The Word of the Day definitions for “pugging” omit one that I find intriguing. Both GNU and the CDC suggest “thieving” as a synonym. Although its normal use is as an adjective it works just fine as a noun.
Many years ago I saw a notice of a talk to be given at MIT: “Viscous Vortices on the Vertical Verges of Variable Velocity Vessels.” I did not attend but I have wondered since if the speaker had anything substantive to say on the subject or just could not resist alliteration.
But given Australia’s colorful history I am sure that in time the origin of “nipaluna” will be construed to be a politer version of “sip-o’-moonshine.”
I have added forensic but I realize he (she?) may be the relative nobody wants to acknowledge. If he is unwelcome I will return to cast him into outer darkness. (If I can figure out how to delete an item frm a list.)
This is a problem in that groupie does not rhyme with toady. Can we suppose an especially abject roadie?
The measure of my knowledge of the culture of rock is probably a negative value. I am going to have to do some original thinking, unless of course the persuasive power of my application of roadie in this limerick has such influence that the common understanding of the word is changed. How long should I wait?
I can find no adjectival version of quandary. To my surprise the OED reports that it can be used as a verb in the passive voice and supplies examples such as, “2007 www.rolandmc.com 23 Feb. (O.E.D. Archives) I'm seriously quandaried by the need to create and choose a MySpace name.”
Dammit, bilby, I knew you were going to want more info since I know you speak Bahasa Malayu or its Indonesian cousin. The Malay origin was the first I found but now I cannot locate the specific source I used. I have found other sources that suggest the Arabic “ma’salaam” became the Malay “salang” and that British soldiers and sailors serving in Malaya in the 19th Century brought it home as “so long.”
Now I’m going to be awake all night looking for that damned first google hit.
The origins of “so long” are in fact mysterious. It’ suggested origins have been placed in Irish (slán), German (adieu so lange), Hebrew (shalom), Arabic (salaam). Also Malay, Norwegian and Swedish origins have been posited. An early appearance in print was in the poetry of Walt Whitman who reported that it was a common salutation among soldiers and sailors.
The obvious question is, “Who has been screwing the koalas?” There is nothing those Aussies won’t stoop to. Next it’ll be the quokkas. Or (gasp!) bilbies!
Yes indeed, folks. The kettle is at a simmer and I am trying to keep the lid on. If anyone else would care to set this simpleton straight I would be happy for the help.
Inscape and instress are complementary concepts about individuality and uniqueness derived by Gerard Manley Hopkins from the ideas of the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus.
Inscape and instress are complementary concepts about individuality and uniqueness derived by Gerard Manley Hopkins from the ideas of the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus.
I came across a list of Wodehousian words for drunk. Many are already in this list but the following are not: above par, rotten, groggy, ossified, tanked, illuminated, lit up like a Christmas tree, woozled.
I’ve had some more thoughts on iconic names. I have been trying to think of women’s names that have the same uniquely identifying value as men’s names and I am having trouble. ‘Ivan’ can mean a generic Russian man but can ‘Svetlana’ mean a generic Russian woman or is it just the name of a specific Russian woman? If I tell a joke featuring ‘Pierre,’ ‘Alphonse,’ or ‘Gaston’ you now that he is a French stereotype but I don’t think the same is true of ‘Francoise’ or ‘Marianne,’ even though this last is an official symbol of the French nation.
Is this an artifact of historic male supremacy or do women’s names just better permeate national boundaries? I know the Aussies have adopted the Irish ‘Sile’ (after demoting the initial uppercase letter) as ‘sheila,’ to mean a young woman. Is this still current? I don’t think it is used to mean a specifically Australian woman. I will be happy to be corrected in this assumption and enlightened by examples of nationally iconic women’s names.
Yes! I had forgotten about Jock. I have used that before when a single syllable would do. Hamish is very good too. I will file that one away. Since Erin McKean has such an abiding fondness for Scottish utterance I need to have some on the shelf.
My friend Roo writes to tell me of the Aussie habit of addressing redheaded men as Bluey. I suppose this is akin to the custom of calling bald men Curly or large men Tiny. Is there a handy word or phrase for this convention?
I have used ‘Sandy’ as a generic name for a Scotsman. A quick google search confirms that it has been so employed before. It is used in Caledonia as a diminutive of ‘Alexander’ and possibly some other more formal names. I used to use ‘Angus’ for this but now I have a grandnephew by that name so it feels awkward to attribute opinions, behaviors or attitudes to Angus.
I can use ‘Ivan’ and all would recognize that I mean ‘a Russian,’ or ‘Guido’ and a generalized Italian would be understood. What might be some other generic names? Many years ago I resided in the Philippines and learned that the locals were happy to address all Americans as ‘Joe.’
I have a correspondent in Perth who signs himself ‘Roo.’ There is a notorious Tasmanian who uses the handle ‘bilby.’ Is there a generic moniker for marsupials that we could apply to all Australians?
Pronounced chich-iss-BEE-ism. It could serve as an onomatopoetic word for a sneeze.
The definition calls for some background:
cicisbeo – n. In Italy, since the seventeenth century, the name given to a professed gallant and attendant of a married woman; one who dangles about women.
dangle – To hang loosely; be suspended so as to be swayed be the wind or any slight force.
Hence To dance attendance; hover longingly or importunately, as for notice or favors: used of persons, with about or after: as, to dangle about a woman; to dangle after a great man.
You will observe that on the top right of every page in Wordnik there is a text field labeled “Search” displaying a magnifying glass symbol. Replace the grayed-out Search text string with the word you want to look up and hit Return or click the magnifier image.
Two notes on decollete/décolleté: I assume that the unaccented version exists only because of US publishers’ misguided aversion to French accents. I have never heard ir pronounced as though unaccented. Also, it is defined here as an adjective but is frequently used as a noun.
Two notes on decollete/décolleté: I assume that the unaccented version exists only because of US publishers’ misguided aversion to French accents. I have never heard ir pronounced as though unaccented. Also, it is defined here as an adjective but is frequently used as a noun.
I once ate in a restaurant that described its main offerings as “meat (of some kind),” potatoes “(of some kind),” and “dujours.” I asked the waitress what “dujours” are and she giggled.
Well done, vm. Thank you. From the citation Tank gives I am thinking that “Popkiss” might be a “nurse name” for “Hopkins.” I had a grand aunt called Lalla. Her actual name was Ellen, but when my father was a toddler he could not pronounce that and said “lalla” instead. So she remained for the rest of her life. It is a little harder to understand such developments in surnames.
You “found” it and it was wrong. I think the idea of a lexicographical site is that you check your sources. I can “find” anything in ten seconds of searching.
This name for the phenomenon comes from French encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot's description of such a situation in his Paradoxe sur le comédien.1 During a dinner at the home of statesman Jacques Necker, a remark was made to Diderot which left him speechless at the time, because, he explains, "l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier" ("a sensitive man, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and can only think clearly again when he finds himself at the bottom of the stairs").
In this case, "the bottom of the stairs" refers to the architecture of the kind of hôtel particulier or mansion to which Diderot had been invited. In such houses, the reception rooms were on the étage noble, one floor above the ground floor.2 To have reached the bottom of the stairs means to have definitively left the gathering.
Oh, very good, Tank! Your posting does not provide a definition but my googling turned up this at Wiktionary:
qobar
English
Noun
qobar (plural not attested)
1. A dry fog of the upper Nile. quotations
o 1800, Report of the Board of Regents (volume 44, page 237)
In Ethiopia, where it is called qobar, this haze is of extraordinary density and hides all the features of the landscape beyond the distance of a mile, and conceals stars of the third magnitude even in the zenith.
o 2010, Charles Barnett, Iscariot (page 265)
Pietro Gandolfo, inside the old sedan, rumbled by, hidden by the dunes and the early morning qobar, dry fog of the Nile. He fidgeted nervously. He had no idea what to expect ahead.
It is a pleasure to come across an authentically obscure word rather than madeupicals like “shoemit = vomit in your shoes.”
From Ben Zimmer’s review in the Wall Street Journal of the book Origins of Kibosh:
Mr. Little, a professor at Mississippi State University, was the first to suggest in a piece for Comments on Etymology that “kibosh” may derive from the word “kurbash,” a long whip used for punishment in parts of the Muslim world. It originally appeared in Arabic and Turkish, borrowed into French as “courbache” and into English as “kurbash” and other variant spellings.
That theory received a big boost when Mr. Goranson, who works at the Duke University library, discovered a poem published in London as a broadside around 1830. The anonymous author uses the expression “put on the kibosh” and explains in the next line, “That is, if they was to introduce the lash.”
The phrase "Alphonse-and-Gaston routine", or "Alphonse-Gaston Syndrome", indicates a situation wherein one party refuses to act until another party acts first... Also, the phrase has a specific meaning in baseball lingo: when two fielders allow a catchable ball to drop between them, it is known as “doing the Alphonse and Gaston.”
Alphonse and Gaston was an American comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper, featuring a bumbling pair of Frenchmen with a penchant for politeness.
See gangerh’s comment of Jan. 12, 2013. If it makes sense it does not count. It is an exercise in irrelevancy. A bit redundant for the Wordnik Community page perhaps, but amusing nevertheless.
You’re telling us that when a Bogotan steps in dog shit he cries, “lo que hace tu mascota?” A remarkably placid people, those Bogotans. (Bogotenes? Bogotanos?)
Have you noticed that lately athletes and celebrities who are given praise will usually say that they are “humbled?” They can jog to the podium wearing an ear-to-ear grin, hoist the gaudy trophy and expand on how humbling the experience is. Of course, they are proud as peacocks, as they have a right to be, but they are unwilling to say so. I think that “humble” may be undergoing an inversion into its opposite. Just as “literally” has come to mean “figuratively,” I fear that “humble” will soon mean “proud.”
I am an old-fashioned bloke and happy to declare that I am literally proud to receive your praise.
I reside in the city of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Lately I have been learning a lot about the origin of this name. A little over a week ago the Word of the Day was haverbread (see comments there), and today’s WotD, haverel, is a near homonym of the city name. The name of the city is pronounced in these parts as a two syllable word to rhyme with “cave thrill,” whereas the middle syllable in “haverel” gets some slight acknowledgment. I learned haver can mean oats/oatmeal or to talk foolishly. I have seen little of the former locally and find the latter no more abundant here than elsewhere. Of course, the American city is named after an English town. If anyone can testify to that town’s reputation for either oats or foolishness I would be glad to read it.
Most of the usage examples supplied apply the word as a synonym for “executioner.” None of the aggregated dictionaries (nor the OED) extend the word to include this meaning.
bilby has shrewdly discerned my reason for preferring the OED definition. In an emergency I invite the reader to repeat my contribution nine more times.
It took me overnight, but when I awoke this morning I finally saw the pun buried deep in bilby's comment: "new Rolexes" - I think? In mysterious ways works that mind.
Edmond Hoyle (1672 – 29 August 1769 was a writer best known for his works on the rules and play of card games. The phrase "according to Hoyle" came into the language as a reflection of his generally perceived authority on the subject; since that time, use of the phrase has expanded into general use in situations in which a speaker wishes to indicate an appeal to a putative authority.
The audio buttons on Word entry pages have never worked on my iPad, although they do sometimes work on my pc. I should have checked the OED, which includes the accent aigu. I see now that Wordnik does have an entry for corvée as well. Picky, picky. I wonder what the word sounds like in strine?
Ex.: Police say that between four counties, Jack McPeak stole flags from fire departments, schools, cemeteries, “and the one that really torques me off,” said Keith County Sheriff Jeff Stevens, “the American Legion.”
Google "really torques me" to find many such examples. Kitit, in comments at tork, reports that this expression was common when he was a teenager in the 1960s. I am about the same age as Kitit and I do not recall hearing this expression while growing up in New England. It may be a regionalism.
Some years ago I was traveling with family through the Loire Valley and we passed through the town of Tours. In the central part of the city there is an ancient tower (French “tour”). It was plain that if we had stopped to be guided through that remnant we would be taking the Tours tour tour.
I used to have a carbuncle. He was wonderfully helpful with "normally aspirated" car engines but became an anachronism when fuel injection came in. He works on lawn mowers now.
ไข่เยี่ยวม้า (khai yiao ma), literally "horse piss eggs," is the Thai term for what are more commonly called "hundred year old eggs." These are hard boiled eggs pickled to a deep brown. Supposedy the old Thai recipe used horse urine as the pickling agent.
Puzzling how, in spite of everything, Australians enjoy such a reputation for friendliness. Perhaps bilby’s ill humor is the result of frustration with the Australian dung beetle problem. It seems the place is covered in shit.
According to the OED the vowel in broose is one of those peculiarly Scottish stranglings. Think of the sound made by an expiring bagpipe as it dwindles to a flaccid state. I have elected to rhyme it as you see. Those who want perfect authenticity should abuse the rhyming words into conformity.
The Kalenjin people of Kenya dominate marathon running worldwide. For a treatment of the role of coming of age traditions in fostering this dominance see:
Sounds a lot like “okaley dokaley,” the favorite expression of assent of Ned Flanders, Homer Simpson’s pious neighbor. Could this be evidence of the influence of Dutch folk tradition on The Simpsons? There might be a PhD dissertation there.
I see that some GNU collaborator (or perhaps an imperious spell checker), in plundering The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia for a definition of "tetric " has assumed the old and honorable "froward" to be a misspelling of "forward" and has "corrected" it.
Comments by qms
Show previous 200 comments...
qms commented on the word microseism
The old man was shriveled and wizened,
The lassie however was lithesome.
I’ve heard it reported
The ways she contorted
Brought on a discreet microseism.
July 17, 2018
qms commented on the word tanuki
Thanks, zuzu. Can we make this a regular date?
July 16, 2018
qms commented on the word tanuki
In appearance it’s comically kookie -
Both mutt and raccoon - a tanuki!
A gigantic scrotum
Is his magic totem.
That’s fable but still pretty spooky.
July 16, 2018
qms commented on the word manway
I’d rather be elsewhere than stay
In caverns where nightmares can prey.
It’s foolish, not brave
To enter a cave
Unless you’ve been shown a manway.
July 15, 2018
qms commented on the word multure
The tasks to support agriculture
Include an unglamorous dull chore,
As most men will find
That milling’s a grind,
Relieved by receipt of the multure.
July 14, 2018
qms commented on the word barege
Isadora, oldtimers allege,
Would dance in a cloud of Arpège,
Adorned all the while
With only a smile
And diaphanous wisps of barege.
July 13, 2018
qms commented on the word tarriance
Your status you may well enhance
By carefully casual dalliance.
The rich and the great
Are stylishly late,
And greater the longer the tarriance.
July 12, 2018
qms commented on the word pugging
The Word of the Day definitions for “pugging” omit one that I find intriguing. Both GNU and the CDC suggest “thieving” as a synonym. Although its normal use is as an adjective it works just fine as a noun.
Whenever not smugly flag hugging
He’s giving the gov’mint a mugging.
He’s snug with rich thugs
Who buzz thick like bugs
Engorged with the glut of their pugging.
July 11, 2018
qms commented on the word pugging
The job of enclosing and snugging
Needs patience for doing the pugging,
A good eye and feel
To make clay congeal
And strength for the tedious lugging.
July 11, 2018
qms commented on the word nahual
If you should be born a narwhal
And find it won’t suit you at all,
Apply to a shaman
To make you a cayman
Or other exotic nahual.
July 10, 2018
qms commented on the word aversation
The landscape’s a bleak desolation,
Too grim to bear long contemplation.
A guy could do worse
Than write silly verse
While giving the news aversation.
July 9, 2018
qms commented on the word synteny
I sought the report and I’ve read it -
Our genes are now subject to edit.
Disrupting concinnity
And delicate synteny
Might serve as a reason to dread it.
July 8, 2018
qms commented on the word trommel
In heartwarming tableaux of old
The prospector pans for his gold;
The motorized trommel
Is now what is normal,
A scene that leaves dreaming hearts cold.
July 7, 2018
qms commented on the word quincuncial
Milady likes tea that’s served punctual
With certain wee treats that are munchable.
All implements furnished
Are brilliant and burnished,
Laid out in a pattern quincuncial.
July 6, 2018
qms commented on the word absolutism
It could be a slavish faux Putinism
Or native enjoyment of brutalism,
Or weak leader’s dread
Of being gainsaid
That fosters his crude absolutism.
July 5, 2018
qms commented on the word patriotical
The gestures are false but methodical:
Flag hugging is crudely symbolical;
His staging quite brims
With anthems and hymns
And all of it mock patriotical.
July 4, 2018
qms commented on the word autarchy
Good people be silent and hark ye!
Believe not the goblin’s malarkey!
He’ll wheedle and flatter
But words do not matter.
He means to construct an autarchy.
July 3, 2018
qms commented on the word vortex
Many years ago I saw a notice of a talk to be given at MIT: “Viscous Vortices on the Vertical Verges of Variable Velocity Vessels.” I did not attend but I have wondered since if the speaker had anything substantive to say on the subject or just could not resist alliteration.
July 3, 2018
qms commented on the word sycee
Very generous, bilby, thank you. I am grateful not only for the compliment but for reassurance that I am not alone out here. Where is everybody?
July 2, 2018
qms commented on the word boutade
A bon vivant might play a new card
Affecting a flashy foulard,
But such fashions fade
As soon as they’re played
Replaced by the latest boutade.
July 2, 2018
qms commented on the user tanstaafl
Impoverishment is a damn nuisance
But think of these words in a new sense:
A currency which is
A transfer of riches -
A free and renewable two cents.
July 1, 2018
qms commented on the word sycee
To live in Hong Kong can be dicey -
The housing is terribly pricey.
The rents are so bloated
That often they’re quoted
In carats per month or in sycee.
July 1, 2018
qms commented on the word velarium
The place was a burning solarium
So, wilting, he waved his orarium;
Thus Caesar conveyed
His need for some shade,
And slaves trotted out the velarium.
June 30, 2018
qms commented on the word cultigen
The eugenics project resulted in
An unsatisfactory cultigen.
Reversing bold plans
They bred Yankees fans
Instead of a species of ultra-men.
June 29, 2018
qms commented on the word galantine
In whom is such consummate talent seen,
Picasso perhaps, or in Balanchine?
What chef can impart
That tone of high art
We seek in the glistening galantine?
June 28, 2018
qms commented on the word scrappage
When efforts at mending and wrappage
Can’t hide your tin lizzie is crappage
Then turn in your honey
And take the blood money
To buy a new friend with the scrappage.
June 27, 2018
qms commented on the word weasand
The harried mom desperately reasoned
Her brat needed mush highly seasoned.
The trick was a help;
It silenced her whelp
By stifling his cries in his weasand.
June 26, 2018
qms commented on the word bastide
A taste for the market stampede
And years in the bourse may well lead
To regal facility
For rustic gentility
At the court of your summer bastide.
June 25, 2018
qms commented on the word oniomania
Now some people browse for a swap
And others use Paypal to shop,
But oniomania
Infects certain crania
And online they never need stop.
June 24, 2018
qms commented on the word sapropel
Antiquity’s singers were apt to tell
Of ominous blooms of asphodel.
Persephone’s bower
Was full of this flower,
Bred of the netherworld’s sapropel.
June 23, 2018
qms commented on the word myrmecophagous
Big Bird, on a new diet slant,
Suggests that his pal eat an ant,
But Ol’ Snuffleupagus
Is not myrmecophagous.
He tries to comply but he can’t.
June 22, 2018
qms commented on the word cark
For pessimists life has gone dark
Lit only by danger’s faint spark.
Expressions of joy
Serve but to annoy
A sufferer shrouded in cark.
June 21, 2018
qms commented on the word estivate
When striving and troublesome quest abate
And days of diversion and rest await,
I’ll work to no goal
Nor pay labor’s toll,
For starting tomorrow I’ll estivate.
June 20, 2018
qms commented on the word bittock
It pleases us all to play critic
And make our assessments acidic.
Oh, let us not hasten
To cavil and chasten
But walk with the other a bittock.
June 19, 2018
qms commented on the word chiliagon
There’s many a line to be drawn
To finish my chiliagon.
With pencils and rules
And paper my tools
With patience I’ll see you anon.
June 18, 2018
qms commented on the word ectype
Warhol had an ingenious plan
To paint a tomato soup can.
He knew to expect hype
And many an ectype.
Call Andy a shrewd businessman.
June 17, 2018
qms commented on the word foregleam
We plan, we prepare and we scheme
Constructing the future we dream,
But by nature’s kindness
We’re sheltered by blindness
And spared the despair of foregleam.
June 16, 2018
qms commented on the word rate
Its origin in Middle English raten etc. is thoroughly documented above.
June 15, 2018
qms commented on the word squandermania
The cries made in old Pomerania
Are echoed in our Pennsylvania.
The party that’s out
Still gives a great shout
Of outrage at such squandermania.
June 15, 2018
qms commented on the word thunderation
The goblin in triumph has stunned the nation;
Let’s pray that his tenure is one duration.
What words can convey
Our fear and dismay?
Oh dammit! And bother! And thunderation!
June 14, 2018
qms commented on the word auspicate
Philosophers routinely postulate
And pundits are prone to prognosticate
But if you’d be blessed
A twitcher knows best,
Whose passion is always to auspicate.
June 13, 2018
qms commented on the word vilipend
To those who will beg to be friend
The goblin may well condescend.
A different matter
Are those who won’t flatter
And these he is pleased to vilipend.
June 12, 2018
qms commented on the word dehort
Should friends be inclined to support
Or join in the trumpish cohort
Then make it your chore
To strongly deplore,
To reason, implore and dehort.
June 11, 2018
qms commented on the word ephemeron
The mayfly begins life at dawn,
By sundown the wee beast is gone,
And all it desires
Before it expires
Is love with a friendly ephemeron.
June 10, 2018
qms commented on the word roister
It would be shellfish of me to want more praise.
June 10, 2018
qms commented on the word roister
When high tide arrives they get moister,
Then quahogs and cherrystones roister,
But twice-daily frolics
Of mud-dwelling mollusks
Are spurned by the dignified oyster.
June 9, 2018
qms commented on the word bullyrag
Oh, why must her tongue unduly wag
And flail like a scourge to cruelly nag?
Her chosen life path
Is unbridled wrath
To hector and chide and bullyrag.
June 8, 2018
qms commented on the word cunctative
Also see comments at cunctatory.
June 7, 2018
qms commented on the word cunctatory
Old Aesop once in drunken glory
Concocted a famed but bunkum story
Of rabbit and turtle.
A tale ever fertile
That comforts today the cunctatory.
Also see comments at cunctative.
June 7, 2018
qms commented on the word spruit
What praise has this rivulet due it
That dies if the dew not renew it?
But readers are fickle
And even this trickle
Gains charm if you call it a spruit.
June 6, 2018
qms commented on the word putchist
Misspelling of putschist?
June 6, 2018
qms commented on the word vacillant
Be patient with Malcolm the malcontent.
It’s not that he’s always recalcitrant,
But suffers from bouts
Of worries and doubts
That make him reluctant and vacillant.
June 5, 2018
qms commented on the word geoponic
The stirring in regions chthonic
And warming of earth are synchronic
As seeds grow and flourish
To comfort and nourish,
Encouraged by skills geoponic.
June 4, 2018
qms commented on the word barranca
See comments at clough.
June 3, 2018
qms commented on the word clough
Aren’t gorge and ravine quite enough
For valleys and such hollowed stuff?
Barranca and canyon
Don’t need a companion.
I think we’ll dispense with this “clough”.
See comments at barranca.
June 3, 2018
qms commented on the word attrite
When buzzards descend and alight
Then plutocrats take an affright
And fiercely abjure
All Satan’s allure.
At Hell’s looming gate they’re attrite.
June 2, 2018
qms commented on the word sturdy
Now sturdy’s an interesting word.
I note it derives from a bird.
I see how the thrush
Could seem like a lush
But why did they call it a turd?
June 1, 2018
qms commented on the word hypaethral
The worshippers, eager and gleeful,
Now thronging their civic cathedral
In service of sport
Send prayers of support
To heaven from temples hypaethral.
June 1, 2018
qms commented on the word snarfly
Adverbial form of the verb ‘to snarf’.
May 31, 2018
qms commented on the user puyan
Ahoy there, puyan!
May 31, 2018
qms commented on the word barfly
madmouth, I am pleased to have tickled you. (In a purely notional sense, of course. No touching involved. Kept my hands in my pockets.)
May 31, 2018
qms commented on the word lazuline
Oh, stranger, I ask have you seen
Her eyes, so sublimely serene?
The depth of both gem
And sky is in them,
Cerulean yet lazuline!
May 31, 2018
qms commented on the word barfly
There once was a drunk named McCarthy
Consuming all alcohol snarfly.
His limit once struck
He’d quickly upchuck
Sustaining his drinking bouts barfly.
May 30, 2018
qms commented on the word nipaluna
The scholars arrived in a schooner
And drinking began all the sooner
For, as sailors will,
They fired up the still
And raised up their first nipaluna.
May 30, 2018
qms commented on the word nipaluna
But given Australia’s colorful history I am sure that in time the origin of “nipaluna” will be construed to be a politer version of “sip-o’-moonshine.”
May 30, 2018
qms commented on the word tharm
In Scotland they claim there is charm in it
And doctors do say there’s no harm in it,
But eating of haggis
I’m certain would gag us
Because we’re alarmed by the tharm in it.
May 30, 2018
qms commented on the word obreptitious
The victory sure was suspicious,
Defying the voters’ clear wishes,
Not obvious fraud
But obscurely odd,
Obtained by some means obreptitious.
May 30, 2018
qms commented on the word jackleg
Mike Cohen’s a slippery twister
Who loves to be thought a slick fixer.
At law he’s the dreg,
A shabby jackleg,
But passably good as a trickster.
May 29, 2018
qms commented on the word contemnor
*The monkey doffs his hat,*
May 28, 2018
qms commented on the word contemnor
The judge with his voice all a-tremor
Ordered the witness’s hem lower.
Miniskirts are distractions
In criminal actions
And get you adjudged a contemnor.
May 28, 2018
qms commented on the word exclave
It’s either foolhardy or brave
To capture the sense of enclave
While leaving in place
The lexical space
To service its shadow, exclave.
See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclave_and_exclave
May 27, 2018
qms commented on the word sgraffito
It’s boring to be incognito,
Celebrity, though, gets my veto.
Expose with great care
The parts you will share;
You should be a work of sgraffito.
May 26, 2018
qms commented on the word necrology
A Christmas card list has a quality
At first of good cheer and frivolity.
By decades that column
Grows more and more solemn
And ossifies into necrology.
May 25, 2018
qms commented on the word recess
The lumberjacks lay down their peaveys
And gypsies dispose of their tea leaves.
Good sense is forsaken
And liberties taken
While Erin consorts with the Kiwis.
May 24, 2018
qms commented on the word quodlibetical
Conversing in mode quodlibetical
My contrary friend is heretical.
In subsequent talks
He’s more orthodox
To savor all joys antithetical.
May 24, 2018
qms commented on the word bezil
See bezel.
May 24, 2018
qms commented on the word cateran
On lonely roads nothing is rarer than
That stranger should prove a samaritan,
So pray he’s a blellum
Or at worst a skellum
But never a prey hunting cateran.
May 23, 2018
qms commented on the word ultramundane
It‘s no term of slighting disdain;
Like “out of this world” it’s no stain.
Without taint of “boring”
But downright adoring,
It’s good to be ultramundane!
May 22, 2018
qms commented on the user squisch
A noble aspiration. Good luck.
May 21, 2018
qms commented on the word soroche
Up high in the Andes the folks say
The chewing of coca is ok.
It’s sovereign cure
For pains of the poor
And proof against dreaded soroche.
May 21, 2018
qms commented on the word cuadrilla
The shy matador’s bright idea
For wooing the haughty Maria
Was a sweet serenade
For that tease of a maid,
Backed up by his loyal cuadrilla.
May 20, 2018
qms commented on the word expunction
I think a serial comma is fussy, foolish and redundant.
May 19, 2018
qms commented on the word serial comma
See comments at expunction.
May 19, 2018
qms commented on the word expunction
A comma should serve a clear function
Not pester a healthy conjunction.
At the end of a list
It need not exist.
I call for its lasting expunction.
See serial comma.
May 19, 2018
qms commented on the list fore
I have added forensic but I realize he (she?) may be the relative nobody wants to acknowledge. If he is unwelcome I will return to cast him into outer darkness. (If I can figure out how to delete an item frm a list.)
May 18, 2018
qms commented on the word vicariance
Ma Nature conducts such a merry dance
Ingeniously fostering variance,
With tectonic drift
And mountains’ uplift
Deployed in the cause of vicariance.
May 18, 2018
qms commented on the word réchauffé
I like finding rhymes recherché,
The fanciful, rare or outré,
But often I flail
To little avail
And serve up a soup réchauffé.
May 18, 2018
qms commented on the word toolpusher
Suggestive are names on the rig:
They drill till the gusher is big;
A roustabout’s lusty
But (read it and trust me),
The big score’s a toolpusher’s gig.
May 17, 2018
qms commented on the user Robby75
Do you think I ought to charge a rate per rhyme or just hold limericks hostage?
May 17, 2018
qms commented on the word Optix's
Something here is sadly awry.
May 16, 2018
qms commented on the word sophrosyne
Oh, Plato would weep if he was to see
The state of our current democracy,
Our meanest and least
At hubristic feast
And mocking poor starving sophrosyne.
Pronunciation note: so-FROZ-a-nee
May 16, 2018
qms commented on the word bossage
To minimize spoiling and lossage
The butcher stacks shrewdly his sausage.
The look is unkempt
But fashioned to tempt,
The oldest protruding like bossage.
May 15, 2018
qms commented on the word concinnity
A rock speeding in from infinity
Can slow in the stellar vicinity
And give up deep space
For the solar embrace
To circle in languid concinnity.
May 14, 2018
qms commented on the word scrumpy
It calms the old girl when she’s jumpy
And cheers her on days when she’s grumpy.
The proper elixir
For all that afflicts her
Is pomaceous nectar called scrumpy.
May 13, 2018
qms commented on the word cottabus
We drank from the shell of a nautilus
Till skolion wearied the lot of us
Then made dirty jests
And bragged of conquests
And spent the last wine playing cottabus.
May 12, 2018
qms commented on the word frolic
The winter left us melancholic
But May arrives bright and bucolic -
Cavorting and gambols
And giggles in brambles
And all sorts of innocent frolic.
May 11, 2018
qms commented on the word esbat
I liked the old comical fest that
Included the conical dress hat
And caldron a-stew
With dark witches’ brew,
Now banned at canonical esbat.
May 11, 2018
qms commented on the word gobemouche
"Deplorables" can mean the louche,
The wicked man coarsely uncouth,
Or simple unwise
Who swallows his lies,
The gullible, gaping gobemouche.
May 10, 2018
qms commented on the word candy-pull
Also called a taffy pull.
https://pioneerthinking.com/old-fashioned-taffy-pull-party-how-to-host-your-own
May 9, 2018
qms commented on the word tittup
This virtual college of dance
Will teach you to caper or prance:
The gambol is wilder
A tittup much milder.
Cavorting might suit you, perchance?
May 9, 2018
qms commented on the word taupie
Young ladies whose morals are sloppy
May yield to the call of the poppy.
With that fatal taste
Have lives gone to waste
And heroine turned into taupie.
May 9, 2018
qms commented on the word velure
Long gone is the beastly couture
That wrapped up the swells in pellure.
Farewell to the feathers
And exotic leathers,
Replaced now with sinless velure.
May 8, 2018
qms commented on the word attercop
Compare gangewifre.
May 8, 2018
qms commented on the word gangewifre
Compare attercop.
May 8, 2018
qms commented on the word catamite
One of the most memorable opening lines of any novel is that that begins Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers:
This is in medias res with a vengeance.
May 7, 2018
qms commented on the word skolion
A yodel I figured had solely been
A feature of regions tyrolean,
But wine and a lyre
I bet could inspire
The Greeks to claim it’s a skolion.
May 7, 2018
qms commented on the word barlow
Les voyageurs of long, long ago
Could carry but little cargo
A fragile canoe,
Held a musket or two,
An axe and a handy barlow.
May 6, 2018
qms commented on the word swallet
When gravity’s dictates are followed
The river finds rock that is hollowed.
The miner’s will call it
A damnable swallet,
And live in the fear they’ll be swallowed.
May 5, 2018
qms commented on the user qms
ruzuzu, you are a generous soul. I thank you.
May 5, 2018
qms commented on the word zaddy
The prospect with horror does fill me!
I don’t know where word nerds then will be.
Why purge grace and wit?
There’s little of it,
Except in the postings of bilby.
May 4, 2018
qms commented on the word tritanomaly
Because of severe tritanomaly
I view my environs abnormally.
You may think it crazy
But critics still praise me
No matter I paint so abominably.
May 4, 2018
qms commented on the word verism
Compiling my beach reading queue
I like an O’Brian or two.
But swashbuckling numbers
Disrupt my sweet slumbers -
At bedtime verism will do.
May 3, 2018
qms commented on the word sumpitan
His tweeting’s vituperative art
And close to his putative heart.
Some spittle to pump it in
The Trumpian sumpitan
Then blowhard delivers his dart.
May 2, 2018
qms commented on the word epopee
The critics praise Pope only tepidly
His work is too witty and echoey.
His epics are mock
So scholars still balk
To classify any as epopee.
May 1, 2018
qms commented on the word dortour
Friar Fred was a snorer and snorter
And brotherly tempers grew shorter.
The last straw was farting;
This led to the parting
As Fred was expelled from the dortour.
April 30, 2018
qms commented on the word exedra
Do we have a word for the dread
That pangolins lurk in the shed,
Or spiny echidna
Invade the exedra
And cobras wait curled in the bed?
April 29, 2018
qms commented on the word gyrene
The proud and committed marines
All know what a leatherneck means.
They cherish that name
And combative fame
They’ve earned as relentless gyrenes.
April 28, 2018
qms commented on the word squizz
Variety covers show biz
And glories in tags like Les Mis.
For such razmataz
And verbal pizazz
Just give the old rag a quick squizz.
April 27, 2018
qms commented on the word callllama
Uber in the Andes.
April 27, 2018
qms commented on the word dresssuit
See dress suit.
April 27, 2018
qms commented on the word wanigan
The lumberjack loved his new mannequin
And, oh, what a noisy shenanigan!
The ecstatic cries
And heartbreaking sighs
That shivered the walls of his wanigan!
April 26, 2018
qms commented on the word tufthunter
Google and I got that allusion and enjoyed a very amusing Youtube video.
April 25, 2018
qms commented on the word tufthunter
But insults or slights don’t affront her,
A compliant tool
Too ready to snool,
And formerly known as tufthunter.
April 25, 2018
qms commented on the word tufthunter
This is a problem in that groupie does not rhyme with toady. Can we suppose an especially abject roadie?
The measure of my knowledge of the culture of rock is probably a negative value. I am going to have to do some original thinking, unless of course the persuasive power of my application of roadie in this limerick has such influence that the common understanding of the word is changed. How long should I wait?
April 25, 2018
qms commented on the word tufthunter
Their scorn could hardly be blunter
But insults or slights don’t affront her.
In rock she’s a “roadie,”
More generally - “toady,”
And formerly known as tufthunter.
Michael Quinion has an excellent discussion of this word at
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-tuf2.htm
April 25, 2018
qms commented on the word bibliopolist
The pages of books can offer this:
A personal mental Acropolis,
A temple and shrine
That’s uniquely mine
Whose priest is the old bibliopolist.
April 24, 2018
qms commented on the word vowess
They prayed, “May the Good Lord endow us
With a novice of kitchen skill prowess.”
He answered their plea
With well-fed Marie,
The convent’s most welcome new vowess.
April 23, 2018
qms commented on the word flexuosity
A contortionist hailing from Ossipee
Won fame as a great curiosity.
From this we may know
How far you can go
With hard work and sheer flexuosity.
April 22, 2018
qms commented on the word groupuscule
Poor Bobby had thought it super cool
To start up a geeky troop at school.
Since scarcely a nerd
Is drawn to a herd
He rounded up only a groupuscule.
April 21, 2018
qms commented on the word quandary
I can find no adjectival version of quandary. To my surprise the OED reports that it can be used as a verb in the passive voice and supplies examples such as, “2007 www.rolandmc.com 23 Feb. (O.E.D. Archives) I'm seriously quandaried by the need to create and choose a MySpace name.”
April 20, 2018
qms commented on the word vegan
Oh, dear! Is this a bad sign for vegans?
April 20, 2018
qms commented on the word tinchel
According to common report
In Scotland the hunters consort
To stalk with a wrinkle
By forming a tinchel
But still call the killing a sport.
April 20, 2018
qms commented on the word so long
Dammit, bilby, I knew you were going to want more info since I know you speak Bahasa Malayu or its Indonesian cousin. The Malay origin was the first I found but now I cannot locate the specific source I used. I have found other sources that suggest the Arabic “ma’salaam” became the Malay “salang” and that British soldiers and sailors serving in Malaya in the 19th Century brought it home as “so long.”
Now I’m going to be awake all night looking for that damned first google hit.
April 19, 2018
qms commented on the word so long
The origins of “so long” are in fact mysterious. It’ suggested origins have been placed in Irish (slán), German (adieu so lange), Hebrew (shalom), Arabic (salaam). Also Malay, Norwegian and Swedish origins have been posited. An early appearance in print was in the poetry of Walt Whitman who reported that it was a common salutation among soldiers and sailors.
See:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/so-long-origin
https://www.etymonline.com/word/so%20long
and in many other places.
April 19, 2018
qms commented on the word haemony
That beverage that formerly seemed to me
An ordinary serving of steaming tea
Was nothing prosaic
But apotropaic -
A cup of mysterious haemony.
April 19, 2018
qms commented on the word supernova
Really? I’m always hearing people say, “I’m going to supernova my erupt.” Maybe it’s different in Tasmania.
April 18, 2018
qms commented on the word sunbow
There’s nonsense and much mumbo-jumbo
In this, our linguistical gumbo:
In absence of rain,
The pedants explain,
You must call a rainbow a sunbow.
April 18, 2018
qms commented on the word tummler
He dances, who once was a stumbler.
She sings, who once was a mumbler.
The shy and unsure
Find solace and cure
Emboldened by wine and the tummler.
April 17, 2018
qms commented on the word weem
Though life in a burrow may seem
A low and impoverished scheme
Some in a snooty vein
Call it a souterrain,
But all of us know it’s a weem.
April 16, 2018
qms commented on the word chlamydia
A swagman once pined for his Lydia
Then met a koala much prettier.
Their meeting was pleasant
So he left a present,
Now all of her tribe has chlamydia.
April 15, 2018
qms commented on the word chlamydia
The obvious question is, “Who has been screwing the koalas?” There is nothing those Aussies won’t stoop to. Next it’ll be the quokkas. Or (gasp!) bilbies!
April 15, 2018
qms commented on the word tutiorism
Recusants grown weary of dreading
And cautious confessional treading
Embraced Lutheranism
As mere tutiorism
When faced with the threat of beheading.
April 15, 2018
qms commented on the word bayadere
Already a famed bayardere
Mata Hari began a career
Of laying and lying
And diligent spying,
A true multi-task pioneer.
April 14, 2018
qms commented on the word vulpicide
The woes of the gentry are multiplied;
And country house pastimes are stultified.
Laws new and obnoxious
Protect the damn foxes,
And limit the pleasures of vulpicide.
April 13, 2018
qms commented on the word ylem
Yes indeed, folks. The kettle is at a simmer and I am trying to keep the lid on. If anyone else would care to set this simpleton straight I would be happy for the help.
April 12, 2018
qms commented on the word forgott
smell fart.
April 12, 2018
qms commented on the word vending machine
And, in an early precedent for the tv preacher/pitch man, each machine bore the onscription,
Oh, sinner you need what I vend!
Those talents you foolishly spend
If spent here with me
Will set your soul free
To find the true way and amend!
April 12, 2018
qms commented on the word schollard
The pompous word tyrant’s been collared.
In shame and confusion he hollered,
‘Oh, give me reprieve
And I’ll give you leave
To tolerate riff-raff like ‘schollard!’”
April 12, 2018
qms commented on the word workfellow
Big Joe’s normal tone is a bellow;
He shakes down the leaves with his “Hello!”
His workplace is shared
By the hearing impaired
Who think him a perfect workfellow.
April 12, 2018
qms commented on the word ylem
Before there was genus and phylum
Or God made adamic asylum,
Before night and day
Or man went astray,
Preceding it all was the ylem.
April 11, 2018
qms commented on the word daeva
My dreams are torn by incursion
Of hauntings in many a version.
Tonight’s chilling flavor
Was barking mad daeva,
A taunting malevolent Persian.
April 10, 2018
qms commented on the word thible
The Scot and the British cook quibble
‘bout tools used for stirring their nibble:
The Scotsman will hurtle
To call it a spurtle,
The Briton steadfastly says thible.
April 9, 2018
qms commented on the word phizog
The old salt sits down with his dog
And shares out his bread and his grog.
They’re birds of a feather
And, so long together,
Alike in their tastes and phisog.
April 8, 2018
qms commented on the word gowpen
The soda bread recipe lists
Ingredients in gowpens and fists.
So would you know how then
To shape your own gowpen
With palms that are joined at the wrists?
April 7, 2018
qms commented on the word claustrophilia
The Donald thinks walls give protection
From human or import infection.
But what could be sillier
Than this claustrophilia
And love of such rigid erection?
April 6, 2018
qms commented on the word fouter
In morals he’s perfectly neuter,
Self interest uniquely his tutor.
Should sanctity buy us
He’s publicly pious,
In private an unabashed fouter.
April 5, 2018
qms commented on the word bimble
The critic is mentally nimble,
Uncovering subtext and symbol,
But given the chance
Reads tales of romance -
A thinking man’s indolent bimble.
April 4, 2018
qms commented on the word inscape
Inscape and instress are complementary concepts about individuality and uniqueness derived by Gerard Manley Hopkins from the ideas of the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inscape_and_instress
April 3, 2018
qms commented on the word instress
Inscape and instress are complementary concepts about individuality and uniqueness derived by Gerard Manley Hopkins from the ideas of the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inscape_and_instress
April 3, 2018
qms commented on the word drey
He raids the bird feeder all day
And drives all the songbirds away;
Then, trading his swagger
For a corpulent stagger,
He ponderously climbs to his drey.
April 3, 2018
qms commented on the word Catherine Wheel
See Catherine wheel.
April 3, 2018
qms commented on the word above par
Less pleasant than madmouth conceives,
For Bertie disrupts and upheaves.
For life that is stable
He should, if he’s able,
Obtain his narration from Jeeves.
April 2, 2018
qms commented on the word cagoule
No storm makes a proud Frenchman snool
No matter how windy and cruel.
Courage, mon ami!
With Gallic esprit
Look cool in your boots and cagoule!
April 2, 2018
qms commented on the list a-dram-too-many
I came across a list of Wodehousian words for drunk. Many are already in this list but the following are not: above par, rotten, groggy, ossified, tanked, illuminated, lit up like a Christmas tree, woozled.
April 1, 2018
qms commented on the word above par
Per Bertie Wooster - drunk.
April 1, 2018
qms commented on the word scenographic
Prepare your victorious maffick
With every theatrical tactic,
With lights and balloons
And boisterous tunes
And all of the arts scenographic.
April 1, 2018
qms commented on the word promptuary
Terrain and the temperatures vary
Explorers, though, knew what to carry.
A well-equipped chap
Expanding the map
Kept booze in the long promptuary.
March 31, 2018
qms commented on the word grumous
Our appetites finally doom us;
Our blood becomes fatty and grumous.
The lesson thus learned
Is painfully earned
And wisdom is sadly posthumous.
March 30, 2018
qms commented on the word stuggy
His friends ‘round his coffin all joked
How much Froggy ate, drank and smoked.
So squat and so stuggy
Yet gleefully buggy,
But none were surprised when he croaked.
March 29, 2018
qms commented on the word feculent
Though most think them tasteless and petulant
His fans find his tweets are quite esculent
They dine with delight
On venom and spite
And prize the most bitter and feculent.
March 28, 2018
qms commented on the word bort
A gem in the rough by report,
Was Ernest at Doubleday’s sport.
His diamond exploit
Though grew less adroit
And Ernest’s career was a bort.
Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit
March 27, 2018
qms commented on the word noema
Prof. Husserl directs your attention
To quite a confounding invention.
He calls it noema,
A psychic edema
Inflating an act of intention.
March 26, 2018
qms commented on the word complimentarize
Dear bilby, you must have a heart!
I will, for a friend, do my part.
No matter how swollen
I’ll tighten my colon
And stifle the streperous fart.
March 25, 2018
qms commented on the word merism
I’ve stalked them from dusk until dawn
With middling success off and on:
Some words to share rhythm
And shape a merism;
I’ve hunted them hither and yon.
March 25, 2018
qms commented on the word complimentarize
Or, ‘O faithless kin, my nemesis!’
March 24, 2018
qms commented on the word complimentarize
Could be misinterpreted as ‘our farts keep mornings noisy.’
March 24, 2018
qms commented on the word battology
The Donald is best, he repeats,
The best in his mind and his feats.
To sift his battology
At best is scatology
Best sent to the pit of deceits.
March 24, 2018
qms commented on the word complimentarize
Courage, bilby! We’ve still got complimentarization, and complimentarizability to go.
March 24, 2018
qms commented on the word debitage
The sound of persistent sharp tapping
Provoke us to know what is happening
Flint flakes and a severed edge,
The litter of debitage,
Are signs a boy scout’s been caught knapping.
March 23, 2018
qms commented on the word technetronic
Your typical nerd’s not ironic
And rarely a geek is sardonic.
The bytes and the bits
Please literal wits
That coin horrors like technotronic.
March 22, 2018
qms commented on the word calvity
His scalp has been twice overhauled
But Donald insists he’s not bald.
If such simple calvity
Were solely his malady
The world would be far less appalled.
March 21, 2018
qms commented on the word pericope
Now isn’t that bilby a nuisance. I do thank him, though I would represent the pronunciation as purr-RICK-a-pee.
The audio pronunciations never seem to work on my iPad, where most composition gets done. I will be more wary in future.
There once was a preacher in Chicopee
Beset by severe insipidity.
On Sundays he normally
Abandoned his homily
And served up a meal of pericope.
March 21, 2018
qms commented on the word pericope
Theologians tell us there’s hope
Of limiting vile error’s scope.
The good can endure
With hearts that are pure
And doses of strong pericope.
This limerick left in place like a miscreant rotting on the gallows. Beware, ye hasty! (See above.)
March 20, 2018
qms commented on the word tit
There’s many a callow young wit
Who,watching one flutter and flit,
Has spread titillation
And naughty elation
Announcing his love of a tit.
March 20, 2018
qms commented on the list a-dram-too-many
I find crapulentus and comato-crapulose in the list but not crapulent, which is more common.
March 19, 2018
qms commented on the word oyabun
He laughs at a bright toy balloon,
And babbles a light joyous tune.
So ends the adventure
In childish dementia
Of him who had been oyabun.
March 19, 2018
qms commented on the word cranreuch
How spooky the look the scene took -
As eerie as woodland can look.
Damp came to emblanch
The trees, trunk and branch,
And paint the bare copse in cranreuch.
March 18, 2018
qms commented on the word thraward
Natasha sounds good to me. This could be the Rocky and Bullwinkle effect.
March 18, 2018
qms commented on the word thraward
I’ve had some more thoughts on iconic names. I have been trying to think of women’s names that have the same uniquely identifying value as men’s names and I am having trouble. ‘Ivan’ can mean a generic Russian man but can ‘Svetlana’ mean a generic Russian woman or is it just the name of a specific Russian woman? If I tell a joke featuring ‘Pierre,’ ‘Alphonse,’ or ‘Gaston’ you now that he is a French stereotype but I don’t think the same is true of ‘Francoise’ or ‘Marianne,’ even though this last is an official symbol of the French nation.
Is this an artifact of historic male supremacy or do women’s names just better permeate national boundaries? I know the Aussies have adopted the Irish ‘Sile’ (after demoting the initial uppercase letter) as ‘sheila,’ to mean a young woman. Is this still current? I don’t think it is used to mean a specifically Australian woman. I will be happy to be corrected in this assumption and enlightened by examples of nationally iconic women’s names.
March 17, 2018
qms commented on the word titchy
When Celia was angry with Richie
Her vengeance was cleverly bitchy:
She’d cook favorite dishes
But (this part is vicious)
The portions, though tasty, were titchy.
March 17, 2018
qms commented on the word thraward
Yes! I had forgotten about Jock. I have used that before when a single syllable would do. Hamish is very good too. I will file that one away. Since Erin McKean has such an abiding fondness for Scottish utterance I need to have some on the shelf.
My friend Roo writes to tell me of the Aussie habit of addressing redheaded men as Bluey. I suppose this is akin to the custom of calling bald men Curly or large men Tiny. Is there a handy word or phrase for this convention?
March 17, 2018
qms commented on the word thraward
I have used ‘Sandy’ as a generic name for a Scotsman. A quick google search confirms that it has been so employed before. It is used in Caledonia as a diminutive of ‘Alexander’ and possibly some other more formal names. I used to use ‘Angus’ for this but now I have a grandnephew by that name so it feels awkward to attribute opinions, behaviors or attitudes to Angus.
I can use ‘Ivan’ and all would recognize that I mean ‘a Russian,’ or ‘Guido’ and a generalized Italian would be understood. What might be some other generic names? Many years ago I resided in the Philippines and learned that the locals were happy to address all Americans as ‘Joe.’
I have a correspondent in Perth who signs himself ‘Roo.’ There is a notorious Tasmanian who uses the handle ‘bilby.’ Is there a generic moniker for marsupials that we could apply to all Australians?
March 17, 2018
qms commented on the word thraward
The Scots are said to be froward
But Sandy asserts it’s a foul word.
It’s Sassenach sport
A Scotsman can thwart
Insisting it ought to be thraward.
Note: The OED identifies this as a Scottish variation of ‘froward.’
March 16, 2018
qms commented on the word sapor
In France I once ate salami
That whelmed me like a tsunami.
I pray for an encore
Of that rarest sapor,
The deepest and finest umami.
March 15, 2018
qms commented on the word quinzhee
A hogan’s a nice house for two.
A teepee or wigwam might do,
But when cold and windy
You need a dry quinzhee
Or else find a vacant igloo.
March 14, 2018
qms commented on the word clinquant
Ludmila’s taste lapses are frequent,
Her judgment amiss or delinquent.
For drama’s effect
She’s tinsel bedecked
And enters all slinkily clinquant.
March 13, 2018
qms commented on the word pishogue
The old gent’s a bit of a rogue
And knows that the occult’s in vogue,
So ply him with toasts
And he’ll talk of ghosts,
Or fairies and such rich pishogue.
As in all of the supplied usage examples, and contrary to the formal definitions, the word is used dismissively to mean superstitious nonsense.
March 12, 2018
qms commented on the word neuston
Now Big Oil’s determined to drill
In waters that can’t risk a spill
The poison is loosed on
The delicate neustron
To suffocate, wither and kill.
March 11, 2018
qms commented on the word paraselene
Illusions might come from Fellini
Or wonders from work of a genie,
And in right condition
The moon’s a magician,
As witness the paraselene.
March 10, 2018
qms commented on the word cicisbeism
Pronounced chich-iss-BEE-ism. It could serve as an onomatopoetic word for a sneeze.
The definition calls for some background:
cicisbeo – n. In Italy, since the seventeenth century, the name given to a professed gallant and attendant of a married woman; one who dangles about women.
dangle – To hang loosely; be suspended so as to be swayed be the wind or any slight force.
Hence To dance attendance; hover longingly or importunately, as for notice or favors: used of persons, with about or after: as, to dangle about a woman; to dangle after a great man.
In Italy all’s in a tangle
As gallantry’s got a new angle.
It makes a wee schism
In cicisbeism
As men become objects of dangle.
March 9, 2018
qms commented on the word spindrift
At Kittyhawk the brothers Wright
Imagined a man in a kite
And welcomed the spindrift
Portending the wind lift
The day of the very first flight.
March 8, 2018
qms commented on the word limpsy
Though Donald is notably blimpy
Wee Donny is oftentimes skimpy
And needs a small hand
To firm up his stand
And cease being puny and limpsy.
March 7, 2018
qms commented on the word herm
The prudish among us may squirm
But scholars and aesthetes confirm:
The carver of stone adds
Some prominent gonads
As tokens of luck on each herm.
March 6, 2018
qms commented on the word deave
A marketer strives to achieve
A story that people believe.
If still they aren’t buying
Despite earnest trying
He’ll crank up the volume and deave.
March 5, 2018
qms commented on the word lunt
Now smoking’s become an affront
My pipe is a prop and a stunt
I clench and caress it
And (dare I confess it?)
Pretend I can still puff a lunt.
March 4, 2018
qms commented on the word sonsy
There was a bold fellow from Swansea
Who went by the moniker Chauncy.
He liked beer and cheese
And a smotherinq squeeze
With ladies good-natured and sonsy.
March 3, 2018
qms commented on the word misology
He studied old tales and idolatry
But, blameless, he’s charged with misology.
Now willow-the-wisp,
Betrayed by a lisp,
He gives up pursuit of mythology.
March 2, 2018
qms commented on the word psychotomimetic
His search for release is frenetic
And rooted in forces genetic.
His Dad could enthuse
Over ganja and booze
But his trip’s psychotomimetic.
March 1, 2018
qms commented on the word cacafuego
Patrick O’Brian was also enamored of this word. See comments at shitfire.
March 1, 2018
qms commented on the word millesimal
A homeopathic professional
Doles dosages infinitesimal.
He need never wrestle
With mortar and pestle;
His pipette drops portions millesimal.
February 28, 2018
qms commented on the word mesic
I savor the insult that’s sly,
That risks slipping unnoticed by,
But humor that’s ethnic
Is rather too mesic.
Martinis and jokes I like dry.
February 27, 2018
qms commented on the word irenic
When Adam and Eve were edenic
They needed no crude calisthenic
They rightly believed
Perfection achieved
In salubrious groves and irenic.
February 26, 2018
qms commented on the user rhtalbott
You will observe that on the top right of every page in Wordnik there is a text field labeled “Search” displaying a magnifying glass symbol. Replace the grayed-out Search text string with the word you want to look up and hit Return or click the magnifier image.
February 25, 2018
qms commented on the word petrography
While some study subjects that bleed
Or classify flower and weed,
Petrography suits
More disciplined troops
For rocks are hard science indeed.
February 25, 2018
qms commented on the word eristic
We know it from lore and statistic:
A boy who’s persistently fistic
Will find legal brawling
His natural calling,
Rewarding his talents eristic.
February 24, 2018
qms commented on the word euphemism
Is not the spoonerism itself the euphemism? As in ,
Q: How is the Swiss navy like a baby?
A: Always sucking and never fails.
I do not know that this genre has a name.
See also spoonerism.
February 23, 2018
qms commented on the word argons
See argon.
February 23, 2018
qms commented on the word edaphic
Her fashions can make heavy traffic:
Once celibate, next she was Sapphic,
Now thinks she’s Earth Mother
Or something or other
That’s sweaty, unwashed and edaphic.
February 23, 2018
qms commented on the word leg-rope
Perhaps in attempting to subdue livestock the Aussies have misinterpreted the classic French seduction technique - le grope.
February 22, 2018
qms commented on the word langrage
When enemy men-o’-war meet
Their greetings are iron and heat.
The harrowing language
Of carcass and langrage
Are all their palaver and treat.
February 22, 2018
qms commented on the word hippocras
A warthog, you’re saying, lacks class.
You claim that a rhino’s badass,
But since quite a lot of us
Admire hippopotamus
Then call not the poor hippocras.
February 21, 2018
qms commented on the word glottochronology
When Ernest and Herr Doktor Otto
Get talking and drinking till blotto
They grow rather foggy
On strictest chronology
And vague ‘bout the meaning of glotto.
Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit
February 20, 2018
qms commented on the word lodestar
As compasses tell us direction
So Donald consults his erection,
And where it is pointed
A new love’s anointed.
His lodestar is lust, not affection.
February 19, 2018
qms commented on the word intellection
Since today is Presidents Day I thought our maximum leader deserved more celebration. Besides, I had some rhymes left over.
See comments at lodestar.
February 19, 2018
qms commented on the word intellection
The Donald mistakes a connection
Twixt talent and his strange election,
Thus fools will construe
Good luck as their due
In absence of all intellection.
February 19, 2018
qms commented on the user deepakyadavmc
Greetings, deepakyadvmc.
February 18, 2018
qms commented on the word fandangle
Ludmila would scorn a lone bangle,
Preferring her bracelets to jangle,
And thinks it right cheering
That each dangling earring
Should serve as a tinkling fandangle.
February 18, 2018
qms commented on the word equipollent
A teen in the morning is indolent;
The nocturnal beast’s still somnolent.
The breakfast convention
Will hang in suspension
While hunger with sleep’s equipollent.
February 17, 2018
qms commented on the word delectate
As all of God’s creatures must defecate
Let no one the humble bug deprecate.
Let praises be sung
Of beetles (type dung)
Whose appetites droppings delectate.
February 16, 2018
qms commented on the word hbty
How beastly, touting Yankees!
February 15, 2018
qms commented on the word hbty
Hunch beneath transgression’s yoke!
February 15, 2018
qms commented on the word sisu
A Finn, if you press him, resists you;
Compliance is always at issue.
Despite your appeals
He digs in his heels
To show he has true Finnish sisu.
February 15, 2018
qms commented on the word peart
Well done, bilby.
February 15, 2018
qms commented on the word hbty
Heat bothers the yeti.
February 15, 2018
qms commented on the word hbty
Hear Bernese teens yodeling.
February 14, 2018
qms commented on the word peart
Pronunciation guidance for this word is varied but the best authorities recommend “pert,” a word for which “peart” seems to be a variant spelling.
Wise counselors now will assert,
Be never too forward or peart.
What used to be charm
Can now do you harm.
It’s dangerous these days to flirt.
February 14, 2018
qms commented on the word hbty
Health benefits to yogurt.
February 14, 2018
qms commented on the word hbty
Heroic bilby taming yobs.
February 14, 2018
qms commented on the word hbty
Haunted by turbulent youth.
February 14, 2018
qms commented on the word hbty
Hot babes tempt you.
February 14, 2018
qms commented on the word gestic
A limerick’s light and domestic.
Though hobbled by feet anapestic
It paces and sways
In familiar ways
That can be beguilingly gestic.
February 13, 2018
qms commented on the word mollydooker
The lithe lass was sure a good looker
But still her fiancé forsook her.
His counseling minister
Advised she was sinister -
A blithe, unabashed mollydooker.
February 12, 2018
qms commented on the word Endymion
Endymion is the name of one of the tradional “krewes” that contribute a float to the Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans.
http://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/schedule/parade-info/parades-endymion.html
February 11, 2018
qms commented on the word canthus
A geisha takes no silly chances
So every small detail enhances:
How sweetly she speaks,
The blush on her cheeks,
The dark line that shadows her canthus.
February 11, 2018
qms commented on the word décolleté
Two notes on decollete/décolleté: I assume that the unaccented version exists only because of US publishers’ misguided aversion to French accents. I have never heard ir pronounced as though unaccented. Also, it is defined here as an adjective but is frequently used as a noun.
February 10, 2018
qms commented on the word decollete
Two notes on decollete/décolleté: I assume that the unaccented version exists only because of US publishers’ misguided aversion to French accents. I have never heard ir pronounced as though unaccented. Also, it is defined here as an adjective but is frequently used as a noun.
February 10, 2018
qms commented on the word décolleté
Sophisticates turn bored away
On seeing what some think risqué:
A skirt that’s split high
For a glimpse of a thigh
Or top that is décolleté.
February 10, 2018
qms commented on the word decollete
Sophisticates turn bored away
On seeing what some think risqué:
A skirt that’s split high
For a glimpse of a thigh
Or top that is décolleté.
February 10, 2018
qms commented on the word choplogic
Sam Johnson loved Hodge, his old cat
Indulging him till he grew fat.
Though be it choplogic
For want of a Hodge lick
He’d feed him an oyster or sprat.
Read more about Dr. Johnson’s cat.
February 9, 2018
qms commented on the word bibliopegy
Joe’s sinned so much against property
Th court now is begging he cop a plea.
His record’s immense!
With one more offense
His rap sheet will need bibliopegy.
February 8, 2018
qms commented on the word autecology
He recounts with pride, not apology,
His labors in humble scatology,
For eloquent turds
Can say more than words,
Enhancing a deep autecology.
February 7, 2018
qms commented on the word monocracy
For -ocracy I’ve run out of rhymes
That dodge phonetical crimes.
I dread the monotony
Of such as monocracy;
I’ve rhymed them too many times.
February 6, 2018
qms commented on the word graticule
To resize an image the classic tool
Encloses the source in a lattice rule,
A copyist then,
With pencil or pen
Precisely can follow the graticule.
February 5, 2018
qms commented on the word sciagraphy
She renders the lightfall quite magically
Employing no digital gadgetry.
She’s learned to apply
Her hand and her eye
In service of skillful sciagraphy.
February 4, 2018
qms commented on the word lubber-fiend
Your house-elf, if you treat him right,
Will clean up your cottage at night
So, well scrubbed and cleaned
By your lubber-fiend,
You’ll find your kitchen shining bright.
February 3, 2018
qms commented on the word drusy
Geologists drink and get woozy
And soon become droopy and snoozy.
They fall into dreams
Of rocks laced with seams
And caverns aglitter and druzy.
February 2, 2018
qms commented on the word du jour
I once ate in a restaurant that described its main offerings as “meat (of some kind),” potatoes “(of some kind),” and “dujours.” I asked the waitress what “dujours” are and she giggled.
February 1, 2018
qms commented on the word sonoluminescence
To mantis shrimp the trick’s no feat,
Just means to get the stuff to eat.
They teach us no lessons
In sonoluminescence.
The shrimp is an artless synaesthete.
February 1, 2018
qms commented on the word reboant
So warm and with sweet scents so redolent,
And where is so private yet resonant?
To feel music’s power
We sing in the shower,
A chamber most cozy and reboant.
January 31, 2018
qms commented on the word pintadine
I dream in this pale Winter scene
Of atoll lagoons tinted green,
Where maids without morals
Swim in from the corals
To offer me plump pintadine.
January 30, 2018
qms commented on the word morology
Oh, what can the cause of this folly be,
This mad, inauspicious frivolity?
Their mouths are uncivil
And spewing forth drivel.
The Congress is mired in morology!
January 29, 2018
qms commented on the word crepitate
It’s terribly hard to emulate
How speakers of Zulu articulate.
You must learn the tricks
Of consonant clicks-
To enunciate you must crepitate.
January 28, 2018
qms commented on the word loutrophoros
The ancient Greeks long before us
Invented the play with a chorus
And down all the ages
We still love their sages
But don’t use the old loutrophoros.
January 27, 2018
qms commented on the word drabbing
The goblin’s on record as gabbing
Of prowess at unwanted grabbing,
But Stormy’s tale shows
That sometimes he chose
The commoner pastime of drabbing.
January 26, 2018
qms commented on the word gnomology
It’s published in ponderous tomes
And shelved in the soberest homes.
Despite what you thought
Gnomology’s not
The frivolous study of gnomes.
January 25, 2018
qms commented on the word nurse name
Well done, vm. Thank you. From the citation Tank gives I am thinking that “Popkiss” might be a “nurse name” for “Hopkins.” I had a grand aunt called Lalla. Her actual name was Ellen, but when my father was a toddler he could not pronounce that and said “lalla” instead. So she remained for the rest of her life. It is a little harder to understand such developments in surnames.
January 24, 2018
qms commented on the word vulnerary
The aloe vera’s extraordinary,
With uses digestive and vulnerary.
It soothes cuts and burns
Which quality earns
A place where the efforts are culinary.
January 24, 2018
qms commented on the word luciferase
Sly fireflies will cook up new ways
To brighten their luminous rays,
For lightning bug lasses
Like lads with bright asses
Just bursting with luciferase.
January 23, 2018
qms commented on the word chrysocracy
Oh, tell me not you’re shocked to see
Self-dealing and gross hypocrisy.
“Make America Great”
Was cheap sucker bait
From sellers of vulgar chrysocracy.
January 22, 2018
qms commented on the word vum
A toady’s no more than a bum
Pretending some tyrant’s his chum.
There will be a reckoning,
For Old Nick is beckoning.
He’ll haste to that hearthside, I vum.
January 21, 2018
qms commented on the word swither
As hither is mixed up with thither
And whence is confounded with wither,
If you would compose
Faux biblical prose
Prepare for a sweat and a swither.
January 20, 2018
qms commented on the word brocard
cui bono, you sensibly ask,
When lawyers so muddle their task?
When simpler folk heard
A latin brocard
They bowed to the learned man’s mask
January 19, 2018
qms commented on the word philosopheme
It starts as a commonplace meme,
Repeated, becomes a grand theme.
Its freshness once past
It settles at last
Retired as a philosopheme.
January 18, 2018
qms commented on the word bavardage
Palaver that’s boredom’s camouflage
Is chatter - no more than bavardage.
Enlivened with zest
Of banter and jest
It jumps up to jolly persiflage.
January 17, 2018
qms commented on the word down-gyved
I’ve poked, I’ve prodded and strived.
At last my conclusion’s arrived:
When droopy your hose
(But no other clothes)
Uniquely are labelled down-gyved.
January 16, 2018
qms commented on the word barrow-back't
Compare barrow-tram.
January 16, 2018
qms commented on the word shithole
The Lord when assembling a fit soul
Is careless betimes in the wit dole.
Inserting a brain
He failed in his aim
So Donald must think with his shithole.
January 15, 2018
qms commented on the word adiaphorous
Miss Duncan made viewers wax amorous
By dancing in garments diaphanous.
The prim and the haughty
Did think her quite naughty
But art is at worst adiaphorous.
January 15, 2018
qms commented on the word mussitation
Near speechless, the suffering nation
Now mutters in utter frustration.
The goblin’s obscenist
New claim is his genius.
We‘re driven to dazed mussitation.
January 14, 2018
qms commented on the word loukoum
When Turks meet with friends we assume
Thick coffee is poured to consume
With plates of sweet bites
That we call delights
But locals embrace as loukoum.
January 13, 2018
qms commented on the word knifegun
Prestige though it be at low tide,
The humblest of creatures show pride,
And perchance you will see
A dandified bilby
With ears freshly starched and bowtied.
January 12, 2018
qms commented on the word blazonry
The president strikes his own coin;
There ego and bad taste conjoin.
If he can so brazenly
Profane the old blazonry
What symbols will next he purloin?
January 12, 2018
qms commented on the word pottle-pot
See also comments at pottle.
January 11, 2018
qms commented on the word pottle
If sips don’t suffice then a lot’ll.
By golly, just chug down the bottle!
If you still can’t forget
Then drown all regret
In the bountiful flood of a pottle.
See also comments at pottle-pot.
January 11, 2018
qms commented on the word jean dimmock
drongo
January 10, 2018
qms commented on the word androcracy
Our governors earn lots of mockery
For mindlessly limp mediocrity.
We need an infusion
Of gender diffusion
To stiffen the flaccid androcracy.
January 10, 2018
qms commented on the word houghmangandy
You “found” it and it was wrong. I think the idea of a lexicographical site is that you check your sources. I can “find” anything in ten seconds of searching.
January 9, 2018
qms commented on the word chronometry
Imprisoned you learn the enormity
Of years of unchanged uniformity
So prolonged confinement
Promotes the refinement
Of exquisite skills in chronometry.
January 9, 2018
qms commented on the word jugal
For some folk obliged to be frugal
Adventure’s confined to a google.
It’s not parsimony
But dear matrimony -
The price of the benisons jugal.
January 8, 2018
qms commented on the word nomogram
Computers, they teach now at school,
Displaced the beloved slide rule,
But give not a damn
For the old nomogram
Which once was an elegant tool.
January 7, 2018
qms commented on the word perfectibilist
Of dullards perhaps not the visiblest
Once found, though, surely the risiblest.
To mock the dimwitted
Is even permitted
If shown he’s a true perfectibilist.
January 6, 2018
qms commented on the word orchestic
The dancing impulse is eclectic,
Exotic or comfy domestic.
In oldsters and hipsters
Terpsichre’s whispers
Inspire expression orchestic.
January 5, 2018
qms commented on the word bauson
According to popular notion
They forage with fiercest devotion.
Thus folklore assured it,
That one who’s obdurate
Be known as an obstinate bauson.
January 4, 2018
qms commented on the word l'esprit de l'escalier
This name for the phenomenon comes from French encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot's description of such a situation in his Paradoxe sur le comédien.1 During a dinner at the home of statesman Jacques Necker, a remark was made to Diderot which left him speechless at the time, because, he explains, "l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier" ("a sensitive man, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and can only think clearly again when he finds himself at the bottom of the stairs").
In this case, "the bottom of the stairs" refers to the architecture of the kind of hôtel particulier or mansion to which Diderot had been invited. In such houses, the reception rooms were on the étage noble, one floor above the ground floor.2 To have reached the bottom of the stairs means to have definitively left the gathering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier
January 3, 2018
qms commented on the word dowie
Poor Angus entreated her hourly
In wooing persistent and flowery,
But to his dismay
At end of the day
He trudged home defeated and dowie.
January 3, 2018
qms commented on the word qobar
Oh, very good, Tank! Your posting does not provide a definition but my googling turned up this at Wiktionary:
It is a pleasure to come across an authentically obscure word rather than madeupicals like “shoemit = vomit in your shoes.”
January 2, 2018
qms commented on the word adversaria
The world grows alarming and scarier;
How fight off impending hysteria?
You tame what you fear
And save what is dear
By penning in neat adversaria.
January 2, 2018
qms commented on the word qualtagh
The generous folk who speak Manx
Have swollen our lexical ranks.
Oh, let us exalt it
And welcome the qualtagh!
The new year begins with our thanks.
January 1, 2018
qms commented on the word perennity
Indulge in a cleansing obscenity
Then face the new year with serenity.
Despair put away!
You’ve aged but a day;
The changed date marks only perennity.
December 31, 2017
qms commented on the word anomie
He publicly calls for sweet amity
While counting a critic an enemy.
He widens each rift,
Unmoored and adrift
And tossed on the billows of anomie.
December 30, 2017
qms commented on the word kibosh
From Ben Zimmer’s review in the Wall Street Journal of the book Origins of Kibosh:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/putting-the-kibosh-on-an-old-riddle-the-source-of-the-phrase-1514564107
December 30, 2017
qms commented on the word dotation
Philanthropists make a vocation
Of bountiful funds’ allocation.
If fame’s the reward
It’s nothing untoward -
Small payment for lavish dotation.
December 29, 2017
qms commented on the word Alphonse and Gaston
See Alphonse-and-Gaston.
December 28, 2017
qms commented on the word Alphonse-and-Gaston
The phrase "Alphonse-and-Gaston routine", or "Alphonse-Gaston Syndrome", indicates a situation wherein one party refuses to act until another party acts first... Also, the phrase has a specific meaning in baseball lingo: when two fielders allow a catchable ball to drop between them, it is known as “doing the Alphonse and Gaston.”
Alphonse and Gaston was an American comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper, featuring a bumbling pair of Frenchmen with a penchant for politeness.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_and_Gaston
December 28, 2017
qms commented on the word ecophobia
Ecophobia, let it be said
Won’t trouble a sensible head.
It’s madness abounding
To fear your surrounding;
An asinine instance of dread.
December 28, 2017
qms commented on the word jean dimmock
See gangerh’s comment of Jan. 12, 2013. If it makes sense it does not count. It is an exercise in irrelevancy. A bit redundant for the Wordnik Community page perhaps, but amusing nevertheless.
December 28, 2017
qms commented on the word jean dimmock
milquetoast
December 27, 2017
qms commented on the word arval
For mortals the visit is brief
And time a deceiver and thief,
And yet I must marvel
At assuaging arval.
The coronach tempers our grief.
December 27, 2017
qms commented on the word jean dimmock
infestation
December 27, 2017
qms commented on the word valiance
The captain’s brief health food dalliance
Provoked the old sea cook’s galley rants.
The oaths and the bitchin’
Just poured from that kitchen.
To enter there proved a tar’s valiance.
December 26, 2017
qms commented on the word geniture
In crèches that model the geniture
The infant is always the cynosure.
While Mary’s displayed
Poor Joe’s in the shade,
His fatherhood being a sinecure.
December 25, 2017
qms commented on the word cracknel
Per Ernest the story is factual,
That this is the source of our cracknel:
You blow up a swine;
The meat comes out fine –
The crunchy fat chunks are the shrapnel.
Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit
December 24, 2017
qms commented on the word repastination
Comedians in cold calculation
Know old jokes still cause cachinnation;
So spade up and sift
There’s many a gift
Unearthed in repastination.
December 23, 2017
qms commented on the word dormition
Reports of unwanted dormition
Might call for a thoughtful physician,
But if shadows creeping
Are deeper than sleeping
Then turn to your favorite mortician.
December 22, 2017
qms commented on the word obmutescence
Be quicker to pray than to preach,
More eager to learn than to teach;
For wisdom’s true essence
Can be obmutescence
And silence be deeper than speech.
December 21, 2017
qms commented on the word kapta
The elf lass enjoyed her hot Lapp cha
Kept warm by the jacket that wrapped her.
As Rudolph last Christmas
Is stew meat on this pass
His hide makes an elf a fine kapta.
December 20, 2017
qms commented on the word ignoration
The goblin prefers adulation
But settles for villification.
So praise or defame,
To him – much the same.
He simply can’t bear ignoration.
December 19, 2017
qms commented on the word anomalist
A comma before “and,” as some insist,
Should not be required in a comma list.
My faction is small
But still I stand tall
And proud to be called an anomalist.
December 18, 2017
qms commented on the word dorsiflexion
A rhymer sunk deep in dejection
May sometimes support an exception,
And if he should lack words
Will bend over backwards
In postures of pained dorsiflexion.
December 17, 2017
qms commented on the word nupson
Whence comes this alarming eruption
Of ravening public corruption?
Can voters in masses
Be consummate asses
And Everyman be a blunt nupson?
December 16, 2017
qms commented on the word lo que hace tu mascota
You’re telling us that when a Bogotan steps in dog shit he cries, “lo que hace tu mascota?” A remarkably placid people, those Bogotans. (Bogotenes? Bogotanos?)
BTW, the link seems to be a dud.
December 15, 2017
qms commented on the word periegesis
The writing and sale never ceases
Of guides and advice with the thesis
That travelers need
A docent to heed,
Else fail in their periegesis.
December 15, 2017
qms commented on the word jockteleg
Thank you, bilby.
Have you noticed that lately athletes and celebrities who are given praise will usually say that they are “humbled?” They can jog to the podium wearing an ear-to-ear grin, hoist the gaudy trophy and expand on how humbling the experience is. Of course, they are proud as peacocks, as they have a right to be, but they are unwilling to say so. I think that “humble” may be undergoing an inversion into its opposite. Just as “literally” has come to mean “figuratively,” I fear that “humble” will soon mean “proud.”
I am an old-fashioned bloke and happy to declare that I am literally proud to receive your praise.
December 14, 2017
qms commented on the word jockteleg
The rough fellows draining the keg,
Though wasted, played mumblety peg.
It never would fail
That one would impale
A foot with a foul jockteleg.
December 14, 2017
qms commented on the word epanalepsis
Repeat till your poem’s replete
With hints of the joys indiscreet
When epanalepsis
Shall marry prolepsis
And endlessly loop and repeat.
December 13, 2017
qms commented on the word anonym
I knew an old fellow called Jim
Who told me it once was his whim
To take a new name
And make it a game
To live a few days anonym.
December 12, 2017
qms commented on the word renitency
A pause before action is hesitancy.
A trifling aversion is reticency,
But if the refusal
Is firmer than usual
Reluctance amounts to a renitency.
December 11, 2017
qms commented on the word peregrinity
Though “brotherhood” cites an affinity
Not literal consanguinity
I still find it cloying.
Most folk are annoying
And striking for stark peregrinity.
December 10, 2017
qms commented on the word noetic
In swaddling we’re merely zoetic.
At school we are coaxed to noetic,
And if we’re well taught
And deepen our thought
We gracefully age to poetic.
December 9, 2017
qms commented on the word annumerate
As outrages daily accumulate
The choices confuse and obnubilate:
To keep right on caring
Or join the despairing?
Which faction ought I to annumerate?
December 8, 2017
qms commented on the word dorlach
Those learned in mystical lore talk
Of wizard, bewitcher and warlock,
And philters and potions
To warp your emotions
Kept hidden down deep in a dorlach.
December 7, 2017
qms commented on the word fulgent
He is quite a self-effacing fellow, but I will confer with him.
December 6, 2017
qms commented on the word fulgent
Most people think Ernest a dull gent
Hi mom though is much more indulgent.
To her he’s aglow,
The star of the show,
A man who is modest yet fulgent.
Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit
December 6, 2017
qms commented on the word obnubilate
When Ernest and friends fully lubricate
Oh, how those staid scholars pursue debate!
A great deal is said
Though scant light is shed.
They digress and hap’ly obnubilate.
Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit
December 5, 2017
qms commented on the word idoneous
In hiring be never erroneous;
The new guy could turn out felonious,
So google his name
In search of ill fame
And pray that you find him idoneous.
December 4, 2017
qms commented on the word haverel
I reside in the city of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Lately I have been learning a lot about the origin of this name. A little over a week ago the Word of the Day was haverbread (see comments there), and today’s WotD, haverel, is a near homonym of the city name. The name of the city is pronounced in these parts as a two syllable word to rhyme with “cave thrill,” whereas the middle syllable in “haverel” gets some slight acknowledgment. I learned haver can mean oats/oatmeal or to talk foolishly. I have seen little of the former locally and find the latter no more abundant here than elsewhere. Of course, the American city is named after an English town. If anyone can testify to that town’s reputation for either oats or foolishness I would be glad to read it.
In these troubled times the braver will
Indulge in expressions most flavorful.
A colorful word
Is more likely heard
When discourse is noisy and haverel.
December 3, 2017
qms commented on the word gurglet
Most tropical places defeat
The parting of water and heat.
It’s simplest to purge it
By filling a gurglet
To make a sublimely cool treat.
December 2, 2017
qms commented on the word doomsman
Most of the usage examples supplied apply the word as a synonym for “executioner.” None of the aggregated dictionaries (nor the OED) extend the word to include this meaning.
December 1, 2017
qms commented on the word doomsman
To uncover truth and illumine
Is highest of gifts that are human,
But scoundrels like Trump
Will cry, “Kill the ump!”
In justified fear of the doomsman.
December 1, 2017
qms commented on the word mobocrat
He could be the fattest fat cat
And feeding his greed in plain fact.
The rabble aroused
By lies he’s espoused
Are played by a shrewd mobocrat.
November 30, 2017
qms commented on the word obeliscal
A stalactite drips in the night
Begetting a child that’s upright,
An offspring of crystal
To rise obeliscal,
In darkness a bright stalagmite.
November 29, 2017
qms commented on the word rakehelly
As Byron confessed to pal Shelley,
“Mysterious urges compel me.
I’m misunderstood.
I’m trying to be good
But forced to be always rakehelly.”
November 28, 2017
qms commented on the word obduration
Pigheadedness’ better relation
Is stubbornness raised up a station,
But reason defied
With obstinate pride
We dignify as obduration.
November 27, 2017
qms commented on the word numps
Find fervent apostles of Trump’s
In rustical family clumps.
I ask: Must a numps’ kin
Be always a bumpkin?
Can cousins in town not be numps?
November 26, 2017
qms commented on the word ideography
Old-timers used ASCII and coffe
Assembling slash and apostrophe.
Now digital fogies
They loathe mew emojis
As prefab unearned ideography.
November 25, 2017
qms commented on the word haverbread
For ages has crofter labor fed
The gentry who lay late abed.
They rise warm to eat
Fine dainties of wheat;
While cold crofters gnaw haverbread.
November 24, 2017
qms commented on the word gemmary
The fading of recall is cruel
So savor Thanksgiving and Yule
And keep them in memory
As though in a gemmary
For each is a luminous jewel.
November 23, 2017
qms commented on the word fragor
Eat lots of fruitcake and I’ll wager
The aftereffects will be major.
They’ll shortly erupt
Unplanned and abrupt
In a way that is doubly a fragor.
November 22, 2017
qms commented on the word nuncupative
The old man despised daughter Beth
So left her bereft at his death,
And even nuncupative
His will was vituperative,
To wound her with his dying breath.
November 21, 2017
qms commented on the word rafty
Though most people think he is daft he
Makes some think, “not crazy but crafty.”
I doubt it’s a feint
‘Cause clever he ain’t.
The man is authentically rafty.
November 20, 2017
qms commented on the word filature
The nurture of worms will procure
The thread for a cloth to thrill couture.
There’s truly no ilk
For elegant silk
That’s patiently wound ‘round a filature.
November 19, 2017
qms commented on the word glutist
I can think of another definition:
At naming of nates he’s astutist,
Assessing the fullest and cutest.
He calls them patoots
Or maximal glutes;
The man is a classical glutist.
November 18, 2017
qms commented on the word micher
The Judgement by Bosch is a picture
That study can always make richer
So look and beware
Of characters there,
The lustful, the glutton, the micher.
November 18, 2017
qms commented on the word telestich
A limerick’s perfectly fine
With rhymes at the end of the line,
But really the best trick
Would make it telestich,
A challenge I’ll gladly decline.
November 17, 2017
qms commented on the word cafila
We dream of a heaven afar
Viewing life as a long cafila,
So though we are weary,
The way slow and dreary,
We trudge toward a bright Shangri-la.
November 16, 2017
qms commented on the word ice-blink
After months in the arctic I think
My friends will recoil from my stink
And read in my stare
The stain of that glare,
The infamous mad’ning ice-blink.
November 15, 2017
qms commented on the word hastilude
Old Camelot’s typical habitude
Promoted a genial placitude.
Their war was all talk
And battles were mock,
Replcaed by fine costume and haslitude.
November 14, 2017
qms commented on the word gelid
She got a surprise, dead Nell did;
She learned of a secret that hell hid:
It’s no fiery bed
But what you most dread.
For warmth-loving Nell it is gelid.
November 13, 2017
qms commented on the word foy
Oh, pity the smart Scottish boy
Departing to take new employ:
His future is bright
But farewells a blight,
For he bears the cost of his foy.
November 12, 2017
qms commented on the word yonies
See yoni and blush.
November 11, 2017
qms commented on the word asemia
Some brains are essentially blind
To statements of figurative kind.
To say that asemia
Is mental anemia
Would baffle the literal mind.
November 11, 2017
qms commented on the word tenebrose
Though seldom are ladies and men verbose
On subjects so private and tenebrose:
Know obstinate movement
Is coaxed to improvement
By silently sipping a senna dose.
November 10, 2017
qms commented on the word lamback
Stunt artists must practice the sham smack
To make it look real - not a ham whack,
And mime with precision
The fist/face collision,
Persuasively faking a lamback.
November 9, 2017
qms commented on the word rosarian
Sub-rosa assassins and spies
Must find a non-threatening guise -
A helpful Rotarian
Or harmless rosarian -
To lead astray curious eyes.
November 8, 2017
qms commented on the word phyllomania
The best pie in all Ruritania
Is layers of dough plus extranea!
The thinner you roll it
The more I’ll extol it,
Admitting to deep phyllomania.
November 7, 2017
qms commented on the word muscadin
Some men consider it just a sin
To risk disarray from a gust of wind,
So scarf and a cap
Protectively wrap
The delicate plumes of the muscadin.
November 6, 2017
qms commented on the word disworship
Admire his entrepeneurship;
Applaud his keen connoisseurship!
He’s captured his prize
With well-crafted lies
And crowned himself king of disworship.
November 5, 2017
qms commented on the word splendent
He once strutted proud and ascendant
In glittering orange quite splendent.
I’m sure he’ll look cute
In a tangerine suit,
The mark of the shackled defendant.
November 4, 2017
qms commented on the word lalophobia
A lalophobia sufferer’s weak
At tasks that require he speak,
But he can do fine
With gesture and sign
So miming’s the work he should seek.
November 3, 2017
qms commented on the word fremescence
A murmur unnoticed before
Now hubbub that’s hard to ignore.
A growing fremescence,
A kind of tumescence,
That swells to a mighty uproar.
November 2, 2017
qms commented on the word aseity
It seems that an authentic deity
Should get what he wants with velleity,
Unless it transpire
That gods don’t desire
‘Cause wanting conflicts with aseity.
November 1, 2017
qms commented on the word gyre-carline
See gyre-carlin.
October 31, 2017
qms commented on the word gyre-carlin
Variously spelled: gyre-carline, gyre-carling, gyir-carling, gyre-carling, gy-carling, gay-carlin.
October 31, 2017
qms commented on the word gyre-carlin
Each dragon that’s fiercely fire-snarlin’
Or toddlin’ ghoulish dire darlin’
We may think adorable
And cutely mock-horrible
But dread the approaching gyre-carlin.
October 31, 2017
qms commented on the word mungy
Buy tripe that is bright white and spongey
Then braise it with onions and fungi
And leave it to simmer
Till pallor grows dimmer
And all is deliciously mungy.
October 30, 2017
qms commented on the word graip
Some pols’ tool of choice is their wit
For others faux bio’s more fit,
But fibbing and jape
Can’t match a good graip
When Donald starts pitching his shit.
October 29, 2017
qms commented on the word menology
Discernment was not her best quality
So Sheila was flustered and all at sea:
“The man I want ain’t
Some fuckin’ Greek saint.
That’s not why I’m takin’ menology!”
October 28, 2017
qms commented on the word prolocutor
By right he’s his party’s prolocutor
By nature a cheesy provocateur.
What little makes sense
Still gives great offense.
By God, the guy only can talk ordure!
October 27, 2017
qms commented on the word younker
The boys at the bar slump and hunker
And lie as they get ever drunker.
Truth little avails
To tame their tall tales
Of conquests each made as a younker.
October 26, 2017
qms commented on the word marcassin
The hunter’s a kind of assassin
Whose keen eye will fatally fasten
On sanglier young
Who, killed, are then flung
In pots for a meal of marcassin.
October 25, 2017
qms commented on the word proem
They say that you can’t write a poem.
So set yourself down and you show ‘em!
Give ‘em rhythm and rhyme
And make it sublime,
With epilogue, footnotes and proem.
October 24, 2017
qms commented on the word alevin
The raids are increasingly bold,
Now salmon are traded for gold.
Oh, where is the paladin
Who’ll rescue our alevin
Before their breeding ground’s sold?
See:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/10/politics/bristol-bay-salmon-invs/index.html
October 23, 2017
qms commented on the word encenia
In Oxbridge they boast of their past
But plain speech would leave dons aghast,
So high academia
Will call it encenia
To hide that they’re having a blast.
October 22, 2017
qms commented on the word tithe-pig
For boys in the gentry of yore
Birth order told what was in store.
The first won the prize gig,
The last was the tithe-pig,
To serve in the church evermore.
October 21, 2017
qms commented on the word dismission
Our rights he erodes by attrition
And justice withholds by omission.
Our gov is gazumped
Or, worse yet, it’s Trumped,
Unless we achieve a dismission.
October 20, 2017
qms commented on the word antonomasia
Australians display an odd trait
Addressing the lowly or great:
Call it aphasia
Or antonomasia
But blokes of all kinds are called “mate.”
October 19, 2017
qms commented on the word balagan
The prescriptivist fights, and he shall again,
Against the descriptivist’s balagan.
He’ll rage and defame
In the conference game
But ‘tweentimes he’ll make him a pal again.
October 18, 2017
qms commented on the word dizain
In Mass. we will drop the last “R”
Though some find the custom bizarre,
But see bilby’s rhyme
Those same would call crime!
The Aussies are bolder by far!
October 17, 2017
qms commented on the word probabilist
Though pains of the past still endure
What oracle forecasts a cure?
For that job enlist
A probabalist -
Mistrust any sage who’s too sure.
October 17, 2017
qms commented on the word catallactics
They honor Ayn Rand and von Mises
So know naught of judgment in crisis.
In true catallactics
The salient fact is
Invariant truth fits all sizes.
October 16, 2017
qms commented on the word dizain
My couple has started this train
Then bilby and I swapped disdain.
A moiety’s done
When I finish this one.
Can we call it a demi-dizain?
October 16, 2017
qms commented on the word dizain
My fragile contentment was fleeting,
Now marred by Tasmanian bleating.
How comes he so hostile
To OED gospel?
In Oz does good sense stand for cheating?
October 15, 2017
qms commented on the word dizain
bilby has shrewdly discerned my reason for preferring the OED definition. In an emergency I invite the reader to repeat my contribution nine more times.
October 15, 2017
qms commented on the word dizain
A dutiful rhymer must strive
To keep dying verse forms alive.
The limerick style
Succeeds in its trial
So long as its lines number five.
With negligible metrical strain
Are limericks linked in a chain;
The reader’s not troubled
By limericks doubled
To make a neglected dizain.
October 15, 2017
qms commented on the word dizain
As defined by the OED: A poem or stanza of ten lines.
October 15, 2017
qms commented on the word virgate
Old measures make palates alert
At feasts for surveyors of dirt.
They’ll fill up a plate
With hides and virgate
And caruscate cake for desert.
October 14, 2017
qms commented on the word whirlblast
To every question the girl asked
His answer unheard would hurl past.
She realized speed dating
Is no way of mating
And felt like a ship in a whirlblast.
October 13, 2017
qms commented on the word astrobleme
Alas, there’s no foe to be blamed,
No noble defense to be claimed.
A player defaced
By a solo misplaced
Abjectly admits he’s self-maimed.
October 13, 2017
qms commented on the word pettifogger
A fellow I know is a blogger,
An alt-right conspiracy flogger.
No absence of facts
Or motive distracts
From work of a true pettifogger.
October 12, 2017
qms commented on the word astrobleme
The Irish, my ancestral race,
Play ball at a furious pace.
They kick and they dribble
But, sure, there’s no quibble -
You don’t catch the ball with your face.
October 11, 2017
qms commented on the word cantillation
Good Juliet, a nursing sensation,
Would burst into sweet cantillation.
Her unbidden trilling
Made illness less chilling
And filled me with warm consolation.
October 11, 2017
qms commented on the word feodary
In Tudor days only few could be
A fat and contented feodary.
The rich orphan scam
(A pious old sham)
Enabled enrichment quite duty-free.
October 10, 2017
qms commented on the word feodary
The OED provides the following definitions:
1. a. One who holds lands of an overlord on condition of homage and service; a feudal tenant, a vassal.
b. A subject, dependant, retainer, servant.
2. An officer of the ancient Court of Wards.
3. A confederate.
The Collins Dictionary reports that it is “a variant spelling of feudary. ” Pronunciation guidance confirms “feud” as the first syllable.
October 10, 2017
qms commented on the word euripus
Rhetorical tempests do blight us
And tweet blasts asudden affright us.
The ship of state drifts,
It plunges and lifts
And shakes in the jaws of euripus.
October 9, 2017
qms commented on the word amain
The lexical drudge must explain
And make every mystery plain.
The job is to teach
The details of speech
And spew forth examples amain.
October 8, 2017
qms commented on the word chidester
The new bride needs counsel to guide her
But finds it too often denied her.
The groom's jealous dam
Makes family a sham,
And glories in being a chidester.
October 7, 2017
qms commented on the word tantivy
Fox hunters preparing to go
Hear brazen horns wavering blow,
But first a tantivy
En masse to the privy
Then mount with a brave tallyho!
October 6, 2017
qms commented on the word ancientism
A door lock's a frail mechanism
And ours is an archaic system,
But she sees great glory in
Devices Victorian
So safety defers to ancientism.
October 5, 2017
qms commented on the word malversation
The stories appall the whole nation.
The villains outrage in rotation.
True, winners take spoils,
But conscience recoils
At boldness of such malversation.
October 4, 2017
qms commented on the word wanchancy
Though some think it clever and fancy
I call it profane necromancy
To exhume in job lots
These mouldering Scots
Like kippage and forlorn wanchancy.
October 3, 2017
qms commented on the word tumultuary
A transplant is tricky. Results may vary.
A heart that once beat in a voluptuary
May later be placed
In one meek and chaste
And render a future tumultuary.
October 2, 2017
qms commented on the word neuroethics
I'm following you this time. It's obvious that psst is an initialism for "pun surreptitiously secreted in text."
October 1, 2017
qms commented on the word neuroethics
It took me overnight, but when I awoke this morning I finally saw the pun buried deep in bilby's comment: "new Rolexes" - I think? In mysterious ways works that mind.
October 1, 2017
qms commented on the word clapperclaw
When Gossip begins to flap her jaw
The carrion crones will snap and caw
And this will incite
A backbiting blight,
An orgy of spite and clapperclaw.
October 1, 2017
qms commented on the word neuroethics
I ponder the retro reflexes
Of Britain's entrenched eurosceptics:
Can doctors retrain
The xenophobe brain
Within bounds of strict neuroethics?
September 30, 2017
qms commented on the word mishanter
A leader should be an enchanter
And not a coarse bullying ranter.
How comes it about
We're led by a lout?
Is it earned or a random mishanter?
September 29, 2017
qms commented on the word piacular
What blossoms in floral vernacular
Are abject, albeit spectacular?
What bouquet subsumes
In penitent blooms
Devotion while being piacular?
September 28, 2017
qms commented on the word according to Hoyle
Edmond Hoyle (1672 – 29 August 1769 was a writer best known for his works on the rules and play of card games. The phrase "according to Hoyle" came into the language as a reflection of his generally perceived authority on the subject; since that time, use of the phrase has expanded into general use in situations in which a speaker wishes to indicate an appeal to a putative authority.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_Hoyle
September 27, 2017
qms commented on the word garboil
Debating, according to Hoyle,
Exemplifies cool reason's toil.
But reason is scant
In goblinesque rant;
It's heated and hate-fueled garboil.
September 27, 2017
qms commented on the word obelus
Thank you, kind ruzuzu.
September 26, 2017
qms commented on the word obelus
The task of the editing tribe
Is chiding the indifferent scribe
With signs not too obvious,
Discreet, like the obelus,
That seem more a hint than a jibe.
September 26, 2017
qms commented on the word criminous
Vulgarity fits, that's de minimis,
But let's not be bashful or timorous:
Each twitter enlarges
The bill of our charges -
The goblin and crew I call criminous.
September 25, 2017
qms commented on the word verein
A German-speaking friend writes to tell me that I got the pronunciation of verein wrong, so here is another limerick to cover the bases.
When cat and companion combine
In union humano-feline
I'm quite at a loss
To know who's the boss.
It must be a working verein.
September 24, 2017
qms commented on the word inveterate
A rhymer should be fairly literate
And rewriting must be inveterate
To polish and shine
And tune every line
Until the damned verses are better writ.
September 24, 2017
qms commented on the word verein
Surveying the legal terrain
For linkage that will not enchain,
Suppress your keen urge
To partner or merge
And choose a less binding verein.
September 23, 2017
qms commented on the word Epitomize
See epitomize.
September 22, 2017
qms commented on the word facinorous
A nation thought noble and generous
Looks threatening now and sinistrous.
When governed by fear
It's bound to appear
No beacon of hope but facinorous.
September 22, 2017
qms commented on the word mizmaze
The farmer must fill up his days
In trimming his crop so it pays.
Folks stray in their walks
Through maize in its stalks
Enjoying the autumn mizmaze.
September 21, 2017
qms commented on the word kippage
A flea circus's basic equipage
Is prone to some natural slippage,
So dogs are kept by
To replenish supply
And muster the minimum kippage.
September 20, 2017
qms commented on the word casuistry
Pale daybreak reveals a new mystery -
Will ever we know the true history?
The drinker's evasions
On wounds and abrasions
Amuse but are clear casuistry.
September 19, 2017
qms commented on the word minarchism
Philosophers pursuing wisdom
Are always at risk of simplism.
Each elegant plan
Will least govern man
Achieving unique minarchism.
September 18, 2017
qms commented on the word physiocrat
Though long past her mouse-catching day
She thinks current comforts her pay.
This dizzy old cat
Is a physiocrat,
Convinced this is nature's true way.
September 18, 2017
qms commented on the word agitprop
In waiting rooms outside the docs'
The tv persistently squawks.
Oh, please make it stop!
It's crude agitprop -
That 'news' they distribute at Fox!
September 17, 2017
qms commented on the word equipoise
A wise soul takes pause and enjoys
The balance of duties and joys.
When harsh day is done
Yet night not begun
He savors the brief equipoise.
September 16, 2017
qms commented on the word objurgatory
Old Dante told so lurid a story
Of suffering down in purgatory
To make a good case
That divine distaste
Is stronger than objurgatory.
September 15, 2017
qms commented on the word Patrimoney
See patrimony.
September 15, 2017
qms commented on the word latitudinarian
To some he's a bad grammarian,
To others a mad contrarian,
But Ernest prefers
Unfetttered words.
He's truly a latitudinarian.
Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit
September 14, 2017
qms commented on the word fulminate
On such things do they ruminate in Oz.
September 14, 2017
qms commented on the word fulminate
From far and near hear them all ululate
As grievances endlessly pullulate.
The deeds that offend
They cannot amend
But, oh, are they able to fulminate!
September 12, 2017
qms commented on the word heterocosm
The power of wishing is awesome
For dreaming can solve ills or cause 'em
Select your wish well
You may have to dwell
Within your own heterocosm.
September 11, 2017
qms commented on the word losel
His phony compassionate pose'll
Be seen as a feeble proposal,
The work of a loser,
A clumsy fake newser,
A "leader" who's only a losel.
September 10, 2017
qms commented on the word cenoby
To lustful dyspeptic King Henery
Contemplative types were the enemy,
So monks and their abbots
Were chased out like rabbits
And torches were put to each cenoby.
September 9, 2017
qms commented on the word pauciloquy
Use language with careful facility.
Let silence project as humility.
Some, when laconic,
Seem downright moronic,
The artful are praised for pauciloquy.
September 8, 2017
qms commented on the word odd-come-shortly
The busker has trodden in motley
And crowds have applauded him hotly,
So nurtured his claim
To fortune and fame
Arriving, he's sure, odd-come-shortly.
September 7, 2017
qms commented on the word nocuous
The man seemed a comical crock to us,
But Trumpland turned out to be populous.
The boastful jamoke
No longer's a joke -
The goblin has won and he's nocuous.
September 6, 2017
qms commented on the word mopeful
My tossing and turning has ceased -
The sun has arrived in the East.
In darkness I'm mopeful
But dawn makes me hopeful
I'll grind out a couplet at least.
September 5, 2017
qms commented on the word longinquity
The romantic cities of mystery
Arise by shores of distant sea.
Remotest on earth
They tell me is Perth,
Excelling in terms of longinquity.
September 4, 2017
qms commented on the word corvee
The audio buttons on Word entry pages have never worked on my iPad, although they do sometimes work on my pc. I should have checked the OED, which includes the accent aigu. I see now that Wordnik does have an entry for corvée as well. Picky, picky. I wonder what the word sounds like in strine?
Your teen will account you a jerk
If you should oblige him to work.
He'll face with dismay
His domestic corvee.
It's deep in his nature to shirk.
September 4, 2017
qms commented on the word parergon
Officials who use inside dope
May slither the slippery slope:
Abuse and perversion
Or simply parergon
To help a poor senator cope?
September 3, 2017
qms commented on the word corvee
Your teen will account you a jerk
If you should oblige him to work.
He will resent sorely
His domestic corvee.
It's deep in his nature to shirk.
September 2, 2017
qms commented on the word opuscule
When light fades to dim crepuscule
Take heart in a new opuscule.
A limerick writ
Means brains that are fit,
That time's not yet claimed a new fool.
September 1, 2017
qms commented on the word lysimeter
To know if the land's right for grain
Assess what the crops can attain.
If rainfall's the limiter
Then build a lysimeter
To see what the soil will retain.
August 31, 2017
qms commented on the word balize
It sways with the swells and the breeze
Where rivers flow in to the seas,
The seafarer's token
The long journey's broken,
The weathered but welcome balize.
August 30, 2017
qms commented on the word pasticcio
My lettuce and spinach so leafy grow
I plucked 'em along with radicchio.
With oniony zest
And casually dressed
They make an inviting pasticcio.
August 29, 2017
qms commented on the word anaglyph
When this age is done (and God speed!)
What monument fits Donald's deed?
A faint anaglyph
Carved in some cliff
In lowest relief fills the need.
August 28, 2017
qms commented on the word humstrum
I face a confounding conundrum:
On alternate days I become dumb.
My lyre is unstrung,
The songs I'd have sung
Are sunk in cacophonous humstrum.
August 27, 2017
qms commented on the word cenotaph
Memorializing lost friends
The clamor of laughter ascends:
Let drinks that we quaff
Be their cenotaph.
Fond recall's a marker that mends.
August 26, 2017
qms commented on the word bahut
The restless afflicted with stray foot
Are never persuaded to stay put.
Their home is a plane,
A tour boat or train,
Their worldly goods packed in a bahut.
August 25, 2017
qms commented on the word galuchat
I knew a most privileged cat.
The throne where this prodigy sat
Was lavishly built
With silver and gilt,
Upholstered in rare galuchat.
August 24, 2017
qms commented on the word dabster
See another version of the back-handed compliment in comments at facetely.
August 23, 2017
qms commented on the word facetely
How praise when the show fails completely?
Why, smiling, just comment discreetly,
"You've never been better!"
It's true to the letter
And solves your dilemma facetely.
See another solution to this problem in comments at dabster.
August 23, 2017
qms commented on the word cecity
The peace of the house may require
A deaf ear to what could transpire.
A prudent necessity
Is selective cecity -
To act the benevolent liar.
August 22, 2017
qms commented on the word azurn
Thank you, bilby.
August 22, 2017
qms commented on the word azurn
With passage of years we should learn
That night's not the time for concern.
Lay worries aside
For they will abide
And await when the sky turns azurn.
August 21, 2017
qms commented on the word linctus
A skunk came last night and he stinked us.
I count this event a distinct plus:
There's little that's minus
In clearing the sinus
And giving the throat a swift linctus.
August 20, 2017
qms commented on the list a-dram-too-many
Is there a reason that toped (see 11/1/2016 below) is unacceptable?
August 19, 2017
qms commented on the list a-dram-too-many
ebriosity
August 19, 2017
qms commented on the word ebriosity
The worst are consumed with ferocity;
Protections alarm by their paucity.
It's tempting to yield-
Abandon the field-
And sink into deep ebriosity.
August 19, 2017
qms commented on the word badigeon
Oh, thanks to the generous pigeon
Contributing his humble smidgen!
He's doing his part
For out-of-doors art
With dollops of fresh white badigeon.
August 18, 2017
qms commented on the word pottle-pot
If you would imbibe and waddle not
Give heed to the size of bottle bought.
The short road to ruin
Is steep and it's strewn
With many an empty pottle-pot.
August 17, 2017
qms commented on the word yeanling
When first the spring meadows are greening
The cycle of life shows most meaning.
See four-footed young
Like flowers new sprung,
The foal and the calf and the yeanling.
August 17, 2017
qms commented on the word avolation
When bound for the last destination
I hope to create no sensation,
Ask no trumpet blast
To hear at the last
But subtle and sweet avolation.
August 16, 2017
qms commented on the word lucullanism
See Lucullan.
August 15, 2017
qms commented on the word cecils
So jealous are chefs of their story
They'll quibble at terms gustatory.
Your balls in a pot
Will still get as hot
And you'll claim it's all to your glory.
August 15, 2017
qms commented on the word cecils
In higher class fry cooking vessels
Each savory orb of meat nestles.
What mere cooks will call
The common meatball
A master chef turns into cecils.
August 15, 2017
qms commented on the word dabster
A diplomat viewing disaster
Might say that the artist's a dabster.
Though bungling's averred
The Janus-faced word
Is heard as the praise of a master.
August 14, 2017
qms commented on the word caynard
A fox pup must study and train hard
Or risk he's dismissed as a caynard.
The skulk's tough tuition
Achieves full fruition
In raising a wily red Reynard.
August 13, 2017
qms commented on the word babblative
As talk for the troubled's a palliative
And Congress, a failing collaborative,
Inept to the hilt
Is Babel rebuilt,
It's frantic and futilely babblative.
August 12, 2017
qms commented on the word twistical
Don't fall for the cynical listicle
Where news is typically mythical.
The "ten things you must"
Are hot air and dust,
Just click-bait that's wickedly twistical.
August 11, 2017
qms commented on the word autotheist
On tv at most he was B-list
(Absent a C- or a D- list)
But still self-assessed
As clearly the best.
The goblin's a true autotheist.
August 10, 2017
qms commented on the word scenography
Thank you kindly, ruzuzu. The challenge with such words is to resist the obvious "-ography" rhymes but after years of this I am running out of dodges.
August 10, 2017
qms commented on the word scenography
Potemkin knew ways to delude.
His town was struck down and renewed
Repeatedly, doggedly,
A feat of sceneography,
The man was a talented dude.
August 9, 2017
qms commented on the word adit
They say the great pyramid had it,
Though sheathing of marble once clad it:
The way to the tomb
(And curses of doom)
Began with a well-hidden adit.
August 8, 2017
qms commented on the word epigone
He copied the language and tone
The goblin prefers on the phone,
But, lacking the bite
Of soul-searing spite,
The Mooch proved a pale epigone.
August 7, 2017
qms commented on the word torque
torque, v. to offend, to arouse anger.
Ex.: Police say that between four counties, Jack McPeak stole flags from fire departments, schools, cemeteries, “and the one that really torques me off,” said Keith County Sheriff Jeff Stevens, “the American Legion.”
https://www.facebook.com/NPTelegraph/posts/1350267468330821
Google "really torques me" to find many such examples. Kitit, in comments at tork, reports that this expression was common when he was a teenager in the 1960s. I am about the same age as Kitit and I do not recall hearing this expression while growing up in New England. It may be a regionalism.
August 7, 2017
qms commented on the word torks
See torque.
August 7, 2017
qms commented on the word lusory
Remember the fun that it used to be
Reciting beloved Mother Goosery?
Those memorable rhymes
Limned foibles and crimes,
So making mind shaping more lusory.
August 6, 2017
qms commented on the word pokelogan
The footwear that's always in vogue in
The Maine woods is clearly the brogan.
They'll withstand the suck
Of voracious muck
Awaiting in every pokelogan.
August 5, 2017
qms commented on the word tranter
In dark streets the living have flown
A ghostly voice pleads all alone.
The cry of that tranter,
Ethereal chanter,
Is that of sweet Molly Malone.
August 4, 2017
qms commented on the word thermophile
My cat chases sunlight in pathces
And bathes in the warmth that attaches.
Devout thermophile,
She'll squirm for a while
Then nap in each one that she catches.
August 3, 2017
qms commented on the word born a bit tired
An expression that deserves reanimation.
August 2, 2017
qms commented on the word opiniator
The suitor who will stimulate her
Will be a sureness simulator,
Implacably stout
And scornful of doubt:
Prince Charming the Opiniator.
August 2, 2017
qms commented on the word neocracy
The hot show in town is neocracy
With wonders the people will flock to see:
The kleptocrat's portion!
The moral contortion!
A circus of preening hypocrisy!
August 1, 2017
qms commented on the word mulligrubs
Enmeshed by so grievous events
The sharp pang of panic relents.
Sour fate dully rubs
And makes mulligrubs
From fevers of old discontents.
July 31, 2017
qms commented on the word lushington
Oh, hear the poet's gushing tongue
Sing sweet, although a lushington!
In drink, aloud,
He charms the crowd,
Yet on the page is nothing done.
July 30, 2017
qms commented on the word hanaper
In Summer sweet passions can occur:
There's many a sensual plan astir,
So fruits of the season
And wine beyond reason
Fill young lover's hopeful hanaper.
July 29, 2017
qms commented on the word luteous
It's strange what comes to be beauteous:
If renal disease put its root in us
The optimist's eye
Will ceaselessly try
To spy the elusively luteous.
July 28, 2017
qms commented on the word imparisyllabic
sprung rhythm is rather elastic
With changes from small to the drastic,
So words you thought odd
Can be even trod
Though looking imparisyllabic.
July 27, 2017
qms commented on the word lurry
Cornelius tended to hurry.
His gait on most days was a scurry,
His costume, unkempt,
A failing attempt
To shape something more than a lurry.
July 26, 2017
qms commented on the word brassard
Put trust in no helmet or brassard
For life is a game played at hazard,
So fate's subtle arts
Will find softer parts
And kick your incompetent ass hard.
July 25, 2017
qms commented on the word jawsmith
The throwing of veggies is rude -
A terrible waste of the food
But I find good cause with
The faux golden jawsmith
Provoking a food throwing mood.
July 24, 2017
qms commented on the word souterrain
A basement's decidedly plain
And will for the many remain,
But go win the Lotto
And build you a grotto,
An oenophile's cave or souterrain.
July 23, 2017
qms commented on the word brachistochrone
When Ernest paces and frets all alone
He prays for a call on the phone.
To garner a word,
Remotest preferred,
He'll find the brachistochrone.
Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit
July 23, 2017
qms commented on the word falcated
We've made luxurious sport
Of fingers reputedly short
We'd be less elated
To learn they're falcated,
A brevity of ominous sort.
July 21, 2017
qms commented on the word habitacle
A rhymer grown weary and stressed
Does work that's not always the best.
He needs a sabbatical
In some sweet habitacle -
A rhymless and rhythm-free rest.
July 21, 2017
qms commented on the word guilloche
This house was once classy, by gosh,
The walls with proud details awash.
Some long-ago master
Of decorative plaster
Had spun out a web of guilloche.
July 19, 2017
qms commented on the word borak
It matters not pale-faced or black
In cities or furthest outback:
The Aussies converse
In patterns perverse;
It's tall tales and endless borak.
July 18, 2017
qms commented on the word fakement
Beware lest like Eve you should meet
A serpent who lies for a treat.
That wily old snake meant
To purvey a fakement
For sheer love of simple deceit.
July 17, 2017
qms commented on the word grape-cure
From what I read you had to eat leaves and stems too, but I suspect wine was the point. The customers came eagerly and left happy.
July 16, 2017
qms commented on the word grape-cure
When rich folk felt clogged and unfree
They'd travel to mountains or sea,
Or make an escape tour
Including a grape-cure
To purge them of turgid ennui.
July 16, 2017
qms commented on the word brachydactylous
A small-minded leader is fractious,
One shriveled in heart is disastrous,
But heaven forfend
Our fate should depend
On one who is brachydactylous.
July 15, 2017
qms commented on the word carmagnole
Your dress and gesture bespoke your role
And safest in those days was prole
To retain your head
For a cap of bright red
While dancing a mad carmagnole.
July 14, 2017
qms commented on the word antre
A cave man might woo her with banter
Or show shiny stones to enchant her,
If wise she'll require
That he light a fire
Before she'll bed down in his antre.
July 13, 2017
qms commented on the word bordereau
A lawyer can put on a show
Of precedents, row upon row.
It beggars belief
To call it a "brief,"
So name it instead "bordereau."
July 12, 2017
qms commented on the word euhemerism
A mystery cult needs a team
To manage how origins seem
And stem any schism
Like euhemerism
That threatens to spoil the dream.
July 11, 2017
qms commented on the word glocalization
A marketeer hungry for fame
Will give common practice a name.
A vocalization
Like glocalization
Refreshes the same weary game.
July 10, 2017
qms commented on the word eolith
He's more than a chip off the block;
This cave man is cock of the walk.
Not Dad's eolith
But rad neolith
Is what he can knock from a rock.
July 9, 2017
qms commented on the word agostadero
I am not a polyglot hero.
My knowledge of Spanish is zero.
I'd rather write "pasture"
Than risk a disaster
In rhyming with agostadero.
July 8, 2017
qms commented on the word tripudiation
At meetings of Lexical Nation
A collation precedes some potation.
There's never a chance
They simply will "dance;"
The evening must end in tripudiation.
July 7, 2017
qms commented on the word fisc
Though beef was but rarely a fisc fit
On Paddy's Day they'd always risk it.
The immigrant tide
Took pleasure and pride
In platters of cabbage and brisket.
July 6, 2017
qms commented on the word perquisite
There's many a prez who'd flirt a bit
High office bestows that perquisite
But impulse erupts
And power corrupts
So never entrust a jerk with it.
July 5, 2017
qms commented on the word girandole
His brief part should have been droll,
A gesture, a flourish, a girandole.
But clownish excess
From too much success
Has trapped us now in the Grand Guignol.
July 4, 2017
qms commented on the word murage
The pirates taxed beyond endurage
They taxed for sailing and for moorage
And charged every boat
In that city afloat
Ridiculous fees for the murage.
July 3, 2017
qms commented on the word parataxis
A little word trips, hampers, attacks us.
Resist; adopt a disciplined practice.
Conjunctivitis
Never will blight us,
Defended by sharp paralaxis.
July 2, 2017
qms commented on the word extramental
It starts as a union placental,
Persists as invisible tendril,
But twins, so they say,
May dwell far away
And share in a way extramental.
July 1, 2017
qms commented on the word aerophagia
At yoga camp life's a bit lazier
To mimic the graces of Asia.
At breatharian camp
The signature stamp
Is general alarmed aerophagia.
June 30, 2017
qms commented on the word nympholepsy
The folks in a mystical cult
Sip potions to help them exult.
The visions adepts see
Provoke nympholepsy,
Which is the desired result.
June 29, 2017
qms commented on the word nutrimental
The scheme of the vegan is gentle
With quinoa and kale and the lentil.
Are benefits real
As followers feel,
Or is its appeal nutrimental?
June 28, 2017
qms commented on the user qms
The Word of the Day limerick for July 27, 2017 is meant to be read in the context of the comment posted at logothete on September 4, 2014.
June 27, 2017
qms commented on the word logothete
The warhorse was no longer fleet
So had to be shrewd and discreet.
Where stronger words failed
Old Teddy assailed
His foe with the slur, logothete.
June 27, 2017
qms commented on the word porte cochere
See porte cochère.
June 27, 2017
qms commented on the word onfall
At Daisy Mae's regular onfall
The hollow resounds to her bonk call:
"Come old men and young
The wee and well-hung
It don't matter none. I want y'all!"
June 26, 2017
qms commented on the word head-hung
All night fans in frenzy gave tongue -
Gargantuan efforts of lung!
Despite boastful songs
The team failed its throngs,
Who slouched sadly homeward, head-hung.
June 25, 2017
qms commented on the word fraudsman
Some think that the Donald's an odd man,
But others, a sweet-natured Lord's man.
I must give the nod
To the party of odd;
His piety reeks of the fraudsman.
June 24, 2017
qms commented on the word locodescriptive
While "nut job" and "loon" are dismissive
Yet "mad" and "insane" echo fictive.
The language amazes
With terms for our crazes;
It's supple and locodescriptive.
June 23, 2017
qms commented on the word frugivore
ruzuzu and bilby combine
Lamenting my poor withered vine,
But if there's an ointment
For cruel disappointment
That comforting unction is mine.
For limericks are careless of clime
And ripen regardless of time.
Their happiest chore
Is spreading of spore
To generate offspring in rhyme.
June 23, 2017
qms commented on the word frugivore
The pattern is hard to ignore:
Buy local and you are a locavore;
If seeking cheap eats
In veggies and meats
You're frugal and known as a frugivore.
June 22, 2017
qms commented on the word jobation
Expressions of disapprobation
Have many a nasty mutation:
The cold look that lingers,
The wagging of fingers,
But worst is the endless jobation.
June 21, 2017
qms commented on the word hermeneut
A poet who's really astute
Is neither obscure nor too cute.
His work ought to dart
Straight to the heart
Not needing a shrewd hermeneut.
June 20, 2017
qms commented on the word Goodman
See goodman.
June 20, 2017
qms commented on the word dewfall
Meditation is surely our true call,
Let light that's inside us imbue all
The mists that conceal
Resolve and congeal
And peace will descend like the dewfall.
June 19, 2017
qms commented on the word ekphrasis
As patience and rhyming time passes
The evidence clearly amasses:
If not quite deplorable
At least it's ignorable.
A word we don't need is ekphrasis.
June 18, 2017
qms commented on the word testificate
The Scots wanted all done in triplicate
But folks became testy and sick of it.
Now red tape's reduced,
Contentment produced
By banning the pesky testificate.
June 17, 2017
qms commented on the word jean dimmock
spinach
June 17, 2017
qms commented on the word demilune
Now scholars, I read, have once more
Uncovered a case of fakelore.
That beckoning moon,
That quaint demilune,
Was carved in no true outhouse door.
See http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/outhouses-crescent-moons
June 16, 2017
qms commented on the word begrutten
Alas, bonnie lassie, why weep?
Our dearest loves we cannot keep.
I see you're begrutten
But eat up your mutton,
The gift of your favorite sheep.
June 15, 2017
qms commented on the word tripe-visaged
His face was of a type privileged
To be by the great bard ripe-imaged
It's sagging and sallow,
Twixt mucus and tallow,
Immortalized now as tripe-visaged.
N. B.: So far as I can tell this word has been used in earnest precisely once. All other instances are quotation of that passage in Henry IV, Part 2.
June 14, 2017
qms commented on the word mortiferous
May God in his mercy deliver us
From beasts that are wild and carnivorous,
From shoal-ridden shores
And humorless bores,
And all things that tend toward mortiferous.
June 13, 2017
qms commented on the word Book Book
Bravo!
June 13, 2017
qms commented on the word Book Book
Some years ago I was traveling with family through the Loire Valley and we passed through the town of Tours. In the central part of the city there is an ancient tower (French “tour”). It was plain that if we had stopped to be guided through that remnant we would be taking the Tours tour tour.
June 12, 2017
qms commented on the word scintillate
See comments at sparkle.
June 12, 2017
qms commented on the word sparkle
Sparkle, sparkle, puny orb;
Will I your mys'try e'er absorb,
Lording over everything
Like a rock star trailing bling?
-by Quentin M. Sullivan
See comments at scintillate.
June 12, 2017
qms commented on the word carnassial
A tiger might flex a fierce fascicle
And show you dentition carnassial.
Would he likely munch on
Your haunch for a luncheon?
I think you can bet your sweet ass he will.
June 12, 2017
qms commented on the word inedia
Mortality's sentence is eating her
But panic will doom her the speedier.
She seizes in terror
On all forms of error
Including the fatal inedia.
See also breatharian and comments at autotroph and photovore.
June 11, 2017
qms commented on the word fibbery
I used to have a carbuncle. He was wonderfully helpful with "normally aspirated" car engines but became an anachronism when fuel injection came in. He works on lawn mowers now.
June 10, 2017
qms commented on the word fibbery
If fibbers are guilty of fibbery
Then sybarites wallow in sybary.
A scribe who is given
To squibs hasty scriven
Is lost in the thickets of squibbery.
June 10, 2017
qms commented on the word ichthyophagy
Ecologists warn us that fish
Are not a sustainable dish.
Enlightened philosophy
Eschews ichthyophagy,
Or so would the scientists wish.
June 9, 2017
qms commented on the word ambagitory
So what's with the dogs' shaggy story
And why do the pooches grab glory?
If she's left unhindered
My cat is long winded
And, much like a mutt, is ambagitory.
June 8, 2017
qms commented on the word mother
If ruzuzu could drink what she'd druther
It'd be some astringent or other.
A natural quirk,
Genetics at work
In one who calls vinegar "mother."
June 7, 2017
qms commented on the word chandelle
The hot shots are flying pellmell
And groundlings aren't able to tell:
Was that trick more nimble than
A flamboyant Immelmann
Or more of a normal chandelle?
June 7, 2017
qms commented on the list food-that-shall-not-be-named
ไข่เยี่ยวม้า (khai yiao ma), literally "horse piss eggs," is the Thai term for what are more commonly called "hundred year old eggs." These are hard boiled eggs pickled to a deep brown. Supposedy the old Thai recipe used horse urine as the pickling agent.
June 7, 2017
qms commented on the word mystagogy
His mem'ry is still a bit foggy
(These days he often wakes groggy).
He gropes for those truths
He found in the booze
Last night in his bright mystagogy.
June 6, 2017
qms commented on the word enchiridion
We learn from the lesson of Gideon,
Who vanquished the army of Midian,
Success takes invention
And not close attention
To rules in some stale enchiridion.
Judges 7:17–22
June 5, 2017
qms commented on the word WotD
I try hard to rhyme up to spec
But sometimes I put out pure dreck.
It is most convenient
My readers are lenient
And bilby will not wring my neck.
June 4, 2017
qms commented on the word pleonexia
His antics are having effects bizarre.
Take note of the nerve-shattered wrecks we are!
The truth, be it told:
He's hungry for gold
And driven by deep pleonexia.
June 4, 2017
qms commented on the word WotD
No posting by this time is strange,
Exceeding by far normal range.
Yet here must we languish,
Wordless in anguish.
The Word of the Day does not change.
June 4, 2017
qms commented on the word gride
Cruel mockers beware, woe betide!
For Ernest's no safe man to chide.
He knows words with edges,
So legend alleges.
His sharp tongue may baffle but gride.
Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit
June 3, 2017
qms commented on the word piquette
The oenophile's delicate senses
Take shelter from vulgar pretenses.
No plonk's to be found
Within his surround,
Defended by strong piquette fences.
June 2, 2017
qms commented on the word morsure
Puzzling how, in spite of everything, Australians enjoy such a reputation for friendliness. Perhaps bilby’s ill humor is the result of frustration with the Australian dung beetle problem. It seems the place is covered in shit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Dung_Beetle_Project
June 1, 2017
qms commented on the word morsure
Their tastes are demanding for sure:
From sniffing to careful morsure
Dung beetles commit
To freshness in shit
And none but the finest ordure.
June 1, 2017
qms commented on the word intenerate
Be sweet at the start and intenerate
And hope that your arguments penetrate.
If the blockhead's unmoved
By good sense, though proved,
Then seize him and quickly defenestrate,
May 31, 2017
qms commented on the word habile
To raise your verse above the babble
Start out with the simplest dabble.
Begin with June/moon
And find very soon
Your voice become fluent and habile.
May 30, 2017
qms commented on the word codlin
"Delicious" is marketing hype
While "mac" marks a plain-spoken type.
It seems to me "codlin,"
Is rather too maudlin
For fruit that you coax to be ripe.
May 29, 2017
qms commented on the word broose
The wedding once done, a race ensues
Involving the lusty kilted youths.
The new-minted missus
Will dole out some kisses
To he who comes first in the broose.
According to the OED the vowel in broose is one of those peculiarly Scottish stranglings. Think of the sound made by an expiring bagpipe as it dwindles to a flaccid state. I have elected to rhyme it as you see. Those who want perfect authenticity should abuse the rhyming words into conformity.
May 28, 2017
qms commented on the word spinthariscope
When bored to the end of your rope
Try a toy that will help you to cope:
Watch atoms decay
In their frivolous way
In the lens of a spinthariscope.
May 27, 2017
qms commented on the word astrobleme
The Yucatan narrates the birth
Of changes for old Mother Earth.
The pastoral scene
Hides a vast astrobeme,
The secret to dinosaur dearth.
For a description of the Chicxulub crater and its relation to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, see
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater
May 26, 2017
qms commented on the word depuration
Thank you, hh.
May 26, 2017
qms commented on the word depuration
A Kalenjin youth's preparation
For manhood involves separation
From infantile joys,
And foreskins of boys,
And comfort as harsh depuration.
The Kalenjin people of Kenya dominate marathon running worldwide. For a treatment of the role of coming of age traditions in fostering this dominance see:
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/01/241895965/how-one-kenyan-tribe-produces-the-worlds-best-runners
May 25, 2017
qms commented on the word versing
The Wordie affliction's a curse;
Indifference, however, is worse.
How blessed the infection
That raises objection
And moves gentle bilby to verse.
May 24, 2017
qms commented on the word threnody
Our grief seeks surcease and a remedy,
A passage from pain to serenity,
And such is the meaning
Of inchoate keening
Or intricate weave of a threnody.
May 24, 2017
qms commented on the word euphuism
The voter is bored with me-tooism,
Impatient with faux folksy truism.
He longs for much more
Like great days of yore
When orators mastered euphuism.
May 23, 2017
qms commented on the word altricial
It's fine if the state is initial
When infancy's cute and official,
But helpless and squalling,
Is sad and appalling
When old folk are worn to altricial.
May 22, 2017
qms commented on the word mortcloth
I know how the vampirish sort doth:
Their fashion is always to sport goth.
Their trademarks are fangs
And ebony bangs
And capes that are sewn out of mortcloth.
May 21, 2017
qms commented on the word bemock
Cult members once loved how he talked
But now for his gaffes he's bemocked.
His status, once clerical,
Is changed to chimerical.
The high priest of con is defrocked.
May 20, 2017
qms commented on the word sanguinolent
tristero, you must be a cat lover. Penelope (my aged cat) and I rejoice in your approval.
May 19, 2017
qms commented on the word sanguinolent
My cat for the most part's indolent
And curled in sleep seeming innocent,
But fidgets will twitch her
From dreams that bewitch her
Betraying ambitions sanguinolent.
May 19, 2017
qms commented on the word schav
Consider the choices you have
Selecting a soup of the slav.
There's bigos, quite thick,
Or pick one that's quick
And dine on a fresh bowl of schav.
May 18, 2017
qms commented on the word ollekebolleke
Sounds a lot like “okaley dokaley,” the favorite expression of assent of Ned Flanders, Homer Simpson’s pious neighbor. Could this be evidence of the influence of Dutch folk tradition on The Simpsons? There might be a PhD dissertation there.
May 17, 2017
qms commented on the word purblind
My friend, alas, made up her mind
To credit some claims of dafter kind.
So reason's traduced,
It's trumped and seduced
By visions supplied the purblind.
May 17, 2017
qms commented on the word hymnographer
Said Bach to his bold interlocutor,
"It seems, sir, you are a provocateur.
While true, it's been said
I'm matchless in bed,
I'm also an unmatched hymnographer."
May 16, 2017
qms commented on the word froward
See comments at tetric.
May 15, 2017
qms commented on the word tetric
I see that some GNU collaborator (or perhaps an imperious spell checker), in plundering The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia for a definition of "tetric " has assumed the old and honorable "froward" to be a misspelling of "forward" and has "corrected" it.
Obscurity makes one a coward
Another finds language empowered:
It's timid and horrid
To substitute forward
From distrust of stubborn old froward.
May 15, 2017
qms commented on the word tetric
The fare at the fair is eclectic:
You might spy a clown with a pet trick,
See shows of all styles
For thrills and for smiles
And nary a visage that's tetric.
May 15, 2017
qms commented on the word materfamilias
The votes had been willy nilly cast
Electing our materfamilias.
Electoral flunkies
(Those mischievous monkeys)
Appointed instead a male silly ass.
May 14, 2017
qms commented on the word mellisonant
Perfumed were the notes Melissa sent
With sweet and enticing kiss of scent,
Beguiled was my ear
When lips were more near
To hear her soft whispers mellisonant.
May 13, 2017
qms commented on the word alegar
*deep bows and blushes*
May 13, 2017
qms commented on the word bodement
An oracle who's on the decline
Is desperate to peddle a sign.
She must sell a bodement
To pay her abode rent
And maintain her practice divine.
May 12, 2017
qms commented on the word alegar
A brewmaster's post is a sinecure
In abstinent towns such as Srinagar,
But still they are tickled
With veggies well pickled
So happy with Gallagher's vinegar.
May 12, 2017
qms commented on the word pronged ant
Or, in the case of impatient lovers, you might see a pronghorn ant elope.
May 12, 2017
qms commented on the word alegar
The ale that is brewed by one Gallagher
Is never a champion challenger.
The judge always fails it.
I don't know what ails it
But, my! It's a fine batch of alegar.
May 11, 2017
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