sansculottes!
A nos femmes!
A nos chevaux!
Et a ceux qui leur montent,
Avec ou sans eperons!
April 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the user bilby
So, I get it. You've entered the witness protection program somewhere theredownunda (where women glow and men chunder). But aren't those big floppy leather ears a dead giveaway in the WPP?
April 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word chef-candidat
The "Top Chef, France" equivalent of cheftestant.
April 4, 2011
sionnach commented on the word ingenuity
Prolagus is just playing a belated April fool's joke on us. Nothing he, or anyone, can say can convince me that ingegnosità is an actual word. It looks like the kind of furball a cat might throw up on one's freshly carpeted apartment.
April 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the list story-of-a-missing-s
While this list remains one of my all-time favorites, I must confess to being baffled by its title. And who the hell is "Parker Smith", and what has he done with uselessness?
Ah, those were the good old days, weren't they? The halcyon days of "about 4 years ago".....
April 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Sob!
Why so sad, foxy?
Because a certain antipodal marsupial never visits my new blog. Is it the lack of candy-pooping animals? The absence of posts related to Operation Baked Goods? One tries one's very best. But nothing seems interesting enough to attract the attention of a certain chocolate-bearing marsupial.
Oh, I am desolate. Desolate indeed.
April 3, 2011
sionnach commented on the list specific-excrement
No thanks, chum. I'm allergic to shellfish.
March 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word lob
One of my favorite scientific papers that I read while in graduate school was on the estimation of trunk volume of loblolly pines based only on serial measurements of tree circumference. An important topic if you care about forestry inventory management, apparently.
Or if you are a woodworm.
Mmmm. Loblolly pines.
March 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the list lost-for-word
Continuing on the them of impressive words, there is something about the word bulbul that is very appealing. Or the sound that nightingales traditionally make - jugjug. But perhaps these ruminations already exist in the comments for philomelian.
Then there's the word Banba, an old designation for Ireland. Seems relatively unremarkable, until you consider that its genitive singular form is Banban, which confers on it a kind of lurking charm, all the more impressive for being initially hidden.
But perhaps I am babbling.
March 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word translate
#5 could use some clarification.
#3: I imagine that the bishop in question would be constrained to move diagonally from see to shining see.
March 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word philimination
What happens to unsuccessful contestants on "The Amazing Race". Like certain other TV-spawned words (e.g. cheftestants for competitors on "Top Chef"), this term fills me with inordinate delight, bordering on glee.
March 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the list words-to-use-when-telling-off-adulturers
What's an adulturer?
Well, duh, it's obviously a grownup childurer.
March 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the word a la recherche du temps perdue
Very nice, 'zuzu!
That guy at the bottom of the Perdue link seems to have unnaturally large fingers. One imagines a company-wide egg-holding contest for the honor of being featured on the homepage...
I can't believe it's "about 3 years" since I added this. I had so many more brain cells back then. Sigh.
March 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
I run a cruelty-free blog, leather-ears!
March 23, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
I would like to clarify that the preceding post is in no way meant to imply that Prolagus is not clever. Having met P. in person, I can attest to the fact that he is not only super-smart, but also even more charming in real life than on the interwebs.
March 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Bonsoir, wordnikoyens et wordnikoyennes!
Ici le renard, bien installe dans le Marais.
Il y a un nouveau blog:
Mainly on the Plain is now mainly in the Marais
Clever wordnikoyennes (& Prolagus) know that foxy is also now on Facebook, and have be'friend'ed him there:
Facebook foxy .
You too could do the same.
March 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the list lost-for-word
I think that having an anagram that uses all the letters and gives the same meaning as the original word is pretty special. Even if one doesn't feel such a word is worthy of the designation "perfect", maybe it deserves a lesser designation, e.g. "impressive". What numbers might be considered impressive?
March 9, 2011
sionnach commented on the list lost-for-word
# 21 days ago mollusque said
No, because words don't have factors. The words that can be formed by the letters within a word aren't essential properties of the word.
# 21 days ago Prolagus said
From marco_nj's profile:
In mathematics, a perfect number is defined as a positive integer which is the sum of its proper positive divisors, that is, the sum of the positive divisors excluding the number itself. Is there a linguistic equivalent?
Mollusque is, of course, technically correct here. Words don't have factors. Nonetheless, is it wise to discard the whole idea, which seems at the very least to have the germ of an interesting question, out of hand?
I am reminded of the delightful chapter in Hofstadter's "Le Ton Beau de Marot" in which he takes the initially unpromising question of how one might play chess on a board with hexagonal "squares" and develops it in a way that turns out to be extremely intellectually satisfying.
Is there a re-interpretation of the definition of "perfection" that makes sense, even if only by distant analogy? I am reminded of the idea of kangaroo words, where a particular word contains a shorter word with the same meaning (the joey). Extending this idea, one might imagine a perfect word to be defined as one whose letters can be anagrammed into a word or phrase with the same meaning as the original word (excluding the trivial case). I can't think of a good example offhand, but I'm sure somebody can.
March 9, 2011
sionnach commented on the word pimiento load
Say it ain't so! Some of my most inspired bullshit was on the mi-vox page. "What is that noise?", you ask. It is the agonized screaming of hideous deformed flipper-people as they vanish into a wordhole, never to be heard from again.
March 7, 2011
sionnach commented on the word mishegoss
Safire on mishegoss
The root is the same as that for meshuggene
March 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the word poached eggs with salmon and cream cheese
Yum!
February 27, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
It's an easy commute through the Chunnel! :-)
February 27, 2011
sionnach commented on the word vanwinklerip
A tear in the fabric of the chronolexiverse; a wordhole. Further explanation in the comments for wordhole.
February 21, 2011
sionnach commented on the word chronolexiverse
See my comment on wordhole.
February 21, 2011
sionnach commented on the word wordhole
Right now, on Sunday February 20th (or 21st if you live in bilbyland) 2011, you can find the following on a certain leather-eared marsupial's profile:
about 3 years ago bilby said
I'll be scarce on Wordie for the rest of January 2007 ... global crossings, unbroadbanded parents, temporal dislocation and all that kind of thing. Hope to be the careless match in your box of firecrackers again too soon!
*mwah*
Note the odd discrepancy in dates. What happened to that other year? Bilbo's use of the phrase "temporal dislocation" seems oddly prescient.
This is, of course, just a very extreme instance of a previously noted phenomenon. Those of us who suffer from an addiction to words and reading are indeed subject to bizarre temporal dislocations - the sudden inexplicable loss of a whole afternoon, in extreme cases, even a three-day weekend. The vanishing of an entire year confirms my suspicion that regular users of Wordie are at a considerable elevated risk for a more severe type of temporal anomaly. My working theory is that Wordie, in its function as a portal to the great wide world of words, tempts regular users - logonauts if you will - to venture farther and farther afield in the lexiverse. This exploration is not risk-free - sometimes an intrepid logonaut may stumble, or be lured, into a wordhole. Though the phenomenon is not fully understood, a wordhole may be thought of as a type of singularity, or tear, in the fabric of the chronolexiverse, sometimes known as a vanwinklerip*. Falling into a wordhole is not necessarily fatal, but the few cases documented in the literature suggest that it is a life-transforming experience -- in addition to the time distortion experienced by survivors, glossolalia is a common side effect, as well as a baffling tendency to identify with small burrowing animals, and a need to hibernate in cold weather. Instances of distorted perception of one's own body size have also been reported (e.g. Swift, Carroll), though care should be taken to distinguish between genuine travel across the chronolexiverse and mere hallucinations following the ingestion of psychoactive agents (Coleridge, Thompson, Castaneda).
Bilby is one of the lucky ones. Regular site users should be cognizant of the risks associated with extensive, unsupervised wandering in the chronolexiverse. Logonauts beware!
* as described, e.g. in Irving, W. (1819).
(I've copied this comment over from the Zeitgeist page)
February 21, 2011
sionnach commented on the word gold digger
for viewers of the "History" channel, now and forever linked with the term glory hole
Jack Hoffmann is digging around in the glory hole (this is the Joel McHale link 'zuzu is referring to)
weak mineral humor
February 21, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Zeitgeist
Right now, on Sunday February 20th (or 21st if you live in bilbyland) 2011, you can find the following on a certain leather-eared marsupial's profile:
about 3 years ago bilby said
I'll be scarce on Wordie for the rest of January 2007 ... global crossings, unbroadbanded parents, temporal dislocation and all that kind of thing. Hope to be the careless match in your box of firecrackers again too soon!
*mwah*
Note the odd discrepancy in dates. What happened to that other year? Bilbo's use of the phrase "temporal dislocation" seems oddly prescient.
This is, of course, just a very extreme instance of a previously noted phenomenon. Those of us who suffer from an addiction to words and reading are indeed subject to bizarre temporal dislocations - the sudden inexplicable loss of a whole afternoon, in extreme cases, even a three-day weekend. The vanishing of an entire year confirms my suspicion that regular users of Wordie are at a considerable elevated risk for a more severe type of temporal anomaly. My working theory is that Wordie, in its function as a portal to the great wide world of words, tempts regular users - logonauts if you will - to venture farther and farther afield in the lexiverse. This exploration is not risk-free - sometimes an intrepid logonaut may stumble, or be lured, into a wordhole. Though the phenomenon is not fully understood, a wordhole may be thought of as a type of singularity, or tear, in the fabric of the chronolexiverse, sometimes known as a vanwinklerip*. Falling into a wordhole is not necessarily fatal, but the few cases documented in the literature suggest that it is a life-transforming experience -- in addition to the time distortion experienced by survivors, glossolalia is a common side effect, as well as a baffling tendency to identify with small burrowing animals, and a need to hibernate in cold weather. Instances of distorted perception of one's own body size have also been reported (e.g. Swift, Carroll), though care should be taken to distinguish between genuine travel across the chronolexiverse and mere hallucinations following the ingestion of psychoactive agents (Coleridge, Thompson, Castaneda).
Bilby is one of the lucky ones. Regular site users should be cognizant of the risks associated with extensive, unsupervised wandering in the chronolexiverse. Logonauts beware!
* as described, e.g. in Irving, W. (1819).
February 21, 2011
sionnach commented on the word losing keys
You might try St. Nicholas of Myra, patron saint of longshoremen and dockworkers.
February 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Spelling with Stephen Fry and Harry Potter
February 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Renard likes this commercial
February 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the list four-weeks--28-breakfasts
I, for one, certainly hope that this list is working up to a grand finale of casu marzu. Perhaps served with a delicious glass of baby mice wine.
Anyone who looks up baby mice wine on google image should be sure to have made prior preparations for the projectile vomiting that is the likely result.
Hi, Pro!
February 20, 2011
sionnach commented on the list cattle
I just recently learned that the "Happy California Cows" ad that runs so frequently on TV was, in fact, filmed in New Zealand, with NZ cows. I feel deceived, disillusioned, and disappointed.
February 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the word sausage dog
Technically, I suppose this could be considered edible in some cultures.
February 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the word airplane breakfast
Is that one of them dreaded Croissanwich atrocities?
It's still not too late to agitate for the return of the Burger King sausage biscuit, whose cruel and sudden discontinuation in August 1983 almost proved fatal to the completion of my doctoral dissertation. The final section, fueled by demonstrably inferior Hardee's biscuits, is perceptibly more stupid than the rest of the document.
February 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the word conference breakfast
I imagine that elevation above sea-level might have a substantial impact on the boiling temperature of bagels as well. For the same reason that making a decent cup of tea on Mount Everest is well-nigh impossible.
You might think this is due to Boyle's Law. You would be only tangentially correct.
February 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Sionnach has a new blog:
Whipping Cats .
February 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Girl Famous for Having Hiccups Charged with Murder
Now this:
'Hiccup Girl' Jennifer Mee's Hiccups Return in Court.
this defines the word trivia
February 18, 2011
sionnach commented on the word panvocalic
hernesheir encourages me to make some kind of comment here, asserting precedence of coinage, but as noted below, there are other coinages of which I am more proud. Still, I know that there is a diligent cohort of Wordnikians for whom panvocalics hold a certain fatal fascination - God bless 'em.
February 14, 2011
sionnach commented on the word eruptions of Mount Etna
St. Agatha
(Hi Mom! Bizarre sionnach family fact - my mother's name was Agatha, my stepmother's name is Etna)
January 31, 2011
sionnach commented on the word dying alone
St. Francis of Assisi
January 31, 2011
sionnach commented on the word glandular disorders
St. Cadoc of Llancarvan
January 31, 2011
sionnach commented on the word in-law problems
Plenty to choose from here.
Saints-
* Adelaide
* Elizabeth of Hungary
* Elizabeth Ann Seton
* Godelieve
* Helen of Skofde
* Jeanne de Chantal
* Jeanne Marie de Maille
* Ludmila
* Marguerite d’Youville
* Michelina
* Pulcheria
January 31, 2011
sionnach commented on the word losing keys
St. Zita
January 31, 2011
sionnach commented on the word protection from perjurers
St. Pancras and St. Felix of Nola.
January 31, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Mithridate
Those are some high-quality examples for this word. But maybe I was looking for mithridate.
January 30, 2011
sionnach commented on the word confectio damocritis
Well. Which is it? Damocritus or Democritus?
January 30, 2011
sionnach commented on the word diospyrobezoar
The kind of bezoar you get from overindulging in persimmons.
January 30, 2011
sionnach commented on the word confectio Damocritis
I always thought that mithridatism referred to the practice of building up a tolerance to a specific poison by successive ingestion of larger and larger doses.
Fortunately I have no need to stand in line at the apothecary's -- I just look to Boris and Natasha** to provide me with bezoars as needed.
** who naturally feast on a diet of unripe persimmons.
January 30, 2011
sionnach commented on the list plurale-tantum
Fortunately I still have visitation rights, even if custody has been grabbed by this Reese Tee entity.
Sniff! What about the hideous jeggings?
January 30, 2011
sionnach commented on the word disappointing children
Monica would get on well with Willie:
Little Willie, feeling mean
Pushed his sister through a screen
Mother stopped his innovations
Said it made for strained relations.
Little Willie, mean as hell
Threw his sister in the well
Mama said, when drawing water,
"Gee, it's hard to raise a daughter."
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word disappointing children
I'm guessing it's a question of demand. Who among us has not been a disappointment to our illustrious ancestors, at one point or another?
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the list we-have-saints-for-your-complaints
Chained_bear expressed the hope this list would be comprehensive. A little research shows this to be a forlorn hope indeed. But for anyone interested in tracking down complaints not listed here there is the mother of all resources:
Your extended family in heaven and what they can do for you.
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word convulsive children
Saints:
* Guy of Anderlecht
* John the Baptist
* Scholastica
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word backward children
St. Hilary of Poitiers
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word children who are late learning to walk
St. Vaast
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word disappointing children
Saints:
* Clotilde
* Louise de Marillac
* Matilda
* Monica
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word sick horses
St. Eligius
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word mice
For protection against infestation pray to St. Servatus, St. Ulric, or St. Gertrude of Nivelles.
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word diseased cattle
St. Roch, as previously noted. But you can hedge your bets by requesting the intercession of the following: St. Beuno, St. Sebastian, St. Erhard of Regensburg.
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word leg diseases, rats, and mice
Now we know what gets on zuzu's radar.
Your best bet for protection is St. Servatus.
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the list we-have-saints-for-your-complaints
From Wikipedia:
The Fourteen Holy Helpers are a group of saints venerated together in Roman Catholicism because their intercession is believed to be particularly effective, especially against various diseases. This group of Nothelfer ("helpers in need") originated in the 14th century at first in the Rhineland, largely as a result of the epidemic (probably of bubonic plague) that became known as the Black Death.
The basic 14 are:
Saints-
Agathius, Barbara, Blaise, Catherine of Alexandria, Christopher, Cyriacus, Denis, Erasmus, Eustace, George, Giles, Margaret of Antioch, Pantaleon, Vitus (Guy)
For one or another of the saints in the original set, Anthony the Anchorite, Leonard of Noblac, Nicholas, Sebastian, Oswald the King, Pope Sixtus II, Apollonia, Dorothea of Caesarea, Wolfgang of Regensburg, or Roch were sometimes substituted. In France an extra "helper" is added, the Virgin Mary.
January 29, 2011
sionnach commented on the word storms, hail, toothaches, and sudden death
St. Christopher
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word ruptures
St. Osmund
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word lameness, insanity, sterility, and epilepsy
St. Giles
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word eye diseases, dysentery, and
There's something very weird going on with this entry. It seems to have generated a phantom entry without the "hemorrhages in general" part after the "end". Comments show up on the phantom entry page. I'm guessing it has to do with the quotes.
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word eye diseases, dysentery, and
St. Lucy
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Belgians with hernias
St. Gomer
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hernias
St. Cathal
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word gravel in the urine
St. Drogo
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word eye diseases, dysentery, and
St. Lucy
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word bad knees, cattle diseases, and bubonic plague
St. Roch
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word leg diseases
St. Servatus (also good for rodent infestations)
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word oversleeping
St. Vitus
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word gambling addiction
St. Bernardino of Siena
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word stuttering
St. Notker the stammerer
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word nightmares
St. Christopher
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word sick chickens
St. Ferreolus
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word sore eyes
St. Clare (also the patron saint of television)
January 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the user Prolagus
Bonjour, P.
I have an Italian question for you? Does "ad horas" mean "at short notice"?
I am making preparations for the big French adventure, scheduled to launch in March. Paris, here I come. Le renard va s'ébattre dans l'ombre de la Tour Eiffel.
I hope all is well chez Prolagus - I have fond memories of our visit to the Morgan Library. I do worry about the possibility of your getting mauled as you trap assorted critters in Central Park. Be sure to wear a pith helmet.
Merci,
Renard.
January 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word hooting-pudding
A plum pudding with so few plums, they can be heard hooting at one another.
January 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Hook and Snivey, with Nix the buffer
A confidence trick used to finagle a free meal for a man and a dog. From Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811):
This rig consists in feeding a man and a dog for nothing, and is carried on thus: Three men, one of who pretends to be sick and unable to eat, go to a public house: the two well men make a bargain with the landlord for their dinner, and when he is out of sight, feed their pretended sick companion and dog gratis.
By extension the term came to mean general trickery and skullduggery, see e.g.
this reference
January 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Hookum Snivey
See Hook and Snivey, with Nix the buffer
January 22, 2011
sionnach commented on the word fernando poo
See silent Bubis , from the 6:30 mark on the video.
Also check out Ronni Ancona's most righteous dissertation on the word "obscurity" beginning at 2:39 on the same video.
January 21, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Meatball sandwich horseplay leads to two deaths, family betrayal, two trials
shenanigans in Over-the-Rhine
January 15, 2011
sionnach commented on the list jewel-or-ailment
nephrite? bixbite? parisite?
January 13, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Becher's brook
The most notorious jump in horse racing, Becher's brook is part of the most demanding steeplechase on earth, the (British) Grand National at Aintree. The jump actually has to be negotiated twice during the race – as the sixth and twenty-second fences.
It takes its name from Captain Becher, who famously took refuge in the small brook running on the landing side of the fence. This was during the very first Grand National, when he was unseated by his horse, Conrad. The brook is now concealed under a line of cast iron drain covers.
January 12, 2011
sionnach commented on the word Cross-eyed opossum finds fame
die dicke Heidi aus Leipzig
January 12, 2011
sionnach commented on the word bibliophobe
Someone who fears books
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliophile
Someone who loves books
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliomaniac
A book lover gone mad
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliomane
Someone who accumulates books indiscriminately
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliomancer
Someone who uses books for divination
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliolestes
A book robber or plunderer
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliolater
A book-worshipper
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliophage
Someone who devours books
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word biblioklept
A book thief
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliodemon
A book fiend
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliopole
A seller of books
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word biblioriptos
Someone who throws books around
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliosopher
Someone who gains wisdom from books
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliotaphe
Someone who buries or hides books
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word biblioclast
someone who desecrates books
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bibliobibule
someone who reads too much
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word keep it pimpin
As seen in the inspirational pimp business plan
December 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the list helpful-hints-to-avoid-unit-confusion
But .... at least one member of the word-pair should be a unit of measurement of some kind...
December 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word milliard and billiard
A milliard is the European term for what wimpy Americans call a billion, that is, one thousand million, or 10 to the 9th power. In recent years, the British have also adopted the American terminology, rendering the term milliard essentially obsolete in English. (It still appears in French and German).
The divergence becomes self-perpetuating. In English, 10**9 is a billion, 10**12 is a trillion, and 10**15 is a quadrillion. In the European system you need 10**12 to be called a billion, and 10**18 to be considered a trillion. And the word for that intermediate case of 10**15? You've guessed it, that number is called a billiard.
December 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word hobbet and hobbit
A hobbet was originally a Welsh unit of capacity, later redefined as a unit of mass. Actual numerical values for the amount it represented appear to have varied by exact geographic location (and possibly the particular commodity being measured).
Hobbitses, as is well known, live in New Zealand, have furry feet, and a marked predilection for secreting things in their pocketses.
December 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word megadeath and Megadeth
One megadeath is a term for one million deaths, coined in 1953 by RAND military strategist Herman Kahn.
Megadeth is the highly successful thrash metal band formed by Dave Mustaine in 1983 after he was fired from Metallica.
December 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word mutchkin and munchkin
A mutchkin is a "a Scottish unit of liquid measure equal to slightly less than one pint".
A munchkin is a diminutive resident of Munchkin County (or, if you prefer, Munchkinland) located in the kingdom of Oz. Some well-known munchkins are Algernon Woodcock, Nick Chopper, Jinjur, Ojo the lucky, and Queen Orin of the Ozure Isles. On November 20, 2007, the Munchkins were given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
December 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the list bristols--bazongas-and-butter-bags-on-the-balcony
It would be remiss not to mention the exciting "99 Luftballons" parody song: ( link )
Jugs and orbs and darts and gourds
Elmer Fudds and bouncing Buddhas
Sweater stretchers, lung protectors
Beach umbrellas, frost detectors
Scooby Snacks and snake-eyes dice
Jell-o molds and high-beam lights
Every day I probably use
99 words for boobs
Humpty Dumplings, Hardy Boys
Double lattes, Ode to Joys
Hooters, shooters, physics tutors
Bobbsey Twins and bald commuters
Double-WMD's
MRE's and PFD's
Snow-white dwarfs, Picasso cubes
99 words for boobs
Gerber servers, holy grails
Whoopee cushions, humpback whales
Flying saucers, traffic stoppers
Super Big Gulps, Double Whoppers
Pillows, billows, Don DeLillos
Soft-serve cones and armadillos
Pimped-out hubcaps, inner tubes
99 words for boobs
Midget earmuffs, warming globes
Strobes and probes and frontal lobes
Knockers, honkers, knicker bonkers
Smurfs and Screaming Yellow Zonkers
Tannin' cannons, Mister Bigs
Big bad wolves and Porky Pigs
Jogging partners, saline noobs
99 words for boobs
Two-point jumpers, Bambi's thumpers
Rubber baby buggy bumpers
Rutabagas, Chi Omegas
Schwag the showgirls show in Vegas
Congo bongos, bowling pins
Fast-pitch softballs, siamese twins
Your claims I'm breast-obsessed are true
We're quite a pair 'cause I'm a boob too
December 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word saber's beads
First listed when capitalization was not an option.
December 15, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Osric the Stoat
Ancient computer game, recently discovered by researchers at the Institute of Druidic Technology:
See the wily Osric banquish the pesky bog-hedgehogs
December 15, 2010
sionnach commented on the user Prolagus
Very cool, P!
December 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the user bilby
Dear bilby:
My mother taught me it was rude to bait, or otherwise pick on, the mentally deficient. Even those with royalist tendencies.
Or are you simply bored and have set up a sock-puppet account just to amuse yourself?
HRH Natasha and her consort Prince Boris send their most cordial regards and salutations.
December 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word not for the first time, he hoped for a swift and expedient death once his time had come
Because the alternative was simply too chilling to contemplate.
December 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the user ruzuzu
ruzuzu said
If you were a list, I would favorite you.
blush... But the sentiment is entirely mutual, querida ruzuzu.
December 2, 2010
sionnach commented on the list i-hope-you-dont-do-this-for-a-living
The chicken sexer job family is surprisingly rich:
sexy careers
November 29, 2010
sionnach commented on the word One stone skunk being helped to overcome bacon butty addiction
November 25, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Ban on sandals, sand castles and hugs by Italy's mayors
Have you hugged your mayor today?
November 25, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Woman fights off bear with courgette
All together now: "But how did the bear get that courgette?"
November 25, 2010
sionnach commented on the word the united states of america
I think we hold that truth to be self-evident.
November 25, 2010
sionnach commented on the word hippo's tooth
a cement bollard
November 24, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Useless Gobshites
The Irish Daily Star's nuanced take on those responsible for the country's current financial debacle.
November 24, 2010
sionnach commented on the list the-several-stages-of-wordie-addiction
Having a specific region of one's brain permanently dedicated solely to monitoring all input for the possible occurrence of a new specific excrement term. Because we live in hope.
November 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word strategic management
Academic "hotshot" Richard Quinn, exposed as being too lazy to develop his own exams, does a little "strategic management" of the situation by accusing his students of cheating. Warning: the hypocrisy in the linked video may cause emesis.
profscam
November 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word angry birds
more angry birds
(Seen on the kottke.org site)
November 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word angry birds
as seen here
Maybe reesetee knows some of these birdies.
November 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the list geometric-pattern-tessellations
Don't forget the tessellation pattern that's all the rage now for kitchen wallpaper: polyputthekettleon
November 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word surströmming
discussed here
Discussion of the fermented herring starts at around the 10-minute mark, but the first part of the clip is also worth watching, for the discussion of hybristophilia (Bonnie and Clyde syndrome), the origins of heckling and, of course, the hilarious Kate Winslow dream and tomato-and-spider-pizza segments.
November 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word leptokurtosis
A somewhat bemused discussion of this condition, hitherto thought to have been confined to statisticians and economists, may be found here .
And since bilby is rumored to be back, the mnemonic diagram mentioned in my previous comment is below:
November 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word leptospirosis
Sewer worker's disease, contractible by ingestion of rat urine. As c_b has pointed out, the culprit is the rna virus known as the Machupo virus.
November 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word mansfield pork
Jane always was a lousy speller ....
November 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word World Toilet Day
Cthulhu says:
There once was a demon named Cthulhu
Who was building himself a fine new loo
When to his chagrin
The elephants barged in
So now Cthulhu's new loo is a zoo loo.
November 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word World Toilet Day
November 19th might indeed be World Toilet Day, children, but did you know that the Japanese Toilet Association has designated November 10th as National Toilet Day, because 11/10 in Japanese sounds like the characters for "clean toilet"? *
Here on Wordnik we bring you the news that matters.
*: source - "The Big Necessity" by Rose George, one of the most under-appreciated nonfiction works of 2008. No bathroom should be without a copy.
November 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the list johnny-appleseed
See also doctor deterrents
November 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word hymenorraphy
Restore your virginity the 17th century way -- in only seven days
Just send Fr Paco his airline ticket and a few cans of beans and follow the simple steps outlined.
November 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word fenugreek
Isn't this what the dead father on "Six Feet Under" liked to eat in the afterlife? Or maybe it was pasta with fenugreek,
yum. pasta.
November 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Kentucky Man Forced To Eat His Own Beard In Fight Over Lawnmower
This is not so much a crash blossom as a news-of-the-weird item.
November 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word the united states of america
Gosh, this new modem I was forced to buy to stop the red flashing light and get access to the interwebs is having all kinds of unexpected side effects. My phone line has developed a background wheeze suggestive of Darth Vader with pleurisy, and now it appears to be redacting out key on-screen text, in a disturbingly primitive cold-war kind of way.
Pssst! Prolagus is even more charming in person than online. Hard to believe, I know. But those are the facts. I just report them.
November 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word manscara
The only slight imperfection in my otherwise most delightful recent sojourn in New York City was my failure to win BIG in the Cash Cab. Possibly related to the Cash Cab's negligence in not picking me up in the first place.
It was nonetheless reassuring to know that, had I been in the C.C., risking everything to come up with the term guyliner for "the kind of eye makeup favored by emo kids and Captain Jack Sparrow", my guess of manscara would also have been considered acceptable.
November 17, 2010
sionnach commented on the user Prolagus
Hi Pro:
got your message. In case we don't reach each other by phone, 12:30 on Thursday by the entrance to the Empire State Building sounds fine. I will be there.
Que alegria!
sionnach
November 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Girl Famous for Having Hiccups Charged with Murder
Most hiccups are benign. But occasionally there's the bad-seed hiccup that turns to ........ MURDER!
November 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word spoffkins
A prostitute pretending to be a man's wife.
November 3, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Scarpa's liquor
The watery fluid contained in the membranous labyrinth of the internal ear. (endolymph; see any medical dictionary)
But see also the mobster and the KKK , which suggests an entirely different interpretation of Scarpa's liquor.
November 3, 2010
sionnach commented on the word ozaena
Either "a fetid discharge from the nostrils", or possibly the disease that causes it, atrophic rhinitis, aka catarrh.
Snotty vases
"The origin of atrophic rhinitis, especially that form which is accompanied by foetor (ozaena), is still a question waiting to be solved. ..."
The Diseases of the Nose, Mouth, Pharynx and Larynx: A Textbook for Students by Alfred Bruck (1910).
November 3, 2010
sionnach commented on the word neutercane
A tropical storm that has not yet been named.
November 3, 2010
sionnach commented on the word antigram
Examples: united = untied; funeral = real fun.
November 3, 2010
sionnach commented on the word apocolocyntosis
Pumpkinification, as in Seneca's Apocolocyntosis of the Emperor Claudius
November 3, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Girl Famous for Having Hiccups Charged with Murder
as seen here .
Note: despite this lapse, Edith Z. is in every respect awesome.
November 3, 2010
sionnach commented on the user Prolagus
Like Omigod, Pro. I will be in New Work City next week. Will you be in town?
November 3, 2010
sionnach commented on the list lost-for-word
ruzuzu asked: Okay, I remembered. Is there a name for the gunk that builds up on my mousepad and inside my computer's mouse?
Two terms I've heard in this general context are hand salsa and keyboard plaque.
In heating and air-conditioning ducts the relevant term is baffle jelly
November 2, 2010
sionnach commented on the word temporal slices of spacetime worms
Shriek! This sounds so .... cruel. Those spacetime worms are pretty advanced, you know. Even to the point of building cathedrals .
November 1, 2010
sionnach commented on the word on the bubble
(referring to a network television series) to be on the chopping block, but not yet axed
October 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word thesp
FABLE III: An acting company of British thesps, including Sir Ben Kingsley and Simon Pegg, lend their voices to this medieval videogame sequel.
EW, 11/5/2010
October 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word threequel
Complete the trilogy at home with Pixar's dazzling threequel, which finds Woody, Buzz, and their toy brigade ending up in a day-care center.
(Entertainment Weekly, 11/5/2010 issue, page 8)
October 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word a wagner compendium
Not everyone was a fan. Here are some of the terms that have been used to describe his music:
aberration
aural aberration
abortion
absent melody
absurd
agony
anarchistic
antichrist
advanced cat music
And that's just the As.
October 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word james gibbons huneker on claude debussy
I met Debussy at the Cafe Riche the other night and was struck by the unique ugliness of the man. His face is flat, the top of his head is flat, his eyes are prominent, the expression veiled and somber and, altogether, with his long hair, unkept beard, uncouth clothing and soft hat, he looked more like a Bohemian, a Croat, a Hun, than a Gaul. His high, prominent cheek bones lend a Mongolian aspect to his face. The head is brachycephalic, the hair black ...
Again I see his curious asymmetrical face, the pointed fawn ears, the projecting cheek bones- the man is a wraith from the East; his music was heard long ago in the hill temples of Borneo; was made as a symphony to welcome the head-hunters with their ghastly spoils of war.
October 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word The Musical Courier on rimsky-korsakov
Rimsky-Korsakov -- what a name! It suggests fierce whiskers stained with vodka!
October 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word adam mars-jones on paulo coelho
There's more psychological depth in Calvin Klein's Obsession than in Paulo Coelho's Zahir.
__________________
October 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word igor stravinsky on pierre boulez
Pretty monotonous and monotonously pretty (said of Boulez's Pli Selon Pli, 1962)
October 28, 2010
sionnach commented on the word claude debussy on the music of grieg
One has in one's mouth the bizarre and charming taste of a pink sweet stuffed with snow.
October 28, 2010
sionnach commented on the word adams's rules
Douglas Adams gives the following rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re 35 is against the natural order of things.
October 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Mr. Yellow-Rat Foxysquirrel Fairydiddle
In 2002, Richard James of St. Albans agreed to change his name to Mr. Yellow-Rat Foxysquirrel Fairydiddle in exchange for a pint of beer. He paid $70 to make the change official, then realized he didn’t have enough money to change it back.
The Futility Closet
October 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word what the living fuck is THAT
Lights are indeed lungs. When I was growing up I used to have to pick up the lights from the butcher so that Pussy 3-legs wouldn't go hungry. Malnourished mongrel dogs would track me all the way home.
October 8, 2010
sionnach commented on the user ruzuzu
Hola, zoozoo. Que tal?
September 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the user ruzuzu
Hola, zoozoo. Que tal?
September 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the list common-spanish-words-with-more-than-one-meaning
Esposas en esposas
September 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the list common-spanish-words-with-more-than-one-meaning
Esposas en esposas
September 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word zymurgy's law of evolving system dynamics
Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is to use a larger can.
August 2, 2010
sionnach commented on the word laver's law
Laver's law sets out the timeline for fashion:
Indecent : 10 years before its time
Shameless : 5 years before its time
Daring : 1 year before its time
Smart : ----
Dowdy : 1 year after its time
Hideous : 10 years after its time
Ridiculous : 20 years after its time
Amusing : 30 years after its time
Quaint : 50 years after its time
Charming : 70 years after its time
Romantic : 100 years after its time
Beautiful : 150 years after its time
James Laver, famous costume historian and a past Keeper of the Robes at the London Victoria and Albert Museum, was a noted authority on dress and its relationship to society.
August 2, 2010
sionnach commented on the word teledildonics
one step closer
July 24, 2010
sionnach commented on the word consider a spherical cow in vacuum
But why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?
July 24, 2010
sionnach commented on the word content farm
as seen here
July 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word fingerblast
This article makes an argument for hyphenation, i.e., finger-blast, but is ultimately unpersuasive. I find the arguments presented in this comment more cogent.
Obviously, the same considerations about hyphenation apply to the term fingerbang, which is apparently currently less favored.
July 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word zoozoo
Q: What do you get if you cross a kangaroo with a woodpigeon?
A: The (uncommon) roozoozoo, sometimes known by the alternative spelling ruzuzu.
Tee-hee!
July 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word deficit owl
The following explanation is taken from this link:
the deficit aviary
Deficit owls believe that there is no structural deficit, and that most of the present deficit will go away when the recession ends. They also believe that in times of unused productive capacity like these, deficits are caused by the state of the economic system and that explicitly managing them by taxing more or spending less will not improve its condition, but only result in a downward economic spiral making conditions still worse. On the other hand, if real economic problems like unemployment, alternative energy capacity and production, infrastructure renewal, education, and industrial innovations are addressed through Government spending, then aggregate demand spurring private sector business activity ending the recession will result, and the deficits will largely go away except for those resulting from excessive private sector saving in the economy. In addition deficit owls believe that in a fiat money system, where there is no debt in foreign currencies, and no “peg” to such currencies, solvency is never a problem for the Government, and that while inflation partly caused by Government deficit spending can become a problem in such a system, this can only happen when full employment is achieved.
July 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word mooreeffoc
Sounds like dyslexia to me.
July 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word the inheritance of less
Even among WASPs, the recession takes its toll
June 29, 2010
sionnach commented on the word breaking down
It was around the release of the third movie that the stress began to get to Edward.
June 29, 2010
sionnach commented on the word eleanor rugby
A lonely woman pines to belong to her local team, but knows it can never be.
June 29, 2010
sionnach commented on the word miss smilla's sense of snot
Crime-fighting otorhinolaryngologist tracks down the infamous Arctic Ripper
June 29, 2010
sionnach commented on the word thongs fall apart
Chinua Achebe introduces this year's edition of the SI swimsuit issue
June 29, 2010
sionnach commented on the user bilby
Hola, bilbster!
June 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the user chelster
Just stopping by to say "Hi". I own two of your books and they are high on my list of favorites:
David's list of word books
Welcome to Wordnik!
June 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Si ursus essem, ursus fabulans essem
If I were a bear, I'd be a talking bear.
June 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
I would like to apologize for my earlier peevishness, and especially for using the word "betrayal", which was quite uncalled for and inaccurate. Obviously there was no such intent, though I believe there has been a breach of trust, for reasons I will try to explain.
I respect all the work that has been done on the new site. I don't, however, believe that my recent frustration is an over-reaction. The content that made Wordie a rewarding site to visit represented a lot of effort by its members, whose enthusiastic, smart, thoughtful and highly idiosyncratic contributions had built up some genuinely interesting ongoing discussions. I recognize that integrating that material into a website with different architecture and higher traffic must pose some technical challenges; however, I believe that eliminating access to intellectual content, even temporarily, for the very people who built up that content, is fundamentally wrong. To do so for a period in excess of 6 months is completely indefensible and can only be described as an epic fail. User participation on a site like this is predicated on an expectation of reasonably uninterrupted access to one's own previous contributions (at an absolute minimum). When that expectation is repeatedly violated, it feels like a serious breach of faith by those who run the site. Arguing technical complexity doesn't really excuse it -- I'm sure it's complicated for Yahoo to store all my e-mails since 2001, but what the hell - giving me uninterrupted access is their job. It's what they do.
So, while I certainly apologize for the acrimonious tone of earlier comments, I believe that my expectation to be able to access previous content is reasonable and that the site's ongoing failure to meet that expectation is a legitimate reason for deep disappointment.
I look forward to participating more actively once this issue has been addressed satisfactorily.
June 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word tellurantimony
Usage example: Tellurantimony your Da borrowed her Topsy Tail styling kit to get ready for his hot date tonight, and that he'll bring it back in the morning.
June 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word persico
persico played a major role in sionnach's misspent youth, when he spent two summers working in the Berlin factory that manufactured and bottled it. It's sickly-sweet; the name derives from Pfirsich, German for peach.
June 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the list minerals-and-mineralogy
cummingtonite is still my all-time favorite! Maybe invitations to view this list could be send out on e-vite.
(laffs uproariously at own feeble wit)
June 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word uncanny valley
For years, animators have struggled with a problem dubbed the uncanny valley, in which a computer-generated face looks almost, but not quite, lifelike, triggering a sense of revulsion among human observers.
New Scientist, 5 June 2010, page 29.
June 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
"Top of my wishlist for some time now would be the ability to scroll back through earlier comments on my profile page, and on discussion pages for words/lists with extensive commenting. A lot of people's earlier contributions are still inaccessible. "
I wrote that 3 months ago. I'm asking for it again. How hard can it be? Really.
There are comments that were made on my profile during my first year as a visitor to Wordie that I would really like to be able to read again. If they have been lost, then just say so, and I won't bring it up again. Otherwise, please at least acknowledge this request.
June 2, 2010
sionnach commented on the list archaic-occupations
Yes, indeed. Every possible list is an existing list
June 2, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Blipper
My favorite Bobbsey Twins book was the one where they went to Hawaii. At one point Freddy and Flossy had to flee barefoot from the ever-accelerating lava flow that was headed their direction.
I think the eruption resulted from Pele's anger because some tourist had made off with one of her favorite lap-robes.
That damned Blipper!
May 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word haloquadratum walsbyi
The third great lineage of living beings is the archaea. At first glance, they look like bacteria — and were initially presumed to be so. In fact, some scientists still classify them as bacteria; but most now consider that there are enough differences between archaea and bacteria for the archaea to count as a separate realm.
The most prominent of these differences lies in the structure of the ribosome — the piece of cellular machinery that is responsible for turning the information contained in DNA into proteins. Indeed, it was the discovery of the archaeal ribosome by the biologist Carl Woese in the 1970s that led to their being recognized as the third branch of the tree of life.
What else sets them apart? They sometimes come in peculiar shapes: Haloquadratum walsbyi is rectangular, for example.
Olivia Judson; New York Times, May 18th 2010
May 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word mediatic trinity
Youth, money and good looks, according to Eurotrash assmarmot
May 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word 2012 olympic mascots, actual and imagined
The actual (official) mascots rejoice in the unlikely monikers of Wenlock and Grommit, er, I mean, Mandeville. The Guardian readers had some entries that were clearly superior, however:
suggested 2012 mascots .
Do I really need to mention that Billy the crack squirrel is my all-time favorite?
May 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Sleazy Antelopes Scamming Extra Sex Through Deceptive Practices
Definitely one of my favorite internet headlines of the week; details are here.
May 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Boris, Natasha, fluffy toy with bell used to lure B. and N. to within a 15-foot radius
Silly 'zuzu! The reindeer are down in the den watching "Reindeer Games". It's a safe bet that they will mount a Ben Affleck boycott next Yule.
May 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word thromboembolism
It's almost as if there were some kind of blockage in your voicebox, preventing you from completing the full word and forcing you to repeat, overandoverandoverandover...
May 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word murphy's law
The ideal resume will turn up one day after the position is filled.
The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body will be required on it.
One child is not enough, but two children are far too many.
No matter which way you go, it's uphill and against the wind.
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.
The hardness of the butter is directly proportional to the softness of the bread.
May 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word lucky
Yes, indeedy. Many people look for Santa to be dressed as a portly, bearded older gentleman, ignoring the opportunity to chat with that charming fox lounging by the hearth. Little do they know, the unlucky bums ....
May 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word 'Iron Man 2' puts petal to the medal with $52.4M
As seen just now, courtesy of the Associated Press.
May 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word possum belly
A storage box hanging under a wagon or railroad car.
May 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word lot lice
People who go to a carnival to gawk, but don't spend any money.
May 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word hump
Circus slang for a camel.
May 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word mitt camp
A fortune-telling concession.
May 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word pickled punk
A deformed fetus preserved in formaldehyde and displayed in a side show (not generally used in the presence of customers).
May 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word stripe
circus slang for a tiger.
May 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word painted pony
a zebra.
May 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word simp heister
a Ferris wheel.
May 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word blade glommer
a sword swallower
May 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the list furniture-verbs
@thtownse
It's explained in the comments page for gaslight
May 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word vegemite virgin
Spot is a funny name for a penguin. Just sayin'
May 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the list furniture-verbs
Depending on how relaxed one's definition of "furniture" is, one might consider stonewall and gaslight as eligible verbs.
May 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word to table a question
I agree with oroboros and thtownse - to table something is to agree to postpone dealing with it.
May 1, 2010
sionnach commented on the word overnight language learning
effortless coma learning
April 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word evil clown for hire
scary clown service
April 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the list roman-gladiators
cannibalus widowerus.
April 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the list wordniks-who-proudly-contribute-worthless-stuff--a-lot-of-dumb-comments--and-useless-words-to-the-zeitgeist-page
Five words: Bizarre confectionery dispenser diorama list
April 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word tubifex tubifex
Lurking below the surface at the Cameron Village Mall
April 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word brother sharp
Just another internet meme
April 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word passementerie
passementerie (10 S. viii. 448).— I am not sure that I know what " passementerie " is, but I think it is akin to gimp, and I imagine that "a hundred passementerie " may mean so many devices made of wire enclosed in a casing of silken threads, or of thread or cord sufficiently strong to be twisted into shape without metallic support. " Two doz. abeill pasmenterie " were perhaps twenty-four bits of trimming, more or less, in the form of bees (abeilies). They may have been for badges.
Notes and Queries, 1908, page 54.
April 14, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Huntsman
Where is this mysterious Leiscestershire of which you speak?
April 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word deggan's rule
An offshoot of Bechdel's test, focusing on race rather than sex:
(i) There are at least two named non-white characters in the main cast of a movie, who
(ii) talk to each other about
(iii) something other than race.
April 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bechdel's test
Bechdel's Test is a way of judging movies based on the following criteria:
1) there are at least two named female characters, who
2) talk to each other about
3) something other than a man.
The rule was first introduced to the world by cartoonist Allison Bechdel in 1985 in a comic from her popular strip, Dykes To Watch Out For. According to Bechdel, it should be called The Liz Wallace Test, as her friend actually came up with it. The test, or rather the difficulty in finding movies that pass it, is a testament to the shocking (not really) lack of diversity in Hollywood production, even in 2010.
April 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Tomb-Sweeping Day
Where are tags found nowadays? Or are they hiding in plain sight?
April 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the user indioman
Indioman's frustration is understandable. It's not just uncommon words that lack a definition. And it's one thing to have a dream of being the internet's most comprehensive dictionary at some undefined, possibly receding, point in the future. But right now, the front page trumpets the claim that Wordnik *is* already the most comprehensive dictionary in the universe, a statement so woefully untrue that it guarantees that the user will be disappointed.
Anyway (I've said this before), why the current choice of listing the 4 dictionary definitions, while hiding the Onelook link under "elsewhere on the web", should be considered preferable to just providing a link to Onelook is not clear.
There's something Microsoft-like about claiming superiority when there are no definitions for many words, and when the examples listed are often silly or meaningless.
Perhaps I should go look up curmudgeonly to see if it has a definition. Oh, I see, "like a curmudgeon". Well, that's helpful...
April 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the user myaffliate17
Go bpléasca gráinneoga cealgrúnacha do bhall fearga!
(May malevolent hedgehogs blow up your manly part.)
April 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the user kentseeit8
May your child not walk and your cow be flayed.
May you fall in a nettle patch, and may savage dogs eat you one inch at a time.
April 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the user jessicamallory688
O Jesus, dear God and father of the lamb.
Who sees us in fetters and in bondage so hard.
As you made us Christians, protect us now from this scum.
April 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the user paydayloan369
You're nothing more than a jumped-up, poxridden, mouth-breathing, knuckledragging, flapjawed, drooling, spam-mongering, owlchomper.
April 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word twijote
Yes, folks, a Twitter version of Don Quixote is in the works:
the Twijote project .
Direct link to the Twitter site is here.
Much as I abhor Twitter on principle, I must confess that there is something about this Twijote project that I find positively endearing. Its - ahem - quixotic nature, perhaps?
April 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word ursinanity
*Contemplating a world in which head lice are big enough to ingest bears. Shuddering.*
April 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
The autoexpanding comment boxes are appreciated. However, if you try to edit a comment, the autoexpand feature doesn't kick in, so that you can only see/edit the first four lines.
April 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word ursinanity
Wouldn't it be more like dopey bears? Not to be confused with ursinsanity.
April 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the list occupations-grouped-together-with-chicken-sexer-by-careers-org
Happy Easter to all my Wordie peeps!
H
April 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word freelance chicken sexer
According to this article in the Atlantic Monthly (March 2000), megahatcheries have done away with the role of the independent chicken sexer for hire.
April 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word abscondent
Well, obviously it means the same thing as absquatulant.
The act of absconding is abscondment; abscondent is the associated adjective that describes the state of someone in the act of absconding.
It works like "transcend". Not every potential derived form is listed for a given headword in the dictionary.
(Bilby is out delivering the chocolate of Easter, so I am taking the liberty of responding on his behalf; you could say I am respondent...)
April 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the user bilby
merci beaucoup, Bill B.
have a delightful holiday! (leaves a plate of stale green Saint Patrick's Day cookies and backs away ashamedly)
April 3, 2010
sionnach commented on the word criterature
“Criterature”, will combine an accessible reading experience with the comforting presence of stuffed animals or stuffed toys in a new way so that a child can literally discover reading while holding a comforting stuffed animal in the shape of an animal, creature, character, element etc. featured in a book pouched within the stuffed animal or stuffed toy. The book will also be in the shape of an animal, creature, character, element etc., featured in the book. The book will be pouched via a reseal able opening and pouch that will be as undetectable as possible beneath a deep, plush coat or cover. Children of all ages and adults can be engaged and inspired together by “Criterature” that will combine a hidden treasure of a pouched book with the warmth of a huggable stuffed animal or stuffed toy that will serve as a safe and convenient way to transport and store literature that can lead to further reading and learning experiences including those via “Criterature Critters,” “Criterature” books, “Criterature” video adventures, dvds, broadcasts, web links etc.
March 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word interactive toy unicorn
as seen here
March 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word clbuttic mistake
A kind of variant of the Cupertino effect, attributable to spam filters rather than spellcheckers.
March 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Scunthorpe effect
In 1996, residents in the British town of Scunthorpe were initially banned from registering with internet service provider AOL because the town's name contained an obscenity.
This became known as the Scunthorpe problem.
Elsewhere in England, residents of the South Yorkshire town of Penistone and Lightwater in Surrey had the same trouble.
March 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Homosexual eases into 100m final at Olympic trials
Could we please have comment boxes that expand? I have been trying in vain to edit my previous comment to capitalize Scunthorpe effect, but am unable to do so, because only the first 4 lines are visible in the comment box.
March 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Homosexual eases into 100m final at Olympic trials
This is an example of a particular subclass of Crash blossoms - those that arise as a result of what we might refer to as the clbuttic mistake, when a spam filter replaces a word (or letter combination) deemed to be "rude" or "obscene" with a "less obscene" variant. For instance, "ass" is replaced by "butt", "tit" by "breast", and so on.
The athlete whose name gave rise to the confusion? U.S. sprinter Tyson Gay.
See also scunthorpe problem.
March 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word zoopedophile
Still, just as you probably do, I have a slew of unanswered questions that have yet to be addressed by researchers. What makes some domestic species—such as horses and dogs—more common erotic targets for zoophiles than others, such as, say, cats, llamas, or pigs? (Okay, okay, cats would be a problem.) Do zoophiles find particular members of their preferred species more “attractive” than other individuals from those species, and, if so, are they seduced by standard beauty cues, such as facial symmetry in horses? What is the percentage of homosexual zoophiles (those who prefer animal partners of the same sex) over heterosexual zoophiles? How do zoophiles differentiate between a “consenting” animal partner and one who isn’t “in the mood”?—aside from the hoof marks on their foreheads, that is. Why are men more likely to be zoophiles than women? Are zoophiles attracted only to sexually mature animals—and if not, does this make them “zoopedophiles”? What about cross-cultural differences? Is the tendency to become a zoophile heritable?
Jesse Bering, ScientificAmerican.com
March 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word trivet
A heatpad is something you apply to some part of your body to alleviate pain. The potholder-trivet distinction is an important one because, while the expression right as a trivet is a good and sensible simile, right as a potholder is just plain silly. As silly as a one-legged chafing dish in a thunderstorm.
March 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word chocolate bilbicycle
Dear ruzuzu:
A bicycle is a major responsibility, and not without risk. Have you read "The Third Policeman"?
March 30, 2010
sionnach commented on the word dale peck on david foster wallace
Dale Peck is, of course, a bitter untalented assmarmot. The kind of resentful minor talent that stoops to calling his collection of book reviews "Hatchet Jobs" in a desperate bid for attention.
March 29, 2010
sionnach commented on the word dale peck on david foster wallace
regarding "Infinite Jest": it is, in a word, terrible. Other words I might use include bloated, boring, gratuitous, and -- perhaps especially -- uncontrolled.
March 29, 2010
sionnach commented on the word dale peck on rick moody
Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation.
March 29, 2010
sionnach commented on the word impostor
Apparently the root verb is "impose". Who knew?
March 29, 2010
sionnach commented on the user cardal_meds
I hear the brain shivers that come with it are to die for.
March 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word cataglottism
Boris is entirely well-behaved these days
peace on earth .
We think it's the yoga that has transmogrified the moggie.
March 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word cataglottism
And here I thought this was the word for the state you're in when the cat's got your tongue.
March 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word fritiniency
I've seen this only as fritinancy.
March 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the list capitonyms--capitonyms
Breaking news:
march planned for next august
Sometimes capitonyms can lead to crash blossoms!
March 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word loud sex woman coughs to ASBO breach
as seen here
March 25, 2010
sionnach commented on the list hottest-guys-names
"especially when the context of my entire page/account here would/could have been taken into consideration".
I have no idea what this could mean. Do you have some kind of special user status that precludes comments? This isn't really that kind of site. Maybe you could buy one of those notebooks with a lock on it and furtively enter your super-secret hot guy names in it. After checking that nobody has followed you to the super-secret hideaway for the notebook, of course.
Or you could just lighten up.
March 24, 2010
sionnach commented on the word homosexuality
Wonders what kind of bars reesetee hangs out at....
March 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the list superlative-words
See also faux comparatives
March 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bosie
That's what got Oscar into trouble, a little too much of that Doric cuddling with Bosie, if you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge ....
March 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word um...: slips, stumbles, and verbal blunders, and what they mean (michael erard)
An astonishingly dull book, remarkably devoid of intellectual content.
Here's what you can learn from this book.
Chapter 1: Most 'spoonerisms' are probably apocryphal.
Chapter 2: There is less to Freudian slips than meets the eye.
Chapters 3-5: Mistakes and hesitation are an intrinsic part of verbal communication. Everybody makes mistakes, and while the particular pattern of doing so is specific to an individual, ascribing some deeper significance to verbal 'disfluisms' is generally misguided. In other words, the answer to the question implicit in the last part of the book's title is "precious little".
The origin of verbal mistakes lies in the fact that speaking is essentially complicated. People who are tired, or distracted, are prone to more frequent errors; similarly, variation in frequency of errors with age follows a predictable, unsurprising pattern.
Chapter 6: The Toastmasters hold speakers to a higher, error-free, standard than is actually consistent with normal human speech.
Chapters 7 and 9: People are often amused by other folks' hilarious bloopers, particularly when committed by celebrities and captured on camera.
Chapter 8: (probably the only chapter with the germ of an interesting idea) the frequency of occurrence of particular mistakes does shed some useful light on how the brain acquires language.
Chapter 10: President Bush makes a boatload of verbal blunders.
Amazingly, the author manages to stretch this thin gruel over a total of 270 pages.
If most of the revelations above strike you as either blindingly obvious or completely banal, then you will understand why I give this book only a single star.
March 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word 201 russian verbs: fully conjugated in all the tenses, alphabetically arranged (patricia anne davis)
Got something to say? Chances are you'll be needing a verb. In your native language, you won't really have to think about it - the correct tense and form should bubble up to the tip of your tongue, unprompted. If you're trying to navigate a foreign language, then you'll have to build a little reference table in your head, and do a quick table look-up to retrieve the correct form. The sneaky part: in many languages the most commonly used verbs are irregular, requiring extra memorization of the specific associated forms. The perverse truth is that, generally speaking, the more common the verb, the greater the degree of irregularity.
Which is part of what gives books like this one their appeal. Wander over to the foreign language section in any bookstore, and you're almost guaranteed to find books which promise:
101 verbs
201 verbs
501 verbs
"fully conjugated in all the tenses".
Psychologically, buying one of these books is a little bit like buying an insurance policy - it feels like a hedge against future problems, and depending on how ambitious you're feeling, you can invest in a greater or lesser degree of protection (I've even seen numbers as high as 1001, presumably designed for the true super-achiever).
Of course, continued investment in this kind of book (and I have them for every foreign language that I've ver studied) also represents the triumph of hope over experience. As the cashier rings it up, you have a clear vision of yourself, spending large amounts of well-organized time with your new purchase. Just like in high school, when we cycled through the 250 or so irregular German verbs, on a 5-a-day schedule, which started afresh when we reached "zwingen".
Problem is, without some external pressure to enforce the necessary discipline, it's pretty much a given that your resolve will start to slip, usually somewhere around week 3. I have to think that this is the explanation for the odd phenomenon that my command of irregular verb forms in several languages decreases as one goes down through the alphabet. Furthermore, I'd be willing to bet that this is a fairly general phenomenon.
Strictly speaking, one should not hold the authors of books like this one responsible for readers' failure to engage with their product in a fully efficient manner. So let me hedge my rating as follows:
if you are that rare person with the discipline to use the book regularly: 4 stars
if you are like the rest of us: 3 stars.
If you are foolish enough to be learning Russian, you will (of course) want to augment this book with a more specialized book dealing with those pesky verbs of motion. But that's a whole 'nother story.
March 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word haworthia
At times, when they were undergoing a particularly grim spell, the densely imbricate warty leaves were the only sustenance the Bronte siblings saw for months on end. No wonder Heathcliff was so prickly.
March 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Dios mio! Que esta pasando con Skippy? Lo habran secuestrado u algo asi, porque no se puede comunicar con el, a pesar de que nos ha dejado algunas huellas, se supone como pruebas de vida. Pobrecito! Espero que los criminales no le corten una oreja.
March 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word morays
I'm guessing these are the kind of morays that entertain a lot - social morays, if you will.
March 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word doozy
"doozy rat in a sanitary zoo'd" be a palindrome if it made any sense.
March 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Big ass in Bombay is covered with cat vomit!
It's at the 4-minute mark. I wouldn't watch the entire video, if I were you.
March 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the list not-the-sum-of-their-parts
Hmm. "Three's compoundy" gets to be picked as list of the day......
March 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the list winds-of-the-world
Gee, I wonder why this list didn't qualify to be a list of the day. Maybe it was too long. Not selective enough? Needed a catchier title?
March 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word infantry
Whiskey for kids.
March 16, 2010
sionnach commented on the word kangaroolity
The quality of being a kangaroo.
"There is nothing so important as the legs in determining the kangaroolity of a woman".
Flann O'Brien: At Swim-Two-Birds
(pages 105 - 106 in my edition; used several times in the first exchange between the Pooka MacPhellimey and the Good Fairy, as they discuss the possibility that the Pooka's wife might be a marsupial)
March 15, 2010
sionnach commented on the user affiliate_dropship
My mission is to empower aspiring entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams
My dream is to develop a "killer app" which will quietly but efficiently deliver a deadly neurotoxin to the monitor of anyone retarded enough to type the kind of cliched drivel that you are peddling in any public internet forum, thereby eliminating your like from the gene pool and from the planet, where you are obviously taking up space and resources that could be used for the greater good. Now please just go away, take your high quality brand name rubbish and shove it up your bloody arse, idiot!
March 15, 2010
sionnach commented on the word hedgemony
Efforts by one investor to lay claim to all the hedge fund's profits.
March 15, 2010
sionnach commented on the word jellyfish
Coming soon to a field near you.
March 14, 2010
sionnach commented on the word amomaxia
I would like a polysyllabic word with obfuscated Greek etymology for "nuttier than a fruitcake", please.
hyperpitacarponucleic, or possibly hypercarpopitamanic, or, taking the less appetizing Roman road, superfructoplacentophilic
March 14, 2010
sionnach commented on the list still-more-bird-wirds
I like gull-cries and the twittering together of fine cranes. I like the surf-roar at Tralee, the songs of the three sons of Meadhra and the whistle of Mac Lughaidh. These also please me, man-shouts at a parting, cuckoo-call in May. I incline to like pig-grunting in Magh Eithne, the bellowing of the stag of Ceara, the whinging of fauns in Derrynish. The low warble of water-owls in Loch Barra also, sweeter than life that. I am fond of wing-beating in dark belfries, cow-cries in pregnancy, trout-spurt in a lake-top. Also the whining of small otters in nettle-beds at evening, the croaking of small-jays behind a wall, these are heart-pleasing. I am friend to the pilibeen, the red-necked chough, the parsnip land-rail, the pilibeen mona, the bottle-tailed tit, the common marsh-coot, the speckle-toed guillemot, the pilibeen sleibhe, the Mohar gannet, the peregrine plough-gull, the long-eared bush-owl, the Wicklow small-fowl, the bevil-beaked chough, the hooded tit, the pilibeen uisce, the common corby, the fish-tailed mud-piper, the cruiskeen lawn, the carrion sea-cock, the green-lidded parakeet, the brown bog-martin, the maritime wren, the dove-tailed wheatcrake, the beaded daw, the Galway hill-bantam and the pilibeen cathrach. A satisfying ululation is the contending of a river with the sea. Good to hear is the chirping of little red-breasted men in bare winter and distant hounds giving tongue in the secrecy of god. The lamenting of a wounded otter in a black hole, sweeter than harpstrings that.
Flann O'Brien: At Swim-Two-Birds
March 14, 2010
sionnach commented on the word lyribliring
singing like a birdie
March 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the list trees
What lyrical lyribliring!
March 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word exerhead
Someone who is addicted to exercise.
March 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Neroli
Circled in DFW's dictionary.
March 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Witenagemot
Circled in DFW's dictionary.
March 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word exergue
Circled in David Foster Wallace's dictionary:
DFW
March 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the list poisons
"All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous".
Paracelsus.
March 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the list poisons
This list worries me, frankly. I imagine all visitors to weirdnik unlucky enough to stumble across it, sitting petrified at their terminals as they succumb to the effects of undetectable (essentially zero) amounts of the various toxins not included on the list. Any practitioner of homeopathy will tell you that these dangerously low levels of exposure must correspond to a massive overdose.
Readers of this page are urged to cover the mouth with a handkerchief, to avoid breathing in, and to back away from the monitor. Slowly, slowly, slowly.
March 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word all you can eat prairie dog buffet
Preferred dining spot of the black-footed ferret, according to The History Channel.
March 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the list poisons
Perhaps 'randon' and 'chronium' should be replaced by radon and chromium, respectively (and respectfully, of course)?
Detailed instructions on the preparation of ricin can be found in one of David Foster Wallace's short stories (in the collection of Oblivion.
March 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the user dontcry
dontcry - I'm so sorry about your brother.
I'll be thinking of you.
Glad you enjoyed the banana page.
A big hug from California.
March 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word ekisha
I almost never use this feature, because it almost always returns utter garbage in my experience. Sure enough, one try just now led me to the non-existent 'ekisha', with its monumentally stupid associated Vexample text. Complete rubbish.
March 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word asbo
Now that I have become aware of the ASBO Fairy Tales book, I just have to have it!
I have so many questions about ASBOs. How much fly-tipping before the balance is tipped from an ASBO to a CRASBO? What is the threshold decibel level for the lady who got the 'loud sex' ASBO? Does one suicide attempt automatically qualify, or do you have to be a serial self-killer?
Whistling, for God's sake? Whistling can get you an ASBO? What has been happening in Britain under Blair and Brown?
We don't need no stinking ASBOs!
March 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the user theforbiddenone
You might enjoy this list: manustupration .
Then again, you might not.
March 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Ginnungagap
This is an attractive word.
March 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
My list of lists seems to be intact. Sometimes I get the strong sensation that particular words that I entered have gone missing, but this is probably nothing more than the onset of senility.
March 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the user macmeds
Come for the cheap relief of the morning after pill; stay for the Severe allergic reactions (rash; hives; itching; difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue); chest pain; depression; lumps in the breast or under the armpits; partial or complete loss of vision or changes in vision; shortness of breath; slurred speech; sudden loss of coordination; sudden or severe headache; swelling of fingers or ankles; tenderness, pain, or swelling of the calf; weakness, numbness, or pain in the arms or legs; yellowing of the skin or eyes.
Or choose among Acne; changes in menstrual flow, including breakthrough bleeding, spotting, or missed periods; dizziness; drowsiness; fever; headache; hot flashes; nausea; nervousness; pain; rash; sleeplessness; stomach pain; weakness; weight gain or loss.
Maybe you'll be one of the lucky 1% to develop galactorrhea, melasma, chloasma, convulsions, changes in appetite, gastrointestinal disturbances, jaundice, genitourinary infections, vaginal cysts, dyspareunia, paresthesia, chest pain, pulmonary embolus, allergic reactions, anemia, drowsiness, syncope, dyspnea and asthma, tachycardia, fever, excessive sweating and body odor, dry skin, chills, increased libido, excessive thirst, hoarseness, pain at injection site, blood dyscrasia, rectal bleeding, changes in breast size, breast lumps or nipple bleeding, axillary swelling, breast cancer, prevention of lactation, sensation of pregnancy, lack of return to fertility, paralysis, facial palsy, scleroderma, osteoporosis, uterine hyperplasia, cervical cancer, varicose veins, dysmenorrhea, hirsutism, unexpected pregnancy, thrombophlebitis, deep vein thrombosis.
Macmeds, may you develop all of the above and may the bowlegged teratogenic mutants that you spawn form a cult whose central tenet is the ritual disembowelling and cannibalism of the parent.
March 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word sionnach: Vanish, you cretinous clarty-paps, you flambuginous fireship, you scaurous, shardborn snivelard. We have no need of your kind of hellbound hogminny...
I think you got it all, bilbykins. I got lazy after a bit and just stopped ...
March 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word mano de desierto
P_u: You should be able to fine-tune the size by adding width="ww" height="hh" options as part of whatever HTML statement you used to include it (if that's how you included it).
I've replaced the HTML brackets <> with braces .
An example of the appropriate syntax is:
img src="http://www.imageaddress.jpg" width="40" height="100" alt="description"/
Width must be 0-400, Height must be 0-1000, alt is a description of the image. All three are optional, but recommended.
March 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the list things-that-were-hidden-by-the-snow
Oh, no ... over there by the woodpile ... it's the frozen, perfectly preserved body of a raggle-taggle gypsy!
Let's not forget Australopithecus spiff-arino
March 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word reel
Although my main purpose in visiting the site is to warn the lexicographical community about the dangers of putting bananas in the refrigerator, I quite enjoy seeing a little poetry flash by on the Zeitgeist page. My own talents tend more toward doggerel, but each of us has to work with what we are given.
Welcome to Wordnik, agatehinge!
March 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the user christiesamueson4
Vanish, you cretinous clarty-paps, you flambuginous fireship, you scaurous, shardborn snivelard. We have no need of your kind of hellbound hogminny here.
March 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word hatched, matched, and dispatched
"Aye, hatched, matched, and dispatched within a church, like most of us," Trish said as if she were saying something wise.
When Will There be Good News?
Kate Atkinson, 2008
March 8, 2010
sionnach commented on the list a-taste-for-small-things
I am resisting the temptation to add culkin to this list, because I just saw Macaulay on the Oscars and he's all grown up now.
March 8, 2010
sionnach commented on the word with one's breath in one's fist
Welsh idiom:
Rhuthrodd ef i'r ty^ ‚'i wynt yn ei ddwrn.
(He rushed into the house with his breath in his fist / = in a great hurry.)
March 8, 2010
sionnach commented on the word to put the fiddle in the roof
A Welsh idiom:
Rwy'n barod i roi'r ffidil yn y tô.
(I'm ready to put the fiddle in the roof / = to give up.)
March 8, 2010
sionnach commented on the word to be in the fords of the river
A Welsh idiom:
Mae fy nhad-cu yn rhydiau'r afon.
(My grandfather's in the fords of the river / = on his death bed.)
March 8, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Käyhän että tuon kannettavani saunaan
Is it OK to bring my laptop in the sauna?
March 8, 2010
sionnach commented on the word No, kuunteletkos paljon metallimusaa
So, do you listen to a lot of black metal?
March 8, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bacon rocket
The latest in interplanetary travel technology:
Actual working bacon rocket
(May need some tweaking)
March 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word never put your banana in the refrigerator
Another thing you probably shouldn't do with your bananas
(though they might glow in the dark)
March 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word national crown roast of pork day
I'm trying to imagine the parade and floats for this; specifically the moment where they put the crown on the lucky young lady whose porcine charms have resulted in her being crowned Miss CRoP, Sow's Lick, North Carolina. Thereby perpetuating a cherished family tradition. See her wave her gaily manicured trotters as the throng explodes in spontaneous grunts of collective piggy adulation!
March 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word festival of enormous changes at the last minute
Hmmm. Were you planning to serve kitty-kebabs?
Cosi si cucinano i gatti
Boris! Natasha! Avert your gaze!
March 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word taxicab numbers
The nth taxicab number Ta(n) is the smallest number representable in n ways as a sum of positive cubes.
The name is derived from the second taxicab number, Ta(2) = 1729, which can be represented as both the sum of 10 cubed and 9 cubed and the sum of 12 cubed and 1 cubed. Ta(2), also known as the Hardy-Ramanujan number, achieved immortality following an incident where Hardy visited Ramanujan in hospital. According to Hardy:
I remember once going to see him when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi-cab No. 1729, and remarked that the number seemed to be rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavourable omen. "No", he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."
March 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the user ruzuzu
ruzuzu said: But ridiculously sloppy can be fun!
Sionnach would never question the truth -- nay, the wisdom -- of this assertion.
March 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the user ruzuzu
ruzuzu said: But ridiculously sloppy can be fun!
Sionnach would never question the truth -- nay, the wisdom -- of this assertion.
March 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word armadildo
What do you get if you cross an anteater with a vibrator?
March 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Walkie-Talkie
What do you get if you cross a caterpillar with a parrot?
March 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word humdinger
What do you get if you cross a doorbell with a hummingbird?
March 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word eruv
The whole 'eruv' thing leaves me completely bafflegasted. Why make truly restrictive prohibitions a part of one's belief system, pretend that honoring them is important, then actively seek all possible manner of ways to avoid honoring them by concocting a web of elaborate loopholes that fools nobody? It makes no sense to me, on any level.
March 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Chile
Smirk. Back atcha, ptero!
(I am reminded that I am one of the few site members who has earned the right to deploy the silent 'p' without paying a toll to ptero - I hope the rest of you are keeping up with your dues...)
March 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Chile
My beef is not with you, 'zuzu, ma cherie. You are free to make whatever lists you choose. It is the official weirdnik endorsement* of what I consider to be a poor definition that frosts my eyeballs.
But I daresay that I have given this particular peeve as much public petting as could be considered tolerable in polite society. Henceforth I shall just mutter inaudibly under my breath and wave my shillelagh at the monitor when possessed by pique.
*: "Endorsement" not by specifying a definition, but by its elevation to WOTD or LOTD status, I forget which.
March 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word colbert report
The PBS Electron
Bethel porn sect
Herpes bent colt
Select Beth porn
Screen Beth plot
Present to belch
Breech pelt snot
Splotch teen reb
Presto belch ten
Chortle be spent
Nether blest cop
The serpent bloc
Help bent escort
Shelter bent cop
Stretch peel nob
Respect then lob
Cop lent sherbet
Splotch teen reb
Stop, bent lecher!
Nether bloc pest!
Censor Beth pelt!
Repent, tech slob!
Ten pecs brothel
Help bent sector
Oh blest percent
Chortle, be spent.
March 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Chile
If you consider its pronunciation in the phrase "Honey chile", then it's a capitonym (according to the rigorous definition*, not the ridiculously sloppy version of "capitonym" promulgated here on Weirdnik)
*: a word whose pronunciation changes depending on its capitalization status. See this list
March 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word yubari melon kitkat
This might very possibly glow in the dark as well. Which might make it fodder for a Sailormoon attack. Or not.
March 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word yubari melon kitkat
19 local flavors!
March 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word squid porn
probably not suitable for work
March 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Papal Gentleman
"Put on some music, swallow a Viagra, and adelante!"
Gay prostitution scandal hits Vatican
March 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word the hand of saint columcille
the secret of kells
March 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word gafann
Hyoscyamus niger, a poisonous hallucinogen, called henbane in English because of the danger it poses to free-range poultry.
March 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word mearacan si
The foxglove, or fairy's thimble
March 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word lus mór
Digitalis purpurea, the tall purple foxglove; aka mearacan si, or the fairy's thimble.
March 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word luibh Eoin Bhaiste
John the Baptist's herb, Hypericum perforatum, or Saint John's Wort. It features in Irish oral tradition as a remedy against interference by the fairies -- specifically when experienced as depression.
Geoffrey Grigson's, The Englishman's Flora , 1975.
March 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bourbaki
Oulipo would be another.
March 3, 2010
sionnach commented on the word moheck
Steve's deft way with a blade made him the moheck of choice at the Hillel centre.
March 2, 2010
sionnach commented on the word sagan
Well, I'm not about to make room for putative units "defined" only in terms of inequalities on my list. Maybe reesetee, or his robot-captor Reese Tee, can give it a home.
February 28, 2010
sionnach commented on the word jean dimmock
Dead squirrels?
February 28, 2010
sionnach commented on the word phpects
I'd kind of enjoy hearing bilby's pronunciation of blphphemy. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the user minimovers
phshole!
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the word phpects
What the hell are these mysterious phpects? And why are they suddenly sprouting everywhere on the interwebs? They're ubiquitous, as likely to crop up on a website about tourism in Melbourne as on the homepage for business consultants ABP International. Oops! Another sighting, this time at the Mater Hospital in South Brisbane. Is there any significance to their being sighted in the Urology department. What is going on here?
Let's take a closer look:
The following discussion reveals some useful phpects of shopping in Melbourne.
At the Mater Hospital, South Brisbane, he has a clinical practice in adult urology, focusing on these phpects of urological cancer.
The examples offer a hint. It would seem that the word that makes most sense in context is aspects. So what is causing this particular manifestation of the Cupertino effect?
This week's New Scientist clears up the mystery:
kiss my php .
Wordknickers are encouraged to seek out their own instances of 'phparagus', and to speculate about its potential effect on the odor of urine.
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the word dzud
Dzud, where's my fodder? (Mudder is in the yurt, which is getting muddier and muddier)
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Grand Unified Fruitloop Theory
See scalar wave lasers.
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the word scalar wave lasers
Apparently these odd critters also come in "advanced quantum" flavors as well.
state of the art quantum scalar wave technology
Not that the pretty violet gadget-thingy isn't delightful in its own way, but the suggested price tag of $3,300 would indicate that it is an accessory only for the super-gullible. Sure, it's got 16 "red laser diodes" and soothing violet LEDs. But a cursory search seems to indicate the availability of red laser diodes elsewhere on ze intranets at considerably less than ten bucks a pop.
If the term "scalar wave" confuses you, an individual called Tom Bearden has written on the topic. However, be warned of Tom's apparent belief that Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism have been censored to hide the possibility of infinite free energy.
As the New Scientist points out, this "confluence of vibrational healing and free energy raises the alarming possibility of a Grand Unified Fruitloop Theory (GUFT)".
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the word fermi's paradox
Where are they?
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the word accordians
Please tell me this is a misspelling. If I have to rearrange my mental furniture to accommodate this, it could be traumatic.
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the list things-people-might-attempt-to-juggle
But why did I call him "quicksilver"?
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the word riffs
Seth Godin also "edited" this crime against humanity.
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Grrrrrr!!!!
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the list plurale-tantum
To think that once I could take pride in sharing the stewardship of this list with reesetee. But now, there's new management, and my status has apparently reverted to that of chopped liver.
Not that I blame reesetee, who has apparently succumbed to a more sinister fate, to be replaced by some kind of bot-creature known as Reese Tee.
This is the brave new world that technological advancement brings.
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the word barometz
duneroller
Cancel my Scythian vacation. It's just too risky.
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the word pasilalinic-sympathetic compass
The pasilalinic-sympathetic compass, also referred to as the snail telegraph, was a contraption built to prove the belief that snails create a permanent telepathic link when they touch. The belief was developed by French occultist Jacques Toussaint Benoit and colleague Monsieur Biat-Chretien in the early to mid 19th century. The telepathic bond was theorised to have no physical limit, with communication being possible over any distance. By touching one half of the snail partnership the other will sense the contact and will itself move.
The apparatus consists of a square wooden box containing a large horizontal disc. In the disc are 24 holes, each containing a zinc dish lined with a cloth soaked in a copper sulphate solution; the cloth was held in place by a line of copper. At the bottom of each of the 24 basins is a snail, glued in place, and each associated with a different letter of the alphabet. An identical second device holds the paired snails.
To transmit a letter the operator touches one of the snails. This causes a reaction in the corresponding snail which can be read by the receiving operator.
duneroller
February 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the list the-cheese-shop
A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk.
James Joyce.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word camembert
I think I'm liquefying like an old Camembert.
Gustave Flaubert
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Mozzarella
Mozzarella has to be perfect and impeccably sourced or it's like eating a blind whale's eyeball.
A.A. Gill
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word missliebig
At a guess it would be rhyming slang for "lies" (porkies = pork pies = lies)
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word tom stoppard on john ruskin
I doubt that art needed Ruskin any more than a moving train needs one of its passengers to shove it.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word gustave flaubert on george sand
A great cow of ink.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word t.b. macaulay on william wordsworth
zephyrs are for heifers
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word germaine greer on ernest hemingway
When his cock wouldn't stand up he blew his head off. He sold himself a line of bullshit, and bought it.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word noel coward on peter o'toole
If Peter O' Toole was any prettier they'd have to call it Florence of Arabia.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word cyril connolly on ernest hemingway
He is the bully on the Left Bank, always ready to twist the milksop's arm.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word john galsworthy on d.h. lawrence
Interesting, but a type I could not get on with. Obsessed with self. Dead eyes and a red beard, long narrow face. A strange bird.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word irving berlin on karl marx
The world would not be in such a snarl,
Had Marx been Groucho instead of Karl.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word t.b. macaulay on william wordsworth
on "The Prelude"
The story is the old story. There are the old raptures about mountains and cataracts. The old flimsy philosophy about the effect of scenery on the mind; the old crazy mystical metaphysics; the endless wilderness of dull, flat, prosaic twaddle.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word lyndon b johnson on john f kennedy
The enviably attractive nephew who sings an Irish ballad for the company and then winsomely disappears before the table-clearing and dishwashing begin.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word woodrow wilson on warren g harding
He has a bungalow mind.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word john ruskin on james abbott mcneill whistler
For Mr. Whistler’s own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of wilful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.
Whistler sued for libel, won the case, but was awarded only a farthing in damages.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
Top of my wishlist for some time now would be the ability to scroll back through earlier comments on my profile page, and on discussion pages for words/lists with extensive commenting. A lot of people's earlier contributions are still inaccessible.
February 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Sandvik and Baerheim 1994 Tidsskr Norsk Løgefor
"Owing to the lack of vampires, we used leeches instead"
This must be one of the saddest sentences in the annals of science.
February 24, 2010
sionnach commented on the word yarmouth capon
a red herring
February 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word yarg
A full-cream cow's milk cheese first produced in Cornwall in 1983 by a couple named Gray.
February 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word greenery-yallery
Implying the decadence and affectation of artists, as supposedly embodied in the Aesthetic Movement of the late 19th century. Coined by Gilbert & Sullivan in "Patience":
A pallid and thin young man,
A haggard and lank young man,
A greenery-yallery, Grosvenor Gallery,
Foot-in-the-grave young man!
Another usage example may be found here:
a slender, middle-aged, long-faced, nervous, greenery-yallery cavalier.
February 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word battered bilby syndrome
Can I have a blooming onion with my beer-battered, droopy-eared, paschal-chocolate-bearing marsupial?
February 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bethimbled
And, of course, bedouter.
February 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word azure
Azure pupils, eh? Now there's something you don't see every day. Marcel needed to get out more, instead of slurping down interminable infusions in that bloody cork-lined room, reminiscing about maman tucking him in every night, the snivelling little toad.
February 22, 2010
sionnach commented on the user bilby
Yeah, bilby. Respect the color divide. Don't want to be besmirching that lily-white list with impurities. Like scrambled eggs or eggnog. Oh, wait ....
Funny, I didn't think it was a full moon tonight.
February 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Feles mala! Cur cista non uteris
Bad kitty! Why don't you use the cat box? I put new litter in it.
February 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word recovering vegemite abuser
If vegemite is heroin, does that mean Bovril is methadone?
February 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
Pro and bilby: Thanks for responding. I don't have particularly strong feelings on the matter. The FAQ page does leave some leeway about what type of comment is welcome, so I can understand the potential for some confusion among new users.
February 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the user asarulislam
I don't know what the website is about, but if your first comment is a link, you are spamming.
Well, yes and no. Maybe (not). I'm not arguing for or against this particular site, but it seems to me that we need to cut new users a little slack before pouncing. Not everyone is a spammer. In the past we seem to have been more willing to grant the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's worth not abandoning that spirit.
Pro and bilby - don't mean to single you out here. It's just a thought. It's not as if the site comes with particularly clear instructions, so some confusion on the part of new users regarding what is and is not appropriate is understandable. (Sorry, John and co.) Maybe I'd better stop before I piss off anybody else...
February 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word quantum reflex analysis
Winner of 10 canards on the prestigious quackometer scale!!
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word f.r. leavis on c.p.snow
Snowpocalypse Now!
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word quantum reflex analysis
QRA is based on the Omura Bi-digital O-Ring Muscle Reflex Test, a university-proven muscle testing technique of medically accepted reflex points. This form of muscle testing is simple yet proven in dozens of research studies to be reliable and accurate.
Don't just take our word for it. Read these moving testimonials from the LOLCATS: QRA - WTF?
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word f.r. leavis on c.p.snow
A recent biography of Leavis by Ian MacKillop explains that, after he had delivered his insulting lecture, calling Snow as intellectually undistinguished as it is possible to be, the Spectator wanted to publish it. Lawyers warned that it was libellous, so Sir Peter Medawar - a friend of Snow’s - was sent as an intermediary, to obtain permission. As Snow was suffering from a detached retina he could not read it himself, but his wife read it to him and, although evidently hurt, he immediately said it should be printed in full, displaying admirable magnaminity, a virtue completely alien to Leavis.
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word f.r. leavis on c.p.snow
But he was just warming up. There was no shortage of broadsides:
Snow’s argument proceeds with so extreme a naiveté of unconsciousness and irresponsibility that to call it a movement of thought is to flatter it.
Snow rides on an advancing swell of cliché: this exhilarating motion is what he takes for inspired and authoritative thought.
It is characteristic of Snow that ‘believe’ for him should be a very simple word.
Ouch.
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word f.r. leavis on c.p.snow
It was generally agreed that literary critic F.R. Leavis went a little bit over the top in his 1962 response to C.P. Snow's 1959 Rede lecture on the "two cultures". In his identification of the widening gulf between the cultures of science and the humanities, Snow, despite his credentials as a novelist, had let his pro-science bias shine through in a way that obviously got Professor Leavis's goat. F.R. Leavis's reply was memorable, though possibly more for the sheer vituperation of his attack than for the quality of his arguments. According to Leavis, Snow
doesn’t know what he means, and doesn’t know he doesn’t know. The intellectual nullity, is what constitutes any difficulty there may be in dealing with Snow’s panoptic pseudo-cogencies, his parade of a thesis: a mind to be argued with that is not there; what we have is something other. ... As a novelist, he doesn’t exist; he doesn’t begin to exist. He can’t be said to know what a novel is.
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word goat's beard
The little flap that dangles down from the face mask of the catcher or home plate umpire, protecting the Adam's apple.
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the user skybluecredit56
Actually I just stopped by in search of a definite or indefinite article. But I can see that I've come to the wrong place.
But perhaps skybluecredit56 is really a resident of one of those mysterious other dimensions predicted by string theorists, one which has no need of such vestigial effluvia as articles. Either that, or s/he is a Russkie.
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word wool blindness
It would be a bit labor intensive for the sheepdogs if they (the sheep) did suffer from wool blindness; in addition to the sheepdogs, each sheep would need its own personalized seeing-eye dog.
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the user rebsmith00132
I have traveled the country since age 6 from behind the dasykakosteatopygian rump of the family's licentious rickshaw driver, Finn McCoolie, and - let me tell you - that mofo sure could cut the cheese. In this situation, mapquest driving directions were of no use whatsoever.
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word stiefmütterlich
Or, as we say, novercal.
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word rhyton
A young Dionysian named Rhyton
Used to like to prance round with a triton
Said Bil B. "You git!
I told you to quit!
You've gone and poked holes in my python.
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word almost Solveig
Chocolate-covered roaches are indestructible. And deliciously crunchy to boot!
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word grub street
The vicious Grub Street hyenas liked to portray his fall from grace as if it had happened overnight, but that was just further prove of their inexhaustible malice and duplicity", thought the former governor tetchily; "an objective review of events made it clear that the road from the Governor's mansion to the crack house, his via doloris of the previous nine months (with occasional detours along the Appalachian trail and the Avenida Rivadavia), was as slow, flexuous, anfractuous and tortured as the ascent to Calvary itself
February 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word almost Solveig
chained : *flings vats of brown M&Ms around*
My natural shyness (and a healthy fear of cocaine-addicted poodles) has prevented me from joining the cosmic disaster that continues to unfold on this page. However, c_b's veiled reference to the infamous Van Halen "no brown M&Ms" contract rider prompts me to share something I learned in my random reading this past week. In his most excellent little book "The Checklist Manifesto", the uber-talented Awul Gawande explains that the notorious rider was not actually a manifestation of spoiled rockstar caprice, but that it had in fact been inserted as a deliberate (and very important) quality control check. In his memoir Crazy from the Heat David Lee Roth explained that Van Halen had been the first band "to take huge productions into third-level markets", that they would pull up with nine 18-wheelers full of equipment into venues used to dealing with bands whose gear filled a couple of vans. The logistics of getting the elaborate stage sets in place, correctly, safely, and on time was enormously complex. Failure to follow the detailed safety checks set out in the contract could be potentially dangerous to the welfare of both the band and the fans. So the "no brown M&M" provision was just a clever way of making sure that the logistics team at the given venue had observed appropriate caution when setting up the stage arrangements.
I am a fount of random useless information of this kind. Go ahead. Just ask me.
But this page scares me.
February 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word rhyton
I bet y'all pick at your scabs as well.
February 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word vigesimal counting system
hh: Are you just ransacking my old lists?
dale counting sheep
Ovine affairs
February 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
The notification e-mails are multiplying again, like bunny-rabbits. Currently arriving in quadruplicate.
February 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the list chromatic-phrases
Thanks, r_t. I have so far managed to resist Facebook. But at least I now understand what has been generating all those quadruple comment notifications in my e-mail inbox.
Hoping that this comment doesn't show up in quadruplicate in other people's e-mail...
February 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word gonomony
Ooh! I actually *have* this fine book!!
February 17, 2010
sionnach commented on the word cithog
Have to register my disagreement with your spelling here, hh: this particular variant is not (and could not be) a legitimate Gaelic spelling. It violates the rule that vowels on either side of a consonant are required to be of the same type, that is they must either both be slender ('e' or 'i') or both must be broad ('o', 'a', or 'u'). I've seen both 'ciotog' and 'ciothog' in practice, but never 'cithog'.
February 17, 2010
sionnach commented on the word matrilineage
art
February 17, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Ta an leaba fuar, bhog, garbh, salach, briste
The bed is cold, soft, rough, dirty, broken
February 16, 2010
sionnach commented on the word former farmers become farmer formers
Retired Amish pass on their skills to the next generation.
February 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word lol
I almost never look at the Vexamples. The sorry assortment given for this entry reminds me why not.
February 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word verborum bombus
The term verborum bombus is used by the sixteenth-century English rhetorician Richard Sherry in his 1550 book A treatise of Schemes & Tropes. In it, Sherry says
Verborum bombus, when small & triflyng thynges are set out wyth great gasyng wordes. Example of this have you in Terrence of the boasting souldiar.
February 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bomphiologia
See verborum bombus
February 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word ventre-saint-gris
The usual oath of Henry IV of France; 'gris' being a euphemism for 'Christ'.
February 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word veronica
In bullfighting the most classic movement with the cape is called the Veronica, the cape being swung so slowly before the face of the charging bull that it resembles St Veronica's wiping of the face of Christ.
February 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word meformer
A solipsistic twitterer.
tweet-tweet
February 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word alan smithee
The pseudonym that a Hollywood studio slaps on a film's credits if the original director insists on having his name removed from the project.
An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (the onscreen title is simply Burn Hollywood Burn) was made in 1997 and released in 1998. It was regarded as one of the worst films of all time, and scooped five awards (including Worst Picture) at the 1998 Golden Raspberry Awards. The film had an estimated budget of $10,000,000 and grossed $45,7791, which, accounting for inflation, is less than Plan 9 from Outer Space (often labeled "The Worst Film Ever Made") made during its release. The film's creation set off a chain of events which would lead the Directors Guild of America to officially discontinue the Alan Smithee credit in 2000. Its plot (about a director attempting to disown a movie) eventually described the film's own production; director Arthur Hiller requested that his name be removed after witnessing the final cut of the film by the studio.
Ebert on BHB
February 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word walter plinge
A pseudonym used in London theatre when a part has not been cast, an actor is playing two parts, or an actor does not want his or her real name to appear in the programme.
The US equivalent is george spelvin.
Other generic show-business pseudonyms include:
david agnew, traditionally used on BBC TV drama programmes in the 1970s on occasions when a writer's name could not be used for contractual reasons; and alan smithee, used between 1968 and 1999 by Hollywood film directors who no longer wanted to be associated with a film they had originally directed.
February 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word pip, squeak and wilfrid
A term for any group of three things or people, such as the three First World War medals (1914-1915 Star, War Medal and Victory Medal). The names are those of three animal characters, a dog, a penguin and a baby rabbit, in a Daily Mirror comic strip that ran from 1919 to 1953. Wilfrid, the baby, could only say 'Gug' and 'Nunc' (for 'Uncle') and a fan club was formed with members known as 'Gugnuncs'.
February 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word the pips
The time signal on BBC Radio, consisting of five short pips and one longer one on the hour, the exact hour beginning at the start of the latter. Until 1990 they were officially known as the Greenwich Time Signal.
(Brewer's)
When a leap second occurs (exactly one second before midnight), it is indicated by a seventh pip. In this case the first pip occurs at 23:59:55 (as usual) and there is a sixth short pip at 23:59:60 (the leap second) followed by the long pip at 00:00:00. The leap second is also the explanation for the final pip being longer than the others. This is so that it is always clear which pip is on the hour, especially where there is an extra pip that some people might not be expecting. Before leap seconds were conceived the final pip was the same length as the others.
It is frowned upon at the BBC to talk, play music or otherwise make noise while the pips sound, and doing so is commonly known as crashing the pips.
(Wikipedia)
February 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word pip emma
Military usage in the first world war for 'pm'. The corresponding designation for 'am' was ack emma.
February 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word podsnappish
"He disapproved of music-hall and in Podsnappish vein told Marianne Richards, 'I have a dream of Bowdlerising Bowdler', that is 'editing a Shakespeare that shall be absolutely fit for girls'."
meaning: stiff-starched and extremely proper
Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass", Hugh Haughton.
February 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bilby feedback page
Some potentially useful refresher material: grocery
February 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the user western
But what I especially like is the prompt delivery of all those neat-o gadgets from Acme that help me vanquish that dratted Roadrunner.
Wile E Coyote, TX, USA
February 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word smile ambassador
as seen here
February 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word pigeonhole principle
It is true that one of the fundamental concepts in mathematics is the idea of a one-to-one correspondence between elements of two distinct sets. Satisfactory accommodation is nothing more than establishing such a correspondence between guests and available rooms, so bilby is not far off the mark, despite his regrettably cavalier attitude about the use of apostrophes.
February 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word pigeon boy
A French cartoon superhero, popular in Australia:
pigeon boy
February 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word pigeonhole principle
The pigeonhole principle states that if n pigeons are put into m pigeonholes, and if n > m, then at least one pigeonhole must contain more than one pigeon. Another way of stating this would be that m holes can hold at most m objects with one object to a hole; adding another object will force you to reuse one of the holes. The first statement of the principle is believed to have been made by Dirichlet in 1834 under the name Schubfachprinzip ("drawer principle").
February 11, 2010
sionnach commented on the word brockengespenst
Das Brockengespenst ist ein optischer Effekt, der zuerst auf dem Brocken von Johann Esaias Silberschlag im Jahre 1780 beobachtet und beschrieben wurde:
Wenn der Schatten des Beobachters auf eine Nebel- oder Wolken-Schicht fällt, wird der Schatten nicht durch eine feste Fläche abgebildet, sondern durch jeden Wassertropfen des Dunstes einzeln. Dadurch kann das Gehirn den Schatten nicht stereoskopisch sehen und überschätzt die Größe deutlich. Durch Luftbewegungen bewegt sich der Schatten, selbst wenn der Beobachter still steht. Dieses scheinbar eigene Wesen kann zudem schweben, ohne sichtbaren Kontakt zum Boden zu haben. Die anderen physikalischen Bedingungen auf dem Berg, kühle und feuchte Luft, Stille, sowie die fehlende Orientierung durch mangelnden Weitblick und fehlende Nachbarberge, verstärken den subjektiven Eindruck der scheinbaren Existenz eines "Gespenstes".
A type of ghostly light (or monster-shadow?) phenomenon first identified in the Harz-Brocken mountains; it also features in the Walpurgisnacht ceremonies in Goethe's "Faust".
February 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word alexander woollcott on marcel proust
Reading Proust is like bathing in someone else's dirty water.
February 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word malcolm muggeridge on evelyn waugh
Mr Waugh, I always feel, is an antique in search of a period, a snob in search of a class, perhaps even a mystic in search of a beatific vision.
February 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word truman capote on james michener
That's not writing, it's typing.
February 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word margot asquith on david lloyd george
He could not see a belt without hitting below it.
February 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word dylan thomas on edith sitwell
So you've been reviewing Edith Sitwell's last piece of virgin dung, have you? Isn't she a poisonous thing of a woman, lying, concealing, flipping, plagiarizing, misquoting, and being as clever a crooked literary publicist as ever?
February 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word lytton strachey on edith sitwell
"Then Edith Sitwell appeared, her nose longer than an anteater's, and read some of her absurd stuff."
February 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word virginia woolf on e.m. forster
He is limp and damp and milder than the breath of a cow.
February 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word martin luther on henry viii
... a pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a lying buffoon, a mad fool with a frothy mouth ...
February 10, 2010
sionnach commented on the word t.s. eliot on henry james
Henry James has a mind so fine that no idea could violate it.
February 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word w. somerset maugham on henry james
Poor Henry James! He's spending eternity walking round and round a stately park and the fence is just too high for him to peep over and he's just too far away to hear what the countess is saying.
February 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word clover adams on henry james
It's not that he 'bites off more than he can chew' but he chews more than he bites off.
February 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word leo tolstoy on william shakespeare
Here is a link to Tolstoy's essay on Shakespeare: leo disses will .
(There appears to be some difficulty with the links)
A rebuttal is offered by Orwell, in his essay "Lear, Tolstoy, and the Fool", summarized here in Wikipedia
February 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word jonathan miller on david frost
the bubonic plagiarist
February 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word woody allen on diane keaton
In real life, Keaton believes in God. But she also believes that the radio works because there are tiny people inside it.
February 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word leo tolstoy on william shakespeare
Crude, immoral, vulgar and senseless.
February 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word verner's law
For those cases where grimm's law just isn't enough.
February 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word stigler's law
No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. Named for statistician Stephen Stigler, it was first formulated by sociologist Robert K. Merton.
February 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word brady's law of problem solving
When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?"
February 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word gerrold's law of infernal dynamics
1. An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction.
2. An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
February 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word davian's observation
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
February 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word maverick's electronics principle
After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench.
If you try to include these parts in the instrument, it won't work.
February 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word amara's law
The short-term effect of a new technology tends to be overestimated while the long-term effect is underestimated.
February 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word james dickey on robert frost
If it were thought that anything I wrote were influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes. … a more sententious holding-forth old bore, who expected every hero-worshipping adenoidal twerp of a student-poet to hang on his every word, I never saw.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word tibor fischer on martin amis
Yellow Dog isn't bad as in not very good or slightly disappointing. It's not-knowing-where-to-look bad. I was reading my copy on the Tube and I was terrified someone would look over my shoulder (not only because of the embargo, but because someone might think I was enjoying what was on the page). It's like your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word martin luther on aristotle
a histrionic mountebank
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Thanks, John.
In other news, the peregrinations of Mr Fox
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word a john simon compendium
"I always thought Miss Minnelli's face deserving — of first prize in the beagle category. It is a face going off in three directions simultaneously: the nose always en route to becoming a trunk, blubber lips unable to resist the pull of gravity, and a chin trying its damnedest to withdraw into the neck."
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word a john simon compendium
An acting style that's really a nervous breakdown in slow motion (referring to Diane Keaton)
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word a john simon compendium
Diana Rigg is built like a brick mausoleum with insufficient flying buttresses.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word a john simon compendium
writing about Barbra Streisand: She looks like a cross between an aardvark and an albino rat surmounted by a platinum-coated horse bun.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word sir thomas beecham on stockhausen
I nearly trod in some once.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word sir thomas beecham on beethoven's seventh symphony
What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word gioacchino rossini on richard wagner
Wagner has beautiful moments but awful quarter hours.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word charles baudelaire on richard wagner
I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word oscar wilde on richard wagner
I like Wagner's music better than any other music. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word friedrich nietzsche on richard wagner
Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease?
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word mark twain on richard wagner
Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word d.h. lawrence to katherine mansfield
I loathe you. You revolt me stewing in your consumption.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word lady caroline lamb on lord byron
Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word gore vidal on andy warhol
The only genius with an IQ of 60.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the list adjectives-that-used-to-be-gods
saturnine
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
My comment immediately preceding this one was dealt with very swiftly (thanks, guys!), allowing me to enter and comment on a bunch of words on the list in question. Unfortunately, the glitch has now reappeared, so that I have been unable to comment on the most recent additions to the list.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
My comment immediately preceding this one was dealt with very swiftly (thanks, guys!), allowing me to enter and comment on a bunch of words on the list in question. Unfortunately, the glitch has now reappeared, so that I have been unable to comment on the most recent additions to the list.
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Carly Fiorina unleashes 'demon sheep'
Carly
Check out their glowing satanic eyes!
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Sudanese goat wife pops her hooves
Seen here .
February 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word timecube
Not entirely clear what this is a measure of:
website of the wisest human
possibly it is a measure of insanity.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word ernest hemingway on william faulkner
Poor Faulkner. Does he really think emotions come from big words?
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word william faulkner on ernest hemingway
He has never been known to use a word that might send a man to a dictionary.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word lord byron on anna seward
Here is Miss Seward with six tomes of the most disgusting trash, sailing over Styx with a Foolscap over her periwig as complacent as can be - Of all Bitches dead or alive a scribbling woman is the most canine.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word lord byron on john keats
A tadpole of the Lakes.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word ezra pound on william wordsworth
Mr Wordsworth, a stupid man, with a decided gift for portraying nature in vignettes, never ruined anyone’s morals, I suppose, unless perhaps he has driven some susceptible persons to crime in a fury of boredom.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word william savage landor on william wordsworth
Dank, limber verses stuft with lakeside sedges,
And propt with rotten stakes from rotten hedges.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word ralph waldo emerson on william wordsworth
A bell with a wooden tongue.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Thanks, John. I really appreciate it!
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word almost Solveig
Does this have anything to do with Grieg, or Ibsen? Or surstromming?
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word william faulkner on mark twain
A hack writer who would not have been considered a fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven 'sure-fire' literary skeletons with sufficient local colour to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word algernon swinburne on ralph waldo emerson
... a gap-toothed and hoary ape, who now in his dotage spits and chatters from a dirtier perch of his finding and fouling: coryphaeus or choragus of his Bulgarian tribe of auto-coprophagous baboons, who make the filth they feed on.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word ralph waldo emerson on algernon swinburne
A mere sodomite and a perfect leper.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word christopher smart on thomas gray
Thomas Gray walks as if he had fouled his small-clothes and looks as if he smelt it.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word samuel johnson on thomas gray
He was dull in a new way that made people think him great.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word friedrich nietzsche on dante
A hyena that wrote poetry in tombs.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the word horace walpole on dante
A Methodist parson in Bedlam.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
I can add entries to my "Everyone's a critic list', but once they are added I can neither view them singly nor add individual comments. This seems like a serious error to me; the ability to view and comment surely represents a core funcionality, and not just some esoteric frippery.
As you can imagine, it managed to change my mood from excitement about starting a new list to disappointment and frustration.
February 5, 2010
sionnach commented on the list everyones-a-critic
I am unable to comment on, or indeed view individually, the entries on this list.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word sutton's law
Go where the money is.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word roemer's law
A hospital bed built is a bed filled.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word reilly's law of retail gravitation
People generally patronize the largest mall in the area.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word meskimen's law
There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word mason's first law of synergism
The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word hubbard's law
Don't take life too seriously; you won't get out of it alive.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word gummidge's law
The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the general public.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word gumperson's law
The probability of a given event occurring is inversely proportional to its desirability.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word moynihan's law
The frequency of human rights violations in a country is an inverse function of the number of complaints about human rights violations heard from that country. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927 - 2003)
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word muphry's law
If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.
Ascribed to various people, including Erin McKean; the citation I have is to Australian editor John Bangsund, in 1992.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word hutber's law
Improvement means deterioration.
(Coined by financial journalist Patrick Hutber)
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word hubble's law
Galaxies recede from an observer at a rate proportional to their distance from that observer.
(Formulated by Edwin Hubble in 1929)
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word hebb's law
Neurons that fire together wire together.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the word herblock's law
If it's good, they'll stop making it.
February 4, 2010
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
I take major umbrage at that suggestion, c_b. But, in fact, the comments do show up in my e-mail.
Thank you all for your kind remarks. I'm not sure what precipitated yesterday's outburst, but I have resolved to stick around and try to participate more.
In fact, it must be time to start a new list. And somebody needs to take a flight down under to give bilby some remedial spelling and grammar lessons.
And yes, c_b, I am indeed old. Practically ancient, in fact. Though I have yet to master the steps required to prepare the magical, mystical dublin coddle.
Happy Groundhog Day!
February 2, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
It's been what - about 4 months now since the body blow. I imagine this is how death from internal bleeding must play out.
This morning, as on previous occasions, I am unable to scroll beyond the first 100 comments in the Zeitgeist history. It is still impossible to generate an accurate alphabetized view of any list containing more than 100 elements. This despite repeated requests for a remedy, spanning a couple of months now. It is baffling to me that this could be difficult.
I love my former Wordie colleagues, but see absolutely no reason to keep coming back to this exercise in futility.
Peace out.
February 1, 2010
sionnach commented on the word cadge
From Christopher Isherwood:
The only fault I find with badgers
Is that they’re such appalling cadgers.
If you ask one out to dine
He'll want a dozen of your wine
To take home. If he likes your prints
He'll bother you with clumsy hints:
"I say, who's that picture by?...
It's my birthday next July..."
Once, one asked me for my car -
This was going rather far -
So I said, "Wouldn't you rather
Take this ring? It belonged to my father;
It's set with diamonds." Calm and bland,
He thanked me and held out his hand.
I had an apoplectic fit:
The Badger walked away with it.
January 31, 2010
sionnach commented on the word amygdalotomy
Amy was always the most violent one in the Gdalotomy family.
January 27, 2010
sionnach commented on the word pup in the air
Story of the infamous "balloon dog" hoax perpetrated by a family of attention-craving media whores in pursuit of their own reality TV show.
January 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word beat the reader
Josh Bazell's debut novel is recommended only for the truly masochistic.
January 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word U2 in the air
Read about Bono's plan to achieve world peace by haranguing aggressor nations from on high as he conducts a round the world balloon trip. Should it end in (a) spontaneous combustion of a narcissist (b) the group's assumption into heaven, speaking in tongues and surrounded by tongues of fire, or (c) a fiery Hindenburg-like conflagration? Vote early and often at the book's website www.burnbonoburn.com
January 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word what the dag saw
In Malcolm Gladwell's latest offering, he tells us more about the gastrointestinal system of sheep than we ever wanted to know.
January 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word everything ravaged, everything burped
In the title story of last year's breakout short story collection, a gang of marauding babies ravages the mall.
January 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word planispheric
My but these Outlanders turn a quaint phrase, in the name of Bridget.
January 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Arsesmart
I bet this would be great to feague horsies with!
January 26, 2010
sionnach commented on the word beat fat
If a Press-man Takes too much Inck with his Balls, he Beats Fat (typog.)
January 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word fly the frisket
"to turn down the frisket and tympan by the same motion"
(As is well-known, friskets and tympans are specific doohickeys on a printing press)
January 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word the dog's bollocks
According to the OED: (typogr.) a colon followed by a dash, regarded as forming a shape resembling the male sexual organs
See, e.g. OED typography
January 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Infant sealed in concrete by a Brooklyn couple charged with enslaving hooker mom was beaten to death
This may be more of a garden path sentence than a crash blossom.
Courtesy of New York Daily News
January 23, 2010
sionnach commented on the word zwo
Is this really a regional variation? I thought that it was common practice in all parts of Germany to use 'zwo' rather than 'zwei' when quoting phone numbers, to avoid any potential confusion with the digit 'drei'.
January 21, 2010
sionnach commented on the word goat
Special sale on oats for goats. Only five groats!
January 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word goat
You know what I find? People who engage in frequent umbrage-taking really get my goat. The explanation for this is a little murky, but I think it has something to do with the beast's incorrigible tendency to wander into the umbrage patch and start nibbling. Next thing you know, it's been hustled into the thieving rascals' umbrage sack.
Damned umbrage takers! They really get my goat.
January 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word retinitis pigmentosum
"I canna make out objects at all. Still, the light of the sun causes me pain, so I must shield my eyes when venturing out...."
Hoots mon, och aye! There needs should be a moratorium on the use of cliches like "canna" by lazy authors trying to establish their Highland cred.
January 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word chocolate
And now Cadbury's has been taken over by those soulless Kraft people. Goshdarnit!
January 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word florestan and eusebius
The names given by composer Robert Schumann to personifications of differing aspects of his personality - Florestan is impetuous, flamboyant and outgoing, while Eusebius is more reserved and contemplative.
January 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word raisin ranch
slang term for a retirement community
January 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word kingkisheen
from cingcis, Pentecost.
- Michael Traynor's The English Dialect of Donegal, 1953
January 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word sneerag
A child's toy, made of the larger bone of a pig's foot and two worsted strings, and worked so as to give a snoring sound.
- Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialectic Dictionary, 1911
January 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word flamingantism
Encouragement and promulgation of the use of Flemish
January 20, 2010
sionnach commented on the word quadrivial quandary
A daily challenge to flex and expand one's vocabulary:
QQ
January 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word pointing the brie
"Removing the tip from a wedge of brie (the most desirable part)"
Is this received wisdom handed down from on high by the Select Council on brie-manging? Is there no room for a kind of Jack Sprat & consort scenario wherein peace would reign supreme and pointing would be irrelevant? Frankly, I've never given all that much thought to which part of the brie I was nibbling.
Hernesheir: Rumor has it that the mathematics department in Berkeley has been collaborating with local dairymakers in the construction of - fractal cheese wedges ! So that might pose some problems for your algorithm.
I'm going out to re-measure the coastline.
January 19, 2010
sionnach commented on the word things that make us (sic) (martha brockenbrough)
Like a one-woman vigilante, Martha Brockenbrough exposes assorted crimes against the English language and offers crisp, witty advice on spelling, grammar, and usage to the offenders. Her favored tactic is the open letter, wherein she points out the mistakes in (gently) mocking fashion, then goes on to suggest remedies. All with infinitely greater wit than that bore Lynne Truss, in this reviewer's opinion.
Her point of view is stated with admirable clarity on page 3:
"It is time for those of us who love and respect our language to take it back. Clear, grammatical communication is society's foundation. It is what helps us understand and be understood. If we let that bedrock crumble from neglect, or if we actively chip away at it in a misguided fit of anti-intellectualism, then we run the risk of watching the world around us collapse."
Ms Brockenbrough covers familiar terrain, efficiently and entertainingly, in ten chapters (250 pages):
Grammar for spammers and pop stars.
Vizzinis, Evil Twins, and Vampires.
You Put a Spell on Me.
Vulgar Latin and Latin Lovers.
$%&*#$ Punctuation
No, You Can't Has Cheezburger? The Parts of Speech and How Sentences Form.
Things that Make Us Tense.
Cliches - why Shakespeare is a Pox Upon Us.
The Enemy Within - Flab, Jargon, and the People in your Office.
Rules that Never Were, are no More, and Should be Broken.
Whether taking David Hasselhoff to task for describing his life story as 'heart-rendering' or enumerating all 21 errors in Congressman Mark Foley's now-infamous erotic text message to a congressional page ("the word is not spelled 'buldge'; 'one-eyed snake' needs a hyphen; 'hand job' has only one a"), Martha Brockenbrough is never less than entertaining.
This book is both a welcome, witty salvo in the war against bad English and a hilariously helpful guide on how to avoid it.
January 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word brewer's dictionary of phrase and fable
Various editions of this book are available online in digitized form. But that shouldn't stop you from getting your own physical copy. Nothing can rival the joy of browsing through it - you're bound to learn something fascinating along the way. As Terry Pratchett says in the Foreword, it's a storehouse of "little parcels of serendipitous information of a kind that are perhaps of no immediate use, but which are, nevertheless very good for the brain."
First published in 1870, Brewer's has flourished for over a century. It has always been the reference book that "reaches the parts others cannot", the option you try if what you are looking for is not in a standard dictionary or encyclopedia. Even if you don't find what you're looking for, chances are you'll uncover something even more interesting. The fact that it has reached its 17th edition (published in 2005) suggests that it clearly meets a need, even if its exact scope can be hard to pin down precisely. Certainly, one need look no further with a question about ‘traditional’ myths and legends – from the Erymanthian boar to the Swan of Tuonela, from Aarvak and the Abbasids to zombies and Zoroastrians, they’re all covered. The latest edition updates the mythical pantheon to include such creatures as the Balrog and Nazgûl, Voldemort and Dumbledore, the Psammead and Zaphod Beeblebrox, to name only a few.
This edition incorporates many new features to tempt the reader -- a listing of idioms from Spanish, French, and German, first lines in fiction, assorted sayings attributed to Sam Goldwyn, curious place names in Great Britain and Ireland, the dogs, horses, and last words of various historical and fictional figures. So, while looking for information on freemasonry, you may find yourself diverted to learn that French people don’t dress to the nines – instead they put on their thirty-one, perhaps in preparation for a bout of window pane licking (window shopping). And if that femme fatale you met last night stands you up this evening, it may be that she has other cats to whip. Or it could be that she has received a messenger from Rome (who might be called Aunt Flo by an English speaker).
But as always, it’s the weird tidbits, stumbled across by sheer accident, that are the real delight. For instance, I could certainly have gotten through my entire life without knowing about the blue men of the Minch . But knowing that they are legendary beings who haunt the Minches (the channels separating the Outer Hebrides from the rest of Scotland), occasionally bothering sailors, enriches my life. The added information that they are either kelpies or fallen angels, and are reputed to drag mariners to the bottom of the sea if they fail to answer questions in rhyming couplets (in Gaelic, naturally), fills me with unutterable glee.
As do most of the entries in this terrific reference book.
January 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word slang : the people's poetry (michael adams)
The best parts of this intermittently fascinating book by Michael Adams are those where he gives free rein to his enthusiasm for the recondite details of slang for a hugely diverse array of "language communities". The specific slang terms that he includes, from sources such as
* inhabitants of the Buffieverse (Professor Adams is an acknowledged expert on Slayer slang)
* restaurant jargon
* stamp-collecting
* snowboarding
* soccer moms
* raver culture
* "hip" and "raunch" cultures
* different online social networks
are hugely entertaining and are by far the best part of this book.
For those who just get a kick out of language, but who have neither a background in linguistics nor any professional involvement, the main attraction of this book will probably lie in these concrete examples (and the author's obvious delight in presenting them). Professor Adams does have his academic career to consider, so the book also contains a certain amount of - how to put this delicately - less accessible prose (you know, the kind of headache-inducing bumf that members of the academy seem to feel obliged to cobble together to confuse/intimidate/bore their colleagues and rivals into submission). I've never really been clear about why academic prose is so uniformly impenetrable. Since I am disposed to like Professor Adams, who establishes himself as a genial guide with a good sense of humor in the first two chapters, I will spare everyone the cheap shot of picking out a particularly bad sentence to mock as part of this review. Professor Adams has mercifully confined most of the worst academic jargon to the final chapter (roughly the last 40 pages out of 200), and for all I know, if you are steeped in Chomsky's linguistic theories and have a particular interest in cognitive linguistics (heck, if you even know what that is), it might be smooth sailing for you. But it's a safe bet that most people will have tuned out well before they reach that final tormented (and more or less incomprehensible) "slang as linguistic spandrel" metaphor.
In a way, I felt kind of sorry for Professor Adams, that he felt the need to get all theoretical on us towards the end. At the outset, he appears to set himself a baffling, and completely unnecessary challenge, namely to come up with a definition of "slang". Not too surprisingly, he fails to do this in any convincing way, but I think perhaps he was just using the definition challenge as a device around which to structure his thoughts about slang. Other than the Chomsky-fest in the final chapter, the author's general remarks about slang (it represents a deliberate break with established conventions, often with the intent of defining a particular 'in'-group; commonly serves as a vehicle for people to show off their linguistic prowess/indulge their pleasure in language games) don't go beyond anything you hadn't already figured out for yourself.
There were two specific points where I just couldn't share the author's enthusiasm (which just seemed endearingly goofy, but weird).
Homeric infixing (the reference is to the Simpsons, not the Odyssey), exemplified by "edumacation", "saxamaphone", or the hideous Flanders variation where the infix is 'diddly', is neither as clever or as fascinating as Professor Adams appears to think. The amount of space devoted to this single linguistic tic was vast, baffling, and lethally boring.
The phrase "how's it going, protozoan?" might have seemed clever, once, when some member of the author's family coined it at the breakfast table. It is not a phrase that deserves to appear in print more than once. That it appears repeatedly throughout the book, often in conjunction with even more regrettable phrases, such as "Please don't pout, my sauerkraut" and "Don't rock the boat, you billy goat!" is unfortunate, to say the least. It was as if Teddy Ruxpin had suddenly joined the debate.
I was perfectly happy to excuse these lapses, given that the author provided several more entries to add to my list of euphemisms for the specific activity variously known as:
bash the bishop, grip the gorilla, paddle the pickle, punish the pope, rub your radish, wave your wand, jerk the gherkin, tickle the pickle, yank the plank, jerk your jewels, gallop the antelope, etc etc etc...
Other pleasures included the hundred or more slang terms for ecstasy included in the first chapter, the primer on dating and sex terms used by young soccer moms ('perma-laid', 'flirt buddies', 'coin-slot shot', 'spliff'), slayer slang, and snowboarding jargon. Not to mention learning such necessary urban survival terms as 'bagpiping', 'maple bar', 'lobbin' and 'cherryoke'. That last one is what you lose at your first karaoke performance - the others you'll have to research for yourself.
Read this book for the fun examples and Michael Adams's infectious enthusiasm for language. The final 40 pages should be attempted only if you are feeling particularly masochistic.
January 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word walking english : a journey in search of language (david crystal)
This is an undisciplined dog's breakfast of a book. David Crystal, the author of such previous books as "How Language Works", and "The Stories of English" is a highly respected commentator on language. For the life of me, I have never been able to figure out why - he has a flair for dullness that is remarkable.
The blurb on the back cover describes this book as "a jaunty Bill Bryson-esque exploration of (the English) language by a foremost expert on the subject", which I probably should have interpreted as a warning of the sloppy, disorganized, stream-of-consciousness muddle within. I don't know much about the publishers of this mess, the Overlook Press, but the available evidence suggests that their budget didn't actually run to hiring an editor.
For almost 300 pages, Professor Crystal wanders the backroads of Wales and the west of England (with an occasional excursion to Silicon Valley and to Lodz) and bores us with his random free-associations about local place names and language communities as he does so. Unfortunately, these observations never rise above the pedestrian - the chapter about San Francisco is almost lethally soporific, and the only adequate description of his occasional efforts at wit is the phrase "epic fail".
This book seemed like a throwaway effort from an author whose previous books were far better.
January 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the user ruzuzu
Here's a partial list of Sionnach's books about words and language . Not as impressive as other's dictionary lists, but what can you do?
January 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Thanks, john!
January 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the user feedback
Listing alphabetically still doesn't work for lists with more than 100 entries; for example, my list X's Y where X is somebody's name.
January 18, 2010
sionnach commented on the word feathered Manhattan project
Shell game : government hatches secret program to lay eggs
January 15, 2010
sionnach commented on the word stoush
Google gambles on the battle of Beijing
January 15, 2010
sionnach commented on the word Nattering
The term used for the herpetological version of the Nibelungen saga.
Also, the activity (speaking with a snake) that got Adam and Eve expelled from the garden of Eden; what JK Rowling refers to as speaking in Parseltongue (see also fourchelang.
January 15, 2010
sionnach commented on the word bilbybuns
The adjectival form is presumably "bilbypygian".
January 15, 2010
sionnach commented on the user 100000670125292
Well, if young Matt is any relation to Tanya Harding's skater-wacking boyfriend Jeff, he's got all the white trash genes of a discommodious jackanapes.
January 14, 2010
sionnach commented on the list metaphorical-locations
I have a list of metaphysical, metaphorical places and one that is just metaphorical places
January 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word tittup
"in my head was that other potent place, conjured up by the smell of dung and paraffin, the felt-shod tittuping sound of a donkery's hooves, kites floating in a Wedgwood blue skay, the baroque gaiety of Arabic script".
Penelope Lively, "Moon Tiger".
January 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word moon tiger
The moon tiger is a green coil that slowly burns all night, repelling mosquitoes, dropping away into lengths of grey ash, its glowing red eye a companion of the hot insect-rasping darkness.
(Penelope Lively, in the book of the same name)
January 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word van roy's law
An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
January 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word jones's law
The person who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame.
January 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word farber's fourth rule
Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.
January 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word mahaffrey's observation
There is no such thing as a large whiskey.
January 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word full-swing
So why have we lost bilby and gangerh? And when will the screaming stop?
January 13, 2010
sionnach commented on the word I miss wordie
Thanks for the link, erin. John's Onelook bookmarklet doesn't work for me either (in Firefox).
January 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the user sionnach
Bounty has competition!
January 12, 2010
sionnach commented on the word I miss wordie
I miss Wordie as well. So many things here that seem completely basic still don't work. The inability to get complete listings of comments on lists and profiles is particularly irritating - how hard can this be? And, as I have noted previously, for a site that bills itself as being primarily an online dictionary, the sparseness of definitions is astonishing. Previously available functionality (e.g. onelook and the other buttons) is either unavailable, or hidden so well that you could spend an afternoon trying to find it. Adding words, adding comments, finding comments - all harder than before. It's disappointing.
January 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word cunningham
Clever pigs make cunning hams.
January 9, 2010
sionnach commented on the word de Clérambault's syndrome
Also known as erotomania, a type of delusion in which the affected person believes that another person, usually a stranger, is in love with him or her.
This disorder plays a key role in Ian McEwan's novel "Enduring Love".
January 8, 2010
sionnach commented on the word luc bat
A traditional Vietnamese verse form. "Lục bat" is Sino-Vietnamese for "six eight", referring to the alternating lines of six and eight syllables. It will always begin with a six-syllable line and end with an eight-syllable one.
January 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word shivelavat's hen
A hen which has ceased to lay; figuratively, a woman past child-bearing.
January 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word tailor's mense
food left on one's plate after a meal is finished.
January 7, 2010
sionnach commented on the word klendusity
The tendency of a plant to resist disease due to a protective covering, such as a thick cuticle, that prevents inoculation.
January 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word herniorrhaphy
A surgical procedure for correcting hernia
January 6, 2010
sionnach commented on the word urawaza
Got a crying baby? Here’s an urawaza – a quirky, everyday tip from Japan – on how to stop a baby from crying instantly: make a slurpy sound with a mouthful of water!
As seen here
January 2, 2010
sionnach commented on the word cheese
Four holy women transformed by cheese
January 2, 2010
sionnach commented on the word dotnose
Maybe some prankster feagued the horse, thereby complicating matters.
December 22, 2009
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