I was tempted to complain about those two examples, mostly because I've never heard of either of them before. They seem to belong more to a sort of technical jargon than 'proper English'. I mean, everybody knows what a geyser is.
On further thoughts, I decided that writing up a rant wasn't worth it. But there you have it, my rant unranted...
I went camping once with this girl who had concocted an ingenious treat she called a 'banana boat'. She slit a banana down the side, scooped out about half of it, filled the resultant empty space with peanut butter, bar chocolate, and marshmellows, folded everything back up, wrapped in aluminum foil and stuck in the coals till it was all mushy and melty. Sweetest, sugariest, stickiest, messiest banana I've had in my life. And Hercules, was it good.
"What do we want of another breed? Isn't one breed enough? Had is had, and your tricking it out in a fresh way of spelling isn't going to make it any hadder than it was before; now you know that yourself."
"But there is a distinction--they are not just the same Hads."
"How do you make it out?"
"Well, you use that first Had when you are referring to something that happened at a named and sharp and perfectly definite moment; you use the other when the thing happened at a vaguely defined time and in a more prolonged and indefinitely continuous way."
'Why, doctor, it is pure nonsense; you know it yourself. Look here: If I have had a had, or have wanted to have had a had, or was in a position right then and there to have had a had that hadn't had any chance to go out hadding on account of this foolish discrimination which lets one Had go hadding in any kind of indefinite grammatical weather but restricts the other one to definite and datable meteoric convulsions, and keeps it pining around and watching the barometer all the time, and liable to get sick through confinement and lack of exercise, and all that sort of thing, why--why, the inhumanity of it is enough, let alone the wanton superfluity and uselessness of any such a loafing consumptive hospital-bird of a Had taking up room and cumbering the place for nothing. These finical refinements revolt me; it is not right, it is not honorable; it is constructive nepotism to keep in office a Had that is so delicate it can't come out when the wind's in the nor'west--I won't have this dude on the payroll. Cancel his exequator; and look here--"
I don't think this one is actually Lavoisier, but another really cool term from the same early-modern-chemistry course I took. It was the original term for oxygen (contrary to my original assertion on dephlogisticated), because of the current scientific theory of phlogiston, a substance the combination with which would produce fire. Pure oxygen supports combustion better than normal air; thus it was supposed to have more capacity to combine with phlogiston, and naturally this would be because it didn't have any in the first place.
Venus was classically associated with copper (as the sun with gold, moon with silver, Mars with iron, Jupiter with tin, Saturn with lead, and Mercury with...well, you can guess.) So Venus crystals would be an archaic term for a copper oxide. Which one, I won't be able to tell you till I find my source texts again. (See also lunar caustic.)
Well, I decided at laſt to put up the liſt. After creation and deſcription, however, I realiſed that I had lent my Lavoiſier to my younger brother, and furthermore could not find the companion manual on a brief ſearch. So, I ſhall add the entries I already mentioned from butter of antimony and add the reſt when I can actually find my ſource material.
I had a class where we read an old version of Lavoisier, the French chemist. Of course he was referred to as Lavoifier. We had much merriment over philofophy, neceffities, and fuchlike... and, of course, when we got to a certain section where he instructed us to suck the air out of a tube...well, I'll let your imagination take over.
Speaking of "win", excessive use of that word (and its counterpart/nonantonym, "fail") is another sure pathway to morondom. Perhaps a spoken intellectual equivalent to greengrocer's apostrophe.
It's a Georgian word too (მაგარი) adjective meaning hard or strong... when used with the -ა ending (it is) -- მაგარია -- it means something like "great!" (Not completely positive about this. Will need to hit up Georgian friends to hammer it down.)
Not sure re. auto-antonyms in other languages. Certainly can't think of any in Greek. Usually in English the two definitions come from separate root words. In a language etymologically rich but phonologically poor, this creates things like this sometimes.
The only interesting slightly-related fact about Greek is that past and future have their directions swapped from English. You look 'behind you' into the future and 'in front' into the past. We're walking through life backwards, because (naturally) the past is the only thing we clearly see. Go figure.
If the definition below is accurate, I would extremely doubt anything but Latin 'amor' "love" for the amo- part..."maxia" prob. from some English source?
All the etymologies given seem to be for litter (group of animals). I was wondering if litter (trash) could be from the same Latin root whence literature?
Also Czech, "slovník", from "slova" -- though I don't know what the -nik does. Rather doubt it has anything to do with -nik as in 'peacenik'. If I knew a little less Czech I'd be tempted to set it down as one of the language's interminable diminutives, but that wouldn't make sense anyway...
This usage surprised me greatly the first time I saw it. I've seen in a few times since, mostly in archaic concepts, for example in this valediction: "Remember me, who am your faithful and obedient servant..." I guess "who is" would be the modern usage, but I'm pressed to find out why. Somehow everything's moved to the 3rd. sg. when the 'who' is thrown in.
Edit: looking at the examples page there seems distinctly to be "I who am" and "me who am". The former doesn't sound at all odd to my ear, whereas the latter is quite strange.
When I play Scrabble with my friends, we keep all our tiles visible to everybody so that we can play cooperatively; scoring is based on subjective decisions about the prettiness of the word. Essential aim is to make the most interesting board possible.
I like this definition: "A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future."
"Mind, they say, rules the world. But what rules the mind? The body. And the body (follow me closely here) lies at the mercy of the most omnipotent of all mortal potentates — the Chemist."
The longest and only 7-letter alphaliteral that I actually recognised as a word. (Also bellowy, which I discount because it sounds stupid, and beefily, which I discount because I don't want to have to write this twice on two words. aegilops is the actual longest.)
Actually, I'm not incredibly sure exactly how it's pronounced -- I originated it from literary rather than verbal sources, and my Czech isn't the greatest; rolig would be able to pronounce it much closer to actual than I would. But all that said, I've given it how it sounds in my head at milosrdenstvi.
I love this turn of phrase; such a wonderful way to express come what may. "I'll have that blueberry by five o'clock tomorrow, and devil take the hindmost."
The λοπαδοτεμαχοσελαχογαλεοκρανιολειψανοδριμυποτριμματοσιλφιοκαραβομελιτοκατακεχυμενοκιχλεπικοσσυφοφαττοπεριστεραλεκτρυονοπτοκεφαλλιοκιγκλοπελειολαγῳοσιραιοβαφητραγανοπτερύγων is listed by Liddell & Scott as "the name of a dish compounded of all kinds of dainties, fish, flesh, fowl, and sauces", and is unimaginatively rendered by lazy translators "bill of fare". Other, nobler-hearted classicists render it in paragraph form, and one edition that unfortunately I don't have with me translated it literally with a lot of hyphens. Wiktionary has definitions of the various foods that make it up. The word appears as the climax of the comedy "Assemblywomen" and IMO is even funnier in context.
Gosh, there's an absolutely beautiful piece of classical music by Bach, one of my favorites, called Air on a G String. But I'm always embarrassed to call it that...I end up calling it Air from the Third Suite, which I guess could also be misinterpreted, but not nearly so readily.
I can't believe you haven't heard of Milo, either, with all the time I've been around...
On another note, I just opened a Dove chocolate -- you know, the kind with the really cheesy inspirational messages on the inside of the wrapper. I like to have a chocolate every now and then, but the wrapper told me, "YOU are that superwoman. Enjoy!" Now, I'm a far cry from anything resembling our bizarrely Nietzschean comic character, but it would take a whole lot more to make me a superwoman...I can't help but feel like I'm either under a stigma or the wrong end of a stereotype or something like that...
By Hercules! You know, I've been coming to Wordienik for all these years practically expiring in my great hope to find a remedy for constipation that isn't as terribly...unnatural...as the one I currently use. And now, my friends, here it is! O, modified rapture!
So I read this phrase a lot in old books. Anybody have a clue as to why they would actually say it this way, instead of "must" or "needs to" as we would in modern syntax?
Personally, I prefer Esquimaux. Did you know you can expect to see that spelling around twice a month? Now get out of here and start wondering where the other one's going to be.
I don't like having to putter all over the website looking for the feedback page, and there's no search that works for profiles yet, but I don't want to make a bookmark So, for my convenience and that of anyone else who wants to use it, this is a link to the feedback page.
"mamao chveno", the vocative of "Our Father"; hence the Georgian name for the Lord's prayer.
I added this to test the ა and ო characters and they seem to have added just fine which suggests to me that they may have just corrupted in the move but aren't incompatible with things newly added. If need be I can reconstruct the words in the list that are messed up...
" To my lorikeet, Buttons, I leave the remaining sum total of all assets in my estate, real and liquid, including cash, securities, land, fine art, jewelry, gold, and McDonald's Monopoly game pieces, because that's the kind of crazy thing that wealthy, mean-spirited old lunatics like me really enjoy."
Not a particularly big deal -- but my list Words from Georgia has some of its characters messed up since the move. As far as I can tell it's only ა and ო (an and on, Unicode U+10D0 and U+10DD) that don't work. Being vowels, however, they're kinda in almost every word...
The story of Sybaris, an ancient and opulent city, is quite amusing. They taught their horses to dance when pipe music was played; and thus their cavalry was utterly useless when they were attacked by a band of musicians.
I think, actually, this is supposed to be cicatrizant. I had been hoping for some really cool definition related to the Greek trix, hair, but apparently not.
I think my chief objection to this list -- although all of them are very nice words indeed -- is that I could far too easily put them all into one sentence.
I get more picky when responding to the questions "How's it going" or "How are you doing" -- doing good is very different from doing well, just like smelling good is very different from smelling well.
Spelled archaically as helpmeet, and both spelled and incorrectly pronounced that way, sometimes even as help meet, and even definitionally interpreted from the modern definitions of those words, by people who as far as their practice of Christianity goes never bothered to notice that the 1600s were over. (Those are interesting sorts of people. Quite often they have the best of hearts while being frightfully backward.)
Re: marky's comment, I've received some fascinating commentary about that from a friend of mine, one of the smartest people I know, who some time ago stopped being a lesbian and now raises two children... Most of it probably wouldn't fly here, so I won't bother to repeat it; still, as I said, it's a fascinating point of view...
I realized today I mostly unconsciously cut out this word, especially in its conjunctionary uses, as much as possible. I wonder if this will be cited as Part of My Unique Style someday when I am a famous writer.
Aren't we all getting a bit high and mighty here! Regular old umbrage ain't good enough for the likes o' ye! Well, now, since you don't want any of it, I'll just take some for myself!
It seems that folks have been pretty encyclopaedic, especially bilby, about what feelings are and aren't, so I don't have a whole lot to add. Reiterating that I have faith in y'all that you're going to work things out. I know it. You've all made awesome things before and you're going to make something awesome again. We just need time for it.
I think, though, that one of the things I liked best about Wordie (or I suppose I should call it YOW) was how practically everything came from the users: the etymologies and examples and often the definitions, as well as the fun conversations and the organisation of everything into lists. What I'm afraid of is that that's going to attenuate on Wordnik, now that we have things pulled from other sources so much more powerfully. I love the Examples -- I've found several awesome books from there already -- and the definitions are so much nicer, if with a little less character, than WeirdNet -- but I don't want to come to see everything that the computers have come up with. I want to see a word and see everything the community's come up with. If I just wanted a pre-written definition or an etymology, I'd go to Merriam-Webster Online.
Basically: user content more to the front! I know a lot of old Wordies in their hearts want the comment page to be the default page again, and I know that's not our goal, but I'm sure with all the bright minds about we'll wake up to some ingenious solution someday. Anyway, I've said enough.
I would note that gangerh's definition does not make something a good word. Words can be made up and mutually understood, but linguistically some neologisms are just yucky.
A while ago I saw a video on the internet of Erin McKean talking about lexicography. It pissed me off for some reason I can't remember, and now all I do remember is that she said that loving a word makes it real, which I whole-heartedly agree with, with the caveat that love should not be applied mindlessly, but only to such words as are inherently lovable. (Shoot me, I'm a Platonist in a post-modern world...)
Actually, this is a legit word (pronounced 'reet'), not a misspelled allcap. It stands for "Real Estate Investment Trust", and is a sort of financial corporation.
I do not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and rings like unto bullion.
I never was much for the random word feature, but I tried it just now, just to see what I might come up with. After about twenty tries, I randomed my last name.
I was inspired do this after seeing madmouth's comment directly after reading Eliot's "The Hollow Men".
I got tired of forever seeing pygopagus, and though I rarely favorite words I did so to inimitable in hopes of changing the state of affairs. Nothing did. Does the "Recently favorited words" fail to update?
For quite a while when young I supposed this to be the past tense of infrare. Infrared rays...I still see it! Similarly, I thought it very possible to misle someone.
Just noticed something that makes me really happy! I added a word to a list that I hadn't realized I'd already added it to, and it didn't add it twice!
As a young child I was amused by a joke about an accident in a restaurant, involving the fall of Turkey, the ruin of Greece, and the breaking up of China...
Case sensitivity is weirding me out -- to wit: for every Polish and turkey there are hundreds of other words that owing to negligence are getting stuck into two pages for one idea. Also, bracket links at the beginning of sentences (as pointed out by uselessness)...
Something I've thought about for a while..."randomness" is a virtue of the 21st century...people are praised for being "funny and random" -- for doing the unexpected, for being able to produce something unconnected out of context..."randomness" is a saving grace in any social situation...normality and conformity are not noticed and not particularly cool.
I'm not sure of all the implications of this, yet...
I'm a little worried about how hard everything is to find. It took me a few minutes of obliviousness to realize that I could get to all the old Wordie by clicking the tiny little "Zeitgeist" link waaay at the bottom. Similarly, it took me really too long to realize that if I wanted a Wordie-style look at a word, I had to click "Comments". This makes me apprehensive for two reasons: one, it is more difficult for regulars, and two, it reduces the chances that newbies will discover and fall in love with the world of comments.
Also, I miss having a ready access to my list of lists from the home page.
In Georgian the very common prefix sa- means "place of". Hospitals, for example, are "sameditsina", place of medicine. The country itself is "Sakartvelo", place of Kartulis or Georgians.
Terror, "sazareli", place of loss...
Lamp, "sanati", place of light...
Justice, "samartliani", place of truth...
Foundry, "sadnobi", place of melting...
The place where you go to get khinkali (a delicious sort of dumpling) is the sakhinkle (or something morphologically similar...I never did learn how to spell it, or the case system of how to derive it...)
I generally spell rigmarole and pronounce rigamarole. As hard as I try, I can't keep the slight schwa from interloping. Much as how I can barely keep commandment from four syllables.
I get very annoyed at Scrabble players, when they "legally" play such "words" as oe and ae. You don't look clever, you look dumb. I don't care what type of lava it is.
I know of no other word in English which has such a wide-spread variant pronunciation of the common Americans around me. I do not pronounce the t, but many people do.
As dgstone has alluded to -- you've got to be able to make the hilarious puns with orphan!
They do share the Greek root "ex-" -- "out of". Ex-hodos is a road out. Exotikos is a variational lengthening of some adverbial form of the root. Something from way out there.
Absolutely not. Euclid only uses Q.E.D. when he has finished proving something. If he wants you to assume something he will use the language "Let there be a...", and pull out something either from a previous proposition, or from his definitions, postulates, and common notions.
Tady dávají lišky dobrou noc - literally, “the foxes give goodnights here,�? which means there’s nothing going on here, you’ve found yourself in such an armpit of the world, that there is no one to talk to you, and only foxes left to tell you goodnight.
The slatternly woman ran her guns out and returned the broadside with promptitude.
"Door, indeed! you poor whey-faced drab, you dare to say the word door to me, a respectable woman, as Mister Tripes here knows me well, and have a score against me behind that there wery door as you disgraces, and as it's you as ought to be t'other side, you ought; for it's out of the streets as you come, well I knows, an' say another word, and I'll take that there bonnet off of your head, and chuck it into them streets and you arter it. O dear! O dear! that ever I should be spoke to like this here, and my master out o' work a month come Toosday, and this here gentleman standing by! But I'll set my mark on ye, if I get six months for it--I will!"
Thus speaking, or rather screaming, and brandishing her baby, as the gonfalonier waves his gonfalon, the slatternly woman, swelling into a fury for the nonce, made a dive at Dorothea, which, but for the interposition of "this here gentleman," as she called the coalheaver, might have produced considerable mischief. That good man, however, took a deal of "weathering," as sailors say, and ere either of the combatants could get round his bulky person, the presence of a policeman at the door warned them that ordeal by battle had better be deferred till a more fitting opportunity. They burst into tears, therefore, simultaneously, and the dispute ended, as such disputes often do, in a general reconciliation, cemented by the consumption of much excisable fluid, some of it at the expense of the philanthropic coalheaver, whose simple faith involved a persuasion that the closest connection must always be preserved between good-fellowship and beer.
After these potations, it is not surprising that the slatternly woman should have found herself, baby and all, under the care of the civil power at a police-station, or that Gentleman Jim and his ladye-love should have adjourned to sober themselves in the steaming gallery of a playhouse.
G.J. Whyte-Melville, M. or N., Similia similibus curantur. Suggested by Wordnik as a citation for this word and turns out to be quite interesting, for a little while at least. As I quite enjoy Victorian novels this one might go on my reading list.
The soil of this vast depression is entirely argillaceous, and therefore impermeable, so that the waters remain there and make of it a region very difficult to cross during the hot season.
But to what sort of a vehicle should he harness his horses? To a telga or to a tarantass? The telga is nothing but an open four-wheeled cart, made entirely of wood, the pieces fastened together by means of strong rope. Nothing could be more primitive, nothing could be less comfortable; but, on the other hand, should any accident happen on the way, nothing could be more easily repaired. There is no want of firs on the Russian frontier, and axle-trees grow naturally in forests. The post extraordinary, known by the name of "perck-ladnoi," is carried by the telga, as any road is good enough for it. It must be confessed that sometimes the ropes which fasten the concern together break, and whilst the hinder part remains stuck in some bog, the fore-part arrives at the post-house on two wheels; but this result is considered quite satisfactory.
Michael Strogoff would have been obliged to employ a telga, if he had not been lucky enough to discover a tarantass. It is to be hoped that the invention of Russian coach-builders will devise some improvement in this last-named vehicle. Springs are wanting in it as well as in the telga; in the absence of iron, wood is not spared; but its four wheels, with eight or nine feet between them, assure a certain equilibrium over the jolting rough roads. A splash-board protects the travelers from the mud, and a strong leathern hood, which may be pulled quite over the occupiers, shelters them from the great heat and violent storms of the summer. The tarantass is as solid and as easy to repair as the telga, and is, moreover, less addicted to leaving its hinder part in the middle of the road.
"It consists of a line of cats fixed in place with their tails stretched out underneath a keyboard. Tails would be placed under the keys, causing the cats to cry out in pain when a key was pressed. The cats would be arranged according to the natural tone of their voices.
The instrument was described by German physician Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813) for the purpose of treating patients who had lost the ability to focus their attention. Reil believed that if they were forced to see and listen to this instrument, it would inevitably capture their attention and they would be cured."
I came to a conclusion yesterday; that I could conscientiously use ambiguous singular 'they' but not generic singular 'they'.
Ambiguous 'they' is when I specifically do not wish to specify a gender, although the person in question usually has one.
"One of my friends was in Wyoming last month, and they saw a moose there."
I know of people, using 'they' this way, almost always use it as a euphemism for 'she', but I suspect that is an aberration.
Generic 'they' is when 'they' is used to refer to a non-specific person of singular number, which could be either male or female.
"Every person must stand on their own two feet."
I prefer the historical alternative of using the masculine singular pronoun to double as a generic. I have no exquisite reason beyond that I find it more euphonious, and it is a construct already in existence within the language, which I do not consider particularly nice to remove.
I cannot, however, honestly use the masculine singular in a case of deliberate ambiguity. Thus my preferred use there of 'they'.
They as a plural generic, of course, I have no trouble at all with.
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la sainte terre" — to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a sainte-terrer", a saunterer — a holy-lander. They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all, but the Saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which indeed is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this holy land from the hands of the Infidels.
Both of these in the modern day tend to be pronounced with some value of "e", but in actuality, in their origin as Latin digraphs, they were pronounced "ai" as in "aisle" and "oi" as in "oil", being the effective transliterations of Greek αι and οι.
See, these are verbs; Georgians have the idea to use one verb to tell you absolutely everything. And apparently they can now be colloquial for endearment. Great.
They've conveniently split up the verb parts for you (not the syllables)...you'll see that the root for genatsvale is 'tsval' and the root for shemogevle is 'vl'. Everything else is there to tell you mood, tense, and person. Really the only thing I know is that the g means that something's happening about the second person. It could be active or passive; one of the other letters controls that. The 'she' probably also refers to the second person but I don't even know why. I don't know the screeve system at all, but depending whether you want to be present, imperfect, conditional, perfect, pluperfect, aorist, optative, future, subjunctive (present, future, or perfect) the modifying letters are all different -- and that's not even getting into preverbs, pronominal markers, ergativity (which messes with the noun cases) or verbs of motion; and perish the thought if you want to have a participle or gerund because there are new formants and augments for all of those.
Seriously. I can work with Georgian nouns. But throw a verb at me and I probably won't even be able to find the root.
c_b: Understood, but even laying aside that we are in many ways past the Middle Ages, having replaced the barbarity of the trebuchet with the machine gun, the atomic bomb, and international terrorism -- livestock corpses are livestock corpses. If it hadn't been set on fire and launched from trebuchet it would have been eaten, if not by one creature then by another. Even if it is somewhat hork-inducing I can abide a flaming livestock corpse. But for God's sake, don't set the piano on fire.
The trebuchet is cool. I respect the trebuchet. If they want to shoot burning things out of their trebuchet that's cool too. But don't set the piano on fire. Even an old broken piano that doesn't have any hope of being fixed deserves the respect of being properly taken apart and junked. You wouldn't set the body of your dead sister on fire and shoot it out of a trebuchet. That sort of thing just shouldn't be done. There's a sort of basic decency with which you treat beautiful things, even in old age. If it's a perfectly good piano it's more like rape. It's been created for a beautiful purpose and all these recreants can think of is to destroy it and violate it for their own miserable pleasure. For God's sake, don't set the piano on fire.
There is an aunchient lieutenant there at the pridge, I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is a man of no estimation in the world; but did see him do as gallant service.
Hmm...after a bit of research, found this on Wiki:
"Treasure trove" literally means "treasure that has been found". The English term "treasure trove" was derived from tresor trové, the Anglo-French equivalent of the Latin legal term thesaurus inventus. In 15th-century English the Anglo-French term was translated as "treasure found", but from the 16th century it began appearing in its modern form with the French word trové anglicized as "trovey", "trouve" or "trove".
So perhaps it doesn't come apart from "treasure", and for good reason! Say it ain't so.
And there is a lovely children's novel, The Twenty-One Balloons, set amidst Krakatoa and its fabulous diamond mines. (You never did know about those, did you? Or the intellectual colony set up there in the 1880s? Hmm....)
Eliot's notes on those lines are for once somewhat helpful:
"The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted. "
I think it sounds delightful. (Often enough I don't eat anything at all until mid-day, but fruits, especially scrumptious fruits, always hold a rating of 'delectable'.)
Not that I'm advancing this as a good suggestion, mind you, but if such a different 'home page for the regulars' existed, would wordie.org still direct to it?
Not actually too far off. Episode derives from Greek epi (above or in addition) + eis (into) + hodos (road or way) so an epeisodos was something coming in additionally. The rough breathing drops out in things like that, unless there's a t or p for it to merge into. (see aphelion!)
On the West Coast, and in Canada, they use this to prefix the names of highways; "take the 405". It was rather astounding to me the first time I heard it.
Though thousands of people use Wordie, really there's only about twenty or thirty 'regulars' who provide 100% of the spirit of the place. It's a social community and a pretty tight one as the internet goes. I'm guessing a feeling of a lot of us is "the madcap days are over". I don't think this has to be. Things will feel different for a while. We're definitely growing up a bit. But I don't think we have to lose the Wordie spirit. At least, I hope not.
I saw this word for the first time about two months ago in Don Quixote. Now, I see it EVERYWHERE in EVERYTHING that I read. Even on CRAIGSLIST. For cryin' out loud!
limonati -- "lemonade", but not as you might expect! To be sure, the English word on the bottle is lemonade, but within is actually the best grape soda you've ever tasted. Other flavors available: cream, pear, raspberry, and tarragon.
ghmerti - God. A very important word and part of a prayer that I learned and will post if I can get all the right characters together. (having two different t's and two different p's and four different k's makes things difficult!)
An example of how easy it is to learn the Georgian alphabet from dual-language street signs in Tbilisi. You will see the above Georgian, and below English KOR STANDARD BANK. The transliteration of the Georgian is Kor Standart Banki. This is all over the place. Piece of cake, see?
I bought a collection of Anna Akhmatova's poetry the other day, solely on the recollection of this conversation. It doesn't appear to have The Cellar of Memory, though.
Well, the two older alphabets are never used anymore. I saw some inscriptions that used them in some old churches, but otherwise nothing. jil (ჯ) is commonly written in handwriting rotated 45 degrees with the horizontal bar shortened and the bottom hook larger. Aside from that they have their varieties of typefaces, some of which are really confusing just like some English ones. (You could tell a Chinese restaurant by the faux Asian lettering, just like in America!)
Hmm...looks like you've found 23 of the 33 Georgian letters so far. If you like hide and seek you can probably find a few more in the words I've already put up. A lot of letters look ridiculously similar, especially in type and when hand-written. ban and gan are near indistinguishable, as are p'ar, k'an, vin, tsan, and hae, as are san and khan, as are un and shin, as are dzil and man (though I don't think I've put up any words with dzil yet). I could have mercy on you and just give you the rest of them. At any rate, I don't think I saw a single word with zhan in the whole time I was there (except for proper names) so here is ჟ for your taking.
On the other hand, be thankful for a unicameral alphabet, for once!
ch'ikch'iki -- the sound of a bird chirping. Presented for the benefit of the worthy mollusque, because I don't know any other words with ჭ, it being really kind of rare.
baqaqi -- frog. Notable for containing two of the elusive ყ. Georgians would repeat a tongue-twister "the frog in the water croaks" (ბ�?ყ�?ყი წყ�?ლში ყიყინებს; baqaqi ts'qalshi qiqinebs) and blithely smile as we attempted it.
Notice ts'qalshi, a variant of ts'qali (წყ�?ლი) which I have already posted. In Georgian, the suffix "shi" means "in" -- so water is made to "in water". Similarly Tbilisi/Tbilishi means 'in Tbilisi' (and Tbilisi DOES have an i in that first syllable!); sakhli (ს�?ხლი) means house, sakhlshi means 'at home.'
A sound unique to Georgian. I don't know the technical name but you make it by trying to crush ice cubes in the back of your throat. It takes a lot of practice and is in practically every word you want to say.
lamazia -- it is beautiful. (lamazi is the adjective; adding -a to an adjective adds 'it is'.)
Frequent use of this word is one of the keys to being loved by Georgians. (Point at the mountains, not at the people. That was a different word that I never learned well enough to remember.)
The prefix sa- means "place of". A samedetsino (ს�?მედიცინ�?) is a hospital. A kartveli (ქ�?რთველი) is a Georgian. So the literal name of the country is "place of the Georgians".
gaumarjos -- cheers. This is said after toasts at the many traditional Georgian feasts (supra) and literally means "victory to it". I learned one of the Georgian declensions off of this word:
gaumarjot - victory to them
gagimarjos - victory to you
gagimarjot - victory to you (pl.)
gagvimarjos - victory to me (somewhat impolite)
gagvimarjot - victory to us
It took a while of saying "gaumarjos" while the table around me was chorusing "gagimarjot" for this all to sink in. And in the meantime they tell me my pronunciation (specifically my Americanized extra-long diphthongy vowels) is quite funny.
dila mshvidobisa -- good morning. And in fact, nobody will notice if you say "dilam shvidobis". Don't tell the Georgians but they are really bad at pronouncing all their letters. The city Mtskheta (მცხეთ�?) will often be called simply "sketa".
One of the few cognates. The Georgians assert that they invented wine, and the Europeans borrowed the idea and word from them. (None of us can pronounce two consonants at the beginning of a word anyway! Especially ღ, it's kind of rough. A bit like a French r, in fact.)
The Georgians were repeatedly astounded that all the American wanted was წყ�?ლი, წყ�?ლი, preferably with ICE which isn't even sold anywhere in Georgia. I mean, it's my natural reaction after a hot day in the sun (which there are many of summertime in Georgia!) Their natural inclinations are rather to ლუდი or especially ღვინ�?.
One needs only hear this pronounced once to wonder what strange visions the Georgians have of love. (Alternatively just look up the letters ყ and ხ somewhere.)
This "word" both fascinates and bothers me. In the way, I guess, that every word repeated a million times over sounds weird...but how is it, that "used" + infinitive came to mean the same thing as "formerly" + past tense? I can't figure it out at all. "It had been my use to ...." I guess?
Similar musings, though the connection is clearer, on supposed to meaning "it is a good idea" or "humanity generally does it this way".
These words are used so frequently as idiom that I want to take them out of the language and replace them with yoosta and sposta. That way the obvious etymology won't jump out of everybody's sentences and bother me. Sometimes I use "supposed to" in a way that makes sense with current definitions of "suppose", just because it makes me feel good, but I can't do it with "used to".
The next planet was inhabited by a tippler. This was a very short visit, but it plunged the little prince into deep dejection.
"What are you doing there?" he said to the tippler, whom he found settled down in silence before a collection of empty bottles and also a collection of full bottles.
I am drinking," replied the tippler, with a lugubrious air.
"Why are you drinking?" demanded the little prince.
"So that I may forget," replied the tippler.
"Forget what?" inquired the little prince, who already was sorry for him.
"Forget that I am ashamed," the tippler confessed, hanging his head.
"Ashamed of what?" insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him.
"Ashamed of drinking!" The tippler brought his speech to an end, and shut himself up in an impregnable silence.
And the little prince went away, puzzled.
"The grown-ups are certainly very, very odd," he said to himself, as he continued on his journey.
I do not have my lexicon with me, unfortunately. μέντοι is a particle that I've forgotten the precise function of. I think it can be used to connect two clauses. Don't think there's a μέντος or μέντως, unless it's in modern Greek. I think that madmouth was speaking of an actual candy called Euridice?
Skipvia's comment of about a year ago: are you a pianist? I practically never meet anybody else who can improvise. It's most of what I do at the piano, because I am inherently lazy...I do not have synaesthesia, but I do have absolute pitch, which means each of the twelve tones has a unique sound to me, a sound which is often very vaguely associated with an emotion, or occastionally a colour or vowel sound. I've never been able to get at them clearly enough to work out a table of all them, and they change from time to time. I've also never been able to figure out if this is why I can improvise so easily. But it is incredibly satisfying to be able to transfer my emotions directly to my fingers.
"To become more in an interesting condition" actually quite nearly approximates the literal translation of the Greek Facebook for the English "in a relationship".
My Middle English resources tell me the vowel is going to be like our "oo". As in "you", or "house" in Canadian. And that the "gh" is going to be like a Scottish ch, but in the back of the mouth. (It's in the front of the mouth with vowels such as e and i, in which case it sounds more like a sh.)
I mean...the list isn't *so* bad...a lot of the words are very sparkly, and most of them very clever. I would applaud any poet who was able to work any of them into his work, though they seem, as sionnach pointed out, more the province of W.S. Gilbert, or Ogden Nash, or some other comic.
More likely probably some other Victorian, now that I think about it. But I like the Victorians.
Heh, not to worry. :) *goes off to wiki to look up this drinkish thing*
"...milk beverage with chocolate and malt, produced by Nestlé and originating from Australia...name derives from the famous Greek athlete Milo of Crotona, after his legendary strength..."
"...was a 6th century BC wrestler...said to have burst a band about his brow by simply inflating the veins of his temples...died when, trying to rend a tree asunder, his hands became trapped in the cleft of its trunk, and a pack of wolves surprised and devoured him."
Wordle is a pretty cool website. When I discovered it and began telling friends, they all said "wait, didn't you show this one to us already?" and I had to explain the difference between Wordle and Wordie.
I mean...sure. Aside from a general animosity against politicians I have nothing against the place. It's actually rather pretty.
I guess I have a very special loathing for DC, the sort of affectionate hatred you can only really have for a hometown. You never miss a chance to disparage it, but you secretly have a very soft spot about it. I don't know if anybody else has that feeling.
Annapolis, Maryland is a very pretty place in its own right. But the culture and studentry of St. John's College are a unique intellectual beauty that I don't think you could find anywhere else.
A sport played once a year at my school and as far as I know nowhere else. Teams are divided between seniors/freshmen and sophomores/juniors (the Ends vs. the Means). Teams attempt to pass a ball through a goal. The game ends after three goals, three hospitalizations, or three in the morning. The rules are no weapons, no vehicles, no armor, and no animals.
I get to go to Georgia in two weeks! I'll be spending almost a month there. It's really exciting; I'm going to be helping found a Great Books College. Did I mention it was in GEORGIA?
Language tough as anything I've ever seen, though. Pfui!
Thanks! Although, now that I've thought about how I wanted to pose the question for a while, I figured out pretty much all I wanted was overstatement. Psh.
There's a list I found once which offered to help make up words for concepts that we don't know or have the name of. I can't find it now. Can anyone help? Or I could just describe my problem here, I guess...
Julys. It only looks funny because we aren't used to seeing -ys. But it's one of our grammatical necessities because (to me at least) it is improper to change about a proper name when pluralizing in English.
One week from now I will be visiting my friend D. McKelvy, and his family, the McKelvys. They are not McKelvies. Nor are they McKelvy's, despite the wanton deviance to this construction by those who abhor virtue. One of them is a McKelvy, and two are McKelvys. Same for July and Julys.
Actually Maher-shalal-hash-baz, meaning something I can't quite remember (speed the spoil, hasten the booty? something like that. at any rate, a name of some sort.)
Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from him, I want, but not news, nor pottage. I can get politics, and chat, and neighbourly conveniences from cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal, and great as nature itself?
There's what I get for not re-checking my facts on Wiki before posting...reesetee is right. There does exist a Wawa, ON which I was aware of having a friend who grew up near, but I made too many connections.
(Did I mention the word is onomatopoeic? If you can't tell, I think that's totally awesome.)
This is the Chippewa (Ojibwa) Indian word for goose. Hence, on those ubiquitous convenience stores across the northeastern US and Canada, you can see small drawings of geese. The stores were actually named after the town of Wawa, Ontario, which was named after the geese.
How do you guys pronounce this? I'd been using short u for both since I first saw this, but it occurred to me the other day that the humour value is greatly increased with a long u in the first syllable. I don't know how to use IPA...
'Collect' is actually the original meaning of the Greek root λ-γ, whence λόγος, λέγω, etc. The later and more common senses came to be counting money, making an account of something, and then generally speaking and saying. (There are about a dozen important definitions of λόγος, with several dozen more minor senses. A fascinating, fascinating, word, made even more interesting by the Gospel of John's appropriation of it as the best description for Jesus Christ.)
In most of Ancient Greek, yes, if you wanted to say 'collect' you would use συλλέγω, although it could also be used for "I discuss". However, I don't think there's really any precedent for using συλλέγω in an English word for collection. -phile seems to be fairly well entrenched. I despise constructions such as 'keyophile', however; probably because I find the blatant mixing of roots, especially with random 'o' stuck in middle, somewhat ugly. I don't have a problem with mixing roots, I just like it to be a little more subtle. Key collector is fine.
Interestingly, the English word colLeCt is the only one where survives the Indo-European root which gave rise to the λ-γ construction in Greek.
My experience with anecdotes seems different from the perfected kind that others here seem to have; I've always thought of them as those stories about our own lives that we always have and always seem to have this social or philosophical need to share. Whether they're outrageously funny or tremendously interesting or not, they're a way to share experiences with friends and others around us. With the right people, that's a valuable, even a precious thing.
Then of course there are those remarkable human beings who have an endless store of those tales, all of them fascinating. Maybe that sort of person would be an anecdotalist, whereas what I'm describing is just people telling anecdotes.
From Latin e(x) + grex, out of the herd. Originally used as a compliment, later came to be used ironically which is the meaning it has today. Strangely a similar thing seems to have happened to gregarious.
Yes. λάθε is the aorist imperative of the root verb λανθάνω. The original meaning of λανθάνω seems to be "to escape the notice of", which is a fascinating meaning for a verb. But it also generally has to do with becoming unknown, unseen, hiding, obscuring, and forgetting -- this last of which is where λήθη comes in, a derived noun meaning a forgetting or forgetfulness. As a proper noun Λήθη it is Lethe, the river in the underworld from which spirits drink and forget their mortal lives.
One of the greatest debates among Greek scholars is concerning the word ἀλήθεια, the adjective meaning Truth. In Greek the prefix α- is a privative, or sometimes opposition or negation; however, not all words beginning with α- are privatives. The debate is whether ἀλήθεια is in fact ἀ-λήθεια - making truth a lack of hiddenness.
In essence there really isn't enough data to make a firm statement either way. It would be a fascinating derivation if it were true, and in fact many Greek philosophers writing long after the development of the language assert it as a folk etymology. In the meantime it remains as a dissertation topic for aspiring Ph.D. students everywhere.
On a different note, I just thought of this today.
Are who and whom the only words in the English language where wh- takes the h sound instead of the w? I suppose there's whore, also, and its derivatives, but otherwise the vast majority of words are the other way. Can anyone think of others? Or give a reason why this is?
I read an interesting use of this in Don Quixote the other day, of a galley slave that had turned Muslim and become a shipmaster. Turns out we get this word from the Spanish renegado, and that Cervantes's use was the original one - a Christian who had denied the faith and turned Muslim. The Latin root is renego, to deny -- as in renege.
The root γ�?μνος (gymnos) means naked or unclad. From such, the verb γυμνάζω (gymnazô), to train naked, or to exercise, as the exercises of the ancient Greeks were generally done in the nude. Hence γυμνάσις (gymnasis), exercise, and γυμνάσιον (gymnasion), a place for exercises, Latinised as gymnasium.
A friend of mine coined, from various Greek roots, the γυμνασφαλάκμυς (gymnasphalakmys) or naked mole-rat.
Mind, they say, rules the world -- and what rules the mind but the body? And the body lies at the mercy of that most omnipotent of all mortal potentates: the Chemist.
Any relation to gloom, anyone know? Gloaming always calls gloom to mind for me -- not really the depressing part of it, just the dark part.
Strangely, though it sounds a lot like gloat, the meanings aren't too similar. And gloat is another one of those words that I would say sounds an awful like what it means.
Where I live in Annapolis, slang for a midshipman (cadet at the United States Naval Academy). Probably more commonly spelled middie. Actually slightly derogatory. The middies would refer to one of their own colloquially as a mid.
St. John's College, my school, is just across the street (and over a brick wall - theirs, not ours). We're referred to as Johnnies. Which leaves the ubiquitous townie for everyone else.
Remarkable comparing the number of listings of this spelling vs. the more common in usage mustache. I agree that it is so much cooler with the extra letter. But I can't really say why.
My inner Greek scholar always rankles when people make light of the silent p and other dropped consonants (mnemonic, bdellium, phenophthalein, gnu) ... pedants like me continue to pronounce them. p-terodactyl. It's not incredibly difficult. It's actually kind of fun. And the ancient Greeks did it. So why can't we?
It's one of my sillier linguistic perfectionisms. In other words, whenever I rant about it, you should pay no attention.
A very useful, polite, and pretentious expansion of BS. I don't think that's actually its origin, but as far as I've been able to tell they are interchangeable.
Apparently a favorite of Jules Verne, or at least his translators, describing sundry characters, by my remembrance, in "From the Earth to the Moon", "Around the Moon", "Journey to the Center of the Earth", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "The Mysterious Island", and "In Search of the Castaways". There very well may be more.
Aside from "be", which, as I am told, is irregular in every language but Quechua (this may or may not be correct), there is only one verb in the English language which has completely different stems for two of its tenses or cases. There are significant changes in vowel (i.e. see vs. saw) and sometimes a single consonant gets changed around a bit (i.e. have vs. had) but only in go does the past tense change to something completely different: went.
I am told that there used to be a lot more of these in English, but most of them dropped out. (There are still plenty in languages such as Greek.)
Interestingly, went appears to come to us by way of wend, or maybe wended. This can be seen in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales:
This word has been made forever funny to me by knowing two completely different people with a last name pronounced this way but spelled differently in each case. (Trop, Troup)
Found on cereal boxes: "Fortified with 17 different vitamins & minerals!!" Which always makes me want to use 'fortified' in some similar yet incongruous way with something completely different, for humorous effect.
"All and sundry then repair to a nearby tree to commit simony, petty larceny, tergiversation, and misfeasance, evict a few widows and orphans, and enact more laws."
There's an awfully good book by a Greek fellow named Longinus (actually, scholars are unsure whether his name was Longinus, Dionysus, or Dionysus Longinus, but they usually go with the first) called On the Sublime, sometimes translated badly as On Great Writing. Very good thoughts about what sets the sublime apart from the mere extremely beautiful and interesting.
A story is told of this redoubtable lady, that she once emptied a bucket of urine upon the head of Socrates, whereupon he replied, "After the thunder must come the rain."
you can add prefixes to some of the ones you have...enhearten, foreshorten, enlighten...as well as embolden...I think the en- em- prefix will do well by you.
When used in music it is from the Italian and partakes of two syllables.
When used as a synonym for something one is good at it derives from the French through the sport of fencing, and only has one.
This is really not that difficult. This however continues to be one of the stock stupidities that people commonly refuse to correct because "everyone else does it that way". Well, everyone else who's uneducated, at least.
"Crows hold courts of justice where sentence is passed upon Crows who do not know the mayor. After much cawing by the judge and a jury of the usual sort the defendant is torn to pieces to teach him a lesson. All and sundry then repair to a nearby tree to commit simony, petty larceny, tergiversation, and misfeasance, evict a few widows and orphans, double-cross one another, and make more laws. After a good laugh they hold evening prayers and go to roost in the wrong nests."
Will Cuppy, "How To Tell Your Friends From The Apes"
I got into a ramshackle contraption, driven by a knock-kneed, broken-winded somnambulist, which his owner, in a moment of enthusiasm, during conversation, referred to as a horse.
Surprisingly, this word is pronounced properly "a-phelion" instead of the common "ap-helion", as in Greek the pi + rough breathing elides to phi. Granted, in the more ancient pronunciation phi *is in fact pronounced as an aspirated pi, but that approaches pedantry. For comparison see ephemeral.
Comments by milosrdenstvi
Show previous 200 comments...
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cilantrophobe
I love cilantro, myself...
April 22, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list wordniks-who-proudly-contribute-worthless-stuff--a-lot-of-dumb-comments--and-useless-words-to-the-zeitgeist-page
Don't throw cupcakes at the ducks! *shocked*
April 20, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Eyjafjallajökull
Stromboli???
April 20, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word geyser
I was tempted to complain about those two examples, mostly because I've never heard of either of them before. They seem to belong more to a sort of technical jargon than 'proper English'. I mean, everybody knows what a geyser is.
On further thoughts, I decided that writing up a rant wasn't worth it. But there you have it, my rant unranted...
April 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Athenry
Low lie the fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly
Our love was on the wing
We had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely round the fields of Athenry
April 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word banana boat
I went camping once with this girl who had concocted an ingenious treat she called a 'banana boat'. She slit a banana down the side, scooped out about half of it, filled the resultant empty space with peanut butter, bar chocolate, and marshmellows, folded everything back up, wrapped in aluminum foil and stuck in the coals till it was all mushy and melty. Sweetest, sugariest, stickiest, messiest banana I've had in my life. And Hercules, was it good.
April 16, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word zed
Thou whoreson zed, unnecessary letter!
April 15, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Diomedes
Diomedes, master of horses!
April 15, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user feedback
JM is doing his best to ameliorate the comment to spam ratio!
April 14, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word had
"What do we want of another breed? Isn't one breed enough? Had is had, and your tricking it out in a fresh way of spelling isn't going to make it any hadder than it was before; now you know that yourself."
"But there is a distinction--they are not just the same Hads."
"How do you make it out?"
"Well, you use that first Had when you are referring to something that happened at a named and sharp and perfectly definite moment; you use the other when the thing happened at a vaguely defined time and in a more prolonged and indefinitely continuous way."
'Why, doctor, it is pure nonsense; you know it yourself. Look here: If I have had a had, or have wanted to have had a had, or was in a position right then and there to have had a had that hadn't had any chance to go out hadding on account of this foolish discrimination which lets one Had go hadding in any kind of indefinite grammatical weather but restricts the other one to definite and datable meteoric convulsions, and keeps it pining around and watching the barometer all the time, and liable to get sick through confinement and lack of exercise, and all that sort of thing, why--why, the inhumanity of it is enough, let alone the wanton superfluity and uselessness of any such a loafing consumptive hospital-bird of a Had taking up room and cumbering the place for nothing. These finical refinements revolt me; it is not right, it is not honorable; it is constructive nepotism to keep in office a Had that is so delicate it can't come out when the wind's in the nor'west--I won't have this dude on the payroll. Cancel his exequator; and look here--"
From Mark Twain's Italian with Grammar
April 13, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word brontosaurus
At midnight in the museum hall
The fossils gathered for a ball
There were no drums or saxophones,
But just the clatter of their bones,
A rolling, rattling, carefree circus
Of mammoth polkas and mazurkas.
Pterodactyls and brontosauruses
Sang ghostly prehistoric choruses.
Amid the mastodontic wassail
I caught the eye of one small fossil.
"Cheer up, sad world," he said, and winked-
"It's kind of fun to be extinct."
Ogden Nash (of course)
April 13, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Humperdink
Properly Humperdinck.
April 13, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mausoleum
I see we are expected to tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin.
April 10, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word that that
This is why I rarely if ever use 'that' as a conjuction.
April 10, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user azeem123
I think this must be an elaborate setup for an Eastern Orthodox April Fools'.
April 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word butter of antimony
Said list now found at Lavoiſier.
April 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dephlogisticated air
I don't think this one is actually Lavoisier, but another really cool term from the same early-modern-chemistry course I took. It was the original term for oxygen (contrary to my original assertion on dephlogisticated), because of the current scientific theory of phlogiston, a substance the combination with which would produce fire. Pure oxygen supports combustion better than normal air; thus it was supposed to have more capacity to combine with phlogiston, and naturally this would be because it didn't have any in the first place.
April 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mineral butter
I'll have to look this one up again. It sounds frightful.
April 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Venus crystals
Venus was classically associated with copper (as the sun with gold, moon with silver, Mars with iron, Jupiter with tin, Saturn with lead, and Mercury with...well, you can guess.) So Venus crystals would be an archaic term for a copper oxide. Which one, I won't be able to tell you till I find my source texts again. (See also lunar caustic.)
April 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word oil of vitriol
Sulphuric acid.
April 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word martial ethiops
A kind of iron oxide, I think.
April 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tendernesses
And if all else fails, try tenderneffes.
April 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ſ
Well, I decided at laſt to put up the liſt. After creation and deſcription, however, I realiſed that I had lent my Lavoiſier to my younger brother, and furthermore could not find the companion manual on a brief ſearch. So, I ſhall add the entries I already mentioned from butter of antimony and add the reſt when I can actually find my ſource material.
April 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list vowels-only--and-i-mean--only
I don't know if you should count y when it's consonantal as in yo-yo.
Otherwise, wow.
April 8, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ſ
I had a class where we read an old version of Lavoisier, the French chemist. Of course he was referred to as Lavoifier. We had much merriment over philofophy, neceffities, and fuchlike... and, of course, when we got to a certain section where he instructed us to suck the air out of a tube...well, I'll let your imagination take over.
April 8, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word heterozygosity
Not to mention ა, ე, ი, ო, and უ.
April 6, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Tomb-Sweeping Day
At first I thought this was some strange synonym for Easter!
April 5, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user celizane
Welcome to Wordnik! Hope you enjoy your stay.
April 4, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list pterodactyl-s-game-of-postal-abbreviations
lalalalalalalala
April 4, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word The Frogs
And, of course the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes itself:
βρεκεκεκὲξ κοὰξ κοάξ,
βρεκεκεκὲξ κοὰξ κοάξ!
Brekekekex koax koax,
Brekekekex koax koax!
April 4, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word jacob's ladder
Also here, for the pretty atmospheric effect.
April 3, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word lol
Speaking of "win", excessive use of that word (and its counterpart/nonantonym, "fail") is another sure pathway to morondom. Perhaps a spoken intellectual equivalent to greengrocer's apostrophe.
April 2, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word magari
It's a Georgian word too (მაგარი) adjective meaning hard or strong... when used with the -ა ending (it is) -- მაგარია -- it means something like "great!" (Not completely positive about this. Will need to hit up Georgian friends to hammer it down.)
April 2, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word lol
There is no surer way to sound like a moron than to use this word in spoken conversation.
April 2, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user trinem
Not sure re. auto-antonyms in other languages. Certainly can't think of any in Greek. Usually in English the two definitions come from separate root words. In a language etymologically rich but phonologically poor, this creates things like this sometimes.
The only interesting slightly-related fact about Greek is that past and future have their directions swapped from English. You look 'behind you' into the future and 'in front' into the past. We're walking through life backwards, because (naturally) the past is the only thing we clearly see. Go figure.
April 1, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user paulb44
Never heard the word before, but my instinct's telling me to spell that punctiliar.
Welcome to Wordnik!
March 31, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user trinem
Data's only been running for a few months, so an obscurity like girnels is still pretty spotty on the lookups. The singular, girnel, has 45.
Welcome to Wordnik!
March 31, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tempfiles
Yes, please go.
March 31, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word corpuscles
Once, a friend hilariously mispronounced this to rhyme with popsicles.
March 25, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list eggcorns
My sister uses day-in-age for day and age.
March 25, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rnoresis
The latest dread disease.
March 24, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Nouakchott
eeekkk!
March 23, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word stanzo
Call you 'em stanzos?
March 23, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word syboleth
See shibboleth and sibboleth.
March 21, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word morays
O tempura! O morays!
March 20, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word █████
Comes from Greek ██, meaning ██, and ███, meaning ████████ -- hence █████.
March 17, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word amomaxia
Alternatively, it could be abbreviation for "ammunition"
March 14, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word amomaxia
If the definition below is accurate, I would extremely doubt anything but Latin 'amor' "love" for the amo- part..."maxia" prob. from some English source?
March 14, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cloche
Cloche hats are elegant! I don't wear them personally, being rather of the male persuasion, but I would instantly approve any wearing of such.
March 14, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word litter
All the etymologies given seem to be for litter (group of animals). I was wondering if litter (trash) could be from the same Latin root whence literature?
March 13, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list poisons
Mithridates, he died old...
March 13, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Wordnik
Also Czech, "slovník", from "slova" -- though I don't know what the -nik does. Rather doubt it has anything to do with -nik as in 'peacenik'. If I knew a little less Czech I'd be tempted to set it down as one of the language's interminable diminutives, but that wouldn't make sense anyway...
March 11, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word never put your banana in the refrigerator
*throws a few hyphens in hopes to appease the black-tarantula in the ban---an-a-bunch--*
March 11, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word never put your banana in the refrigerator
*begins baking the banana-bread, making sure to add the chocolate chips and the hyphen*
March 10, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word reel
We're reel happy to have you here...
March 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user dontcry
No... :(
March 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word reel
raggle taggle ruminants?
March 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list hats-off
Oops, forgot to close a quotation mark.
March 4, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word megalogoi
Singular, of course, being megalogos.
March 3, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list hats-off
If any of the rest of you slackers needs a reason to start a hat collection, this list will help.
March 3, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word monadnock
Possible having something to do with the fearsome monads?!
March 3, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word who am
This usage surprised me greatly the first time I saw it. I've seen in a few times since, mostly in archaic concepts, for example in this valediction: "Remember me, who am your faithful and obedient servant..." I guess "who is" would be the modern usage, but I'm pressed to find out why. Somehow everything's moved to the 3rd. sg. when the 'who' is thrown in.
Edit: looking at the examples page there seems distinctly to be "I who am" and "me who am". The former doesn't sound at all odd to my ear, whereas the latter is quite strange.
March 2, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word buss
"A small vessel of from fifty to seventy tons, often used in herring fishery."
March 2, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list words-from-georgia
I really really need to take half an hour and fix this list. Sometime in the eternal tomorrow...
March 1, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word murder
How about a "cacaphony" of cows?
February 26, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word anthrax
Also the Greek word for dirt.
February 25, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word head
Navy slang for bathroom. See also rears.
February 25, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word almost almost Solveig
*eats*
*shoots*
*leaves*
February 23, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bethimbled
See also bedinner.
February 23, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word finnish profanity
See also finish profanity.
February 20, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list expressions-of-disbelief-or-disagreement
Love this list!
February 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word kilaminjaro
When you're bored with that, you can try killamanjaro.
February 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word almost Solveig
არაფერს!
February 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers
the...
February 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Exelauno
Well, technically it would be Greek for "I march forth". Simple "march forth" would be "exelaune"
February 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word almost Solveig
ფროგაპლოს, ბაყაყი...
February 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user john
should be center-top of your profile page, to the right of your name
February 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rhyton
I guess there's no hope of recovery at all now. It's ruined forever. By both of us. And we just keep making it worse.
Crap.
February 18, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rhyton
Yarb, you ruined it!
February 18, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user elizabeth123
Hi!
February 18, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word illude
When I play Scrabble with my friends, we keep all our tiles visible to everybody so that we can play cooperatively; scoring is based on subjective decisions about the prettiness of the word. Essential aim is to make the most interesting board possible.
February 17, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word You probably think this song is about you
Pavlova is amazing. (Although my experience consisted of apples and chocolate as well.)
February 16, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word time
I like this definition: "A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future."
February 13, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word the pips
My good friend Philip goes by "Pip" sometimes. Also, there's a kind of amusing Sherlock Holmes story called "The Five Orange Pips".
February 13, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word almost Solveig
*passes out thread*
*passes out*
February 10, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word chemist
"Mind, they say, rules the world. But what rules the mind? The body. And the body (follow me closely here) lies at the mercy of the most omnipotent of all mortal potentates — the Chemist."
-- Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
February 10, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word almost Solveig
Look over here, guys! Bilby found some thread. Neither of us have any idea what it's here for...
February 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word voxel
Also, a 3-dimensional pixel "volumetric pixel"
February 7, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cherries
's Peanut Butter Cups
February 7, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word almost Solveig
*calls the tune*
February 6, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word billowy
The longest and only 7-letter alphaliteral that I actually recognised as a word. (Also bellowy, which I discount because it sounds stupid, and beefily, which I discount because I don't want to have to write this twice on two words. aegilops is the actual longest.)
February 6, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word knotty
Distinguished by being the last 6-letter alphaliteral in alphabetical order.
February 6, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word The List-Huggers
Almost reminds me of The Lotos-Eaters.
February 6, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list only-on-wordie
*hugs the cupcakes*
February 6, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list only-on-wordie
*feels left out of the hug*
February 6, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word preshrunk
As used in "Charlotte's Web".
February 5, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user milosrdenstvi
Actually, I'm not incredibly sure exactly how it's pronounced -- I originated it from literary rather than verbal sources, and my Czech isn't the greatest; rolig would be able to pronounce it much closer to actual than I would. But all that said, I've given it how it sounds in my head at milosrdenstvi.
February 5, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word You probably think this song is about you
I always thought of it as whipped cream, actually...
February 4, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word You probably think this song is about you
I have a whole list of songs which are actually about me. Coincidentally enough, some of them are about her, too.
February 3, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Namarrgan
Put it on the bilby feedback page!
February 2, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user sionnach
Did bilby just misuse you're?!
*aghast*
February 2, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Alembic
February 1, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word curlew
The sea is flecked with bars of gray,
The dull dead wind is out of tune,
And like a withered leaf the moon
Is blown across the stormy bay.
Etched clear upon the pallid sand
The black boat lies: a sailor boy
Clambers aboard in careless joy
With laughing face and gleaming hand.
And overhead the curlews cry,
Where through the dusky upland grass
The young brown-throated reapers pass,
Like silhouettes against the sky.
-- Oscar Wilde
January 28, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word devil-take-the-hindmost
I love this turn of phrase; such a wonderful way to express come what may. "I'll have that blueberry by five o'clock tomorrow, and devil take the hindmost."
January 27, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word lepadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimypotrimmatosilphiotyromelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptokephaliokinklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetragalopterygon
Actually, you're both wrong; the proper spelling is lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptokephalliokinklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon.
January 26, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Sunt
And the 3 pl. of sum.
January 26, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word lepadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimypotrimmatosilphiotyromelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptokephaliokinklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetragalopterygon
The λοπαδοτεμαχοσελαχογαλεοκρανιολειψανοδριμυποτριμματοσιλφιοκαραβομελιτοκατακεχυμενοκιχλεπικοσσυφοφαττοπεριστεραλεκτρυονοπτοκεφαλλιοκιγκλοπελειολαγῳοσιραιοβαφητραγανοπτερύγων is listed by Liddell & Scott as "the name of a dish compounded of all kinds of dainties, fish, flesh, fowl, and sauces", and is unimaginatively rendered by lazy translators "bill of fare". Other, nobler-hearted classicists render it in paragraph form, and one edition that unfortunately I don't have with me translated it literally with a lot of hyphens. Wiktionary has definitions of the various foods that make it up. The word appears as the climax of the comedy "Assemblywomen" and IMO is even funnier in context.
January 24, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word de-caf
I have a friend who has a mug with a bunch of cows on it. The smallest is indicated with circle and arrow, and labelled "decaf".
January 24, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word lepadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimypotrimmatosilphiotyromelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptokephaliokinklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetragalopterygon
Oh, Aristophanes. If you hadn't lived, we never would have guessed what we were missing.
January 24, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word string-theory
Gosh, there's an absolutely beautiful piece of classical music by Bach, one of my favorites, called Air on a G String. But I'm always embarrassed to call it that...I end up calling it Air from the Third Suite, which I guess could also be misinterpreted, but not nearly so readily.
January 24, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word yo
Philadelphians are fond of it as well. Haven't lived there since I was young but I keep it up out of nostalgia.
January 23, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word temple
At my school, this is the affectionate nickname for the gymnasium.
January 23, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mistresse
I expect it's a full poetic line.
January 22, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word eldritch
I'd never seen this word before reading H. P. Lovecraft. He manages to stick it at least once into each of his stories.
January 21, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word trickeries<
What?! A Wordnik paradox!?
Edit: And one that breaks the front page, too. Goats and monkeys!
January 21, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fetor
See also foetor.
January 21, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word chocolate
I can't believe you haven't heard of Milo, either, with all the time I've been around...
On another note, I just opened a Dove chocolate -- you know, the kind with the really cheesy inspirational messages on the inside of the wrapper. I like to have a chocolate every now and then, but the wrapper told me, "YOU are that superwoman. Enjoy!" Now, I'm a far cry from anything resembling our bizarrely Nietzschean comic character, but it would take a whole lot more to make me a superwoman...I can't help but feel like I'm either under a stigma or the wrong end of a stereotype or something like that...
January 21, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the list davenport
"In coal-mining, a reëntrant corner in a working face."
I don't get it.
January 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word itsypooism
Hey, I say 'tis all the time.
January 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word werewolf
The etymology is pretty cool -- relation to Latin vir never occurred to me before.
January 19, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word brewer's dictionary of phrase and fable
SWEET.
January 18, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word foetor
Eight hours later, the sun is rising, and I really should not have read so much H.P. Lovecraft...
January 14, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user jameskaren1112
By Hercules! You know, I've been coming to Wordienik for all these years practically expiring in my great hope to find a remedy for constipation that isn't as terribly...unnatural...as the one I currently use. And now, my friends, here it is! O, modified rapture!
January 14, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the user 100000670125292
I wonder if these 'unreasonable expectations' include 'not being a discommodious jackanapes and spamming on our website'. Think it over, Matthew.
January 14, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bearthday
10. Days on which you find an a in your berth.
January 13, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word features
I seem to remember case-sensitivity being one of the most exciting things that Wordnik would bring...once...
I wonder if we should have different pages for wound and wound, and the suchlike. That's be clever, eh.
January 9, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word butter of antimony
Oooh! An old name for a mineral! These are all over Lavoisier (who is great fun to read). Also fun: flowers of zinc, butter of arsenic, martial ethiops, oil of vitriol, Venus crystals, salt of alembroth, phagadenic water, dephlogisticated air, liver ore, magister of bismuth, mineral butter, and lunar caustic.
Butter of antimony, if memory serves, is antimony trichloride.
January 7, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word derstand
And briefs in briefcases, no doubt.
January 7, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word must needs
So I read this phrase a lot in old books. Anybody have a clue as to why they would actually say it this way, instead of "must" or "needs to" as we would in modern syntax?
January 7, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mle
After all, it could be Emily.
December 31, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word woty09
I nominate wayz-goose (for record at this page)
December 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list wilfred-j--funks--ten-most-beautiful-words-in-the-english-language--1932--1933
I think he was just jealous, 'cause his name was Wilfred Funk. Things would have been different if his name had been Melody Murmuring...
December 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wayz-goose
Nominated for woty09.
December 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word eskimo
Personally, I prefer Esquimaux. Did you know you can expect to see that spelling around twice a month? Now get out of here and start wondering where the other one's going to be.
December 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Feedback
I don't like having to putter all over the website looking for the feedback page, and there's no search that works for profiles yet, but I don't want to make a bookmark So, for my convenience and that of anyone else who wants to use it, this is a link to the feedback page.
December 24, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the user feedback
See comments on მამაო ჩვენო for further about Georgian letters problem.
December 24, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word მამაო ჩვენო
"mamao chveno", the vocative of "Our Father"; hence the Georgian name for the Lord's prayer.
I added this to test the ა and ო characters and they seem to have added just fine which suggests to me that they may have just corrupted in the move but aren't incompatible with things newly added. If need be I can reconstruct the words in the list that are messed up...
December 24, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ice-cream
Should we not call it a punctuation-mark?
December 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word apricock
The precocious fruit.
December 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word perse
All the examples are wrong!
December 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ice-cream
I love hyphenating things like this. It makes me feel so wonderfully Victorian.
December 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list jams--jellies--and-preserves
Hah! Love roll morton!
December 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list jams--jellies--and-preserves
See, that one was pretty obvious. I'm relying on the rest of you Wordnikies for the truly outrageous ones!
December 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the user petrbuben
Callicles...
December 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word lorikeet
Amusing example:
" To my lorikeet, Buttons, I leave the remaining sum total of all assets in my estate, real and liquid, including cash, securities, land, fine art, jewelry, gold, and McDonald's Monopoly game pieces, because that's the kind of crazy thing that wealthy, mean-spirited old lunatics like me really enjoy."
December 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word have yourself a merry little christmas
For some reason I always thought a Carol was a bit like a Carmen.
December 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word TLA
Three Letter Acronym.
December 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word TMI
I have two good friends married to nurses. This TLA is very well used among us.
December 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word nicer
Trichobezoars!
December 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word settler
If it is somewhere, say, like Catan.
December 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mkhedruli
მხედრული in script. Sort of means "military" -- a more efficient alphabet than was used by the church, which came into universal adoption.
December 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the user feedback
Not a particularly big deal -- but my list Words from Georgia has some of its characters messed up since the move. As far as I can tell it's only ა and ო (an and on, Unicode U+10D0 and U+10DD) that don't work. Being vowels, however, they're kinda in almost every word...
December 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sybaritic
The story of Sybaris, an ancient and opulent city, is quite amusing. They taught their horses to dance when pipe music was played; and thus their cavalry was utterly useless when they were attacked by a band of musicians.
December 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word lemur
Also a sort of ghost. See the plural lemures.
December 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cicatricizant
I think, actually, this is supposed to be cicatrizant. I had been hoping for some really cool definition related to the Greek trix, hair, but apparently not.
December 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word hebdomadary
A pretty cool synonym for "weekly".
December 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rubric
A fascinating etymology for an an annoyingly overused word.
December 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word adumbrate
A fancy way of saying 'sketch out' or something of the sort
December 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ecpyrosis
Destruction by fire!!!
December 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word concinnity
Awesome in the 19th century. Pretentious in the 21st.
I wonder if I could make a list like that? Probably not; I'm pretty much as pretentious as they come...
December 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list found-reading
Added a bunch from "The Name of the Rose". It was kind of useful having both a Latin and English dictionary at hand while going through it!
December 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list wilfred-j--funks--ten-most-beautiful-words-in-the-english-language--1932--1933
I think my chief objection to this list -- although all of them are very nice words indeed -- is that I could far too easily put them all into one sentence.
December 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Nebraska
Incidentally, I love that blog.
December 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word passing strange
I think 'passing' might be some shortened form of 'surpassingly'...?
December 16, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word good
I get more picky when responding to the questions "How's it going" or "How are you doing" -- doing good is very different from doing well, just like smelling good is very different from smelling well.
December 14, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gangtelope
I am very confused exactly why this would be pronounced 'gauntlet'??
December 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the user dontcry
dc -- if you want, I can come by sometime next week and see if I can fix it for you...
December 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list things-the-world-is-concerned-about-according-to-google
Added all three. In fact, I'm opening this up. Knock yerselves out.
December 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word position-by
Doubtless they all came from Positionby.
December 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word soupçon
Thanks!
December 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word helpmate
Spelled archaically as helpmeet, and both spelled and incorrectly pronounced that way, sometimes even as help meet, and even definitionally interpreted from the modern definitions of those words, by people who as far as their practice of Christianity goes never bothered to notice that the 1600s were over. (Those are interesting sorts of people. Quite often they have the best of hearts while being frightfully backward.)
December 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list joann
Bizarre perhaps for the Northern hemisphere...
December 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Wordnik
Nik!
December 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the user PossibleUnderscore
Hey, look at me, I notice comments that people put on my profile in...24 days...sorry about that...
Anyway, I already more or less said the whole of it, but here it is for completeness' sake:
Q: What international disasters occurred when the waiter dropped the platter in the restaurant?
A: The fall of Turkey, the ruin of Greece, and the breaking up of China.
As you can see, kind of a childish joke, but the capitonyms reminded me of it. And it still makes me pretty happy imagining it.
December 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word soupçon
Could someone pronounce this? I've been wondering my whole life how to pronounce this.
December 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the user feedback
Oush...it *may* be something as simple as clearing the cache or even just pressing F5.
December 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word [anything] - gate
It's very unfortunate.
December 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fufluns
We must move some pronunciations here.
December 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the user jonybolt
Seven hundred different kinds of variegated, undulating, phosphorescent shit, no less.
December 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word It sucks
Re: marky's comment, I've received some fascinating commentary about that from a friend of mine, one of the smartest people I know, who some time ago stopped being a lesbian and now raises two children... Most of it probably wouldn't fly here, so I won't bother to repeat it; still, as I said, it's a fascinating point of view...
December 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fantasticles
"the best greek philosopher", if you actually do want to go for a pun, would be Aristotle. "Ariston" = "best" in Greek.
This looks more like something akin to popsicles or icicles.
December 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word eleven
I was wondering today how "eleven" came from "one"; certainly not as obvious as "twelve" from "two". The etymologies here didn't help out too much.
Also, first and second. ???
December 7, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cailin
Nor has there been discovered any attested intelligent usage of EVar. Ever. *grump grump*
December 7, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word a bell in every tooth
I like it! I need to use this about some people!
December 6, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word that
I realized today I mostly unconsciously cut out this word, especially in its conjunctionary uses, as much as possible. I wonder if this will be cited as Part of My Unique Style someday when I am a famous writer.
December 6, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word faulchion
A sort of sword (see falchion. Almost qualifies for my "Words with aunch in them", but not quite.
December 5, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word whyleare
"While ere", a short time ago, just now.
December 5, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word unperfite
Seems to mean something like "uncompleted". Also written as vnperfite.
December 5, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word you're something of a hotdog, aren't you
See look, I have a microphone now. Best decision I've made in at least three days.
December 5, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bonking
I always thought Little Bunny Foo Foo bopped instead of bonked.
December 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word vegemite virgin
Is neat Nutella like neat whiskey?
December 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word proseedcake
See crustimoney.
December 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word microastrology
First parsed by my brain at least as mic-roast-rology.
December 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word I am affronted
Then Tabitha Twitchit came down the garden and found her kittens on the wall with no clothes on.
She pulled them off the wall, smacked them, and took them back to the house.
"My friends will arrive in a minute, and you are not fit to be seen; I am affronted," said Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit.
She sent them upstairs; and I am sorry to say she told her friends that they were in bed with the measles; which was not true.
-- Beatrix Potter, "The Tale of Tom Kitten"
See also soporific.
December 2, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word umbrage
YES -- and even completely innocent people, when told to "look up umbrage", will spell it a la the Potteress. MDJRKL!
December 2, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word the da vinci cod
Ha, ha, ha!
December 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list story-of-a-missing-s
Wasn't there something here about chicken catch-a-tory? Or was that somewhere else?
December 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word Umbrage
Aren't we all getting a bit high and mighty here! Regular old umbrage ain't good enough for the likes o' ye! Well, now, since you don't want any of it, I'll just take some for myself!
November 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wordnik
It seems that folks have been pretty encyclopaedic, especially bilby, about what feelings are and aren't, so I don't have a whole lot to add. Reiterating that I have faith in y'all that you're going to work things out. I know it. You've all made awesome things before and you're going to make something awesome again. We just need time for it.
I think, though, that one of the things I liked best about Wordie (or I suppose I should call it YOW) was how practically everything came from the users: the etymologies and examples and often the definitions, as well as the fun conversations and the organisation of everything into lists. What I'm afraid of is that that's going to attenuate on Wordnik, now that we have things pulled from other sources so much more powerfully. I love the Examples -- I've found several awesome books from there already -- and the definitions are so much nicer, if with a little less character, than WeirdNet -- but I don't want to come to see everything that the computers have come up with. I want to see a word and see everything the community's come up with. If I just wanted a pre-written definition or an etymology, I'd go to Merriam-Webster Online.
Basically: user content more to the front! I know a lot of old Wordies in their hearts want the comment page to be the default page again, and I know that's not our goal, but I'm sure with all the bright minds about we'll wake up to some ingenious solution someday. Anyway, I've said enough.
November 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word BHAG
I had to look this one up after the discussion on wordnik. It apparently stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goal.
November 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word madeupical
I would note that gangerh's definition does not make something a good word. Words can be made up and mutually understood, but linguistically some neologisms are just yucky.
November 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word madeupical
A while ago I saw a video on the internet of Erin McKean talking about lexicography. It pissed me off for some reason I can't remember, and now all I do remember is that she said that loving a word makes it real, which I whole-heartedly agree with, with the caveat that love should not be applied mindlessly, but only to such words as are inherently lovable. (Shoot me, I'm a Platonist in a post-modern world...)
November 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wayz-goose
I think this wins, for me at least, "Most Interesting & Eye-catching Front Page Word."
November 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word REIT
Actually, this is a legit word (pronounced 'reet'), not a misspelled allcap. It stands for "Real Estate Investment Trust", and is a sort of financial corporation.
November 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word orbicular
I do not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and rings like unto bullion.
-- Bartleby the Scrivener
November 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word otou-san
I never was much for the random word feature, but I tried it just now, just to see what I might come up with. After about twenty tries, I randomed my last name.
I was inspired do this after seeing madmouth's comment directly after reading Eliot's "The Hollow Men".
November 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gleek
See also shakespearean insult service, thou gleeking, beef-witted moldwarp
November 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wordnikkers
I think we should all get off the internet and be picnickers. Over at the Porch.
November 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word circumambient
And fast the white rocks faded from his view,
And soon were lost in circumambient foam;
-- Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
November 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word losel
"But one sad losel soils a name for aye..."
-- Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
November 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wordnikkers
I think I would just say Wordniks. -nik is a perfectly good Slavonic suffix similar to our dear old -ie. Besides, that double k is frightful.
November 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ANNAPOLIS
IS AWESOME
November 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word synecdouche
I think you mean synecdoche.
November 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dravest
Hmm, that makes a bit more sense than "drawest". See the last line of the poem "The Hound of Heaven".
November 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word comments
I got tired of forever seeing pygopagus, and though I rarely favorite words I did so to inimitable in hopes of changing the state of affairs. Nothing did. Does the "Recently favorited words" fail to update?
November 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dravest
Any ideas what this means?
November 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word twaddle
The example is rather hilarious: "The solemn unction with which he pronounced this twaddle is beyond description."
November 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word infrared
For quite a while when young I supposed this to be the past tense of infrare. Infrared rays...I still see it! Similarly, I thought it very possible to misle someone.
November 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word aristophanesque
Akin to Aristophanes, that great old Greek comedian.
November 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mesmerize
Named for Franz Mesmer, early hypnotism researcher.
November 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word PLOWED
See also PLOUGHED.
November 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cake
sionnach -- not that usage, but "a lot of people cake"...
I guess it's just similar to "a lot of people golf" vs. "a lot of people play golf" ... but still, I shuddered when I saw it first.
November 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cake
OK now, I'm all for the wonderful adaptability of the English language, but that just made me wince.
November 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word comments
Just noticed something that makes me really happy! I added a word to a list that I hadn't realized I'd already added it to, and it didn't add it twice!
November 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word scintillating
"To return to this scintillating topic of conversation..."
November 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list capitonyms-and-capitonyms
As a young child I was amused by a joke about an accident in a restaurant, involving the fall of Turkey, the ruin of Greece, and the breaking up of China...
November 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word auric
Probably found somewhere on the Argentine.
November 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list found-on-the-front-page-of-wordnik
There seems to be a natural limit to the length of this list. I hope this limit will expand soon.
November 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word comments
Case sensitivity is weirding me out -- to wit: for every Polish and turkey there are hundreds of other words that owing to negligence are getting stuck into two pages for one idea. Also, bracket links at the beginning of sentences (as pointed out by uselessness)...
Not a complaint. Just an eyebrow-raise.
November 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word addax
The addax, it must be noted, is not gregarious.
November 16, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wordie
The WordNet definition of bilby is rather amusing. "bandicoot with leathery ears like a rabbit". Perhaps mostly for the word bandicoot.
November 16, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word overused
Something I've thought about for a while..."randomness" is a virtue of the 21st century...people are praised for being "funny and random" -- for doing the unexpected, for being able to produce something unconnected out of context..."randomness" is a saving grace in any social situation...normality and conformity are not noticed and not particularly cool.
I'm not sure of all the implications of this, yet...
November 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word comments
I'm a little worried about how hard everything is to find. It took me a few minutes of obliviousness to realize that I could get to all the old Wordie by clicking the tiny little "Zeitgeist" link waaay at the bottom. Similarly, it took me really too long to realize that if I wanted a Wordie-style look at a word, I had to click "Comments". This makes me apprehensive for two reasons: one, it is more difficult for regulars, and two, it reduces the chances that newbies will discover and fall in love with the world of comments.
Also, I miss having a ready access to my list of lists from the home page.
November 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cover
Unfortunately.
November 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fireplace fender bender
In Georgian the very common prefix sa- means "place of". Hospitals, for example, are "sameditsina", place of medicine. The country itself is "Sakartvelo", place of Kartulis or Georgians.
Terror, "sazareli", place of loss...
Lamp, "sanati", place of light...
Justice, "samartliani", place of truth...
Foundry, "sadnobi", place of melting...
The place where you go to get khinkali (a delicious sort of dumpling) is the sakhinkle (or something morphologically similar...I never did learn how to spell it, or the case system of how to derive it...)
November 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mischievous
Three syllables only.
November 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word orexia
"orexis" = 'appetite'; more basically 'yearning'; "orego" (the root) = 'I reach for'
November 7, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rendition
SpspoCH phPHPTS?
November 6, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list common-words-but-seldom-words-in-common
Unfortunately not...that would be probably more up rolig's alley.
November 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list common-words-but-seldom-words-in-common
"no" seems well-nigh universal, among Indo-Europeans at least...
...except in Czech it means "yes"...
November 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word witchgrass
which grass?
November 2, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rigamarole
I generally spell rigmarole and pronounce rigamarole. As hard as I try, I can't keep the slight schwa from interloping. Much as how I can barely keep commandment from four syllables.
October 31, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word snap judgment day
Seems also like a candidate for
October 31, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word enow
In what is hopefully not fitting at all, this was listed as my 1000th word.
October 31, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word umbragenous
umbrageous?
October 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word decay
And also the Greek δίκη, which means Justice.
October 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word down boy shorts
...made of down, of course. *makes face*
October 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list words-with-four-consecutive-vowels
I get very annoyed at Scrabble players, when they "legally" play such "words" as oe and ae. You don't look clever, you look dumb. I don't care what type of lava it is.
October 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word nunc lento sonitu dicunt morieris
From John Donne's Meditation XVII. Translated loosely: "Now this bell, tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die."
This Meditation also contains the famous phrases "No man is an island" and "Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
October 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word zygodactyl
Well, they share the root dactyl, from Greek daktulos, meaning "finger".
October 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word imbriferous drenchcoat
What does "imbriferous" mean?
October 24, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word einhänder
As opposed to zweihander
October 24, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word golliwogg
"Golliwog's Cakewalk" is a rather fun piano piece by Debussy.
October 24, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word adsense
Can I be schadenfreude?
October 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list looks-like-a-digraph-but-isn-t
hothead; lunkhead; upheaval, packhorse
October 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list single-letter-words
Czech uses single letters a lot for prepositions - though I think you might have them all; v (in), z (from), s (with), u (at), k (to), o (concerning).
October 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ij
If you write it in cursive, it looks just like a y with two dots on top.
October 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word unwed father
Or a misspelling of prude...
October 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word often
I know of no other word in English which has such a wide-spread variant pronunciation of the common Americans around me. I do not pronounce the t, but many people do.
As dgstone has alluded to -- you've got to be able to make the hilarious puns with orphan!
October 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bombilate
Related to bumblebee -- possibly etymologically through Greek bombulos, but possibly only onomatopoetically.
October 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word exodus
They do share the Greek root "ex-" -- "out of". Ex-hodos is a road out. Exotikos is a variational lengthening of some adverbial form of the root. Something from way out there.
October 14, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word what in the name of gandhi's swimfins are you talking about
I totally had a dream last night where somebody said to somebody else "What in the name of Gandhi's swimfins are you doing, Mr. Piker?"
October 14, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word triskaidekaphobic
Ah well, it didn't stop the Colonies from becoming States. ('76 added together equals 13!!)
October 14, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word antihelmintic
See aphelion for similar comments.
October 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word inadquacy
I'm guessing the spelling is purposefully inadquat.
October 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word qed
Absolutely not. Euclid only uses Q.E.D. when he has finished proving something. If he wants you to assume something he will use the language "Let there be a...", and pull out something either from a previous proposition, or from his definitions, postulates, and common notions.
October 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word შემ�?გევლე!
Had a brief interaction on Facebook today with my old host mother which ended with her calling me genacvale. I was pleased to know what she meant.
October 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word challah
Braiding these is fun.
October 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word stink bug
The biggest problem, for me at least, is wondering whether it's a good trade-off to smack it.
Let's not add this to the Porch list.
October 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word thou fiery-faced quintessence of all that is abominable!
see whippersnapper.
October 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word წმიდ�?�? ღმერთ�?, წმიდ�?�? ძლიერ�?, წმიდ�?�? უკვდ�?ვ�?, შეგვიწყ�?ლენ ჩვენ
The Trisagion prayer of Eastern Orthodoxy, in Georgian.
Transliterated:
tsmidao ghmerto, tsmidao dzliero, tsmidao ukvdavo, shegvitsqalen chven.
Translated:
Holy God, holy Almighty, holy Immortal, have mercy upon us.
October 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word umberchute
Strangely enough, it was my first college roommate, also a Baltimore native, who taught me "bumbershoot", a few years ago.
October 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fox
From Radio Prague:
Tady dávají lišky dobrou noc - literally, “the foxes give goodnights here,�? which means there’s nothing going on here, you’ve found yourself in such an armpit of the world, that there is no one to talk to you, and only foxes left to tell you goodnight.
October 9, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word will i know not whither
GLOUCESTER. The king is in high rage.
CORNWALL. Whither is he going?
GLOUCESTER. He calls to horse, but will I know not whither.
Shakespeare, King Lear, II.iv
October 9, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gonfalonier
The slatternly woman ran her guns out and returned the broadside with promptitude.
"Door, indeed! you poor whey-faced drab, you dare to say the word door to me, a respectable woman, as Mister Tripes here knows me well, and have a score against me behind that there wery door as you disgraces, and as it's you as ought to be t'other side, you ought; for it's out of the streets as you come, well I knows, an' say another word, and I'll take that there bonnet off of your head, and chuck it into them streets and you arter it. O dear! O dear! that ever I should be spoke to like this here, and my master out o' work a month come Toosday, and this here gentleman standing by! But I'll set my mark on ye, if I get six months for it--I will!"
Thus speaking, or rather screaming, and brandishing her baby, as the gonfalonier waves his gonfalon, the slatternly woman, swelling into a fury for the nonce, made a dive at Dorothea, which, but for the interposition of "this here gentleman," as she called the coalheaver, might have produced considerable mischief. That good man, however, took a deal of "weathering," as sailors say, and ere either of the combatants could get round his bulky person, the presence of a policeman at the door warned them that ordeal by battle had better be deferred till a more fitting opportunity. They burst into tears, therefore, simultaneously, and the dispute ended, as such disputes often do, in a general reconciliation, cemented by the consumption of much excisable fluid, some of it at the expense of the philanthropic coalheaver, whose simple faith involved a persuasion that the closest connection must always be preserved between good-fellowship and beer.
After these potations, it is not surprising that the slatternly woman should have found herself, baby and all, under the care of the civil power at a police-station, or that Gentleman Jim and his ladye-love should have adjourned to sober themselves in the steaming gallery of a playhouse.
G.J. Whyte-Melville, M. or N., Similia similibus curantur. Suggested by Wordnik as a citation for this word and turns out to be quite interesting, for a little while at least. As I quite enjoy Victorian novels this one might go on my reading list.
October 9, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word planisphere
.
.
.
Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear;
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.
.
.
.
Andrew Marvell, The Definition of Love
October 9, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word canoe
Do we know of any other instance of oe being pronounced this way?
October 9, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word argillaceous
The soil of this vast depression is entirely argillaceous, and therefore impermeable, so that the waters remain there and make of it a region very difficult to cross during the hot season.
-- Jules Verne, Michael Strogoff
October 9, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tarantass
But to what sort of a vehicle should he harness his horses? To a telga or to a tarantass? The telga is nothing but an open four-wheeled cart, made entirely of wood, the pieces fastened together by means of strong rope. Nothing could be more primitive, nothing could be less comfortable; but, on the other hand, should any accident happen on the way, nothing could be more easily repaired. There is no want of firs on the Russian frontier, and axle-trees grow naturally in forests. The post extraordinary, known by the name of "perck-ladnoi," is carried by the telga, as any road is good enough for it. It must be confessed that sometimes the ropes which fasten the concern together break, and whilst the hinder part remains stuck in some bog, the fore-part arrives at the post-house on two wheels; but this result is considered quite satisfactory.
Michael Strogoff would have been obliged to employ a telga, if he had not been lucky enough to discover a tarantass. It is to be hoped that the invention of Russian coach-builders will devise some improvement in this last-named vehicle. Springs are wanting in it as well as in the telga; in the absence of iron, wood is not spared; but its four wheels, with eight or nine feet between them, assure a certain equilibrium over the jolting rough roads. A splash-board protects the travelers from the mud, and a strong leathern hood, which may be pulled quite over the occupiers, shelters them from the great heat and violent storms of the summer. The tarantass is as solid and as easy to repair as the telga, and is, moreover, less addicted to leaving its hinder part in the middle of the road.
-- Jules Verne, Michael Strogoff
October 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word katzenklavier
According to Wiki:
"It consists of a line of cats fixed in place with their tails stretched out underneath a keyboard. Tails would be placed under the keys, causing the cats to cry out in pain when a key was pressed. The cats would be arranged according to the natural tone of their voices.
The instrument was described by German physician Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813) for the purpose of treating patients who had lost the ability to focus their attention. Reil believed that if they were forced to see and listen to this instrument, it would inevitably capture their attention and they would be cured."
October 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word they
I came to a conclusion yesterday; that I could conscientiously use ambiguous singular 'they' but not generic singular 'they'.
Ambiguous 'they' is when I specifically do not wish to specify a gender, although the person in question usually has one.
"One of my friends was in Wyoming last month, and they saw a moose there."
I know of people, using 'they' this way, almost always use it as a euphemism for 'she', but I suspect that is an aberration.
Generic 'they' is when 'they' is used to refer to a non-specific person of singular number, which could be either male or female.
"Every person must stand on their own two feet."
I prefer the historical alternative of using the masculine singular pronoun to double as a generic. I have no exquisite reason beyond that I find it more euphonious, and it is a construct already in existence within the language, which I do not consider particularly nice to remove.
I cannot, however, honestly use the masculine singular in a case of deliberate ambiguity. Thus my preferred use there of 'they'.
They as a plural generic, of course, I have no trouble at all with.
October 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tuit
Sometimes, I will draw a circle and write this in the middle of it, and give it to a friend.
That way, he will never be able to complain that he never got a round tuit.
October 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tread
Sorry; I should have cited Shakespeare, sonnet 130.
October 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tread
"My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground..."
October 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word phthia
By looking away from your computer screen, naturally.
October 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bugs
Sometimes trying to access website receive:
Error 503 Service Unavailable
Service Unavailable
Guru Meditation:
XID: 1373340549
Varnish
October 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word garden
Also a really good poem by Andrew Marvell.
October 6, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word saunterer
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la sainte terre" — to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a sainte-terrer", a saunterer — a holy-lander. They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all, but the Saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which indeed is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this holy land from the hands of the Infidels.
Thoreau, Walking.
October 6, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word schadenfreude
Came across French words "chaud" and "froid" today. Meaningful???
October 6, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rfl
I would be obliged for anybody's additions on Words with 'aunch' in them.
October 6, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word inchoate
I had a professor call one of my papers 'inchoate' once. Fortunately it was only a conference over a draft.
October 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word choate
The opposite of inchoate, no doubt.
October 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word encourage
Clearly a thing we should change; and I would encourage you in your efforts, Mr. Pterodactyl.
October 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list words-that-have-ae-or-oe
Both of these in the modern day tend to be pronounced with some value of "e", but in actuality, in their origin as Latin digraphs, they were pronounced "ai" as in "aisle" and "oi" as in "oil", being the effective transliterations of Greek αι and οι.
October 2, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word chichevache
See also bicorne.
October 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list not-quite-as-awful-as-they-sound
Today, I ran across Glagolitic mass. One is inspired to think of immense piles of some ancient disgusting thing, but...
October 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word შემ�?გევლე!
See, these are verbs; Georgians have the idea to use one verb to tell you absolutely everything. And apparently they can now be colloquial for endearment. Great.
They've conveniently split up the verb parts for you (not the syllables)...you'll see that the root for genatsvale is 'tsval' and the root for shemogevle is 'vl'. Everything else is there to tell you mood, tense, and person. Really the only thing I know is that the g means that something's happening about the second person. It could be active or passive; one of the other letters controls that. The 'she' probably also refers to the second person but I don't even know why. I don't know the screeve system at all, but depending whether you want to be present, imperfect, conditional, perfect, pluperfect, aorist, optative, future, subjunctive (present, future, or perfect) the modifying letters are all different -- and that's not even getting into preverbs, pronominal markers, ergativity (which messes with the noun cases) or verbs of motion; and perish the thought if you want to have a participle or gerund because there are new formants and augments for all of those.
Seriously. I can work with Georgian nouns. But throw a verb at me and I probably won't even be able to find the root.
October 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word შემ�?გევლე!
...that says "shemogevle". It's probably a verb and I have no idea what it means because Georgian verbs have augments from hell.
October 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word subjunctive case
I'm pretty sure subjunctive mood is only in conditional statements. Or maybe that's just my Greek coming out.
September 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gross
One hundred and forty four - twelve twelves. See also great gross.
September 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word great gross
Twelve gross, or 1728 of something.
September 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word launcheon
Not quite sure what the definition of this one would be.
September 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word for god's sake, don't set the piano on fire
See conversation on flaming piano.
September 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word flaming piano
bilby: brilliant!
c_b: Understood, but even laying aside that we are in many ways past the Middle Ages, having replaced the barbarity of the trebuchet with the machine gun, the atomic bomb, and international terrorism -- livestock corpses are livestock corpses. If it hadn't been set on fire and launched from trebuchet it would have been eaten, if not by one creature then by another. Even if it is somewhat hork-inducing I can abide a flaming livestock corpse. But for God's sake, don't set the piano on fire.
September 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word recreant
LEAR
Hear me, recreant, on thine allegiance, hear me;
Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow,
Which we durst never yet, and with strained pride
To come between our sentence and our power,
Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,
Our potency made good, take thy reward.
- King Lear
September 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word flaming piano
The trebuchet is cool. I respect the trebuchet. If they want to shoot burning things out of their trebuchet that's cool too. But don't set the piano on fire. Even an old broken piano that doesn't have any hope of being fixed deserves the respect of being properly taken apart and junked. You wouldn't set the body of your dead sister on fire and shoot it out of a trebuchet. That sort of thing just shouldn't be done. There's a sort of basic decency with which you treat beautiful things, even in old age. If it's a perfectly good piano it's more like rape. It's been created for a beautiful purpose and all these recreants can think of is to destroy it and violate it for their own miserable pleasure. For God's sake, don't set the piano on fire.
September 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word flaming piano
That's so sad.
September 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fredonia
Haven't the foggiest, really. But now that you mention it, I expect I'm probably wrong.
September 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list my-porches
Back at the porch yesterday. I did notice this time two grand old trees (I think they were maples?) with a hammock between.
September 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word traunch
Apparently a misspelling, though somewhat common, of tranche, and meaning an allotment of funds.
September 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word aunchient
FLUELLEN
There is an aunchient lieutenant there at the pridge, I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is a man of no estimation in the world; but did see him do as gallant service.
Shakespeare, Henry V III.6
September 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word craunch
As in to craunch the marmoset.
September 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list past-tense-in-t
Thanks to all contributors!
September 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ycleft
yclept?
September 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word summonsed
I read this in the preface to a book. It seemed quite interesting and useful and generally British.
September 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fredonia
Nor with the Honduras, a country in Central America.
September 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sleep like a crew of hedgepigs in an ivy-tuft
No - but it was directly after being frighted half to death by the sudden appearance of a bat in the house!
September 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word to his coy mistress
A poem by Andrew Marvell.
September 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sleep like a crew of hedgepigs in an ivy-tuft
Happy to oblige. I used this in conversation a few weeks ago, the doing so giving me great delight.
September 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word trove
Hmm...after a bit of research, found this on Wiki:
"Treasure trove" literally means "treasure that has been found". The English term "treasure trove" was derived from tresor trové, the Anglo-French equivalent of the Latin legal term thesaurus inventus. In 15th-century English the Anglo-French term was translated as "treasure found", but from the 16th century it began appearing in its modern form with the French word trové anglicized as "trovey", "trouve" or "trove".
So perhaps it doesn't come apart from "treasure", and for good reason! Say it ain't so.
September 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list schwa-free
Funny but I was just thinking of this tonight, and came up with encyclopedic. Not sure...
September 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word trove
Can anyone think of usage outside the common, alliterative, almost-one-word-by-now "treasure trove"?
September 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word indubitably
This word combines in itself the separate loves that I hold for doubt and ubiquitous. Qualifying it to rank near the top in the list of Awesome Words.
September 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sphinx
I'm pretty sure it would be sphinkes.
As in phylax and phylakes, no doubt.
September 24, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word spectral
WordNet's definitions make me wonder -- what's the relation between a spectrum and a specter? Clearly, things that we see...
Also, awesome poem.
September 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list my-porches
Well, I was mostly looking from the porch, not at it.
September 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word krakatoa
And there is a lovely children's novel, The Twenty-One Balloons, set amidst Krakatoa and its fabulous diamond mines. (You never did know about those, did you? Or the intellectual colony set up there in the 1880s? Hmm....)
September 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word pre-shrunk
Incidentally, a beautiful word in Charlotte's Web.
September 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list my-porches
*assumes nonchalant air which can't quite rid itself of a note of brag*
And a mighty fine view it was, too...
September 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word quiet
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their uncessant labors see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergèd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all the flowers and trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.
Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men:
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow;
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude.
.
.
.
Andrew Marvell, "The Garden"
September 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word third man factor
Eliot's notes on those lines are for once somewhat helpful:
"The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted. "
September 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word third man factor
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
edit: shoulda checked. Of course they quoted it in the article.
September 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fig
Weirdnet!
September 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word yes we have no bananas
For when you're out of stock in Georgia:
დი�?ხ, ჩვენ �?რ გვ�?ქვს ბ�?ნ�?ნები; დღეს ბ�?ნ�?ნები �?რ გვ�?ქვს.
(diakh, chven ar gvakvs bananebi; dghes bananebi ar gvakvs.)
September 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cuccu
A very old English round. Mostly intelligible to modern ears. And yes, verteth is what you think it is.
Sumer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med
And springth the wode nu!
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouthe after calve cu.
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu, wel singes the cuccu,
Ne swik thu naver nu.
Sing cuccu nu, sing cuccu!
September 14, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cuckoo
Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu!
September 14, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fruit (but only the scrumptious sorts)
I think it sounds delightful. (Often enough I don't eat anything at all until mid-day, but fruits, especially scrumptious fruits, always hold a rating of 'delectable'.)
September 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word he certainly lights the room up when he leaves
*SNIGGER*
September 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fromunda cheese
And here I was hoping for something wholesomely disgusting, like casu marzu.
September 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wordnikie suggestion box
Not that I'm advancing this as a good suggestion, mind you, but if such a different 'home page for the regulars' existed, would wordie.org still direct to it?
September 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word carbonado
"Draw, you rogue, or I'll so carbonado your shanks."
Kent, King Lear II.ii
September 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word epishodic memory
Not actually too far off. Episode derives from Greek epi (above or in addition) + eis (into) + hodos (road or way) so an epeisodos was something coming in additionally. The rough breathing drops out in things like that, unless there's a t or p for it to merge into. (see aphelion!)
September 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word the
On the West Coast, and in Canada, they use this to prefix the names of highways; "take the 405". It was rather astounding to me the first time I heard it.
September 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wordnik
Question (actually the only thing I'm a little apprehensive about): do we keep Palatino? It's so pretty...
September 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word pleroma
Sounds useful!
September 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sangfroid
Found it again, in the very first chapter of "Michael Strogoff."
September 9, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wordnik
Though thousands of people use Wordie, really there's only about twenty or thirty 'regulars' who provide 100% of the spirit of the place. It's a social community and a pretty tight one as the internet goes. I'm guessing a feeling of a lot of us is "the madcap days are over". I don't think this has to be. Things will feel different for a while. We're definitely growing up a bit. But I don't think we have to lose the Wordie spirit. At least, I hope not.
September 9, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word hagiothecium
I remember noticing, a while ago, that a similar thing had happened with insufferable assmarmot.
September 9, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word all piss and fairy floss
I say, this has been running through my head all week now. I'm waiting for a chance to drop it in conversation.
September 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word jalousie
I saw this word for the first time about two months ago in Don Quixote. Now, I see it EVERYWHERE in EVERYTHING that I read. Even on CRAIGSLIST. For cryin' out loud!
September 7, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word apostrophe
Etymologically: apo-strophe, a from-turning (or turning-from, I guess)
September 7, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word catastrophe
Etymologically: kata-strophe, a down-turning.
September 7, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word კ�?რ სტ�?ნდ�?რტ ბ�?ნკი
Not to be confused with the გ, naturally. Remember: ბ for bomb, გ for gas can! (Letters are b and g respectively)
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ლიმ�?ნ�?თი
It's surprisingly good -- don't let the bubbly bright green liquid fool you. Tastes a bit like grass, only very sugary and fizzy.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ლიმ�?ნ�?თი
limonati -- "lemonade", but not as you might expect! To be sure, the English word on the bottle is lemonade, but within is actually the best grape soda you've ever tasted. Other flavors available: cream, pear, raspberry, and tarragon.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list letters
I'm throwing you ჰ (hae) as well. I can't find any words with it that aren't proper names or Latin derivatives.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ცივი
tsivi -- cold.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word მზე
მზეში (mzeshi) - sunny. There's an amusing story with მზეში, ცივი ბივ�? კ�?ი�?, but let me add those other words first.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word მთვ�?რე
mtvare (pronounced mi-twar-ay) -- moon.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word მზე
mze - sun.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ძ�?ლი�?ნ
dzalian - very.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ღმერთი
ghmerti - God. A very important word and part of a prayer that I learned and will post if I can get all the right characters together. (having two different t's and two different p's and four different k's makes things difficult!)
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word �?თი
ati - ten.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ცხრ�?
tskhra - nine.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word რვ�?
rva - eight. (it is not easier to say rwa!)
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word შვიდი
shvidi - seven. Everybody says "shwidi". You're pretty much allowed to do that to ვ whenever it's easier.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ექვსი
ekvsi - six.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ხუთი
khuti - five.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word �?თხი
otkhi - four
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ს�?მი
sami - three.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word �?რი
ori - two.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ერთი
erti - one.
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word კ�?რ სტ�?ნდ�?რტ ბ�?ნკი
An example of how easy it is to learn the Georgian alphabet from dual-language street signs in Tbilisi. You will see the above Georgian, and below English KOR STANDARD BANK. The transliteration of the Georgian is Kor Standart Banki. This is all over the place. Piece of cake, see?
September 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word o crablouse day! callow! allay!
All it reminds me of -- is that it's the beginning of September, when I was a tender & callow fellow, and so on.
September 2, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tangerine
Also a jazz standard...
September 2, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word brekekekex koax koax
In Aristophanes's comedy The Frogs, this is the ingenious nonce onomatopoeia used for the voices of the chorus of - yup, you guessed it.
β�?εκεκεκέξ κοάξ κοάξ!
September 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word polyadipose dysfunction
vagal down?
September 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ass muffin
I prefer insufferable assmarmot.
September 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word insomnia
I bought a collection of Anna Akhmatova's poetry the other day, solely on the recollection of this conversation. It doesn't appear to have The Cellar of Memory, though.
September 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word single bunk bed
Sometimes called a loft bed, I guess.
August 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word alpenhorn
I was served "alpenbutter" when flying Lufthansa. I derived much amusement thereby.
August 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word any last words
Oops.
August 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word the united states of america
See also my account at ს�?ქ�?რთველ�?.
August 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word 10!
Too cool.
August 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word doubt
No doubt about it!
August 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word doubt
I think there are very few words that I like the SOUND of as much as this one.
August 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word inhebetate
Related to hebetude, no doubt.
August 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word makari
The word "poet", too, comes from the Greek poietes, meaning maker.
August 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word madding
I love that book!
August 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list letters
Well, the two older alphabets are never used anymore. I saw some inscriptions that used them in some old churches, but otherwise nothing. jil (ჯ) is commonly written in handwriting rotated 45 degrees with the horizontal bar shortened and the bottom hook larger. Aside from that they have their varieties of typefaces, some of which are really confusing just like some English ones. (You could tell a Chinese restaurant by the faux Asian lettering, just like in America!)
August 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list letters
Hmm...looks like you've found 23 of the 33 Georgian letters so far. If you like hide and seek you can probably find a few more in the words I've already put up. A lot of letters look ridiculously similar, especially in type and when hand-written. ban and gan are near indistinguishable, as are p'ar, k'an, vin, tsan, and hae, as are san and khan, as are un and shin, as are dzil and man (though I don't think I've put up any words with dzil yet). I could have mercy on you and just give you the rest of them. At any rate, I don't think I saw a single word with zhan in the whole time I was there (except for proper names) so here is ჟ for your taking.
On the other hand, be thankful for a unicameral alphabet, for once!
August 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word წ
This (ts') is my favorite Georgian letter. I call it the Umbrella.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word პეპელ�?
pepela -- butterfly.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word გ�?გ�?
gogo -- girl. I learned one or two Georgian songs with this as a very important word.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word დედ�?
deda -- mother.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word მ�?მ�?
mama -- father. Not mother, which is დედ�? (deda).
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ბიჭი
bichi -- boy. Not girl as you might expect. See also მ�?მ�?.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ჭიკჭიკი
And of course, five seconds later I remember ბიჭი.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ჭიკჭიკი
ch'ikch'iki -- the sound of a bird chirping. Presented for the benefit of the worthy mollusque, because I don't know any other words with ჭ, it being really kind of rare.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ყ
*envisions pronouncing qroqqa as ყრ�?ყყ�?*
...I don't actually know if that's possible, but it would a humdinger of a throatful!
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ს�?ხლი
sakhli - house. This probably follows the sa- prefix being 'place of' rule (see ს�?ქ�?რთველ�?) but I never did learn what this derived from.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ყიყინი
qiqini - to croak.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ბ�?ყ�?ყი
baqaqi -- frog. Notable for containing two of the elusive ყ. Georgians would repeat a tongue-twister "the frog in the water croaks" (ბ�?ყ�?ყი წყ�?ლში ყიყინებს; baqaqi ts'qalshi qiqinebs) and blithely smile as we attempted it.
Notice ts'qalshi, a variant of ts'qali (წყ�?ლი) which I have already posted. In Georgian, the suffix "shi" means "in" -- so water is made to "in water". Similarly Tbilisi/Tbilishi means 'in Tbilisi' (and Tbilisi DOES have an i in that first syllable!); sakhli (ს�?ხლი) means house, sakhlshi means 'at home.'
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ყ
See also ბ�?ყ�?ყი.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ყ
There we go! The elusive ყ can be described as an "ejective voiceless uvular plosive".
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ყ
A sound unique to Georgian. I don't know the technical name but you make it by trying to crush ice cubes in the back of your throat. It takes a lot of practice and is in practically every word you want to say.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ლ�?მ�?ზი�?
lamazia -- it is beautiful. (lamazi is the adjective; adding -a to an adjective adds 'it is'.)
Frequent use of this word is one of the keys to being loved by Georgians. (Point at the mountains, not at the people. That was a different word that I never learned well enough to remember.)
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word წ�?ვიდეთ
ts'avidet -- let's go! Another one of those words I heard a lot.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ს�?ქ�?რთველ�?
sakartvelo -- Georgia.
The prefix sa- means "place of". A samedetsino (ს�?მედიცინ�?) is a hospital. A kartveli (ქ�?რთველი) is a Georgian. So the literal name of the country is "place of the Georgians".
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word გ�?უმ�?რჯ�?ს
gaumarjos -- cheers. This is said after toasts at the many traditional Georgian feasts (supra) and literally means "victory to it". I learned one of the Georgian declensions off of this word:
gaumarjot - victory to them
gagimarjos - victory to you
gagimarjot - victory to you (pl.)
gagvimarjos - victory to me (somewhat impolite)
gagvimarjot - victory to us
It took a while of saying "gaumarjos" while the table around me was chorusing "gagimarjot" for this all to sink in. And in the meantime they tell me my pronunciation (specifically my Americanized extra-long diphthongy vowels) is quite funny.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word დილ�? მშვიდ�?ბის�?
dila mshvidobisa -- good morning. And in fact, nobody will notice if you say "dilam shvidobis". Don't tell the Georgians but they are really bad at pronouncing all their letters. The city Mtskheta (მცხეთ�?) will often be called simply "sketa".
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word გ�?მ�?რჯ�?ბ�?
gamarjoba -- hello.
The word is gamarjobat when speaking to a group of people, or to someone who you've met for the first time.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ღვინ�?
ghvino -- wine.
One of the few cognates. The Georgians assert that they invented wine, and the Europeans borrowed the idea and word from them. (None of us can pronounce two consonants at the beginning of a word anyway! Especially ღ, it's kind of rough. A bit like a French r, in fact.)
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ლუდი
ludi -- beer. Sometimes people say biva but I was made to understand that is a Russian word.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word წყ�?ლი
ts'qali -- water.
The Georgians were repeatedly astounded that all the American wanted was წყ�?ლი, წყ�?ლი, preferably with ICE which isn't even sold anywhere in Georgia. I mean, it's my natural reaction after a hot day in the sun (which there are many of summertime in Georgia!) Their natural inclinations are rather to ლუდი or especially ღვინ�?.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word მიყვ�?რხ�?რ
miqvarkhar -- I love you
One needs only hear this pronounced once to wonder what strange visions the Georgians have of love. (Alternatively just look up the letters ყ and ხ somewhere.)
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ჩქ�?რ�?
ch'kara -- quickly.
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ღ
*suddenly and guiltily remembers the promised and planned Georgian list*
*starts yelling at self*
ჩქ�?რ�?! ჩქ�?რ�?! (chk'ara, chk'ara!) (faster, faster!) (a word that I got intimately acquainted with.)
August 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word pedantic
Don't forget the sour prentices.
August 24, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word frogbits
Has nothing to do with timbits, apparently.
August 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word used to
This "word" both fascinates and bothers me. In the way, I guess, that every word repeated a million times over sounds weird...but how is it, that "used" + infinitive came to mean the same thing as "formerly" + past tense? I can't figure it out at all. "It had been my use to ...." I guess?
Similar musings, though the connection is clearer, on supposed to meaning "it is a good idea" or "humanity generally does it this way".
These words are used so frequently as idiom that I want to take them out of the language and replace them with yoosta and sposta. That way the obvious etymology won't jump out of everybody's sentences and bother me. Sometimes I use "supposed to" in a way that makes sense with current definitions of "suppose", just because it makes me feel good, but I can't do it with "used to".
August 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word extant
I use this word all the time, mostly as a substitute for "existent".
July 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sic
Caesar sic in omnibus.
July 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word lugubrious
The next planet was inhabited by a tippler. This was a very short visit, but it plunged the little prince into deep dejection.
"What are you doing there?" he said to the tippler, whom he found settled down in silence before a collection of empty bottles and also a collection of full bottles.
I am drinking," replied the tippler, with a lugubrious air.
"Why are you drinking?" demanded the little prince.
"So that I may forget," replied the tippler.
"Forget what?" inquired the little prince, who already was sorry for him.
"Forget that I am ashamed," the tippler confessed, hanging his head.
"Ashamed of what?" insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him.
"Ashamed of drinking!" The tippler brought his speech to an end, and shut himself up in an impregnable silence.
And the little prince went away, puzzled.
"The grown-ups are certainly very, very odd," he said to himself, as he continued on his journey.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
July 24, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ღ
*leaves today*
Might not have too much in the way of internet. Will not have too much in the way of time. Have a good time 'till I come back!
June 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fleance
Isn't there a pun in there somewhere, "Fleance fled" or something like that?
June 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word poinsetter
Not to be confused with a poinsettia?
June 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word misocapnist
Is there a similar word for alcohol?
June 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word termagant
Have a look at the Wikipedia article. What a fascinating etymology!
June 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wye
Sweet! I live in Ellicott City! I had no idea the porch was so close!
June 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wye
They have since made it into the Governor's desk.
Where in MD do you live, dc?
June 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word euridice
I do not have my lexicon with me, unfortunately. μέντοι is a particle that I've forgotten the precise function of. I think it can be used to connect two clauses. Don't think there's a μέντος or μέντως, unless it's in modern Greek. I think that madmouth was speaking of an actual candy called Euridice?
June 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word synaesthesia
Skipvia's comment of about a year ago: are you a pianist? I practically never meet anybody else who can improvise. It's most of what I do at the piano, because I am inherently lazy...I do not have synaesthesia, but I do have absolute pitch, which means each of the twelve tones has a unique sound to me, a sound which is often very vaguely associated with an emotion, or occastionally a colour or vowel sound. I've never been able to get at them clearly enough to work out a table of all them, and they change from time to time. I've also never been able to figure out if this is why I can improvise so easily. But it is incredibly satisfying to be able to transfer my emotions directly to my fingers.
June 24, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word elegy
"Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die."
-- Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard
June 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tessaraphthong
I knew a Ukrainian whose last name was Baklaiev, pronounced with two syllables.
June 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ramble
I love this word and do it often, both in the sense of walking and talking.
June 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list mary-you-re-i-what-i
"To become more in an interesting condition" actually quite nearly approximates the literal translation of the Greek Facebook for the English "in a relationship".
June 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ughten
My Middle English resources tell me the vowel is going to be like our "oo". As in "you", or "house" in Canadian. And that the "gh" is going to be like a Scottish ch, but in the back of the mouth. (It's in the front of the mouth with vowels such as e and i, in which case it sounds more like a sh.)
June 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word beautiful
I mean...the list isn't *so* bad...a lot of the words are very sparkly, and most of them very clever. I would applaud any poet who was able to work any of them into his work, though they seem, as sionnach pointed out, more the province of W.S. Gilbert, or Ogden Nash, or some other comic.
More likely probably some other Victorian, now that I think about it. But I like the Victorians.
June 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word resofincular
See, I was hoping for *resofinculum being an actual word for wire hanger :) but thanks!
June 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bubonic
See also bubonics.
June 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bubonics
The dialect of English spoken by boobs.
June 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word beautiful
Tintinnabulation??
June 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ubiquitous
I finally decided today that this is my favourite word.
June 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list words-without-a-rhyme
The lion is the king of beasts,
And husband of the Lioness.
Gazelles and things on which he feasts,
Address him as "Your Hioness".
There are those who admire that roar of his,
In the African jungles and veldts,
But I think wherever a lion is,
I'd rather be somewhere eldts.
- Ogden Nash
June 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list words-without-a-rhyme
I remember Dr. Seuss rhyming "month" with "one'th", or something to that effect.
June 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word resofincular
Anyone know the etymology? It seems like it ought to be Latin, but I can't find anything.
June 17, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ღ
Yup -- I'm going to try to pick up the language as I can, but I don't know how much I'll come home with.
Can I make a shameless plug? Give us money!
June 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word noctivagant
I am prone to this. What would be the verb? Noctivagation? I have a similar problem with peripatetic - peripateticism, I suppose...
June 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word botticellian
"Oh, how Botticellian! How Fra-Angelican!"
-Gilbert & Sullivan, Patience
June 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word milo
See on no vegemite or marmite, promise.
June 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word no vegemite or marmite, promise
Heh, not to worry. :) *goes off to wiki to look up this drinkish thing*
"...milk beverage with chocolate and malt, produced by Nestlé and originating from Australia...name derives from the famous Greek athlete Milo of Crotona, after his legendary strength..."
"...was a 6th century BC wrestler...said to have burst a band about his brow by simply inflating the veins of his temples...died when, trying to rend a tree asunder, his hands became trapped in the cleft of its trunk, and a pack of wolves surprised and devoured him."
?!?!!
June 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list heaveno-s-list
Wow. Just...wow.
June 13, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word deipnosophist
From Greek deipnon (lunch) + sophistes (a wise man)
June 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word no vegemite or marmite, promise
Aw, you forget me so easy? Don't do that...
June 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word chesapeake bay
Nobody else I know really understands Old Bay...
June 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dephlogisticated
Where is my "-icated"? Are you asking where it is locicated?
Seriously, I don't know what you mean by substanticating that suffication.
June 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word καλὸν
καλὸς τὰ καλά.
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list bio
Wordle is a pretty cool website. When I discovered it and began telling friends, they all said "wait, didn't you show this one to us already?" and I had to explain the difference between Wordle and Wordie.
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dephlogisticated
Aye, not to disparage the eximious "phlogis-" in any way. Just saying "-icated" is a minipleasure each time.
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word chesapeake bay
Other end meaning Eastern Shore or other end meaning Virginiaish? But sure, no problem.
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word you can visit washington dc if you want, that stinking rat-hole
I mean...sure. Aside from a general animosity against politicians I have nothing against the place. It's actually rather pretty.
I guess I have a very special loathing for DC, the sort of affectionate hatred you can only really have for a hometown. You never miss a chance to disparage it, but you secretly have a very soft spot about it. I don't know if anybody else has that feeling.
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dephlogisticated
There's also something incredibly satisfying about an '-icated' suffix. Not entirely sure why.
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list •open-list-why-prolagus-should-visit-me-on-his-world-tour
Annapolis, Maryland is a very pretty place in its own right. But the culture and studentry of St. John's College are a unique intellectual beauty that I don't think you could find anywhere else.
I should make a St. John's list. *mutters*
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word spartan madball
A sport played once a year at my school and as far as I know nowhere else. Teams are divided between seniors/freshmen and sophomores/juniors (the Ends vs. the Means). Teams attempt to pass a ball through a goal. The game ends after three goals, three hospitalizations, or three in the morning. The rules are no weapons, no vehicles, no armor, and no animals.
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ღ
I get to go to Georgia in two weeks! I'll be spending almost a month there. It's really exciting; I'm going to be helping found a Great Books College. Did I mention it was in GEORGIA?
Language tough as anything I've ever seen, though. Pfui!
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list bio
Ah! Do you also structure partnership relationships between your worms?
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word madeupical
Thanks! Although, now that I've thought about how I wanted to pose the question for a while, I figured out pretty much all I wanted was overstatement. Psh.
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word madeupical
There's a list I found once which offered to help make up words for concepts that we don't know or have the name of. I can't find it now. Can anyone help? Or I could just describe my problem here, I guess...
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word july
Julys. It only looks funny because we aren't used to seeing -ys. But it's one of our grammatical necessities because (to me at least) it is improper to change about a proper name when pluralizing in English.
One week from now I will be visiting my friend D. McKelvy, and his family, the McKelvys. They are not McKelvies. Nor are they McKelvy's, despite the wanton deviance to this construction by those who abhor virtue. One of them is a McKelvy, and two are McKelvys. Same for July and Julys.
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word barbecue
Never go back.
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list bio
*dashes to piano, begins playing swing dance tunes*
June 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the user Prolagus
Ooh! I'm too poor to bribe, but this means I get a chance to use the power of sophistry!
June 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the user Prolagus
Hmmm...all a college student can offer is coffee in Annapolis, or more likely Baltimore if it's summertime...
June 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word nescient
Wow, what a find. This will be useful in my regular philosophical discussions. I envision referring to my companions' "nescient points of view".
June 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word malhershalahashbaz
Actually Maher-shalal-hash-baz, meaning something I can't quite remember (speed the spoil, hasten the booty? something like that. at any rate, a name of some sort.)
June 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word reverie
But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on,
So much the gathering darkness charmed: we sat
But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie,
Perchance upon the future man: the walls
Blackened about us, bats wheeled, and owls whooped,
And gradually the powers of the night,
That range above the region of the wind,
Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up
Through all the silent spaces of the worlds,
Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens.
Tennyson, The Princess (Conclusion)
June 10, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bush-hogging
Sounds like the machine for making everything that starts with the letter 'n'.
June 9, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word unbifurcate
I had a friend who coined monogambic and digambic as generic terms for skirt-like and pant-like garments. I think it came from the Italian for leg.
It's at least a useful concept to have a word for, although I've never heard one used in general English.
June 9, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word οἴμοι
Literally οἴ-μοι, or "ah, me!"
June 8, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word pottage
Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from him, I want, but not news, nor pottage. I can get politics, and chat, and neighbourly conveniences from cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal, and great as nature itself?
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Friendship"
June 6, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wawa
There's what I get for not re-checking my facts on Wiki before posting...reesetee is right. There does exist a Wawa, ON which I was aware of having a friend who grew up near, but I made too many connections.
(Did I mention the word is onomatopoeic? If you can't tell, I think that's totally awesome.)
June 6, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wawa
This is the Chippewa (Ojibwa) Indian word for goose. Hence, on those ubiquitous convenience stores across the northeastern US and Canada, you can see small drawings of geese. The stores were actually named after the town of Wawa, Ontario, which was named after the geese.
This word is onomatopoeic.
June 6, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word numinous
A tremendously useful word. I learned it from C. S. Lewis.
June 5, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word procrastinate
procrustinate: to have your time wasted by means of being tortured. See Procrustes.
June 5, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word name voyager
What's interesting is entering a single letter, and seeing how the popularity of beginning with that letter has changed over time.
June 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fufluns
How do you guys pronounce this? I'd been using short u for both since I first saw this, but it occurred to me the other day that the humour value is greatly increased with a long u in the first syllable. I don't know how to use IPA...
June 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cagophile
'Collect' is actually the original meaning of the Greek root λ-γ, whence λόγος, λέγω, etc. The later and more common senses came to be counting money, making an account of something, and then generally speaking and saying. (There are about a dozen important definitions of λόγος, with several dozen more minor senses. A fascinating, fascinating, word, made even more interesting by the Gospel of John's appropriation of it as the best description for Jesus Christ.)
In most of Ancient Greek, yes, if you wanted to say 'collect' you would use συλλέγω, although it could also be used for "I discuss". However, I don't think there's really any precedent for using συλλέγω in an English word for collection. -phile seems to be fairly well entrenched. I despise constructions such as 'keyophile', however; probably because I find the blatant mixing of roots, especially with random 'o' stuck in middle, somewhat ugly. I don't have a problem with mixing roots, I just like it to be a little more subtle. Key collector is fine.
Interestingly, the English word colLeCt is the only one where survives the Indo-European root which gave rise to the λ-γ construction in Greek.
June 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word analepsis
Aha, here was the other recent one.
June 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word defenestrate
defenestly!
June 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word anecdotalist
My experience with anecdotes seems different from the perfected kind that others here seem to have; I've always thought of them as those stories about our own lives that we always have and always seem to have this social or philosophical need to share. Whether they're outrageously funny or tremendously interesting or not, they're a way to share experiences with friends and others around us. With the right people, that's a valuable, even a precious thing.
Then of course there are those remarkable human beings who have an endless store of those tales, all of them fascinating. Maybe that sort of person would be an anecdotalist, whereas what I'm describing is just people telling anecdotes.
June 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word egregious
From Latin e(x) + grex, out of the herd. Originally used as a compliment, later came to be used ironically which is the meaning it has today. Strangely a similar thing seems to have happened to gregarious.
June 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list favourite-etymologies
egregious has a pretty cool etymology.
June 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word λάθε βιώσας
not at all, not at all :)
June 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word yarn-spinner
See also yarb-spinner.
June 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word λάθε βιώσας
α�?τὸν ακουόντων πε�?ὶ τῆς Ελλήνικης! (Let's hear it for Greek!)
*catches fufluns*
By Dionysus!
June 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word λάθε βιώσας
Yes. λάθε is the aorist imperative of the root verb λανθάνω. The original meaning of λανθάνω seems to be "to escape the notice of", which is a fascinating meaning for a verb. But it also generally has to do with becoming unknown, unseen, hiding, obscuring, and forgetting -- this last of which is where λήθη comes in, a derived noun meaning a forgetting or forgetfulness. As a proper noun Λήθη it is Lethe, the river in the underworld from which spirits drink and forget their mortal lives.
One of the greatest debates among Greek scholars is concerning the word ἀλήθεια, the adjective meaning Truth. In Greek the prefix α- is a privative, or sometimes opposition or negation; however, not all words beginning with α- are privatives. The debate is whether ἀλήθεια is in fact ἀ-λήθεια - making truth a lack of hiddenness.
In essence there really isn't enough data to make a firm statement either way. It would be a fascinating derivation if it were true, and in fact many Greek philosophers writing long after the development of the language assert it as a folk etymology. In the meantime it remains as a dissertation topic for aspiring Ph.D. students everywhere.
*end Greek out*
June 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word λάθε βιώσας
The imperative is actually on the other word - so a more accurate translation would be "Obscure your life."
June 2, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bugs
I was never sure how you made those bold lines in the first place.
June 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word whom
Good catch...as well as whosoever and other relations. Any besides the sisters and the cousins (whom we reckon up by dozens), and the aunts?
May 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word whom
On a different note, I just thought of this today.
Are who and whom the only words in the English language where wh- takes the h sound instead of the w? I suppose there's whore, also, and its derivatives, but otherwise the vast majority of words are the other way. Can anyone think of others? Or give a reason why this is?
May 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word renegade
I read an interesting use of this in Don Quixote the other day, of a galley slave that had turned Muslim and become a shipmaster. Turns out we get this word from the Spanish renegado, and that Cervantes's use was the original one - a Christian who had denied the faith and turned Muslim. The Latin root is renego, to deny -- as in renege.
May 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word eremite
But long ere scarce a third of his passed by,
Worse than adversity the Childe befell;
He felt the fulness of satiety:
Then loathed he in his native land to dwell,
Which seemed to him more lone than eremite’s sad cell.
Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
May 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tralatition
Tralalalation...
May 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ribbon
If I were a minstrel I'd sing you six love songs
To tell the whole world of the love that we share
If I were a merchant I'd bring you six diamonds
With six blood red roses for my love to wear
But I am a simple man, a poor common farmer
So take my six ribbons to tie back your hair
May 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word analepsis
*hears Greek mentioned*
The root γ�?μνος (gymnos) means naked or unclad. From such, the verb γυμνάζω (gymnazô), to train naked, or to exercise, as the exercises of the ancient Greeks were generally done in the nude. Hence γυμνάσις (gymnasis), exercise, and γυμνάσιον (gymnasion), a place for exercises, Latinised as gymnasium.
A friend of mine coined, from various Greek roots, the γυμνασφαλάκμυς (gymnasphalakmys) or naked mole-rat.
May 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list intentional-malapropisms
I've been known to use our feet are the same for auf wiedersehen.
May 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word potentate
Mind, they say, rules the world -- and what rules the mind but the body? And the body lies at the mercy of that most omnipotent of all mortal potentates: the Chemist.
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
May 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gloaming
Interesting, thanks!
My perception of this word was doubtless influenced by Roald Dahl's poem:
In the quelchy quaggy sogmire,
In the mashy mideous harshland,
At the witchy hour of gloomness,
All the grobes come oozing home.
You can hear them softly slimeing,
Glissing hissing o'er the slubber,
All those oily boily bodies
Oozing onward in the gloam.
So start to run! Oh, skid and daddle
Through the slubber slush and sossel!
Skip jump hop and try to skaddle!
All the grobes are on the roam!
May 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gloaming
Any relation to gloom, anyone know? Gloaming always calls gloom to mind for me -- not really the depressing part of it, just the dark part.
Strangely, though it sounds a lot like gloat, the meanings aren't too similar. And gloat is another one of those words that I would say sounds an awful like what it means.
May 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word plato's rooster
This came, we should note, of the definition of man as "a featherless biped".
May 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word middy
Where I live in Annapolis, slang for a midshipman (cadet at the United States Naval Academy). Probably more commonly spelled middie. Actually slightly derogatory. The middies would refer to one of their own colloquially as a mid.
St. John's College, my school, is just across the street (and over a brick wall - theirs, not ours). We're referred to as Johnnies. Which leaves the ubiquitous townie for everyone else.
May 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word moustache
Remarkable comparing the number of listings of this spelling vs. the more common in usage mustache. I agree that it is so much cooler with the extra letter. But I can't really say why.
May 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word jack
Good God, are you *trying* to stalk me?
May 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word insomnia
Kde domov můj? I've adapted that from a rhetorical patriotic question into a sort of a motto for life.
May 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word carrefour
I expect it's French?
May 25, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word inutile
Composing scales beside the rails
That flanked a field of corn,
A farmer’s boy with vicious joy
Performed upon a horn:
The vagrant airs, the fragrant airs
Around that field that strayed,
Took flight before the flagrant airs
That noisome urchin played.
He played with care “The Maiden’s Prayer;�?
He played “God Save the Queen,�?
“Die Wacht am Rhein,�? and “Auld Lang Syne,�?
And “Wearing of the Green:�?
With futile toots, and brutal toots,
And shrill chromatic scales,
And utterly inutile toots,
And agonizing wails.
The while he played, around him strayed,
And calmly chewed the cud,
Some thirty-nine assorted kine,
All ankle-deep in mud:
They stamped about and tramped about
That mud, till all the troupe
Made noises, as they ramped about,
Like school-boys eating soup.
Till, growing bored, with one accord
They broke the fence forlorn:
The field was doomed. The cows consumed
Two-thirds of all the corn,
And viciously, maliciously,
Went prancing o’er the loam.
That landscape expeditiously
Resembled harvest-home.
“Most idle ass of all your class,�?
The farmer said with scorn:
“Just see my son, what you have done!
The cows are in the corn!�?
“Oh, drat,�? he said, “the brat!�? he said.
The cowherd seemed to rouse.
“My friend, it’s worse than that,�? he said.
“The corn is in the cows.�?
The moral lies before our eyes.
When tending kine and corn,
Don’t spend your noons in tooting tunes
Upon a blatant horn:
Or scaling, and assailing, and
With energy immense,
Your cows will take a railing, and
The farmer take offense.
- "The Harmonious Heedlessness of Little Boy Blue", by Guy Wetmore Carryl
May 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word raggle-taggle
As in raggle-taggle ruminant, no doubt.
May 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word aristoteles
Actually, the Greek is Ἀ�?ιστοτέλης, which is most directly transliterated this way...thanks to the influence of Latin, everybody says Aristotle.
May 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bombinate
Whoa! Cool!
May 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word swine flu
"Swine flew? When pigs fly!"
May 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word yoghort
isn't it typically, when spelled quaintly, yoghurt? I've never seen this form...
I happen to be an immense fan of yoghurt. Yogurt is just boring.
May 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list double-dactyls
idiosyncrasy, used of Benjamin Harrison
May 6, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word carrion
Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee...
-Gerard Manley Hopkins
May 5, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word madrigal
sing, sing a merry madrigal
May 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bog je dobar kako kome
croatian? or some south slavic?
May 4, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word terpsichore
Pronounced with four syllables (long final e) and hard ch.
May 3, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word perendinate
To put off until the day after tomorrow...
May 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word beetling
The most common form of beetle as verb. Which is pretty cool.
May 1, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word penumbra
*waits for the inevitable taking of penumbrage*
April 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word hiraeth
This is such a beautiful word.
April 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list gorey-s-creatures
delightful!
April 30, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list awesome-words-part-1-less-common
the hell?
April 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list schwa-free
As mentioned elsewhere, kleptomaniac is a possibility, provided one is careful to pronounce a long o on the second syllable.
April 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list double-dactyls
While considering kleptomaniac for the Schwa-free challenge we found kleptomaniacal for this one...
April 28, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word too much quaffing of the septembral juice
I was too much quaffing the septembral juice last night, and this phrase kept running through my head...I suppose that's a good thing.
April 27, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the user pterodactyl
My inner Greek scholar always rankles when people make light of the silent p and other dropped consonants (mnemonic, bdellium, phenophthalein, gnu) ... pedants like me continue to pronounce them. p-terodactyl. It's not incredibly difficult. It's actually kind of fun. And the ancient Greeks did it. So why can't we?
It's one of my sillier linguistic perfectionisms. In other words, whenever I rant about it, you should pay no attention.
April 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word indehiscent
There's probably a good pun in here somewhere.
April 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word umbrage
I took umbrage the other day after someone made a pun about "shady comments". I was very pleased with myself.
April 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word echinacea
When I was first introduced to this, I comically confused it with echidna. I was very sick at the time.
April 16, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word onomatopoeic
Any visions for how this is pronounced? I always want to say "onomatopoetical".
April 11, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word blipper
i take umbrag
March 31, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list logos-hellenos
Probably should be "Logoi Hellenou".
March 26, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word the muslim law prohibits drunking alcohol
Ha, ha, ha!
March 23, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ægrotant
See also aegrotat.
March 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cfb
Apparently just another of those tlas.
March 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tla
Three letter acronym.
March 22, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word prodigious
A spectacular word for indicating amazement. Why, it's prodigious!
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word susurration
I always thought of it in terms of a heartbeat.
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word blatherskite
A very useful, polite, and pretentious expansion of BS. I don't think that's actually its origin, but as far as I've been able to tell they are interchangeable.
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sententious
Not to be confused with tendentious.
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word come by
Made me laugh!
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word philomelian
A further etymology is from philo, to love, and melos, honey, because apparently nightingales love honey, or were believed to.
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word panegyric
This is an incredibly useful word. I generally use it insincerely when I hear formal speakers go on at length about much they like their hosts.
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sangfroid
Apparently a favorite of Jules Verne, or at least his translators, describing sundry characters, by my remembrance, in "From the Earth to the Moon", "Around the Moon", "Journey to the Center of the Earth", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "The Mysterious Island", and "In Search of the Castaways". There very well may be more.
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word hebetate
"I mean, he's a bit of an autochthonous hebetator, but otherwise a really great guy."
Another great quote from my life...
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word poikilothermic
A sort of cold-blooded creature whose internal temperature varies. From Greek "poikilos" or "many-coloured".
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cunctator
Thrilling synonym for procrastinator. I love it.
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cheesed off
I must say, that is the happiest a website has made me in long time! _Extremely_ satisfying.
March 21, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word liverpudlian
For some reason I always thought this was some kind of derogatory joke, changing "Liverpool" to "Liverpuddle".
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word went
Aside from "be", which, as I am told, is irregular in every language but Quechua (this may or may not be correct), there is only one verb in the English language which has completely different stems for two of its tenses or cases. There are significant changes in vowel (i.e. see vs. saw) and sometimes a single consonant gets changed around a bit (i.e. have vs. had) but only in go does the past tense change to something completely different: went.
I am told that there used to be a lot more of these in English, but most of them dropped out. (There are still plenty in languages such as Greek.)
Interestingly, went appears to come to us by way of wend, or maybe wended. This can be seen in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales:
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke...
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word trope
This word has been made forever funny to me by knowing two completely different people with a last name pronounced this way but spelled differently in each case. (Trop, Troup)
(If either of you see this, hi!)
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word 10-foot pole
One of my more favorite quotes from my life, shushing someone who'd brought up a somewhat delicate subject:
"Go find yourself a decent ten-foot pole and learn to use it."
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fortified
Found on cereal boxes: "Fortified with 17 different vitamins & minerals!!" Which always makes me want to use 'fortified' in some similar yet incongruous way with something completely different, for humorous effect.
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word debonair
"Hats. They have two purposes: to be doffed and to be worn at rakish angles."
From a Facebook group...what can I say?
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word misfeasance
"All and sundry then repair to a nearby tree to commit simony, petty larceny, tergiversation, and misfeasance, evict a few widows and orphans, and enact more laws."
- Will Cuppy, "The Crow"
from "How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes"
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sublime
There's an awfully good book by a Greek fellow named Longinus (actually, scholars are unsure whether his name was Longinus, Dionysus, or Dionysus Longinus, but they usually go with the first) called On the Sublime, sometimes translated badly as On Great Writing. Very good thoughts about what sets the sublime apart from the mere extremely beautiful and interesting.
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word weltschmerz
now this is a good word.
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word contemn
I suppose condemn might have something to do with damn?
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word chucklehead
"No, you're not, you chuckle-head, you're singing the Judge's song from Trial by Jury."
-- Three Men in a Boat
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mud
Mud, mud, glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there we will wallow
In glorious mud.
- The Hippopotamus Song
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list the-gry-zone
I was always fond of the answer filagry, which I have seen in legitimate (19th-century) writing as a variant of filagree.
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word harm in harmony
Sounds like the bass section in the choirs I've sung in.
March 20, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word contemn
how closely is this related to condemn? I feel as if I could almost use them interchangeably.
March 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word really
I have really rather a tendency to overuse this word -- not so much as an intensifier really than as an offset for the parts of my sentences.
March 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word xantippe
A story is told of this redoubtable lady, that she once emptied a bucket of urine upon the head of Socrates, whereupon he replied, "After the thunder must come the rain."
March 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word jeremiad
I wonder what the essential difference between this and a rodomontade is.
March 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cabriolet
as in taximeter cabriolet, or taxicab.
March 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ᴕ
Oh, but that's so dull. Ligatures? Who needs ligatures?
March 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the list to-nounen-and-adjectiven
you can add prefixes to some of the ones you have...enhearten, foreshorten, enlighten...as well as embolden...I think the en- em- prefix will do well by you.
March 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ferkel
Piglet.
March 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ᴕ
why, you've outdone yourself, sir!
March 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word serendipity
The opposite being zemblanity.
March 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ᴕ
mmm...it is U+1D15 in Unicode...so probably you don't have the right fonts.
It looks a little like this: http://www.decodeunicode.org/data/glyph/196x196/1D15.gif
March 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word swain
"A jovial swain should not complain of any buxom fair / Who mocks his pain and thinks it gain to quiz his awkward air."
An ingenious couplet notable for containing all letters of the English alphabet save one.
March 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ᴕ
A most useful and curious creature. Anybody have any clue what it could be used for?
March 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word forte
When used in music it is from the Italian and partakes of two syllables.
When used as a synonym for something one is good at it derives from the French through the sport of fencing, and only has one.
This is really not that difficult. This however continues to be one of the stock stupidities that people commonly refuse to correct because "everyone else does it that way". Well, everyone else who's uneducated, at least.
March 18, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word maenad
Not to be confused with a monad.
March 15, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fufluns
No! He's using the phascolomian option!
March 14, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word expertlessly
You know, some people have no trouble at all screwing up.
January 19, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tergiversation
"Crows hold courts of justice where sentence is passed upon Crows who do not know the mayor. After much cawing by the judge and a jury of the usual sort the defendant is torn to pieces to teach him a lesson. All and sundry then repair to a nearby tree to commit simony, petty larceny, tergiversation, and misfeasance, evict a few widows and orphans, double-cross one another, and make more laws. After a good laugh they hold evening prayers and go to roost in the wrong nests."
Will Cuppy, "How To Tell Your Friends From The Apes"
January 12, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word nettopherous
Used of rivers: 'the nettopherous Scamander'
November 9, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word nettopherous
Duck-carrying.
November 7, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word autocomplete
The thought gives paws to all who ponder...
September 27, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word somnabulist
I got into a ramshackle contraption, driven by a knock-kneed, broken-winded somnambulist, which his owner, in a moment of enthusiasm, during conversation, referred to as a horse.
-Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
September 24, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word aphelion
Surprisingly, this word is pronounced properly "a-phelion" instead of the common "ap-helion", as in Greek the pi + rough breathing elides to phi. Granted, in the more ancient pronunciation phi *is in fact pronounced as an aspirated pi, but that approaches pedantry. For comparison see ephemeral.
September 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word hayastan
looks like WeirdNet to me
August 28, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the list cities-i-am-sick-of-seeing-destroyed-in-disaster-movies
Come on, Washington deserves it...
August 26, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word hir
Useless when pronounced.
August 25, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the list well-known-places-youve-never-heard-of
Tickled pink that I recognized four, and two of rolig's, and guessed two more.
August 25, 2008
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