Comments by valse

  • This French neologism was mentioned in an English-language article by Laila Lalami in the Nation (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091214/lalami, 4th page 3rd paragraph). It's a term some French use to describe a recent "wave of young successful Muslims", since beur is a French slang term for a person of Arab origin.

    December 6, 2009

  • I think that should be somnambulist, or am I missing the joke?

    August 15, 2009

  • Cleverly used as a verb in the alt-text (mouse over the strip) of this Daisy Owl comic strip, which is hilarious by the way.

    June 9, 2009

  • Reminds me of Carrefour the French hypermarket

    May 25, 2009

  • Thanks for saying what I'd been thinking, rolig :)

    Maybe the word does get too much traffic in contexts where it's not appropriate--say, in casual speech by people who wanna look smart using fancy-shmancy words--but I've only ever seen it used in sociology papers. I may have felt like the word sums up my general frustration with the implicit norms in mainstream cinema and TV or in political discourse or whatever, but I wouldn't use it except in some specific academic discourse.

    May 4, 2009

  • Elle est touchante, cette liste.

    April 9, 2009

  • It was a valid point, I was just being sarcastic.

    Borrowed words have a way of getting either under- or over-generalized (to make a generalization :p).

    March 30, 2009

  • funny quotes should be met with a lawl, not pedantry. Well, it's fitting, I hear that Russians have a different brand of humor than most.

    March 30, 2009

  • I promptly twittered about that youtube vid after seeing it :p

    March 28, 2009

  • This is a neat list.

    As I'm in a sleep-deprived silly stupor right now, I like to read these as completely random non-sequitur phrases.

    March 25, 2009

  • Préservatif in French. It's not a strict false friend (not exact same spelling), but I know someone who made a fool of herself once asking if there were condoms in a can of peas.

    March 23, 2009

  • Same for préservatif in French--only as funny spoken, though.

    March 23, 2009

  • How southern Frenchpeople refer to @ --according to Wikipedia :) (scroll down to '"Commercial at" in other languages')

    March 22, 2009

  • arobase in French, see le petit escargot

    March 22, 2009

  • altruism? or altruistic acts if you're going for nouns/things.

    March 22, 2009

  • Well, of course this kind of thing varies enormously by place/region (maybe best to stick to the more abstract terms), but it's no less a good list idea.

    March 22, 2009

  • I should've just made this list an open one :p ...er, except I wouldn't want all those pesky participles, as sionnach aptly pointed out.

    March 19, 2009

  • Also, interesting to note the color-related words...blacken, redden and whiten. Neither yellowen nor mauven nor purplen are in use yet.

    March 19, 2009

  • Good points...I'm not sure I want to accept all the prefixed words, but then again, the words enlighten and embolden are certainly well-established and distinctive words. Then enliven and awaken, definitely. Thanks to you both!

    March 19, 2009

  • Are there no polysyllabic words that can fit in this -en form? Mayhap I found me a linguistical rule :D

    March 19, 2009

  • see the original Ponzi

    March 14, 2009

  • A timely expression.

    March 14, 2009

  • wonderful list name :) The list itself I find a little puzzling, but I'm curious

    March 9, 2009

  • Seems like all these nonce words I'm tickled by I find through NYT: Miniature ideologue Jonathon Krohn was "the conservative movement's underage graybeard at last weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington."

    March 8, 2009

  • I added this to my favorites just so that I would have Asativum's description handy/on record. :) Well done.

    Plus, I've got an Icelandic friend who may have an opinion on the matter.

    March 5, 2009

  • Wow, it's been ages since I've been to wordie and it runs as fast as an ice cream cone in the summertime.

    Discovered this word on somebody's twitter: "Last tweet for the hour: someone needs to send a copy of The GTOs 'Permanent Damage' to @punkybird. I just dreamembered it." (emphasis added)

    It might just be an imaginative twitterer's nonce word

    February 23, 2009

  • No, I think you've resuscitated it. =)

    April 11, 2008

  • A French interjection I just discovered. Can't be sure I'm pronouncing it right, but it sure looks beautiful.

    October 12, 2007

  • Hmm, I know of Daniel Tammet and the pope. Over 50...that's downright unfathomable.

    September 2, 2007

  • There's a great nod to that in the series finale of Angel, Spike recites it at a poetry slam.

    August 16, 2007

  • I always hear talk of liquidity, the ebb and flow of money--especially lately, with the stock market taking a dive. Great descriptive word.

    August 14, 2007

  • Wonderful list. I'm not sure why, but I like the expression "gobs of money." Perhaps it's the imagery, like with "wads" or "scads," which are are also probably most often used with money--as people are wont to daydream about such intangible desirable things.

    ...not to mention when it becomes tangible and the same words apply, heh..albeit less effectively, in my mind.

    August 14, 2007

  • "A draughtsman or draftsman (the former more often in the UK, the latter more often in the US, and pronounced the same) is a person skilled in drawing, either:

    * drawing for artistic purposes, or

    * technical drawing for practical purposes such as architecture or engineering."

    -Wikipedia

    August 4, 2007

  • When someone flexes their arms, arcing downward in the shape of a circle?

    I know, corny. Thought of this earlier and couldn't resist..

    July 28, 2007

  • You forgot bibliotherapy. =]

    July 12, 2007

  • Funny, seeing the title up on the recent word lists, my thoughts went right to the French party Union for a Presidential Majority, which prompted me to take a peak.

    But I was delighted anyway, because '-ump' words are round and forceful and a little pompous. Like this nationalist bigwig (who I hope is recognizable =/)

    July 9, 2007

  • Yeah, I think even though German isn't considered an agglutinative language like Finnish or Turkish, the way it forms nouns is agglutinative. It just refers to how many morphemes you can smash into one lexical unit. Right?

    July 1, 2007

  • geekdom! Fitting, yes.

    June 28, 2007

  • Japan seems to exude this contagious, fun weirdness...

    June 26, 2007

  • Although you're apparently adding more over time, I'll suggest a couple favorites that are roughly synonymous with junta: coup d'état and putsch. Obvious ones, perhaps, but they are nonetheless goodies.

    June 26, 2007

  • For American news junkies (news junkies from America, that is) like myself, the BBC news site is great when you wanna be up to date on the latest international rows--and there are no adverts as far as I've seen.

    June 25, 2007

  • Today, I heard lifeblood and brainchild used on NPR--they might have even been used in the same sentence. Anyway, I think they both sound like loverly sci-fi nonsense.

    June 25, 2007

  • Perhaps a UD entry is in order, u ;)

    June 22, 2007

  • It could. But I just find them all so humorously quaint.

    June 22, 2007

  • Seeing bracketerred makes me think of bracketeering, and now I wonder what that might mean and if someone could be indicted for it.

    June 21, 2007

  • for granted, a right at the next street

    June 21, 2007

  • Glad to hear it.

    June 21, 2007

  • Please, feel free. =) I stole bedecked (edit: among others) from you (or rather, saw it on the front page after you added it) for my "be-" list.

    June 21, 2007

  • NYT article, June 21, 2007:

    "...the term derives from vegans, the vegetarians who forsake all animal products, as many freegans also do...Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism."

    June 21, 2007

  • it up, one's all?

    June 21, 2007

  • A little etymological treat, in my opinion: "one who shows the fig."

    June 18, 2007

  • Thanks, reesetee. All good suggestions, palooka, I'll definitely add them all. By the by, reading about vestigial structures spurred me to make the list.

    June 9, 2007

  • I just learned that flak is flieger abwehr kanone.

    June 5, 2007

  • I agree with you heartily about hemispherectomy. Glad to see you chose the verbal form lobotomize, too; it sounds aptly creepy.

    June 4, 2007

  • Speaking of golden...

    June 3, 2007

  • Definitely a new favorite. =)

    You'd be remiss to leave out lobotomy, methinks. That might just be personal preference. In a similar vein, House, M.D. taught us about hemispherectomy. dendrites, Wernicke's area and Broca's area are a couple more possibilities.

    June 3, 2007

  • Hey, John, just wanted to send a quick thanks for making the site--I've been on here for a few months now but thought it futile to post on here without a suggestion/contribution. Alas, I can't think of anything at the moment. So, thanks!

    May 28, 2007

  • Robin: "Ghoti" is "fish"?

    Batman: See here. English phonetics. GH becomes F, as in "tough" or "laugh". O becomes I as in "women". TI becomes SH as in "ration" or the word "nation".

    Robin: Holy semantics, Batman. You never cease to amaze me!

    May 24, 2007

  • Decidedly neat. ;) golly's the only specific word I can think of, but on a somewhat related note, I stumbled across this funny quote when searching for some of Robin's "Holy (insert noun that applies to the context)" phrases from the old Batman TV series:

    Robin: "Ghoti" is "fish"?

    Batman: See here. English phonetics. GH becomes F, as in "tough" or "laugh". O becomes I as in "women". TI becomes SH as in "ration" or the word "nation".

    Robin: Holy semantics, Batman. You never cease to amaze me!

    Of course, semantics per se really has nothing to do with that, but it's only Robin.

    May 24, 2007

  • Apparently sharks can do this.

    May 23, 2007

  • Ah! Should have remembered that one, for my Catholic mom and the wonderful Kevin Smith movie (which she surprisingly liked).

    Mm, jubjub bird's a definite possibility. Admittedly, that was just an excuse to use the word bandersnatch

    May 22, 2007

  • Heh...I wonder if someone's made a list for funnily innocuous words from the 50's like this one?

    May 22, 2007

  • This word makes an appearance in a lot of "yech" lists. Not surprising, really; I advise against looking at the Wikipedia article while eating.

    May 22, 2007

  • Synonym: nude, as in the expression "in the altogether"

    May 20, 2007

  • That is incredibly helpful.

    May 18, 2007

  • Nice title. Would you accept the soviet republic or ussr? dacia for present-day romania?

    May 15, 2007

  • Your name is great =]

    May 12, 2007

  • gaspiller?

    May 12, 2007

  • should be bowdlerize

    May 8, 2007

  • A search on TFD yielded an ad for Thumper (Bambi's bunny friend) Massagers...really strange fusion there of things that should not fuse in terms of mental imagery. Anyway, this is a cute little word.

    May 7, 2007

  • A cleverly deceptive euphemism for "kill."

    April 30, 2007

  • Mainly added this obscure term so as to add the following interesting quote from the psychologist of religion W. James:

    "Medical materialism finishes up Saint Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffs out Saint Teresa as an hysteric, Saint Francis of Assisi as a hereditary degenerate. George Fox's discontent with the shams of his age, and his pining for spiritual veracity, it treats as a disordered colon."

    April 22, 2007

  • birminghamster is great (just spotted it on the front page and had to comment)

    April 22, 2007

  • Thanks for the list love, reesetee and spicolli. It's often the curiosities and oldies that draw me into this business of word-collecting. If there are few opportunities to use them in everyday speech (or at least if you run the risk of people glancing at you sideways), that increases their value to some extent. Plus, older literature and the like.

    April 17, 2007

  • I'll assume technophilia isn't actually the love of that repetitive musical genre, as I couldn't help but think at first glance. glossophile and retrophile are good self-descriptors to add to my repertoire. Thanks!

    April 17, 2007

  • Thanks for the interesting article, trivet.

    April 15, 2007

  • From Time, Jan. 19, 2007:

    "Indeed, there are those who believe that the gradual purplification of the West may have dramatic national consequences. If the Democrats can pick off a few Rocky Mountain states to augment their strength in the Northeast, upper Midwest and West Coast, they may be able to build an electoral majority that does not include the ferociously conservative South."

    April 15, 2007

  • This is supposed to be je ne sais quoi, if I may be so pedantic

    April 6, 2007

  • Here's one: anathematize

    April 6, 2007

  • Nice list. One of my personal favorites: rapscallion

    March 31, 2007

  • troglodyte =] Here's a list I might find very useful.

    March 27, 2007

  • From the Wikipedia article on memento mori:

    After the invention of photography, many people had photographs taken of recently dead family members; given the technical limitations of daguerreotype photography, this was one way to get the portrait subject to sit still.

    March 24, 2007

  • Something to remember for any French forum: àma = à mon avis

    March 24, 2007

  • I've yet to see this French word in English. It means "ludicrous" or "far-fetched."

    See the even sillier abracadabrantesque

    March 16, 2007

  • deoxyribonucleic acid

    March 10, 2007

  • vintage, lineage, rampage. I have to suggest, though I wouldn't blame you for not accepting it: pwnage

    March 6, 2007

  • package, footage, stockage, underage, overage, coverage...oo, and pillage

    March 6, 2007

  • I often commit the ungood crime of ownlifing

    March 4, 2007

  • I was wondering about the word ones used in the case of "I want those ones over there." Seems almost like an oxymoron within itself taken out of context.

    March 4, 2007

  • Ah, I see. Thank you for the clarification =]

    March 4, 2007

  • And rep

    March 3, 2007

  • Might I suggest nepenthe, a word I learned on this very site?

    March 3, 2007

  • Hm, I'm craving coelacanth for supper.

    March 3, 2007

  • Really fun list. People have done terribly well in coming up with possibilities.

    March 3, 2007

  • prep as in prep course? dem for democrat, chem, phenom (which sounds very odd to me). noob or newb?

    Isn't this what they call Zipf's law?

    March 3, 2007

  • My English professor used the verb other a few times today--capitalized actually. It's more or less supposed to mean "to treat a group of people, often a minority group, as inferior." Also, exoticize, which is sorta jargon-y, but fun to say.

    February 28, 2007

  • I so long ago misspelt this hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia on my list and thought it was inconceivable no one else had added it.

    February 28, 2007

  • I remember in the cartoon Doug, Doug would say "Veni, vidi, vici!" whilst doing some magic trick or another. Which sounded enough like an incantation before I learned what it meant. Oh the web of lies that kids' shows spin. ...I'm sorry that wasn't a contribution.

    February 21, 2007

  • I guess I thought of paraphernalia because people often pronounce it pehr-uh-fuh-neel-yuh. Or maybe that's just how my misguided ear has heard it =/

    February 21, 2007

  • tall tale? rubbish or a load of rubbish?

    February 21, 2007

  • According to a play my high school put on a few years ago in which two mayflies have a decidedly brief tryst (it's a bit hazy now), it's about 24 hours. Yeah, I guess I went to a pretty wacky school.

    February 20, 2007

  • What a beautifully expressive word for a mayfly.

    February 20, 2007

  • Anyone else notice the abundance of words for a bad mood, compared to those for a good one? Perhaps it's more noteworthy when someone is cantankerous because it tends to dampen the mood of those around them? Just got me thinking...anyway, nice list!

    February 20, 2007

  • Oo, thank you! somniloquy's an especially good one that slipped my mind.

    February 19, 2007

  • Heh, sacrilege? anathema and ex cathedra for "the" church..

    February 17, 2007

  • Not entirely sure about adding an acronym like rem, but people often say "rehm-sleep"...so I think it's fair game.

    February 17, 2007

  • Manichaean

    February 17, 2007

  • Thanks :) I was searching through my main page for some applicable words and found...well, one. Thinking of changing it to -og words, but that might just bring up too many.

    February 17, 2007

  • One of my favorite words as spelling goes: paraphernalia. And perhaps circuit?

    February 17, 2007

  • escargot :)

    February 17, 2007

  • how about bloomers?

    February 17, 2007

  • Heh, probably Buffy for me. Or was that transmutation?

    February 8, 2007

  • a posteriori, a fortiori, ex libris, de facto. Mm, Latin's fun.

    January 29, 2007

  • hehe. All these relatively simple words eluded me.

    January 26, 2007

  • Thanks, Abraxas. Thought of sovereign just now, too.

    January 26, 2007

  • Here's one to redeem my blunder: splendid.

    January 25, 2007

  • Don't forget caryatid...

    January 24, 2007

  • Though I'm pretty unfamiliar with the original band, my favorite's Masonic Youth. Also, The Frowned Upon.

    January 21, 2007

  • Very interesting. I'd only ever known about the enneagram in the context of personality theory.

    January 21, 2007

  • I often hear people mispronounce the word etymology by saying this word instead, which makes me giggle. Even funnier is entomologist in place of etymologist.

    January 19, 2007

  • Suh-roo-lee-uhn. Beautiful word, likewise with the color it describes.

    January 15, 2007

  • Wonderful etymology: "flowing with honey." The word can be used in that literal sense, but the "metaphorical" sense (e.g. to describe someone's voice or movement) just works really nicely.

    January 14, 2007

  • Apparently the English word for schadenfreude is epicaricacy...if you want to get technical. There's a book out there whose name I can't quite recall that talks about various words and phrases that are exclusive to one language/region. Maybe someone else will know the title.

    January 14, 2007

  • See kaput

    January 12, 2007

  • Ah, I see, it's also spelled kaputt

    January 12, 2007

  • Surprised to be the first one to add this word.

    I imagine this word as the result of exasperated spitting...as when one's car is dead and the owner bursts into a fit of kicking and spitting.

    January 12, 2007

  • I agree thoroughly.

    January 12, 2007

  • thaumaturgy

    January 12, 2007

  • Possible counterexamples of that, seanahan, would be words like jungian (yoong-ee-uhn) or wagnerian (vahg-neer-ee-uhn). When it derives from someone's name, that pronunciation seems to stick, at least part of the time. But after reading the tidbit on wikipedia about the spelling and pronunciation of "Quixote", I see it's a little bit more nuanced anyhow (technically it's medieval Castilian, not Spanish). Bah! This is a good word, I'm going to leave it alone (stop picking at it, that is) for fear that people will stop using it. I see it written much more often than I hear it spoken, anyway.

    January 12, 2007

  • No problem. :) I'm tempted to make a list like this one myself.

    January 6, 2007

  • Oh, definitely, if not from the impact then maybe a heart attack brought on by the fall. Best way to get rid of political dissidents, as my Mom always says ;)

    January 6, 2007

  • Right you are =)

    January 6, 2007

  • If it lacks luster, then it must be...

    January 6, 2007

  • hmm, humorless, fearless, bottomless, to name a few

    January 6, 2007

  • Would euphemism not be an antonym of dysphemism?

    January 6, 2007

  • I see your predicament, pedalinfaith. awe-inspiring just doesn't have quite the same ring--gets the job done, but it even sounds a little cliché. Hmm, a better substitute isn't coming to me. I say spite the masses and continue using it as you always have :)

    January 6, 2007

  • Quite possibly my 10th grade English teacher's favorite word.

    January 6, 2007

  • Aficionado?

    January 6, 2007

  • This word sounds a million times better than funeral

    January 6, 2007

  • So true, billifer. As counterintuitive as it may sometimes seem, we should just chalk it up to idiosyncrasy(if that word wasn't previously used to describe words or language, it now is). And then the inconsistency's something to appreciate, I suppose.

    January 5, 2007

  • A decidedly heterological word.

    January 5, 2007

  • squelch has a definite fruit-smashing or walking-through-muck sound to it.

    January 5, 2007

  • clearly defenestration should be on this list. I'm also wondering if there's a word for being chased off of a cliff by a horde of half-naked women (monty python)

    January 5, 2007

  • See the Wikipedia article on this practice--shows how both horrendous and comical defenestration can be. "Catholics ascribed the survival of those defenestrated at Prague Castle in 1618 to divine intervention, while Protestants claimed that it was due to their landing in a large pile of manure."

    January 5, 2007

  • see doyen

    January 4, 2007

  • also see doyenne

    January 4, 2007

  • I'm going to seem like quite the Latin dork, but it's really just that I'm fresh out of an introductory logic course (and I may be a budding Latin dork at that).

    ad verecundiam (appeal to unreliable authority)

    ad populum (appeal to the people)

    ad baculum (appeal to force)

    post hoc ergo propter hoc

    equivocation

    amphibole (one of my personal favorite forms of ambiguity that refers to the grammatical sort). According to Wikipedia it's amphibology, as amphibole is a type of mineral

    January 4, 2007

  • panacea might be a good catch-all word to add for pseudoscientific medicine.

    January 4, 2007

  • pertinent/pertinency, pert...Not sure if you'd count words like per se, per capita, etc.

    January 4, 2007

  • This is wonderful.

    January 4, 2007

  • A concept that might seem absurd to a Wordie...and obviously a joke word, by the way. Don't know who came up with it.

    January 4, 2007

  • I feel like this word should be pronounced kee-ho-tik (it just occurred to me that standard IPA pronunciation would show up as a possible word entry). We don't say Don Kwik-sot-ay...but maybe I'm just being persnickety.

    January 4, 2007

  • oo, good word, indeed. I knew hypnogogic but strangely not this one. ...I think I'll go add lucid dreaming to my word list now.

    January 4, 2007

  • I do agree this is a strange word...but it matches a pretty strange time of day. That beautiful, eerie glow and the darkness slowly creeping up. Of course, it can also be used to describe insects and other animals that come out around that time...

    January 4, 2007

  • i.e. a personal form of government.

    January 4, 2007

  • Fairly certain this is an American bastardization of the French phrase "A tout à l'heure" (means "See you later")--came around c. end of the first world war.

    January 4, 2007

  • troublesome?

    January 4, 2007