Comments by milosrdenstvi

  • "There's a macedoine of languages spoken in East Palo Alto..." http://apps.npr.org/codeswitch-changing-races/

    April 20, 2013

  • For me there is no thought of intercourse (use, not reference) without corresponding memories of this brilliant Python sketch.

    February 19, 2013

  • But surely herpetology is amphibians. Would the study of mongeeses be herpestology? And what would a herpest be? A venereal disease causing sharp teeth, appetite for cobra egg, and a predilection for saying "rkchkchkchkchkchkchkchk!" in the traverse 'tween bed and bathtub?

    February 17, 2013

  • Haitches shouldn't count 'less you actually say them. Four graphemes is not nearly so impressive as four phonemes. See also გვფრცქვნი - having eight rather than nine, incidentally.

    February 17, 2013

  • Pronounced "gvprtskvni": "you are peeling us". Spoken, no doubt, by a tribe of glossolalian tangerines.

    February 17, 2013

  • Did you mean "former pipes anonymous"?

    February 17, 2013

  • Didn't David Foster Wallace use it enough times to last us the next couple of decades?

    February 2, 2013

  • Beginning a recent final descent some steward observed over the PA "The captain has illuminated the fasten-seatbelt sign..." For some reason I heard eliminated and spent most of the balance of the flight imagining various possible violent means of sign elimination by captains before I realized elimination of a sign didn't jive with turning it on.

    January 14, 2013

  • Used by a flight desk flunky at the airport the other day (not MKE this time!) for "miss a connection". I nearly misconnected in Denver but fortunately made it to the gate just in time.

    January 14, 2013

  • Spotted this in the Milwaukee airport tonight -- a large sign designated a number of tables past the security scanners as the "Recombobulation Area". I wonder who the clever logophile was who coined this, and the significance of the tacit admission that the whole rigmarole of airport security is indeed discombobulating.

    January 4, 2013

  • Pronounced "wizzy-wig".

    December 20, 2012

  • But that is Amex, surely, whereas this is some foully and unnaturally murthered Latin verb conjugation.

    December 20, 2012

  • Why can't the anomaly just be nice like everybody else?

    May 14, 2012

  • Well, if it's from Finnegans Wake, you hardly need to ask...

    May 4, 2012

  • The crazy thing is, I'm fluent in this stuff now, after having been here for so long. სულ თავისუფლად ვლაპარაკობ ქართულ ენას... never would have guessed, after making this list after the 1st trip those many years ago. მიყვარხარ საქართველო!

    May 4, 2012

  • M. Gandhi uses this word frequently in the sense of "legume" in his autobiography "The Story of My Experiments With Truth". Confused the heck out of me.

    February 16, 2012

  • Wilbur and Napoleon?

    Edit: forgot Piglet (of course) and the sneezing baby in Alice. Wiki suggests Lord of the Flies, which is a good one. That's more or less all I can call to mind from literature at least.

    January 9, 2012

  • Really fascinating to observe the complete changeover in meaning of this word in the past century, from geography and botany to hygiene. The full sets of definitions by American Heritage and Century have almost no overlap. It would be very interesting to trace the semantic shifts more carefully, but at the moment all I can observe is (a) there used to be a mill on one of them and (b) TMItter.

    January 9, 2012

  • Check 'em out.

    January 6, 2012

  • I had a dream where I was trying to convince everybody I knew that onund was not a word. Fortunately it seems not to be. My subconscious remains sane.

    November 7, 2011

  • Is not the mantled ground squirrel not unlike the mounted liger?

    October 29, 2011

  • Perhaps I've been *severely* overly influenced by Spanish ocupar. Now that I mention this fact to the world it might also only exist in certain dialects. Funny how I was so sure it was valid in English too.

    October 29, 2011

  • Here's a hint: the differences in meaning between λόγος and νόμος are excellently explained by exact parallel between the English words astrologer and astronomer. I'm assuming of course you know "aster" means "star".

    October 28, 2011

  • Mt'redi: sticking with the theme begun at columbarium. Means "dove". Always kind of liked this word. There's also a town called სამტდრედია, Samt'redia, kind of "the place where doves are, which town has always amused me. Occupy სამტდრედია!

    October 28, 2011

  • Is this canned as in like canned like Spam or canned as in like canned like WD-40? Or does it all come in watering cans? Have you a Zans for Cans? You should.

    October 28, 2011

  • I've always been secretly amused at the use of occupy as a synonym for defecate. Perhaps I've been overly influenced by Spanish.

    October 28, 2011

  • Just learnt the highly surprising but etymological no-brainer sense of dovecot(e) the other day from "Waverly". Century #2 is helpful as always in elucidation of "why the heck".

    October 28, 2011

  • A contender for the "that suffix doesn't mean what you think it does" award, along with contumely and ruthless.

    October 20, 2011

  • I suppose the simple past is strewed and p.p. strewn. I'm sure I've misused this in my time. I tend to favour irregular constructions.

    October 10, 2011

  • Quaff, oh quaff.

    September 30, 2011

  • 26, on the other hand, is the only number known to be adjacent both to a square and a cube.

    September 30, 2011

  • Head is Navy usage.

    September 20, 2011

  • I was going to come here to report A VERY PERSISTENT BUG THAT HAD BEEN ANNOYING ME OVER THE LAST THREE MONTHS. Namely that when I went to a word's page and saw my list of lists there, I would want to right-click on the name of a list and open it, and see my list! როგორც we kinda used to be able to a long long time ago in prehistory. PAGE NOT FOUND, the hell what is this PAGE NOT FOUND. But now I just realised that oops, what actually that LINK is for is it is a LINK to add said word to a LIST (and I accidentally added sherbet to a list just now, to prove it, on a list it doesn't belong in, but I'm leaving it anyway). So no wonder PAGE NOT FOUND when I try to open in new window. The hell. So it's not an ANNOYING BUG, just my stupidity. In this case, instead of reporting this ANNOYING BUG can I very *humbly* ask that maybe I can have some way to link to my lists from a word page? როგორც kinda how we used to. Not exactly, 'cause it wasn't ALL our lists, but some, anyway, well, anyway, it was on the same spot on the screen and I'm a fogey and an old one at that and it doesn't work the way როგორც it kinda used to, kinda. And while I'm at it I want a wittle scrollie bar for long comments like this 'un. 'Cause the beginning of my comment is afraid of the dark and I want to be able to see it when I want, without futzing about with arrow keys, the hell. როგორც kinda we used to, maybe, 'cause I can't remember that far back anymore. Maybe there wasn't a wittle scrollie bar and the wittle comment box just enlargenified. Yeah, prob'ly that was it. Guess which book I'm reading? No, don't.

    September 20, 2011

  • verb = participle = noun = adjective

    August 21, 2011

  • Yeah, you call that catching a crab. It doesn't always throw you out of the boat (a bad one at high speed will) but it's kind of painful and not exactly great for race momentum.

    July 30, 2011

  • But how do you remember what it means?

    July 29, 2011

  • In a few days' time I'll be taking a vacation from საქართველო to schmooze through the Netherlands for two weeks. This includes a day's stop at the wonderfully named city of 's-Hertogenbosch, or Den Bosch, pretty much solely for this reason. It's such an amazing idea I can't believe I've never heard of it before.

    July 26, 2011

  • I find this adjective very interesting in terms of its connotational semantics. Part of a religious upbringing set Century #4 as the chief definition in my mind, thus establishing it as a negative adjective; but most instances I hear nowadays are along the lines of American Heritage #2, a generally positive attribution. Nevertheless I retain a negative impression on hearing this word and have to artificially remember its positive use.

    July 26, 2011

  • In Gulliver's Travels, the second miniscule country opposed to Lilliput. (Properly Blefuscu.)

    July 21, 2011

  • Along with choir, a leading candidate for the "unpredictable vowel" award.

    July 19, 2011

  • I saw the use of this as a synonym for yearn, pine. Dictionaries here say it's all right but it still seems a misusage to me -- I've never seen it contextually thus in any real author. Can someone contradict?

    July 18, 2011

  • Abbreviation of Timor Timur, the old Indonesian name for East Timor (Timor-Leste), now uncommon. Source: ye olde wikkie

    July 17, 2011

  • You, sir, are a shining wit.

    July 16, 2011

  • Go spectabundal the new interface.

    July 11, 2011

  • Yikes!

    July 11, 2011

  • As I recall there were many very interesting words of bell-ringing lore in that book. Alas, I cannot remember.

    July 11, 2011

  • "There was a sad and melancholy cadence in her voice, corresponding with the strange and interesting romance of her situation. So young, so beautiful, so untaught, so much abandoned to herself, and deprived of all the support which her sex derives from the countenance and protection of female friends, and even of that degree of defence which arises from the forms with which the sex are approached in civilised life,—it is scarce metaphorical to say, that my heart bled for her."

    Sir Walter Scott, Rob Roy. Victorian "literally"!

    July 10, 2011

  • Also tailor (cf. Dorothy L. Sayers novel The Nine Tailors, containing much fascinating English bell-ringing lore).

    July 10, 2011

  • An Armenian friend of mine says this when entering a house as a guest. I think it a very nice custom.

    July 9, 2011

  • Happened to walk past this same park again today. The word was still there. I feel powerful.

    July 8, 2011

  • Oh, it's so delightful! The mysterious consonants that pushed in to make this into "spatchala" always fascinated me as a young kid.

    July 8, 2011

  • "...rather than any good action should walk through the world like an unappropriated adjective in an ill-arranged sentence, he is always willing to stand noun substantive to it himself."

    -- Walter Scott, "Rob Roy"

    July 8, 2011

  • Looks like a Victorian hyper-correction to me.

    July 8, 2011

  • What I always tell myself is that if I'm afraid to jump a storey then I have no right to claim any spirit of adventure. Higher heights can be declined in the name of prudence.

    July 7, 2011

  • I see, so, something like "Is not the mounted liger, who, froze eterne in spectabundal spring..." OK, that makes more sense.

    July 6, 2011

  • How do you suppose this is used? "I spectabundal you"? "I am spectabundaling you"? "I am spectabundaled (spectabundalled?) for you"? "I am spectabundalled to you"? "He was spectabundalled for her"?

    ... it just sounds ... silly.

    July 6, 2011

  • A good candidate, I think, for "Not as bad as it sounds" or however that list was. The two words, however, do derive from the same Greek for "creeping".

    July 4, 2011

  • By the ears, naturally.

    July 4, 2011

  • See also zzzzz.

    July 3, 2011

  • http://www.google.com/search?q=bilby

    July 2, 2011

  • I like a straighter "appeal of the void" but I don't think that's as accurate.

    As for me, I don't know how to describe it exactly...mostly an intense curiosity or reflection about just how interesting it would be for myself and everybody else if I jumped. After all, you'd be able to see practically unique sights that nobody in the world has seen before...

    July 2, 2011

  • I actually enjoy having that list of lists when you want to add a word. It's a deal more convenient than the old drop-down box.

    Going half-way down the page for comments, of course, leaves something to be desired, but one grows easily into a habit, and at any rate if I was discovering the site right now I don't think I'd realize how annoying it was.

    Can't be bothered to find the "lost for word" page right now, but there's got to be something for the way nobody ever likes a website redesign. Every time Facebook does a Facelift there's scads of whingers complaining their life is ruined -- usually the same ones who abominated the layout just gone when they were first subjected to it. As I recall nobody liked it when Wordie became Wordnik. I remember missing Wordie's interface a lot, but I can't remember for the life of me what was so good about it anymore, aside from cosy familiarity. Maybe it's time to dig out the Wayback Machine?

    All that said any website can always become better. And I'm only a critic of the buttons and lights, not the foul dæmons beneath enslaved for æternity to make them manifest to me; the magic which might make one of these creatures sick and weak is utterly mysterious to me. Moral: I at least can be grateful for anything I have. Second moral: That said, there's no reason not to always strive for greater excellence. And I'm pretty sure our developers aren't actively trying to avoid that.

    Examples: the black bar at the top does seem a little overbearing. Perhaps other colours could be experimented with. It's odd to not have the number of listings and comments next to words in lists. Is there a good reason they're gone?

    In parting: a toast to umbrage! May there always be an abundance for the taking, and may it always be phony among friends!

    July 2, 2011

  • No, no, an urge. Please never stand on the edge of a cliff with me. Especially if you are one of those sorts of people who always aim to please.

    July 2, 2011

  • Damn, I forgot the appurtenances.

    July 1, 2011

  • I frankly have barely a clue what the contract is about.

    July 1, 2011

  • I discussed this with a French friend of mine a few weeks ago while overlooking Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi from a third floor balcony (which are ubiquitous the country over). She had just returned from Stepantsminda, a very beautiful mountain town to the north, to which I have not yet been. Her comment: "It might not be a good idea for you to go; there's a lot of vide there."

    July 1, 2011

  • I suffer from this.

    July 1, 2011

  • The classicist in me insists upon 'a' as in 'father' for both.

    July 1, 2011

  • Brackets on "butter no parsnips with me", please! Ha, ha, ha!

    July 1, 2011

  • The lesser-known, multifunctional quesadilla!

    Mouth-wateringly unwholesome

    A bone-forming croquette

    A jealously-guarded untraditional potpie!

    (You've also got 'masala' and 'satay' in this list,

    But I have no idea what they are.)

    June 30, 2011

  • Werther's Original Sorrows?

    June 30, 2011

  • A cognate of transvestite. Who knew?

    "We first played all the few pieces in which only males are requisite; next, we travestied some of ourselves; and at last took our sisters into the concern along with us."

    -- Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, I.viii

    June 29, 2011

  • Seems a bit malicious, wouldn't you think?

    June 29, 2011

  • Derogatory (but affectionate) term for navy midshipmen used by students of St. John's College.

    June 29, 2011

  • Crazy middies.

    June 29, 2011

  • These quesadillas are awesome. Practically like Spanish fufluns.

    edit: definitely not like Spanish 'flu.

    June 28, 2011

  • This place is about to get muy picante.

    Somebody give us all a new quesadilla, if you know what I mean.

    June 28, 2011

  • quesadilla (n.)

    1. Latin American edible confabulation, consistent of tortilla, cheese, other variant yummables, and brought to heat.

    2. See also liger.

    June 28, 2011

  • Are we using quesadilla as some bizarre euphemism for an impromptu poem?

    Ehmmm...excuse me...I need to go and give somebody...a quesadilla.

    June 28, 2011

  • Is not the mounted liger, who,

    With mortled seam and crescent brow,

    Shuns carbonado'd crespitude

    And fetters long the sem'nal wits

    By kindred shaggy grace inspir'd

    Brought thus by cyrene pilgrimage

    To prepossessing grace?

    June 28, 2011

  • Is not the mounted liger sounds like an excellent first line for a poem.

    June 27, 2011

  • "Once, on Captain Ahab's ship, they served and ate chocolate ganache for a birthday celebration. They called it the place of whaling and ganache-ing of teeth."

    Unoriginal to me; ultimate source unknown

    June 27, 2011

  • Clever.

    June 26, 2011

  • see also whiskeranto.

    June 25, 2011

  • As by analogy cringing, tinging, binging and whinging. I suppose the deviance serves to avoid ambiguity, but I wonder how the practice came to be such. Most other words ending in eing seem to be of the classes -ieing, -eeing, or rarely -oeing, or less common variants of accepted spellings -- also eyeing and dyeing (dying, incidentally, is quite an odd reversal of the typical y - i substitution). I do think I've seen bingeing in places, however; somehow my certainty of judgment (judgement??) fails me on that one.

    The one exception seems to be ageing, which is a British usage, the American being aging.

    June 24, 2011

  • Wordnik. And don't you forget it.

    June 18, 2011

  • In the syntax of 'please define this for me' rather than 'I would like to define this' it makes sense.

    June 18, 2011

  • Well, now I have Händel stuck in my head... "the VOICE...of him that CRYeth in the WILLLLdrnss!! prePARE... the WAY of the LOO-OORD!"

    June 18, 2011

  • No, it's correct on Wiktionary. It's just been pulled into our database incorrectly. As you can see, it's a very correct definition: refusing to define ATM machine, they only make a reference to pleonasm.

    June 18, 2011

  • I always keep a piece of chalk in my backpack in case of situations just like this one. Didn't occur to me to stand on; I'd just got in on the overnight train and in fact spent the next hour asleep on the bench visible.

    June 17, 2011

  • Did this the other day in Tbilisi.

    June 17, 2011

  • Matamoscas, as well as having a really cool name, are awfully useful in a Peruvian summer.

    June 15, 2011

  • Reading the AHD definition, thought it read that he confounded pragmatism and was somewhat nonplussed.

    June 15, 2011

  • batibuti -- popcorn

    June 15, 2011

  • "The mother was said to be kept in bed with a nail through her right foot. There she would celebrate that she had just become a mother."

    Urk. It sounds like a proper name you might give to a cucumber. Not only that, but it's a former island. Urk. Urk.

    I wonder if there's a plinth on Urk.

    June 12, 2011

  • mts'vrtneli -- "coach, trainer". Probably one of the most exciting consonant clusters I use on a semi-regular basis.

    June 11, 2011

  • I think it's very classy to be able to write a good-looking ampersand by hand, in one swift smooth motion, without stopping to try to remember which little pointy bit to start at, and which way to make the loop, and whether it goes the same direction as an 8 or the other way, and if the other way exactly how to do the other way, and getting fed to the gills with all the fuss in such a tidbit of a character and resorting to the vulgarity of a plus. I can't do it. Yet.

    I also highly approve of the usage &c., which is incidentally living proof and reminder to the the likes of blafferty that the ampersand was created as a ligature for Latin et.

    June 10, 2011

  • And I wanted a one-syllable word for this in a poem two months ago. Drat.

    April 26, 2011

  • Strangely enough I've not used that word here yet. It doesn't seem to be a very common vegetable in these parts.

    April 23, 2011

  • Greetings to all and to zuzu in particular! Please see account of my peregrinations at შეთანხმდებოდნენ.

    Milo is good. Only ever had it in South America, though; it doesn't seem to be too ubiquitous in the States, or here.

    April 22, 2011

  • Thoughts about prescriptivism: I believe that everyone ought to be entitled to two or three linguistic pet peeves. Mine happens to be forte, born probably of my musical background making its Italian pronunciation by laymen sound dumb to my ears. With all that, all the time I've spent on other languages in the past years has been increasingly making me realise just how fiercely independent all of us English speakers are about our language, most of us quite unconsciously. The textbooks I teach out of for Georgian schoolchildren invent ten times as many rules to govern English than I've ever seen in any grammar or style guide; most of them happen to be true in a vague sense, but really they're just canons our language has adapted itself around while asleep, which our waking speakers and writers never bother to consider. Our fabled pronunciation, I feel more than ever, has to be indicative of the extreme sense of humour innate to the English speaking people; usage and syntax are only a little less lax. Even the strictest classicist will unassumingly use coinages and constructions that a Georgian speaker wouldn't even know how to blanch at: it simply wouldn't be possible. (This 'strictest classicist', incidentally, no longer truly exists; the breed flourished well in the Victorian Era, entered old age as airplanes left the ground, and perished its last specimens in the middle of the 20th century. Duckbill has a point that the literature of that time was quite certainly the most precise probably of any period of history so far, and possibly yet to come, lending an unwitting humourous colour which I enjoy very much; but there was just as much dreck in those days as there was in ours and Cromwell's.)

    Thoughts about "muša": the word in Georgian means "worker".

    April 22, 2011

  • shetankhmdebodnen -- Georgian for "they made an agreement with each other". Yes, I can pronounce this. I'm still a little distant from being able to use it in a conversation, but it nevertheless sounds very impressive when said in an angry tone of voice.

    April 22, 2011

  • So far there are no direct flights to Tbilisi from anywhere in North America (actually, not really any from Asia either). The farthest aeroplane comes from London. Of course, the Chicago leg is utterly unnecessary, since flights from Dulles go to any number of convenient places in Europe, but I didn't book my own tickets.

    BWI is in Linthicum, I suppose (not West Friendship, which is where dont_cry lives).

    A friend of mine told me yesterday that Istanbul is actually not a Turkish word, but a corruption of the Greek for "in the city". I don't have time to confirm this now, but it sounds interesting. I'll have seven hours there. Maybe that will be enough to see someplace. I'm thinking about the contents of my personally memorized lexicon of Turkish...let's see, here we are:

    merkez: center

    tuvalet: toilet

    Oh well, guess that's all. Flight in five hours.

    January 14, 2011

  • stambuli -- Georgian for İstanbul, or Constantinople as the case may be.

    January 13, 2011

  • To the attention of our United State of America passengers;

    United States of America National Transportation Safety Board requests to receive the information of name, surname, sex, and date of birth of passenger’s flying to USA or from USA at least 72 hours before the flight time as of 01 November 2010.

    The passenger who cannot provide this information may not travel to USA or from USA after 01 November 2010. Turkish Airlines momentously requests its passengers who fly to USA to complete required information before 01 November 2010 by applying Turkish Airlines Sale Offices or travel agencies where they obtain their tickets.

    -- The Turkish Airlines website. Tomorrow: Baltimore -> Chicago -> Istanbul -> Tbilisi.

    January 13, 2011

  • hrad is Czech for fortress. Just saying.

    January 12, 2011

  • I'll be passing through on Saturday, I think. Might have around seven hours.

    January 11, 2011

  • Have ever you harked to the jackass wild

    Which scientists call the onager?

    It sounds like the laugh of an backward child

    Or a hepcat on a harmonica.

    But do not sneer at the jackass wild

    There's method in his heehaw

    For with maidenly blush and accent mild

    The jenny-ass answers shee-haw.

    -- Ogden Nash

    January 11, 2011

  • New Yooooork....New Yooooork....Livingstone's gonna pop a cooooork!!!!

    January 11, 2011

  • Home I'll never be.

    January 10, 2011

  • Another pronunciation that is just unfair. See choir.

    January 9, 2011

  • See octothorpe.

    January 8, 2011

  • Found this in Tender is the Night. Doesn't seem to be used anywhere else. The other usage cited is somewhat diverting.

    January 8, 2011

  • Funny, the pronunciation I've most often heard is "KWAY-zee".

    January 8, 2011

  • Hey, that's a good Psalm.

    Can't remember anything in it about a chickenhawk, though.

    January 7, 2011

  • Found in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It made me chuckle.

    January 7, 2011

  • I decided this week that henceforth I would be true to my Baltimoron heritage and address strangers as "hon". We'll see how long it takes to pick up the habit.

    January 7, 2011

  • Thanks to Mr. Elster for the pronunciation! Many people I know pronounce the first syllable as in tummy. I have always considered that somewhat beastly.

    January 7, 2011

  • At the Denny's nearby here they have "Tsing Tsing Chicken". According to my Chinese friends, "tsing tsing" is Chinese for chimpanzee.

    January 5, 2011

  • Please see the page douug linked.

    January 5, 2011

  • In Greek the "to be" verb can be also functionally translated in certain instances as "exists", as also in English "Beauty exists" conveying much the same as "Beauty is".

    January 5, 2011

  • Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, right? ....right?

    January 4, 2011

  • In Minnesota they pronounce the vowels of "bag" and "bagel" oppositely from what I'm used to -- i.e. /beɪg/ and /bægəl/ instead of /bæg/ and /beɪgəl/.

    January 4, 2011

  • It happens.

    January 4, 2011

  • Wairdy go? Jus wenninnair.

    January 4, 2011

  • An important distinction in Baltimore:

    Police (pronounced PO-leece): singular.

    Police (pronounced pleece): plural.

    Johnny shot one PO-leece. Johnny shot two pleece. Probably happened on Norf Abnu, now that I think about it.

    January 4, 2011

  • Baltimorese for "North Avenue"

    January 4, 2011

  • Even I don't know all of these...

    January 4, 2011

  • Baltimorese for "power mower"

    January 4, 2011

  • It may be necessary afterwards to do some ironing, which my fellow Baltimorons would pronounce earning.

    January 4, 2011

  • I've been discovering the potentialities of expression this word has to offer. Ambrose Bierce uses "imperfectly gratifies" as a synonym for "displeases".

    January 3, 2011

  • Don't forget Moxie. :)

    January 2, 2011

  • See also Glagolitic mass.

    December 31, 2010

  • Not sure -- my Georgian isn't up to that level yet. But here's წარმატებები (tsarmatebebi) as a substitute -- "Good luck!"

    December 31, 2010

  • sasiamovnoa -- 'it is nice', as in სასიამოვნოა თქვენი გაცნობა (sasiamovnoa tkveni gatsnoba -- nice to meet you)

    December 31, 2010

  • I'm going back! Got a job teaching English for about six months or so.

    December 31, 2010

  • Is it better to say uncommunicative?

    December 31, 2010

  • Polling the community: should the plural be hole-in-ones or holes-in-one?

    December 30, 2010

  • A suffix of directionality: upward, downward, skyward, landward, toward, forward, leftward, rightward, westward, windward, homeward.

    So where is awk?

    December 30, 2010

  • At times I use this as a count noun: one luggage, two luggages, etc. This is an idiosyncratic usage.

    December 30, 2010

  • From the Greek word meaning "treasury".

    December 30, 2010

  • Currently referred to by locals as the Metrobowl.

    December 29, 2010

  • As far as I know, this is the only word where oi is pronounced "wai". I'm not even sure if there are any words where oi is pronounced "ai".

    December 29, 2010

  • It's always really confused me when women refer to other female friends of theirs as "girlfriends". Can't really say why.

    Besides all that, this is a rather ugly word.

    December 29, 2010

  • This is the only word I can think of with an irregular pronunciation in the 3rd person singular.

    December 29, 2010

  • A dialectical interjection in Minnesota, learnt this past week. It seems to be expressive of some kind of resigned amazement. ("The roof on the house collapsed last night." "Uff-da!")

    December 29, 2010

  • "am not" does not contract. I am not becomes I'm not, while you are not can become either you're not or you aren't, and he is not can become either he's not or he isn't.

    But in the word order of questions, we somehow get a perfectly frequently-used contraction seemingly from I are. The more I think about this, the weirder it seems.

    December 29, 2010

  • Sounds good. I always hate when I have to get up in the mornings.

    December 18, 2010

  • I enjoy using this as a past participle in certain social contexts. (Picked it up while working IT one summer.)

    December 18, 2010

  • Another humourously false irregular past participle (see also shat and brung), formed no doubt by analogy to sink - sunk, stink - stunk and drink - drunk. The simple past form thank does not exist, likely because of its use a separate word and the prevalence of thought as past tense even when this spurious participle is used. An argument could be made for a similarly spurious formation in plink - plunk. I could possibly attest to experience of that usage; however, both of those words are onomatopoeic enough that grammatical change between them seems subsidiary (as also in clink - clunk). No ablaut occurs for wink or link (or fink or dink for that matter, but they are a good deal more dialectical).

    December 18, 2010

  • ...who ever with a frolic welcome took

    The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

    Free hearts, free foreheads

    ...

    December 17, 2010

  • I was quite strenuously informed the other day that the accent is on the second syllable. So it is. While looking this up, I realised I had been spelling it without the second e. How plebeian.

    December 14, 2010

  • When I hear this word, I desire to howl and moan like a rheumatic iguana.

    December 11, 2010

  • Thanks much! Listening to them now.

    December 11, 2010

  • Been reading a book on semiology. Still not entirely sure of the definition of this, but I'm working with "something put together in some kind of order".

    December 10, 2010

  • Nice! I need to listen to more good songs in Spanish.

    December 10, 2010

  • good egg!

    December 10, 2010

  • The best thing would be to start manufacturing and mass marketing.

    December 9, 2010

  • Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    (IMO the only good villanelle ever written.)

    December 8, 2010

  • So much a more delightful word when pronounced with long O.

    December 7, 2010

  • See also non-existence.

    December 7, 2010

  • Wordnik is fun yaaaaay!!!!!!

    December 6, 2010

  • A form of fire approaches the cretonnes of Penelope,

    Whose mere savage presence awakens the world in which she dwells.

    Wallace Stevens, "The World as Meditation"

    December 5, 2010

  • *contemplates worshipping a diety*

    December 5, 2010

  • While proofreading someone else's document, I came across the phrase "a AAA financial guaranty insurer". This phrase, I decided, was correct, and should not be "an AAA...", because in this case AAA is pronounced "triple-A".

    December 3, 2010

  • "Were you looking for truelove?"

    Actually, no, I prefer my true love with a certain spaciness to it.

    December 3, 2010

  • :((

    December 3, 2010

  • 1st reaction: what the em dash??

    2nd reaction: *add add add add*

    December 3, 2010

  • Motivation gave out about 1/5 of the way through. Nevertheless I did have quite the fun with this, and probably will continue the project (with this list) at some near point in the future.

    December 3, 2010

  • It's a misspelling, but common: worrywort

    December 2, 2010

  • See also jobberknowle.

    December 2, 2010

  • Define: What you have to pay when you return your books late.

    December 1, 2010

  • And the famed ruler of Avignon, Antipope.

    November 30, 2010

  • Along with her sisters Penelope and Antelope.

    November 30, 2010

  • More likely some of these were listed on ye olde wordie in lowercase, and this is the first time they've been uppered.

    November 30, 2010

  • Ate and Dike (Strife and Justice) are both disyllabic; the final e is pronounced.

    November 30, 2010

  • No, but apparently I am an island.

    November 29, 2010

  • Transliterations are a bit inconsistent, sorry.

    November 29, 2010

  • Well, it's no more a butter than a cheese, really.

    November 28, 2010

  • Some pretty exciting bad English on this page.

    Have nice clever thoughts, meditation, reflection, speculation and elocution.

    In short: Good night and have your own way.

    November 24, 2010

  • Trying to teach myself calculus again. Evidently the opposite of increment, but much less commonly used. Perhaps that's why it sounds really cool? Actually, I'm pretty sure I like this word only because every time I see/hear it I think specific decrement.

    November 24, 2010

  • Alleluia?

    November 24, 2010

  • No doubt as in "flay thy wolvish visage".

    November 24, 2010

  • Chacra is the countryside in Peruvian Spanish (not sure about other flavours).

    November 24, 2010

  • 5:26 am...

    November 22, 2010

  • My whole life (meaning ever since I was nineteen) I have been trying to ascertain the quiddity of love. Obviously, such remains elusive.

    November 21, 2010

  • @chained_bear: When young, I would always pronounce it "non se-KEE-ter"...

    November 19, 2010

  • Try antidisestablishmentarianism. And welcome to the site!

    November 19, 2010

  • არტიშოკები!

    November 17, 2010

  • This is probably what Keats would call ██████████.

    November 17, 2010

  • Thanks! Now wondering if I feel like making 123 citations.

    November 16, 2010

  • Also, for example, reënter. I do enjoy using this style, but most often in writing, because yanking the diaeresis from Character Map takes too long, I'll settle for a hyphen, as co-ordinate, re-enforce.

    November 16, 2010

  • ავოკადოოოოოოოოო!!!!

    November 16, 2010

  • There are strange things done in the midnight sun,

    by the men who moil for gold;

    The Arctic trails have their secret tales

    That would make your blood run cold;

    The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

    But the queerest they ever did see

    Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

    I cremated Sam McGee.

    Robert Service, The Cremation of Sam McGee

    November 16, 2010

  • არტიშოკი!

    November 16, 2010

  • Often, actually, in farewells, I'll let loose a nonce such as "Chezi!" or "Zoopsha!" in, of course, the properly cheery tone of voice which one might use for "Bye!" or "Ciao!" or "See you later!" or "Y'all take care now, y'hear?" Nobody ever seems to notice.

    November 16, 2010

  • Exciting list!

    November 14, 2010

  • I was quite amused to discover, during the very first days of my summer in Peru, the habit of greeting taxi drivers and other informal acquaintances with the mere word "buenas", an abbreviation of the formula for either good morning, afternoon, or night. It struck me as odd at first, because it's just a trailing adjective stuck to nothing -- but then I realised it was no more peculiar than the emphatic declaration of "morning" -- as if you were pointing out such a state to the unobservant, or hortatorily imploring its prolongation.

    November 14, 2010

  • I find this word to be a fascinating example of a recently-formed irregular verb.

    November 13, 2010

  • As in "fencing and foining".

    November 13, 2010

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