vendingmachine has adopted no words, looked up 16920 words, created 67 lists, listed 3667 words, written 1441 comments, added 3 tags, and loved 368 words.
Comments for vendingmachine
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Your list of lists is peauetrie
February 2, 2018
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So sorry -- had to delete last comment as it was breaking the community page after I deleted the spammy comment. :-(
March 19, 2015
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Consider your scopes affected. De nada. As long as I was at it I effected 'em too!
March 19, 2015
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Nice detective work on 'on fleek'.
March 7, 2015
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Hey, hey! Checking in. Good to see 'zu get what's coming to her! :) I only occasionally visit these days. I'll try to bring it more into my crosscheck. Toodles for now.
February 23, 2015
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*press*
Ooh! Another delicious food pellet!
You're the bestest vending machine ever, vendingmachine!
February 22, 2015
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LDC - Liberal Democrat Conservative
A blend of all 3 major political parties in Canada.February 21, 2015
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LDC - longform digital crepuscule
February 21, 2015
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Ooh! A delicious food pellet! And two cents!!!
February 12, 2015
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I wonder what would happen if I were to press the "Save" button below this comment box.
February 12, 2015
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Ooh! Look! Delicious food pellets. Looks like you're my new bff, vendingmachine.
February 11, 2015
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I'm sure ruzuzu will be along any minute looking for food pellets.
February 11, 2015
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Do you have anything for two cents?
February 11, 2015
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You know, you're still my favourite vending machine.
February 11, 2015
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What's in the vending machine? The usual bile, or can we now get canned vitriol for a dollar?
February 10, 2015
Comments by vendingmachine
vendingmachine commented on the word adynaton
For ruzuzu:
Kad pūcei aste ziedēs ("When an owl's tail blooms")
September 21, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word ponies
The Popular Theatre by George Jean Nathan (1918)
"I drank two cocktails, three glasses of sherry, a quart of champagne and several ponies of Cointreau. The show seemed to get better and better as it went ...
September 21, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word cointer
British verb (transitive) to bury together
September 21, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word twinter
dialectal, British
: a sheep, ox, or horse that has lived through two winters.
September 21, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word tripple
chiefly southern Africa
: a gait in which the horse moves both near and both off legs alternately and which somewhat resembles the amble
September 21, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word dumbsize
To reduce the staff numbers of a company to such low levels that work can no longer be carried out effectively.
September 21, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word psychogeography
"The term psychogeography was invented by the Marxist theorist Guy Debord in 1955. Inspired by the French nineteenth-century poet and writer Charles Baudelaire’s concept of the flâneur – an urban wanderer – Debord suggested playful and inventive ways of navigating the urban environment in order to examine its architecture and spaces.
Psychogeography gained popularity in the 1990s when artists, writers, and filmmakers such as Iain Sinclair and Patrick Keiller began using the idea to create works based on exploring locations by walking."
-https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/psychogeography
September 21, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Kripos
An elite unit of the Norwegian police that investigates organized crime and missing persons, for example. They have specialized technical and forensic expertise. They are currently investigating the disappearance of Arjen Kamphuis, a Dutch cybersecurity expert for Wikileaks. "Arjen Kamphuis is a Digital Self Defence professional. Every day he helps people keep their secrets safe in the digital world. He has seen firsthand how government-funded spying, hacking and security programs fall into the wrong hands and cause more harm than good. He argues that it is time we all start keeping ourselves safe by taking responsibility for our own digital defenses and letting go of the idea that we’re just not smart enough to adapt."
September 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word pointlessly gendered products
https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2014/03/15/new-in-pointlessly-gendered-products/
Men's Bread, Fairy Hearts Turkey Pork Sausage, boys walking rein and harness (blue), girls walking rein and harness (pink), pet shampoo (for him, for her).
Pinterest collection: https://www.pinterest.com/socimages/pointlessly-gendered-products/
lip balm engineered for men, water for men, etc.
September 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word cultural tropes
cultural tropes (like pointlessly gendered products)
September 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word civil religion
"In 1966, the late sociologist Robert Bellah presented a now-classic essay, “Civil Religion in America.” The essay is about religion in public life, and how American politicians created a sense of shared national identity around general religious claims. Since then, sociologists and political theorists have argued about how inclusive civil religion really is (Does it include atheists or other minority groups who aren’t Christian? Lots of Americans don’t seem to think so.), but the theory is useful for highlighting how much of American political life takes on a religious tone."
--https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2018/07/
September 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word selfish technology
"The ad blocker should not be seen as a selfish technology. It is a socialist cudgel—something that forces otherwise lazy capitalists to find new and inventive ways to make their creations sustainable. Ad blockers are one of the few tools users have to fight against the need to monetize fast and big because it troubles the predictability of readily traceable attention."
--https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2015/09/23/full-communism-is-the-ultimate-ad-blocker/
September 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word cultural capital
"Based on observations of three technology-rich Bay Area middle schools, Rafalow examined whether the skills students develop through digital play are considered cultural capital — skills, habits, and dispositions that that can be traded for success in school and work."
--https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2018/09/12/schools-selective-screening/
September 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word memory politics
Jenny Edkins (Trauma and memory politics) explores how we remember traumatic events such as wars, famines, genocides and terrorism. She argues that remembrance does not have to be nationalistic but can instead challenge the political systems that produced the violence. Using examples from the World Wars, Vietnam, the Holocaust, Kosovo and September 11th, Edkins analyzes the practices of memory rituals through memorials, museums and remembrance ceremonies. This wide-ranging study embraces literature, history, politics and international relations, in an original contribution to the study of memory.
September 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word memory politics
"Ukraine’s memory politics do not exclude women entirely. In 2016, the UINM chose to focus on women when commemorating the anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The title of the institute’s project was “War makes no exceptions. Female history of the Second World War”. The intention to focus on women’s experiences in order to “reveal the criminal nature of war” seems admirable. But the 12 stories of both military and civilian women chosen by the UINM simply replicate a male pantheon rather than challenge the very tradition of glorifying the war through its heroes. The difference is that the male heroes are celebrated every year, whereas the female figures only once in a while, as part of a special project."
--What place for women in Ukraine's memory politics? https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/olesya-khromeychuk/what-place-for-women-in-ukraine-s-memory-politics
September 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word corrective rape
Such laws, however, do not have to pass to have a chilling effect. In 2014, I met Kyrgyz LGBTQI organisation Labrys, who said that lesbians and trans men already faced corrective rape, and gay men and trans women were often beaten and sometimes killed. Such attacks have since intensified. Soon after I went back to London, Labrys shut down their Facebook page, and had to sell the house where I first met them after it was subjected to an arson attack in 2015. They resurfaced last year, and in March I returned to Bishkek to meet a new generation of activists who, amidst the confusion and hostility, are fighting to make Kyrgyzstan more open to diversity of gender and sexuality.
--https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/juliet-jacques/fear-and-loathing-in-kyrgyzstan
September 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov
At the Pasteur Institute in Paris Mechnikov was engaged in work associated with the establishment of his theory of cellular immunity, which, like many great advances in science, encountered considerable hostility. He published, during this period, several papers and two volumes on the comparative pathology of inflammation (1892), and his treatise entitled L’Immunité dans les Maladies Infectieuses (Immunity in infectious diseases, 1901). In 1908 he was awarded, together with Paul Ehrlich, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
He coined the word gerontology in 1903.
September 15, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word gerontology
Gerontology is the study of the social, cultural, psychological, cognitive, and biological aspects of aging. The word was coined by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov in 1903. The field is distinguished from geriatrics, which is the branch of medicine that specializes in the treatment of existing disease in older adults. Gerontologists include researchers and practitioners in the fields of biology, nursing, medicine, criminology, dentistry, social work, physical therapy, occupational therapy, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, economics, [political science, architecture, geography, pharmacy, public health, housing, and anthropology.
September 15, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word biogerontology
Biomedical gerontology, also known as experimental gerontology and life extension, is a sub-discipline of biogerontology that endeavors to slow, prevent, and even reverse aging in both humans and animals. Most "life extensionists" believe the human life span can be increased within the next century, if not sooner. biogerontologists vary in the degree to which they focus on the study of the aging process as a means of mitigating the diseases of aging or extending lifespan, although most agree that extension of lifespan will necessarily flow from reductions in age-related disease and frailty, although some argue that maximum life span cannot be altered or that it is undesirable to try. The area of geroscience is a recently formulated interdisciplinary field that embraces biomedical gerontology as the center of preventing diseases of aging through science emerging at the interface of the biology of aging and age-related disease.
September 14, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word sneaker waves
"...so-called sneaker waves sometimes claim lives of the unwary along the coast of the Pacific Northwest.
Tuba Ozkan-Haller, a wave researcher at Oregon State University, recommends that when people go to the beach in Northern California, Oregon and Washington state — which because of the nature of the coastline are susceptible to sneaker waves — they study the wave action and ensure escape routes aren’t blocked by rocks or cliffs."
September 12, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word involuntary suicide
= murder
September 11, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word wet diarrhea president
An odd insult found on Twitter:
"Wow #Uganda under the repulsive and primitive cow #Musevi is like a zoo...chei! Just like #Cameroon under our own piece of wet diarrhea president..."
Isn't diarrhea always wet? Is there such a thing as dry diarrhea?
September 11, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word calendering
The term “calendering” refers to any of several processes in which fabric is subjected to great pressure and/or heat, in a type of ironing using large rollers.
September 5, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word beetling
For the study and collection of beetles, see coleopterology.
Beetling is the pounding of linen or cotton fabric to give a flat, lustrous effect. The process by which fabrics, etc. are beetled, or beaten with a mallet. Within Ireland, beetling was first introduced by Hamilton Maxwell in 1725. Beetling is part of the finishing of the linen cloth. The hammering tightens the weave and gives the cloth a smooth feel. The process was gradually phased out, in lieu of calendering. A similarity is the compression; however, with calendering, the finish does not remain for the life of the cloth. This distinguishes it from beetling.
Beetling eyebrows are thick and stick out from the face: He glared at me under beetling brows.
September 5, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word nomophobia
A fear of being disconnected from social media in general.
September 2, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word mud volcano
Mud volcanoes occur when gases push hot water and dirt from deep in the ground up to the surface. https://twitter.com/ScienceAlert/status/1036068618805682176
September 2, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the list the-bees-knees-and-the-cats-pajamas
Make up your own!
1. the bilby's bilirubin
2. the walrus's wallet
3. the kiwi's coinpurse
ABC animals, http://www.skyenimals.com/alph_index.cgi?letter=A
September 1, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word play bow
"When a dog crouches forward with its elbows on the ground and its rear end in the air, wagging tail and all, that's a play bow. The position is the ultimate sign of playfulness, which is important for a species that often uses playtime as practice for attacking prey.
The play bow first evolved in canids as a form of communication. When a dog sees another dog it wants to play with, it extends its front paws forward and lifts up its behind as a visual invitation to engage in a friendly play session. Dogs will "bow" in the middle of playtime to show that they're having fun and wish to continue, or when a session has paused to signal they want to pick it back up. Play bows can also be a sort of apology: When the roughhousing gets too rough, a bow says, “I’m sorry I hurt you. Can we keep playing?' "
Mental Floss, http://mentalfloss.com/article/544112/why-do-dogs-crouch-forward-play-bow
September 1, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word enforced disappearance
Amnesty International on Thursday accused Nigeria's government of carrying out unlawful arrests and practicing "enforced disappearance" -- detention without trial -- to suppress dissent.
August 30, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word nation branding
"Countries are increasingly copying the marketing tactics that companies use to raise their profiles, and let people know that they are open for business. Welcome to the world of nation branding.
A strong country brand should encourage tourists, trading partners and investors all at once. But having a snazzy logo, and an advertising budget won't sell a product that people don't want."
The best way to improve a country's image is for it to contribute to the well-being of the world beyond its borders rather than spending money on advertising.
"If you really want to earn a better reputation, the best thing you can do is stop chasing after it."
August 30, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word nyongmato
Among the Ga, the people who are indigenous to Ghana's capital, Accra, a woman is entitled to a live sheep on the delivery of her 10th child. The word for it is "nyongmato".
August 30, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word chifforobe
The first time I heard this word I was watching "To Kill a Mockingbird".
Mayella Ewell in the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962): "I was sittin' on the porch, and he come along. Uh, there's this old chifforobe in the yard, and I-I said, 'You come in here, boy, and bust up this chifforobe, and I'll give you a nickel.'"
August 30, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the list glitched-definitions
Yes! This is the list I remember using.
August 30, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Unscented
Thanks!
August 30, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Unscented
I forgot who had the list of "problem" entries... alexz? madmouth?
August 29, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word butt dial
On Twitter: "Today I asked my class to come up with a pair of terms that share a denotative meaning but whose connotative meanings differ and one student offered BUTT DIAL and BOOTY CALL."
August 27, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word erinaceous
Erin is the perfect name for a pet hedgehog.
August 23, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word erinaceous
Lucky! Such a cute word, too.
August 23, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word fewmet
"I've met a few hunters who studied fewmet."
August 21, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the user heavenglows144
"pak" means pure in Urdu. Land of the pure.
August 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Englishly
or, even better: Englishish.
August 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word MAGA Americans
"Make America Great Again" Americans (from Donald Trump's political slogan). As described on fivethirtyeight.com:
"Right Trolls behave like “bread-and-butter MAGA Americans, only all they do is talk about politics all day long.”
"Left Trolls often adopt the personae of Black Lives Matter activists, typically expressing support for Bernie Sanders and derision for Hillary Clinton, along with “clearly trying to divide the Democratic Party and lower voter turnout."
August 13, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word dermaesthetics
A different way to say hair transplantation. I found a doctor's practice listed as Advanced Dermatology and Dermaesthetics.
What is so advanced about a hair transplant?
August 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word grasshopper escapement
Sounds like a note brought to school as an excuse for something. "Dear Mrs. Frye: I couldn't finish my homework. We had a grasshopper escapement at home. You do believe me, don't you?'
July 31, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word shadow banning
Shadow banning isn't a new concept; it's frequently used in forums and on other social networks as an alternative to banning someone outright.
Instead of kicking someone off, shadow banning makes a person's post visible only to the user who created it. The idea is to protect others from harmful content while eventually prompting the shadow-banned user to voluntarily leave a forum due to a lack of engagement.
If a user is banned outright, the thinking goes, the person is aware of it and will likely just set up another account and continue the offending behavior.
Shadow banning is typically used to stop bots and trolls and is effective in combating bots where 'bot herders' who maintain these accounts don't necessarily know whether or not their bots are actually being seen by other people.
"Shadow banning: What it is -- and what it isn't", Alfred Ng, cnet.com, 26 July 2018
Also known as stealth banning, ghost banning or comment banning.
July 27, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word dolmens
dolmens: dolls for men (Stonehenge)
lichened dolmens = dolls for men covered with lichens.
July 27, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the list twitterbotlist
How does one add 110,098 words to a list? For me, and even if I managed to copy and paste hundreds or thousands of words, I'd still have to insert a semi-colon between those words. Is there a shortcut? An easier method I’m not using?
July 26, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word people-first language
People are not defined by their diseases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People-first_language
July 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the list paper-and-papermaking
Is hieratica okay?
July 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word elephant dung
Here's the tree-free paper alternatives list. I tried before but I couldn't get my link to work, even with single curly braces. Okay, great. It works now.
July 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word casse paper
This word is looking for a forever list home about paper.
July 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word paper
I have a list called tree-free paper alternatives.
July 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the list non-dairy-beverages
qms: I'm looking for plant-based milks, so, yes, poppy milk qualifies. When I looked it up, I discovered that poppy milk (aguonų pienas) is a traditional Lithuanian drink or soup, one of the 12-dishes Christmas Eve Supper Kūčios. Usually, it is eaten together with kūčiukai, another traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve dish. Thank you.
I will open this list with the understanding that only plant-based milks are added. Thank you.
July 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the list non-dairy-beverages
I've been on a silly quest to sample many of these "milks". Just yesterday, I tried macadamia milk. I doubt if I'll be able to even find any candlenut milk, but is does exist! I'm also particularly interested in trying some black walnut milk. Will it have the unique flavor of black walnuts?
BTW, the dairy industry is trying relentlessly to force manufacturers of these non-dairy products from using the word "milk" when marketing their products. They claim that milk comes from mammals, not plants. The non-dairy milk people insist this is not able semantics, but because their product is affecting the popularity of goat / cow milk.
July 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word elephant paper
I thought this was paper made from the feces of an elephant. and not just "big" paper. I've read about paper made from elephant, rhino, and other herbivores.
July 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word duck blur
A chaotic commotion of activity, often compared to a hurricane.
July 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word lebensmagnetismus
An invisible natural force possessed by all living and animate beings (humans, animals, fruits, vegetables).
July 22, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word bling coffee
Trendy overpriced coffee.
July 22, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word splogs
Spam weblogs that steal content from other sites in order to appear legitimate. Also known as an adfarm.
July 13, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word fist-law
Good old fist-law, the code of brute force. See also club-law.
July 13, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word bilby
Among the list of Random Adoptions on Wordnik:
bilby was adopted by Royal Secret Society of Bilbies
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word 12 o'clock flasher
A person who is unwilling or unable to learn how to use all but the most basic functions of the electronic appliances he or she possesses.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word 90-minute bigot
Scottish. A football fan, esp of Rangers FC or Celtic FC, who exhibits religious bigotry at matches but does not consider him- or herself to be bigoted outside a football context.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word zeuglodont
Any of a group of extinct carnivorous whales known as Phocodontia or Zeuglodonta.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word zeroth
Denoting a term in a series that precedes the term otherwise regarded as the first term.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word zex
A tool for cutting roof slate.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word cock-a-leekie soup
Scottish. A soup made from a fowl boiled with leeks.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word scolopendrine
Pertaining to any centipede of the family Scolopendridae, including some large and poisonous species.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word smaragdine
Any green gemstone, such as the emerald.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word sourdeline
A type of bagpipe.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word tragelaphine
Of or relating to a tragelaph.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word vincristine
An alkaloid, C46H56N4O10·H2SO4, obtained from the leaves of a periwinkle (Vinca rosea) and used as a drug in the treatment of leukemia.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word vomerine
Pertaining to the thin flat bone forming part of the separation between the nasal passages in mammals.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word zibeline
A soft lustrous wool fabric with mohair, alpaca, or camel's hair.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word zygaenine
pertaining to a family of moths (Zygaenidae) including the foresters, burnet moths, and related moths most of which are bright-colored and day-flying.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word aedine
relating to mosquitoes of the genus Aedes
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the list animal-ine
Another great -ine list!
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the list animal-ines-cheat-sheet
crotaline: having a rattle or pertaining to a rattlesnake
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the list animal-ines-cheat-sheet
I intended to start a list like this one, but after finding your impressive and thorough list, I figured: why bother? Love it. I've added it to my list of favorite lists.
July 7, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word they are now very aware of my situation
Yes, they are aware... but they don't care.
June 28, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word circadian dysrhythmia
Jet lag.
June 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Schwellenangst
Fear of crossing a threshold to embark on something new.
What's with the potential customer in the definition from Wiki?
June 5, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
ru: the day you started contributing to wordnik was--and continues to be!-- pure awesomeness. I love the way you think. You should be on a remarkable list yourself: a list of remarkable people! ♥♥♥♥
June 4, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word pass
There are many words for pass in the English-speaking world. In the United States, pass is very common in the West, the word gap is common in the southern Appalachians, notch in parts of New England, and saddle in northern Idaho. Scotland has the Gaelic term bealach (anglicised "balloch"), while Wales has the similar bwlch. In the Lake District of north-west England, the term hause is often used, although the term pass is also common—one distinction is that a pass can refer to a route, as well as the highest part thereof, while a hause is simply the highest part, often flattened somewhat into a high-level plateau.--Wikipedia
June 1, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word shoutcaster
In video games, and particularly eSports, commentators are often called shoutcasters; this term is derived from the free plugin for <i>Winamp</i> called <i>SHOUTcast</i>, which enabled users to live-stream audio-only feeds across the Internet.
June 1, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word mumpfen
May 31, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word mimpfeln
See also mumpfen, to chew with a full mouth.
May 31, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word kainotophobia
Not to be confused with the fear of changing one's underwear.
May 26, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word mansplaining
Mansplaining (a blend of the word man and the informal form splaining of the verb explaining) means "(of a man) to comment on or explain something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner". Lily Rothman of "The Atlantic" defines it as "explaining without regard to the fact that the explainee knows more than the explainer, often done by a man to a woman". Author Rebecca Solnit ascribes the phenomenon to a combination of "overconfidence and cluelessness".
In its original use, mansplaining differed from other forms of condescension in that it is rooted in the sexist assumption that a man is likely to be more knowledgeable than a woman. However, it has come to be used more broadly, often applied when a man takes a condescending tone in an explanation to anyone, regardless of the age or gender of the intended recipients: a "man 'splaining" can be delivered to any audience. In 2010 it was named by the New York Times as one of its "Words of the Year".
A widespread phenomenon that "keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.
May 15, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Framingham score
To measure the women’s biological age, the researchers looked at the length of telomeres in their white blood cells. Telomeres are the dangly bits at the end of chromosomes that shorten every time a cell divides. Their length is considered a measure of cellular age.
Between three and five years later, 250 of the women came back so researchers could calculate their risk of developing heart disease in the next decade – known as their Framingham score. This takes account of risk factors such as cholesterol levels, blood pressure and body weight.
As expected, the team found that women with lower egg counts had higher Framingham scores, but they also had shorter telomeres. Previous studies have suggested that shorter telomeres are linked with heart disease, dementia and cancer, and also with a shorter lifespan. So women with fewer eggs may also be at higher risk of other age-related diseases, although epidemiological studies will be needed to bolster this link."
(The Framingham Risk Score is a gender-specific algorithm used to estimate the 10-year cardiovascular risk of an individual. The Framingham Risk Score was first developed based on data obtained from the Framingham Heart Study, to estimate the 10-year risk of developing coronary heart disease. In order to assess the 10-year cardiovascular disease risk, cerebrovascular events, peripheral artery disease and heart failure were subsequently added as disease outcomes for the 2008 Framingham Risk Score, on top of coronary heart disease.)
May 15, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word purple prose
subtitle: China's president-in-waiting turns to purple prose during populist speech aimed at top and bottom of Communist party
May 11, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word unicorpse
(Noun) A private technology company that was formerly valued at $1bn or more (slang, vulg)
Silicon Valley is nothing if not inventive, and that applies to language as much as product development. Three years ago, Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures, coined “unicorn” to capture the phenomenon of private technology companies achieving valuations of $1bn and more. She likened these desirable ventures to the mythical horned creature often represented in the shape of a horse.
More recently, in response to the declines in value of some unicorns, Ms Lee has concocted a less mythological variant: the “unicorpse”. It is one of a number of unicorn-related neologisms, including “My Little Pony” (a start-up worth $10m or more), the “Centaur” ($100m start-up) and the impressive “quinquagintacorn” (you work it out*).
--Financial TImes (article available for subscribers only)
April 29, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word spirit animal
The ancient concept of animal guides, particularly prominent in some indigenous, especially Native American, religions and cultures, was adopted in Pagan and Wiccan spirituality in the 1990s. In these contexts, spirit animals are meant literally, referring to spiritual guides or totems that take the form of animals.
April 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word tzitzit
No pronunciation available.
April 24, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word magnetotail
An odd-looking word.
April 23, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word bilby
Please do not kick or pound me if your pellets don't fall immediately. And don't press my buttons over and over. Be patient and you will receive your due reward.
April 16, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word chlamydia
"Australia's iconic koala has a problem that keeps boomeranging back.
Chlamydia, a type of sexually transmitted disease also found in humans, has hit wild koalas hard, with some wild populations seeing a 100 percent infection rate." --National Geographic, 14 April 2018
April 15, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word gestational carrier
Apparently, the new term for a surrogate. Also this combo: gestational carrier surrogacy.
April 14, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word autopsied
Likewise, necropsy is also necropsied. Most users seem to prefer the noun form. "The pathologist decided to forego a necropsy of the dead bilby on the side of the road."
April 13, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word schollard
A corruption, perhaps... but vulgar? Words have feelings, too. Down with word-shaming!
April 12, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word technosphere
Peter Haff coined the term technosphere (in 2014). He defines the technosphere as “the global, energy consuming techno-social system that is comprised of humans, technological artifacts, and technological systems, together with the links, protocols, and information that bind all these parts together.”
Basically, the technosphere is the vast, sprawling combination of humanity and its technology. Haff argues that in our thousands of years of harnessing technology – including the first technologies like stone tools, wheels and crops – the technology itself has basically begun to act practically independently, creating a new sphere (i.e., like the biosphere or atmosphere or lithosphere), but like nothing the planet has ever seen before.
“I would argue that domesticated animals and plants, as well as humans, are parts of the technosphere,” said Haff. “These are in effect manufactured by the technosphere for its own use on the basis of genetic blueprints appropriated from the biosphere.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2015/oct/20/the-four-horsemen-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction
April 2, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word blackbirding
Blackbirding has continued to the present day in developing countries. One example is the kidnapping and coercion at gunpoint of indigenous people in Central America to work as plantation laborers in the region, where they are exposed to heavy pesticide loads and do backbreaking work for very little pay.
April 1, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word blockade mutton
Dog meat has been eaten in every major German crisis at least since the time of Frederick the Great, and is commonly referred to as "blockade mutton."
--GERMANY: Dachshunds Are Tenderer, 25 November 1940. Time Magazine.
To a war menu which already included fish-fed poultry, decrepit horses, goats, and numerous zoo animals, Germany last week added those of its dogs which had not been killed by an earlier decree to save food. A new law, effective January 1, 1940, states that dogs, wolves, foxes, bears, badgers and wild hogs have been legalized as meat. After being inspected for trichina, their carcasses will be dressed, stamped and distributed to butchers for rationing to general consumers.
March 31, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word glowworms
bilby: Have you ever visited Hastings Caves south of Hobart, or Mole Creek Karst National Park west of Launceston? I read somewhere that these sites have colonies of glowworms to see.
March 30, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word cockalorum
1. A little man with an unduly high opinion of himself. 2. The game leapfrog.
"A cockalorum playing cockalorum."
March 28, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word chittering-bite
See also chittering-crust and chittering-piece.
March 28, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word naunt
Mine aunt?
March 26, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Caspering
The newest addition to the modern dating lexicon. Named after the fictional child phantom, Casper, it’s a friendly alternative to ghosting. Instead of ignoring someone, you’re honest about how you feel, and let them down gently before disappearing from their lives.
March 26, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word sidebarring
Repeatedly checking one's phone and/or sending messages to others while on a date. Considered rude.
March 26, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Marleying
A term that refers to the awkward situation in which an ex-partner gets in touch with their ex out of nowhere, such as at Christmas time.
March 26, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word shaveducking
A dating term that refers to someone worrying that they're only attracted to a man because of his beard.
March 26, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word breadcrumbing
A dating term that refers to leading someone on with no intention of getting serious.
March 26, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word thraward
Splendid, qms! Rocky and Bullwinkle Effect.
March 18, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word flavor pairing
If it will keep your ears from convulsing, see flavour pairing.
*insincere smirk*
March 14, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word flavor pairing
How about incorrect change and a swift kick?
March 14, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word collectanea
I had to resort to the pronunciation feature for this one.
March 14, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word flavor pairing
"...the idea that the more “aromatic” (i.e. smelly) organic compounds foods share, the better they will taste together."
"...dishes whose ingredients share few compounds in common can also taste delicious; a 2011 analysis of more than 50,000 recipes found that while cuisines from Western Europe and North America tended to use ingredients with shared compounds, ingredients from East Asian recipes tended not to."
--An Illustrated Guide to Matching Foods' Flavor Molecules, Wired, 6 March 2018,
https://www.wired.com/story/the-flavor-matrix/
March 13, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word intertwined names
"On July 3, 2006, Amanda gave birth to fraternal twin girls, and the ecstatic parents gave their daughters intertwined names: One would be Millie Marcia Madge Biggs, the other Marcia Millie Madge Biggs."
March 12, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word flogger
In Australia, the term "flogger" is sometimes used rather than "pom-pom". Floggers are very large, heavy pom-poms in the team's colors. They sometimes require more than one person to lift them, and they are waved about when a goal is scored.
Floggers are an important part of Australian rules football culture and cheer-squads.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Richmond_Cheer_Squad_Rd_21_2006_closeup.jpg
March 6, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word chase-flying
"This is the first time I've seen a willet chase-flying insects."
March 5, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word prognathous
See lantern-jawed
March 5, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word dingo kidneys
Those crazy, non-explicit Australians.
March 5, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word ptisan
Any word that starts with pt is already more interesting.
February 28, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word umpolished
Umpolished has been looked up 393 times. Logical assumption: Umpolished has been selected by RANDOM WORD 393 times.
February 27, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word curiologic
How rude!
February 27, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word neckbeard
Hmm. I've only encountered this word used pejoratively.
A scraggly growth of hair on a man's neck and chin, indicative of poor grooming.
"I can picture myself wearing these clothes a week from now, bits of food caught in my overgrown neckbeard and man bun."
February 25, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word taint
"In an interview with GQ magazine, the "Mummy" star said the alleged incident took place during HFPA luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2003. He alleged that former HFPA president, Philip Berk, came to shake his hand when he was leaving the crowded room. "His left hand reaches around, grabs my ass cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint. And he starts moving it around," Fraser said, adding that in that moment he was overcome with panic and fear."I felt ill. I felt like a little kid. I felt like there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry," Fraser added."
February 23, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word rangle
I prefer to do my rangling and ranging in a regular manner.
February 23, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word knowledge debt
Information which is available and relevant to a decision or action, but which is undiscovered or ignored, bringing unnecessary risk to the decision or action.
February 22, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Rafferty's rules
Australian and New Zealand slang:
no rules at all
February 22, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word leg-rope
If a leg-rope doesn't work, try an ear-rope.
February 22, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word pies
A certain frog makes up a simple word and it never goes away.
February 22, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word relationshit
Oh, my.
February 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word pies
I found a vintage stamp from India with NINE PIES inked across the stamp. Now I understand what it meant.
pies: A former monetary unit of India and Pakistan, equal to one-twelfth of an anna.
February 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word leg-rope
NZ, Australian
1(in surfing) a rope attached to a surfboard and tied to the surfer's ankle to prevent the board being washed away by the surf.
In order to relocate a pesky, trespassing bilby, a leg-rope expert was hired.
February 20, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word one-horse
Hence Petty
February 17, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word tsutsumu
What exactly is an appropriate manner?
February 17, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the list bits-and-pieces
You're a creative genius, madmouth.
February 2, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word deadname
COMMENT: she is nothing!. shes famous for a sex video and having lip injections and butt implants. Its too bad she breaths the same air as everyone else, such a waste. Well the whole clan is, from Bruce Jenner aka "caitlyn" to kylie and kendall Jenner. I know i should just skip over anything about them, but i had to see about her sending her haters stuff. I think its just for attention.
REPLY: There was literally no need to deadname Caitlyn in your little rant. If you don't like the Kardashians then don't click on the articles.
(I did not correct any of the punctuation, etc, even though it was tempting.)
Would someone please define deadname? I'm a bit confused. The Twitter feed is all over the place with examples, but none nail it.
February 2, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word coffin-ripe
At what point does one become coffin-overripe?
January 27, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word semantic typo
Forgot about this! Thanks for reintroducing it.
January 26, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word cluttering
In cluttering, the breakdowns in clarity that accompany a perceived rapid and/or irregular speech rate are often characterized by deletion and/or collapsing of syllables (e.g., "I wanwatevision") and/or omission of word endings (e.g., "Turn the televisoff"). The breakdowns in fluency are often characterized by more typical disfluencies (e.g., revisions, interjections) and/or pauses in places in sentences not expected grammatically, such as "I will go to the/store and buy apples".--http://www.asha.org/
January 26, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word nurse name
A well-known example of a nurse name (from a surname) is "Chips" (Professor Arthur Chipping from the 1969 film "Good-bye, Mr. Chips".)
Prior to Professor Chipping's marriage, however, and his subsequent personality change, his pupils called him "Ditchy," short for "dull as ditch-water."
Not sure if "Ditchy" is a "nurse name" since it isn't a term of endearment, but it is a nickname of sorts.
Ha, regarding your Great Aunt Lalla. My guess is that numerous "nurse names" found their origins via baby talk or a toddler's (temporary) fluency disorder.
See also sobriquet.
January 26, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word nurse name
A nurse name is a hypocorism, a diminutive form of a name. Hypocorisms include pet names or calling names, often a diminutive or augmentative form of a word or a given name when used as a nickname or term of endearment.
January 24, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word mock marking
"English teachers spent the bulk of year 10 teaching and marking coursework essays, and didn’t get on to doing mocks until year 11. I was really pleased when coursework was abolished as I felt it would free up so much more time for teachers to plan and teach, instead of mark and administer coursework. However, it does appear as though a lot of this gained time has now been replaced with equally time-consuming mock marking with mocks being introduced more and more in year 10. Many schools have three assessment points a year. If you were to do two mock papers three times a year in both year 10 and 11, then a teacher who taught one year 10 class and one year 11 class would spend 120 hours of the year marking GCSE mocks. That’s three normal working weeks, or nearly 10% of the contracted 1,265 annual hours of directed time."
What are the definitions for mocks and mock marking in the context above?
January 22, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Target
The retail store Target is sometimes referred to as TAR-zhay. It's supposed to sound French, and thus high-class. This unofficial name change, initiated by customers, took place around the time Target began using some well-known designer(s) to spiffy up their low-priced wares. The term has been used by The New York Times.
January 22, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word glisten worm
Chaetoderma elegans is a species of glisten worm, a kind of shell-less, worm-like mollusk in the family Chaetodermidae. This species is found in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. --wikipedia
January 21, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Cincinnati oysters
Here's an archived copy of Clapin's Americanisms, 1902:
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924104766328/cu31924104766328_djvu.txt
January 16, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word aporrhipsis
The meaning I found was along the lines of frantically removing one's clothes (such as one's pajamas) during a feverish delirium.
The Coxe meaning sounds like a disgruntled fashionista.
January 14, 2018
vendingmachine commented on the word Christmas book flood
An Icelandic tradition known as jólabókaflóð (Christmas book flood). Books are exchanged as Christmas Eve gifts and the rest of the night is spent reading and eating konfekt (filled chocolates) and sipping jólabland, an orange fizzy ale.
Iceland sells the greatest number of books per capita in the world – and most of them are sold in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The book catalog Bókatíðindi is published each November and lists every published book available during the Christmas season.
December 15, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word sheetcaking
Heal your feelings by eating sheetcake.
December 15, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word sheetcaking
Wordnik is mentioned in this article about sheetcaking.
"Sheetcaking: Seriously?" Chronicle of Higher Education.
"It has made its way into discussions on Wordnik and more than a dozen tweets, though as yet without a definition."
December 14, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word flydick
"Why them birds, bein' mostly nuts, is so nervous they can't read, nor work, nor do nothin' to ease the bugs that is bitin' their noodles. That's where this strongarm stuff comes in, and the flydicks knows it."
--Them Was The Good Old Days, W.L. Purcell, 1922.
November 1, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word purply
... a purple BLEE?
October 22, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word heel
In professional wrestling, a heel is a wrestler who is villainous or a "bad guy", who is booked (scripted) by the promotion to be in the position of being an antagonist. They are typically opposed by their polar opposites called faces (the heroic protagonist or "good guy" characters). In American wrestling, it was common for the faces to be American and the heels to be portrayed as foreign.
In order to gain heat (with boos and jeers from the audience), heels are often portrayed as behaving in an immoral manner by breaking rules or otherwise taking advantage of their opponents outside the bounds of the standards of the match. Others do not (or rarely) break rules, but instead exhibit unlikeable, appalling and deliberately offensive and demoralizing personality traits such as arrogance, cowardice or contempt for the audience. Many heels do both, cheating as well as behaving nastily. No matter the type of heel, the most important job is that of the antagonist role, as heels exist to provide a foil to the face wrestlers. If a given heel is cheered over the face, a promoter may opt to turn that heel to face or the other way around or to make the wrestler do something even more despicable to encourage heel heat.
August 31, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word quantum foam
"Armed with theoretical microscopes, quantum physicists keep on magnifying, gazing deeper and deeper into empty space until out of nothing, they suddenly see something. That something is a roiling collection of virtual particles, collectively called quantum foam.... According to quantum physicists, virtual particles exist briefly as fleeting fluctuations in the fabric of spacetime, like bubbles in beer foam." "Is Space Full of Quantum Foam?", LiveScience, 5 August 2017.
August 7, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word housekeeping gene
In molecular biology, housekeeping genes are typically constitutive genes that are required for the maintenance of basic cellular function and are expressed in all cells of an organism under normal and pathophysiological conditions.
August 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word scientific racism
"The scientific study of hereditary disease in Jewish populations was initially hindered by scientific racism, which is based on racial supremacism."
August 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word CASK
"Soon criminologists started to take killer nurses seriously. In 1995, British forensic chemist Alexander Forrest reviewed about 40 examples of the type and suggested that one or two new cases might be seen each year in the United States. He proposed calling these murders “CASKs,” for carer-associated serial killings, and noted that “the numbers of patients involved are not trivial.” --"The Killer Nurse", Slate, 2017 July 24. source
July 30, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word squaghetti
Another name for spaghetti squash. I found this word while looking at a recipe for spaghetti squash pizza crust.
July 6, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word eight
St Edmund's College Boat Club (SECBC) is the boat club for members of St Edmund's College, Cambridge, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.
SECBC uses the Cambridge '99 RC boathouse for training and storing its boats. The club has two boats, 'Lily' a men's eight and 'Dotty' a women's eight.
June 19, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word ruby-topaz
I concur. Check out the hummingbird images!
June 18, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word █████
orange IS the new black, after all.
June 18, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word Book Book
Don't forget the free bookmark that comes with your Book Book book.
June 12, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word Book Book
Book Book is a rural community in the central east part of the Riverina. It is situated about 12 km (7 mi) north from Kyeamba and 15 km (9 mi) south from Ladysmith.
Book Book exists now only through a set of old tennis courts and the telephone exchange that sits just off the Tumbarumba road.
(Book Book is considered a New South Wales "ghost town")
The Book Book Public School was discontinued on 27 October 1989.
June 12, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the list food-that-shall-not-be-named
According to a common misconception, century eggs are or were once prepared by soaking eggs in horse urine. The myth may have arisen from the urine-like odor of ammonia and other amines produced by the chemical reaction used to make century eggs. However, this myth is unfounded as horse urine has a pH ranging from 7.5 to 7.9 and therefore would not work for this process.
In Thai and Lao, the common word for century egg translates to "horse urine egg", due to the distinctive urine-like odor of the delicacy. --Wikipedia
June 7, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word coywolves
Coywolves are not ‘shy wolves’—they are coyote-wolf hybrids (with some dog mixed in) and now number in the millions.
The hybrid, or Canis latrans var, is about 55 pounds heavier than pure coyotes, with longer legs, a larger jaw, smaller ears and a bushier tail. It is part eastern wolf, part wester wolf, western coyote and with some dog (large breeds like Doberman Pinschers and German Shepherds), reports The Economist. Coywolves today are on average a quarter wolf and a tenth dog.
June 4, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word luthier
The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist or lutist, and a maker of lutes (or any similar string instrument, or violin family instruments) is referred to as a luthier.
May 25, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word conker
n. A snail-shell or a horse-chestnut used in a boys' game, in which the object is to break the snail-shell or horse-chestnut by striking it, with another.
Wow. So easy even boys are able to grasp the rules. Must be an easy game.
May 22, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word genuphobia
Genuphobia (from Latin word genu meaning "knee") is the fear of one's own knees or someone else's knees or the act of kneeling.
The phobia could be the result of a negative experience in a person’s life that was associated with knees. The discomfort at the sight of one's knees could be the result of the person’s parents or themselves wearing exclusively clothing that covered the knees growing up, therefore making the person unfamiliar with the sight of them. It could be the result of a traumatic injury that left a scar on the individual’s knee or on someone that they know.
Some people fear kneeling because it is a form of submission. Symptoms include but are not limited to becoming sick to the stomach, excessive sweating, dry mouth, and anxiety when presented with a situation including knees or kneeling. Sufferers fear the uncomfortable feeling they experience at the sight of knees or they fear the recollection of the injury and the pain associated with it.
May 13, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word bilbies
Bilbies are never out of work. Being cute is a full-time job.
May 12, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the list silly-silly-words
Many of these words border on "annoying".
May 8, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word Oddest Title of the Year
I tried listing the name of the actual prize; however, I kept getting a 404 whenever it came time to add a comment.
The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, originally known as the Diagram Group Prize for the Oddest Title at the Frankfurt Book Fair,1 commonly known as the Diagram Prize for short, is a humorous literary award that is given annually to a book with an unusual title.
Past winners:
--Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice
--The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career Management in House Prostitution
--The Joy of Chickens
--Last Chance at Love – Terminal Romances
--How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art
--The Joy of Sex: Pocket Edition
--Developments in Dairy Cow Breeding: New Opportunities to Widen the Use of Straw
--Living with Crazy Buttocks
--The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories
--Bombproof Your Horse
--Too Naked For the Nazis
May 6, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word Darwin Awards
The Darwin Awards are a tongue-in-cheek honor, originating in Usenet newsgroup discussions around 1985. They recognize individuals who have supposedly contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool via death or sterilization by their own actions.
The project became more formalized with the creation of a website in 1993 and followed up by a series of books starting in 2000, authored by Wendy Northcutt. The criterion for the awards states, "In the spirit of Charles Darwin, the Darwin Awards commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives. Darwin Award winners eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving our species' chances of long-term survival."
Accidental self-sterilization also qualifies; however, the site notes: "Of necessity, the award is usually bestowed posthumously." The candidate is disqualified, though, if "innocent bystanders", who might have contributed positively to the gene pool, are killed in the process.
The Darwin Awards books state that an attempt is made to disallow known urban legends from the awards, but some older "winners" have been "grandfathered" to keep their awards. The Darwin Awards site does try to verify all submitted stories, but many similar sites, and the vast number of circulating "Darwin awards" emails, are largely fictional.
May 6, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word Pigasus Award
The Pigasus Award is the name of an annual tongue-in-cheek award presented by noted skeptic James Randi. The award seeks to expose parapsychological, paranormal or psychic frauds that Randi has noted over the previous year. Randi usually makes his announcements of the awards from the previous year on April 1 (April Fools Day).
May 6, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word Stella Awards
The Stella Awards are awards that were given between 2002 and 2007 to people who filed "outrageous and frivolous lawsuits". The awards were named after Stella Liebeck who, in 1992, ordered a cup of McDonald's coffee at a drive thru, put it in between her knees while sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson's stationary car, and attempted to remove the lid in order to add cream and sugar. The coffee, 180 to 190 °F (82 to 88 °C), spilled from the cup, causing third-degree burns to her thighs and genitals; after McDonald's refused to pay for her skin grafts, and rejected several attempts at mediation and settlement, Liebeck sued. The awards were an offshoot of the weekly news column This is True written by Colorado writer Randy Cassingham, which featured "wacky-yet-true" news stories.5 The awards were documented on a website and in a 2005 book, both known as The True Stella Awards. There are also a number of false Stella Awards circulating on the Internet.
In July 2012 Cassingham sent a mail to the True Stella Awards mailing list, announcing that after several abortive attempts to restart the list he came to the conclusion that he had said everything about the subject of frivolous lawsuits that he had intended to say, and so was shutting down the Stella Awards.
May 6, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word Golden Raspberry Awards
The Golden Raspberry Awards often shortened to Razzies and Razzie Awards, is an award in recognition of the worst in film. Co-founded by UCLA film graduates and film-industry veterans, John J. B. Wilson and Mo Murphy, the annual Razzie Awards ceremony in Los Angeles precedes the corresponding Academy Awards ceremony by one day. The term raspberry in the name is used in its irreverent sense, as in "blowing a raspberry". The awards themselves are in the form of a "golf ball-sized raspberry" which sits atop a Super 8 mm film reel, the whole of which is spray-painted gold.
May 6, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word Bad Sex in Fiction Award
Literary Review is well known for its annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Each year since 1993, Literary Review has presented the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award to the author who produces the worst description of a sex scene in a novel. The award itself is in the form of a "semi-abstract trophy representing sex in the 1950s", which depicts a naked woman draped over an open book. The award was originally established by Rhoda Koenig, a literary critic, and Auberon Waugh, then the magazine's editor.
The award is "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it".
May 6, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word Bent Spoon Award
The Bent Spoon Award is an award given by Australian Skeptics, "presented to the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudoscientific piffle". The award is named as allusion to the practice of spoon bending by supposed psychics.
Australian Skeptics facetiously describes the trophy as a piece of gopher wood supposedly from the Noah’s Ark, upon which is affixed a spoon that was rumored to have been used at the Last Supper. The spoon was bent by energies unknown to science and was gold-plated through an Atlantean process.1 Although established in 1982 and first awarded in 1983, only one copy of the trophy exists, as "anyone wishing to acquire the trophy must remove it from our keeping by paranormal means" and no winner has yet overcome this obstacle.
The winner should either be an Australian or have carried out their activities in Australia.
The New Zealand Skeptics have a similar Bent Spoon Award.
May 6, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word Ig Nobel Prizes
The Ig Nobel Prizes are parodies of the Nobel Prizes given out each autumn for 10 unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. They have been awarded since 1991, with the stated aim to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think". The awards can be veiled criticism or satire but are also used to point out that even absurd-sounding avenues of research can yield useful knowledge.
May 6, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word banana messenger
Banana messengers or fruit messengers were agents sent on US railroads to accompany shipments of bananas and other fruit. They were accorded special ticket rates, similar to those for railway employees and clergy, as late as the 1960s. The tickets were not honored on some premium trains. Reportedly, the reduced rate also applied to the return trip (sans bananas).
The name was also used to refer to some cabooses. Described in IC 9650-9956, these were steel underframe drover's cabooses built between 1897 and 1913, and reclassified as banana messengers sometime between 1955 and 1963. The last five were scrapped or sold between 1963 and 1971.
May 5, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word dégringoler
This is not the meaning I expected. I figured it had something to do with a gringo changing into something else, and the dégringoler was the one to facilitate that change.
verb intransitive dégringoler /degʀɛ̃gɔle/
=chuter faire une chute précipitée
to tumble , to fall
verb transitive―
=dévaler descendre très rapidement
to race down
Le voleur dégringole les étages de l'immeuble pour échapper aux policiers.
The thief is racing down the stairs in the building to escape from the police.
May 5, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word potvaliancy
courage or bravery occasioned by drunkenness; Dutch courage. — potvaliant , adj . See also potvalor, potvalency
May 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word Owenism
The social and political theories of Robert Owen, an early 19th-century British reformer whose emphasis upon cooperative education and living led to the founding of communal experiments, including the ill-fated community of New Harmony, Indiana, purchased from the Rappites. — Owenite , n.
May 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word arctophilist
What about chained bears?
May 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word tyrosemiophily
The collecting of Camembert cheese labels. Collecting cheese labels, in general, is laclabphily.
May 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word laclabphily
To specifically collect Camembert cheese labels is tyrosemiophily.
May 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word errinophily
The collecting of stamps other than postage stamps (green stamps, revenue/tax stamps).
May 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word brandophily
The collecting of cigar bands. Also known as cigrinophily.
May 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word argyrothecology
The collecting of money boxes, as those found in churches.
May 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the list and-the-last-first
Mollusque has addictive lists. Such a learned fellow, and with a nice sense of humor to boot. I still miss all the camaraderie from the days when Wordnik was Wordie. (I wasn't known as vendingmachine around here during the Wordie days.)
May 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word maledictive
"No need to dwell on the legendary beauty of the cornerpieces, the acme of art, wherein one can distinctly discern each of the four evangelists in turn presenting to each of the four masters his evangelical symbol, a bog oak sceptre, a North American puma (a far nobler king of beasts than the British article, be it said in passing), a Kerry calf and a golden eagle from Carrantuohill. The scenes depicted on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the Sligo illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy long ago in the time of the Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely lakes of Killarney, the ruins of Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh and the Twelve Pins, Ireland's Eye, the Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh Patrick, the brewery of Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company (Limited), Lough Neagh's banks, the vale of Ovoca, Isolde's tower, the Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick Dun's hospital, Cape Clear, the glen of Aherlow, Lynch's castle, the Scotch house, Rathdown Union Workhouse at Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail, Castleconnel rapids, Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice, Jury's Hotel, S. Patrick's Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college refectory, Curley's hole, the three birthplaces of the first duke of Wellington, the rock of Cashel, the bog of Allen, the Henry Street Warehouse, Fingal's Cave—all these moving scenes are still there for us today rendered more beautiful still by the waters of sorrow which have passed over them and by the rich incrustations of time." --Ulysses, James Joyce
May 3, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the list aarne-thompson-classification-system-for-folktales
Thanks for running with this, ru. Finding out about the classification system was about all I could muster. This list idea would have languished without you.
May 2, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word lunar crater
Abetti is a lunar crater that has been completely submerged by mare lavas. It forms a 'ghost crater' in the surface, showing only a curved rise where the rim is located.
May 1, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word masks
Mexican wrestling is characterized by colorful masks, rapid sequences of holds and maneuvers, as well as "high-flying" maneuvers, some of which have been adopted in the United States. The wearing of masks has developed special significance, and matches are sometimes contested in which the loser must permanently remove his mask, which is a wager with a high degree of weight attached.
May 1, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word ampelography
..for Virginia-based vineyard consultant Lucie Morton, a world-renowned ampelographer, it’s still crucial to know how to distinguish vines the old-fashioned way: by sight and touch. It took Morton years to learn ampelography, a skill that few viticulturists in today’s high-tech world still work to master. “It’s like speaking a new language: practice makes perfect,” she says. “Ampelography is really hard, and it takes a trained eye. I would compare it to what a sommelier goes through in identifying wines blind. It takes interest, practice, focus. You build on your knowledge, just like you do with wine tasting, layering your experiences.”
April 30, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word copyfraud
Copyright law itself creates strong incentives for copyfraud. The Copyright Act provides for no civil penalty for falsely claiming ownership of public domain materials. There is also no remedy under the Act for individuals who wrongly refrain from legal copying or who make payment for permission to copy something they are in fact entitled to use for free. While falsely claiming copyright is technically a criminal offense under the Act, prosecutions are extremely rare. These circumstances have produced fraud on an untold scale, with millions of works in the public domain deemed copyrighted, and countless dollars paid out every year in licensing fees to make copies that could be made for free.
April 30, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word copyfraud
The term "copyfraud" was coined by Jason Mazzone, a Professor of Law at the University of Illinois. Because copyfraud carries little or no oversight by authorities and few legal consequences, it exists on a massive scale, with millions of works in the public domain falsely labeled as copyrighted. Payments are therefore unnecessarily made by businesses and individuals for licensing fees. Mazzone states that copyfraud stifles valid reproduction of free material, discourages innovation and undermines free speech rights. Other legal scholars have suggested public and private remedies, and a few cases have been brought involving copyfraud.
April 30, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the list cryptic
cryptic sexual dimorphism
April 30, 2017
vendingmachine commented on the word eclipse plumage
Most ducks shed their body feathers twice each year. Nearly all drakes lose their bright plumage after mating, and for a few weeks resemble females. This hen-like appearance is called the eclipse plumage. The return to breeding coloration varies in species and individuals of each species.
April 30, 2017