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.
Lincoln had a way of being eloquent without being flowery; he realized that the key to great speaking is sentence structure in basic English with a few choice words thrown in, rather than a thousand polysyllables all in a gangling heap.
What I meant by archaism is that the use of 'deserts' in the English language is solely restricted to this construction. Anything else, one would you 'what he deserved' or something.
The speeches of Lincoln are some of the finest uses of the English language in existence. They rank directly with the King James Bible and Shakespeare.
I do wish you wouldn't be like this. I as well as a number of other people have really appreciated what you've contributed to this site, but it's passing unfortunate that you have chosen to make a personal issue out of 42. If you want to leave, all for the best, I'm sure, but I think a lot of people, including yourself, would be happier if you would agree to just be calm about everything and, if criticizing a word, doing so in an impersonal way.
"Monitor to note those who miss Lectures, and give their name to the Humanity Lecturer who shall punish them not by pecuniary mulcts but by tasks of making Verses, Themes, Epistles, or getting anything without book. All pecuniary mulcts of Undergraduates to be abolished, and Exercises, Admonitions, Recantations, and Expulsions (according to the nature of the crime) to succeed in their room."
-- Isaac Newton, "Of Educating Youth in Universities"
As I said, it looks like something that started light-hearted and which he proceeded to get touchy over. I've been known to get shirty, especially over the internet, over things that I shouldn't have, and once I cooled down and apologised everything was fine. But contumely tends towards aggravation rather than amelioration. All I'm sayin'.
Geny would be from genēsis, or beginning (identical to our genesis). So the beginning of being would bring to head again the beginning of species. Silly little idea.
Zmays! Here's something that's gotten all out of hand! Let's all cool a bit, somewhere to the level of a Bose-Einstein condensate. I'm sure logos realises he was out of line, so let's not get anthropoctonous about this. If we all consider the matter with sagacity and not fractiousness, there will be no need for Schadenfreude to be added to my list
Let us neither traduce one another nor palliate the offense. Logos, I would urge you to apologise...you've used heavy words for just a spot of silliness (and silliness is quite common to this place). But some of you others also came down really hard on him, when you could have gone about this whole business with civility instead of ignivomoushistrionics and fescenninehadeharia. At any rate, I shall be quite lugubrious if anyone has to leave over this.
POOH-BAH. Merely corroborative detail intended to give artistic verisimilitude to a bald and----
KO-KO. Will you refrain from putting in your oar? (To Mikado.) It's like this: When your Majesty says, "Let a thing be done," it's as good as done--practically, it is done--because your Majesty's will is law. Your Majesty says, "Kill a
gentleman," and a gentleman is told off to be killed.
Consequently, that gentleman is as good as dead--practically, he is dead--and if he is dead, why not say so?
MIKADO. I see. Nothing could possibly be more satisfactory!
KO-KO, PITTI-SING, and POOH-BAH. Oh, yes--we can wait till then!
MIKADO. Then we'll make it after luncheon.
POOH-BAH. I don't want any lunch.
MIKADO. I'm really very sorry for you all, but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado
(that last line is one of the best in the entire language, seconded only closely by Westley in the Princess Bride: "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says otherwise is only trying to sell something.")
NANKI-POO. I am about to terminate an unendurable existence.
KO-KO. Terminate your existence? Oh, nonsense! What for?
NANKI-POO. Because you are going to marry the girl I adore.
KO-KO. Nonsense, sir. I won't permit it. I am a humane man, and if you attempt anything of the kind I shall order your instant arrest. Come, sir, desist at once or I summon my guard.
NANKI-POO. That's absurd. If you attempt to raise an alarm, I instantly perform the Happy Despatch with this dagger.
The Solicitor is a rare unspeaking major part in a Savoy opera, representing Mr. Bunthorne the Aesthetic Poet in Patience. Mr. Bunthorne announces that his Solicitor has given him the advice to raffle himself off for marriage, after which the horrified suitors of the young ladies purchasing tickets curse him off the stage. Many directors take advantage of his silence yet presence on stage for a good deal of time for some situational comedy.
Dragoons were generally light cavalry, used as a sort of police or guerrilla force on occasion, which is where the verb form comes in. So it was kind of silly for Gilbert to talk about "Heavy Dragoons", it being an oxymoron. (See residuum for citation.)
The name came from the carbine they originally used, called a dragon.
Originally akel-dama, field of blood, in Aramaic. In the Bible, Judas bought a field with the money he received from betraying Jesus, then, overcome with guilt, hanged himself above it, after which his body fell and burst open, and this name was given to it. Now chiefly poetical.
DUKE. I began, at last, to think that man was born bent at an angle of forty-five degrees! Great heavens, what is there to adulate in me? Am I particularly intelligent, or remarkably studious, or excruciatingly witty, or unusually accomplished, or exceptionally virtuous?
GUISEPPE: It's quite simple. Observe. Two husbands have managed to acquire three wives. Three wives--two husbands. (Reckoning up.) That's two-thirds of a husband to each wife.
TESSA: O Mount Vesuvius, here we are in arithmetic! My good sir, one can't marry a vulgar fraction!
GIUSEPPE: You've no right to call me a vulgar fraction!
-- several characters at different moments in Gilbert & Sullivan's "Patience"; it is pronounced there to rhyme with 'die', which apparently used to be a valid pronunciation.
Ah! then you mean to say that this gentleman's smoke, instead of emulating the example of all other sorts of smoke, and going up the chimney, thinks proper to affect a singularity by taking the contrary direction?
I participated in the vivisection of a frog last year. We bathed it in cocaine first, so it died happy. I subsequently removed its heart, which continued beating for an hour afterwards.
Elision was used in Greek to avoid pausis, a glottal stop between two vowels, which they considered ugly. Hence we got silly constructs like ta auta becoming tauta, rendering the word for 'the same things' virtually identical to the one for 'that' with the minor exception of having an unused breathing mark left in the middle of the word.
There's a character in Comenius's Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart whose name is translated in English 'Searchall Ubiquitous'. He turns out to be rather a rogue...
There is a great deal of debate as to the pronunciation of classical Greek (and what I said earlier I meant to apply only to general American pronunciation). I'd heard that alpha had two distinct sounds, but other theories do exist. It's probably just my archaicism coming across, but I'd rather not pronounce according to the way the Vowel Shift has gone when there's a perfectly good Greek cognate to base my pedantry off of. And I may be wrong about the accent of ouranos, I don't have any of my references with me, but I thought I remembered the accent being nearer the front. If I remember my rules correctly, it's unusual to have an accent on the ultimate in a three-syllable word; I guess because the penult and ultimate are both short it might be on the penult, but I really would have thought it was on the antepenult.
Remember, however, that long a in Greek is the difference between 'father' and 'cat'. If it were truly what we consider as long a, it would be transcribed ē (and often those are mispronounced as an English long e!) Based on the pronunciation of the Greek, I would recommend 'oo-rahn-us' with stress on either first or second syllable (the Greek would actually take the first, or sometimes third depending on declension, but the second sounds better imo...)
The thirteenth month of the calendar. Bet you didn't know there were thirteen months, did you? In fact, you can technically have as many months as you want. Our Gregorian calendar only uses twelve of them. But certain calendars, such as the Hebrew or Arabian, have the potentiality for thirteen months: and to support these in computer programs, specifically the Java language, the term Undecimber was introduced.
The name derives from the Latin undecim, or eleven.
I picked up this usage from my father, an investor; he would call something 'a real bear' if it was particularly difficult, troublesome, or annoying, as in "the Beltway was a real bear to drive this morning" or "setting up that program can be a real bear unless you know how to do it".
Venice about that time is a classic example of a thalassocracy. Spain or England is less good, as they had extensive land-based colonies. A thalassocracy is where the power is almost 100% in ships and islands and trade, i.e. early Renaissance Venice, classical Athens, or (the ultimate example) the mediaeval-era Hanseatic League of the North and Baltic Seas.
In Cheaper By The Dozen (or its sequel; can't remember) the mother tells the girls that it is improper to make a 'depreciating moue'...or something to that effect.
"...if NATIONAL REVIEW is superfluous, it is so for very different reasons: It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it."
Guy: I got this problem, I keep getting these emails.
Me: Emails?
Guy: Yeah, and I can't understand a word of them, they're all letters and numbers all jumbled up, can't make head nor tail of them.
Me: So where are you getting these emails from?
Guy: I don't know, they're all from a guy named Damon. I don't know who he is, I thought maybe he worked with you guys.
Me: Damon?
Guy: Yeah, Mailer Daemon. You know him?
Me: Ohhhhh! That's not Damon, that's DEMON! That's way above my level, that means your computer's possessed. I'm just IT, you need an exorcist.
I actually like to pronounce it as the Greek, 'daimon' with ai as in Thailand. This is actually the intermediate vowel between ay and ee, so it sounds all right for people who have been used to pronouncing it either way. This should be the general rule for all uses of the ae ligature (and oe is oi as in voice). If you have to choose something else, however, I'd take demon.
In my Ptolemy classes I misheard "apparent anomalistic motion of the sun" as "apparent and umbolistic..." So it actually doesn't mean anything. But I want it to.
* GENERAL: Why do I sit here? To escape from the pirates' clutches, I described myself as an orphan; and, heaven help me, I am no orphan! I come here to humble myself before the tombs of my ancestors, and to implore their pardon for having brought dishonour on the family escutcheon.
FREDERIC: But you forget, sir, you only bought the property a year ago, and the stucco on your baronial castle is scarcely dry.
GENERAL: Frederic, in this chapel are ancestors: you cannot deny that. With the estate, I bought the chapel and its contents. I don't know whose ancestors they were, but I know whose ancestors they are, and I shudder to think that their descendant by purchase (if I may so describe myself) should have brought disgrace upon what, I have no doubt, was an unstained escutcheon.
Constructing these is just totally awesome. I demonstrated it out of Euclid last year; basically you just mark off golden sections on a cube, raise equal lines perpendicularly, and connect the dots. I even made a model.
Totally awesome in the form "I deprecate the validity of that assertion." (Technically that's more the territory of depreciate, but I've sort of merged the two words into the one that sounds good.)
Never particularly run across anagnorisis before. Looks like Aristotle might have dealt with it in his Poetics. Pretty sure it doesn't mean self-knowledge. I'd have to check my lexicon or Perseus.
The morning star has other interesting names as well; the holy water sprinkler and goedendag, Dutch for 'good morning'. I agree, it is a pity that it has all three good names to itself among the three weapons.
My college also has a ceremonial mace, carried by the most senior professor at the matriculation ceremony for freshmen.
A spectacular word. Unfortunately, I can't use it in USA because nobody knows what it means, and I can't use it in Eire because I don't have the trick of using it right. So I content myself with using it to myself, now and again.
Morning star is a spiked ball on a shaft, no chain. I am a proud possessor of a flail, but most people refer to it as a mace. A mace, as was described by Wiki, is just really a club with a metal head. It was famously carried by the blind Czech general Jan Zizka.
Also, a microscopic protozoan which bears a marked resemblance to a trumpet.
In fact, Stentor is not mentioned in the Iliad but is only referenced when Hera speaks in Book V, 'with a voice like Stentor, as loud as fifty other men'.
Extremely important in Aristotle's philosophy; this is the state in which lives all men who can live lives of complete moderation (sophrosune) and fulfill their reason of existence (entelechia, translated by Joe Sachs as being-at-work-staying-itself).
Came across this word in an English translation of Comenius's Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart, an allegory. The protagonist is constantly being told not to be a wiseacre by the people who lead him around, showing him the attractions of the world, when he questions their lasting value.
As I said, the primary meaning is 'word', not 'God'; I would say rather both you and God are associated with the same concept, rather than you being associated with God. If it bothers you that much, though, there's a secondary Greek word also meaning 'word', which is rhema. Or you could pluralise and use logoi, or peri log�?n 'concerning words', or something similar.
Already we have turned all of our critical industries, all of our material resources, over to these...things...these lumps of silver and paste we call nanorobots. And now we propose to teach them intelligence? What, pray tell, will we do when these little homunculi awaken one day and announce that they have no further need of us?
Mr. Bultitude is the name of a bear in "That Hideous Strength" by C.S. Lewis. I always thought it ought to mean something, like "of great size or strength."
A spectacular word of Greek, meaning alternately words, spoken speech, written letters, numerical accounts, record-keeping, debate, discussion, speaking, logic, histories, arguments, several dozen different things, and, of course, the Christian sense as well, which superseded most of the classical sense. It covers five columns in the Comprehensive Liddell & Scott Lexicon of the Greek Language, not even beginning to mention all the subsidiary forms in which it combines with other words to make new concepts.
And then did my excellent friend Mr. Smooth-it-away laugh outright, in the midst of which cachinnation a smoke-wreath issued from his mouth and nostrils, while a twinkle of lurid flame darted out of either eye, proving indubitably that his heart was all of a red blaze. The impudent fiend! To deny the existence of Tophet, when he felt its fiery tortures raging within his breast.
-Hawthorne, The Celestial Railroad (a parody of Pilgrim's Progress)
You might be interested in the Classical Chinese poem The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den. It is a whole ten-line verse composed entirely of the sound 'shi'. It's also funny as all-get-out.
My Greek teacher used this example sentence, to illustrate participles, infinitives, and gerunds (of which the latter there are none in Greek): "The dying king was dying to die for a living."
Not averted in entire; merely averted from the 1860s. Slavery had to go one way or another; but under better leadership from the 15th president it might have gone quite a bit less bloodily.
As for Coolidge, I can only repeat what was said of him by a friend when told that he had been nominated vice-president. "But that's horrible!" he said. "I've known Cal Coolidge all my life, and he is the luckiest dog you've ever met. Harding's going to die or get assassinated or something!" I don't particularly think you can blame Coolidge really for all that happened later. Nobody saw it coming. Nobody wanted him to do anything. He, serving the will of the people, didn't do anything. I'm also somewhat of the opinion that the attempts to fix the Depression rather lengthened it. But I gave up debating politics a long time ago, when I became an apathetic anarchomonarchotheocratic anticonstitutionalist.
I like to use it as an exclamation. "Zmays!" or "Raging zmays!" for a more emphatic. The plural is all wrong, it ought to be zmayu or something like that. But it's fun to say.
(I am also known to use "domkops" as the plural. A Dutchie corrected me once, so now I know I'm wrong. But I still do it.)
No offense taken; and I certainly don't intend to lay the entire Civil War on Buchanan's doorstep. I still feel that a sufficiently strong leader could have either prevented the war in entire, or made the North's situation a good bit better than it ended up being. Just as not the entire blame for the Iraq War can be laid on Bush's doorstep.
Doing nothing as president can be really good -- I cite Coolidge as an example of somebody who did nothing for near six years while nothing went wrong. If you have crisis unfolding under you, like Buchanan, it can be awful.
Pous being a type-3 Greek noun, the plural is podes, in two syllables. This is a rare form; more commonly, as in hippopotamus, the plural will take the form hippopotamoi. Rhinoceros becomes rhinocera (although that also is irregular, as it ought to be rhinocerata).
Which can progress from "leaving the cripples and stout old ladies simply nowhere", a line from Jerome K. Jerome, to "what if they were from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania? They would be teetotalers and object to stout!" to "well, are we applying stout to these old ladies or not?" to "yes, apply the stout to them, straight from the bottle!"
Drives me berserk when people pronounce it to rhyme with 'anal'. Makes me simply wild! It is pronounced how yarb explained; anything else is simply indicative of where your mind's been.
Come on! Those are a study in genius and honesty compared with Buchanan, Harding, Grant, Pierce, and the redoubtable William Henry Harrison (although truth be told, he accomplished about as much as Coolidge, the chief crime which can be urged against him being that he was not bright enough to come in out of the rain).
Buchanan particularly. If Bush by dishonesty got us into the Iraq War, Buchanan by cowardice and incompetence got us into the Civil War.
One wielding a gonfalon. In mediaeval Florence, one of the highest offices in the city was the Gonfalonier of Justice, which I think is just the coolest title ever.
The truest Greek autantonym, meaning both awesome, awful, terrible, terrific, horrible, horrific, amazing, astounding, shocking, disgusting, in all the meanings of all those words. English cognate in deinos + sauros (lizard)
I had thought the etymology was because the Republicans crossing party lines to vote for Grover Cleveland had their "mugs" on one side of the fence, and their "wumps" on the other.
In the villages men knew better. There they remembered the threnes that had been composed when news came that the city had fallen, punished by God for its luxury, its pride and its apostasy, but fighting a heroic battle to the end. They remembered that dreadful Tuesday, a day that all true Greeks still know to be of ill omen; but their spirits tingled and their courage rose as they told of the last Christian Emperor standing in the breach, abandoned by his Western allies, holding the infidel at bay till their numbers overpowered him and he died, with the Empire as his winding-sheet.
Comments by milosrdenstvi
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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
milosrdenstvi commented on the word orchidaceae
Oh, I HATE it when they write rhos like that! Only slightly better than the kappas that are indistinguishable from chis!
August 24, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word llogos
Wooo, Ballamer!
August 24, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word llogos
* Resident punnist begs to inform that there is a sort of major conflagration known as a "three-alarmer".
August 23, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word excrescence
Goes well with keratinous. "My keratinous excrescences have been rather growing rapidly of late!"
August 23, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the list spellingb-s-list
I DON'T KNOW THE MEANINGS OF ALL OF THOSE WORDS, BUT HERE ARE SOME:
TECTONIC: OF OR RELATING TO THE GERMAN NATION
HALCYON: A SORT OF A KINGFISHER BIRD
AMALGAM: WHEN MIXED RACES GET MARRIED
BELLIGERENCE: THE ACT OF RINGING A BELL
AMORPHOUS: RESEMBLING A MORPHO BUTTERFLY
ABSOLUTISM: HAVING OR BEARING A PREFERENCE FOR ABSOLUT VODKA
GERRYMANDERING: THE ACT OF TORTURING SALAMANDERS BY CALLING THEM ALL GERRY
TURPITUDE: A FANBOY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND AND THEIR ATHLETIC TEAMS, CALLED THE TURPS.
HOPE THESE HELP
August 23, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word improprietous
A useful and bombastic way to say improper. By analogy with iniquitous and hypocritous.
August 23, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dastard
Which explains someone being dastardly.
August 23, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word shamela
I had a friend who was once a Charismatic, and parodied speaking glossolalia with the mantra "shamela shamela shamela shamela shamela shamela"
August 23, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word δαίμων
See daemon.
August 22, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word askance
No, more like "Why dost thou look askance at me?"
August 22, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bezoar
similar to a trichobezoar, I suppose
August 22, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word 42
In fact, there are 42 letters in the top ten most wordied! (Take that statement how you want.)
August 22, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word just deserts
point taken
August 22, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the list prosie-lincoln-s-second-inaugural-address
Lincoln had a way of being eloquent without being flowery; he realized that the key to great speaking is sentence structure in basic English with a few choice words thrown in, rather than a thousand polysyllables all in a gangling heap.
August 22, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word 39
I've always been partial to the numbers 22 and 47, myself...although 83 is really nice as well, and of course you can't forget 129.
August 22, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word just deserts
What I meant by archaism is that the use of 'deserts' in the English language is solely restricted to this construction. Anything else, one would you 'what he deserved' or something.
August 22, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the list prosie-lincoln-s-second-inaugural-address
The speeches of Lincoln are some of the finest uses of the English language in existence. They rank directly with the King James Bible and Shakespeare.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the list the-fantastical-repertoire-of-captain-haddock
Aye, that was my source for a good number of them...I decided 100 was enough for a good flavouring...
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the list the-fantastical-repertoire-of-captain-haddock
Anybody familiar with this ignivomous rhetoric? Any favourites that I missed?
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word just deserts
But it's not cacti and cow skulls -- it's getting what you deserve. I suppose you might call it an archaicism for 'deservings'.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word passing
Probably true. I was actually unsure. Note that my examples can be construed either way.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word passing
Useful as a modifier of intensity: "passing strange that the moon should be purple to-night!" "That's passing early for Joe to be awake."
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the user super-logos
I do wish you wouldn't be like this. I as well as a number of other people have really appreciated what you've contributed to this site, but it's passing unfortunate that you have chosen to make a personal issue out of 42. If you want to leave, all for the best, I'm sure, but I think a lot of people, including yourself, would be happier if you would agree to just be calm about everything and, if criticizing a word, doing so in an impersonal way.
God bless,
T.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word 42
Dodged a bullet on that o--- no! ouch!
Must be the shine of all those gold medals. I am going to go compose an ode in elegiac couplets.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ergodic
Probably from Greek ergos work, and thus related to ergatic.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rhema
a spoken word
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word logomacheator
(six syllables, not five)
one who wars about words
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word logographer
one who writes words
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mulct
"Monitor to note those who miss Lectures, and give their name to the Humanity Lecturer who shall punish them not by pecuniary mulcts but by tasks of making Verses, Themes, Epistles, or getting anything without book. All pecuniary mulcts of Undergraduates to be abolished, and Exercises, Admonitions, Recantations, and Expulsions (according to the nature of the crime) to succeed in their room."
-- Isaac Newton, "Of Educating Youth in Universities"
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word appalling
Have you seen her? She's something appalling!
-- The Mikado
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word objurgate
I objurgate the centipede,
A bug we do not really need.
At sleepy-time he beats a path
Straight to the bedroom or the bath.
You always wallop where he's not,
And if you do, he leaves a spot.
-- Ogden Nash
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word 42
Well, maybe we'll pass it again on the way back down.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word 42
As I said, it looks like something that started light-hearted and which he proceeded to get touchy over. I've been known to get shirty, especially over the internet, over things that I shouldn't have, and once I cooled down and apologised everything was fine. But contumely tends towards aggravation rather than amelioration. All I'm sayin'.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word snickersnee
I don't know; the vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ontia
Geny would be from genēsis, or beginning (identical to our genesis). So the beginning of being would bring to head again the beginning of species. Silly little idea.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word spot
A useful term for 'a bit of', as in, "I'll have a spot of orange juice, please?"
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word 42
Zmays! Here's something that's gotten all out of hand! Let's all cool a bit, somewhere to the level of a Bose-Einstein condensate. I'm sure logos realises he was out of line, so let's not get anthropoctonous about this. If we all consider the matter with sagacity and not fractiousness, there will be no need for Schadenfreude to be added to my list
Let us neither traduce one another nor palliate the offense. Logos, I would urge you to apologise...you've used heavy words for just a spot of silliness (and silliness is quite common to this place). But some of you others also came down really hard on him, when you could have gone about this whole business with civility instead of ignivomous histrionics and fescennine hadeharia. At any rate, I shall be quite lugubrious if anyone has to leave over this.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word doughty
DUKE. When, to evade Destruction's hand,
To hide they all proceeded,
No soldier in that gallant band
Hid half as well as he did.
He lay concealed throughout the war,
And so preserved his gore, O!
That unaffected,
Undetected,
Well-connected
Warrior,
The Duke of Plaza-Toro!
ALL. In every doughty deed, ha, ha!
He always took the lead, ha, ha!
That unaffected,
Undetected,
Well-connected
Warrior,
The Duke of Plaza-Toro!
-W.S. Gilbert, The Gondoliers
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word satisfactory
KO-KO. Your Majesty, it's like this: It is true that I stated that I had killed Nanki-Poo----
MIKADO. Yes, with most affecting particulars.
POOH-BAH. Merely corroborative detail intended to give artistic verisimilitude to a bald and----
KO-KO. Will you refrain from putting in your oar? (To Mikado.) It's like this: When your Majesty says, "Let a thing be done," it's as good as done--practically, it is done--because your Majesty's will is law. Your Majesty says, "Kill a
gentleman," and a gentleman is told off to be killed.
Consequently, that gentleman is as good as dead--practically, he is dead--and if he is dead, why not say so?
MIKADO. I see. Nothing could possibly be more satisfactory!
-- Gilbert & Sullivan
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ontia
The male participle in Greek for "being", the process of existence. Very important in philosophy, especially in (you guessed it) ontology.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ousia
The feminine of ontia; the 'being' of somebody with specific reference to his stuff.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word caricature
The flowers that bloom in the spring,
Have nothing to do with the case.
I've got to take under my wing,
A most unattractive old thing,
With a caricature of a face
And that's what I mean when I say, or I sing,
"Oh, bother the flowers that bloom in the spring."
W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word luncheon
MIKADO. Now, let's see about your execution--will
after luncheon suit you? Can you wait till then?
KO-KO, PITTI-SING, and POOH-BAH. Oh, yes--we can wait till then!
MIKADO. Then we'll make it after luncheon.
POOH-BAH. I don't want any lunch.
MIKADO. I'm really very sorry for you all, but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado
(that last line is one of the best in the entire language, seconded only closely by Westley in the Princess Bride: "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says otherwise is only trying to sell something.")
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word snickersnee
Oh, never shall I
Forget the cry,
Or the shriek that shrieked he,
As I gnashed my teeth,
When from its sheath
I drew my snickersnee!
-- The Mikado
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word elliptical
The billiard sharp who any one catches,
His doom's extremely hard--
He's made to dwell--
In a dungeon cell
On a spot that's always barred.
And there he plays extravagant matches
In fitless finger-stalls
On a cloth untrue
With a twisted cue
And elliptical billiard balls!
-- The Mikado
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word the happy despatch
KO-KO. What are you going to do with that rope?
NANKI-POO. I am about to terminate an unendurable existence.
KO-KO. Terminate your existence? Oh, nonsense! What for?
NANKI-POO. Because you are going to marry the girl I adore.
KO-KO. Nonsense, sir. I won't permit it. I am a humane man, and if you attempt anything of the kind I shall order your instant arrest. Come, sir, desist at once or I summon my guard.
NANKI-POO. That's absurd. If you attempt to raise an alarm, I instantly perform the Happy Despatch with this dagger.
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word condign
And so
Although
I wish to go,
And greatly pine
To brightly shine,
And take the line
Of hero fine,
With grief condign
I must decline!
W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word pestilential
To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock,
In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock,
Awaiting the sensation of a short sharp shock,
From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mortified
But family pride
Must be denied
And set aside
And mortified...
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word nonconnubial
The youth who winked a roving eye,
Or breathed a non-connubial sigh,
Was thereupon condemned to die--
He usually objected.
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word decrepit
Useful for describing anciented cows.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word solicitor
The Solicitor is a rare unspeaking major part in a Savoy opera, representing Mr. Bunthorne the Aesthetic Poet in Patience. Mr. Bunthorne announces that his Solicitor has given him the advice to raffle himself off for marriage, after which the horrified suitors of the young ladies purchasing tickets curse him off the stage. Many directors take advantage of his silence yet presence on stage for a good deal of time for some situational comedy.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dragoon
Dragoons were generally light cavalry, used as a sort of police or guerrilla force on occasion, which is where the verb form comes in. So it was kind of silly for Gilbert to talk about "Heavy Dragoons", it being an oxymoron. (See residuum for citation.)
The name came from the carbine they originally used, called a dragon.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word aceldama
Originally akel-dama, field of blood, in Aramaic. In the Bible, Judas bought a field with the money he received from betraying Jesus, then, overcome with guilt, hanged himself above it, after which his body fell and burst open, and this name was given to it. Now chiefly poetical.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word frolicsome
Gentle sir, my heart is frolicsome and free...
Gilbert, Patience.
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word vivisection
Gentle Jane was as good as gold,
She always did as she was told;
She never spoke when her mouth was full,
Or caught bluebottles their legs to pull,
Or spilt plum jam on her nice new frock,
Or put white mice in the eight-day clock,
Or vivisected her last new doll,
Or fostered a passion for alcohol.
And when she grew up she was given in marriage
To a first-class earl who keeps his carriage!
-- W.S. Gilbert, Patience
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word idyll
If I had been so lucky as to have a steady brother
Who could talk to me as we are talking now to one another –
Who could give me good advice when he discovered I was erring
(Which is just the very favour which on you I am conferring),
My existence would have made a rather interesting idyll,
And I might have lived and died a very decent indiwiddle.
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter!
-- W.S. Gilbert, Ruddigore
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word amaranthine
What time the poet hath hymned
The writhing maid, lithe-limbed,
Quivering on amaranthine asphodel,
How can he paint her woes,
Knowing, as well he knows,
That all can be set right with calomel?
-- Bunthorne, the Aesthetic Poet, in W.S. Gilbert's Patience
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word excruciatingly
DUKE. I began, at last, to think that man was born bent at an angle of forty-five degrees! Great heavens, what is there to adulate in me? Am I particularly intelligent, or remarkably studious, or excruciatingly witty, or unusually accomplished, or exceptionally virtuous?
soldiers begin to titter as DUKE speaks, gradually giggling, laughing, and roaring outright at his final words
-- W.S. Gilbert, Patience
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word residuum
Ah! Take of these elements all that is fusible,
Melt them all down in a pipkin or crucible,
Set them to simmer, and take off the scum,
And a Heavy Dragoon is the residuum!
-- W.S. Gilbert, Patience
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word merriment
My object all sublime
I will achieve in time,
To let the punishment fit the crime,
The punishment fit the crime,
And make each pris'ner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment,
Of innocent merriment.
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the user super-logos
Creating a new list, select the bottom option of allowing anybody to contribute
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word vulgar fraction
GUISEPPE: It's quite simple. Observe. Two husbands have managed to acquire three wives. Three wives--two husbands. (Reckoning up.) That's two-thirds of a husband to each wife.
TESSA: O Mount Vesuvius, here we are in arithmetic! My good sir, one can't marry a vulgar fraction!
GIUSEPPE: You've no right to call me a vulgar fraction!
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Gondoliers
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fingerette
Take a tender little hand,
Fringed with dainty fingerettes...
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Gondoliers
August 21, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word skeletonic
As in 'skeletonic keys'.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word coster
Also, someone who attacks his parents.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word constabulary
When constabulary duty's to be done, to be done, a policeman's life is not an happy one.
-- The Pirates of Penzance
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word felonious
When a felon's not engaged in his employment,
Or maturing his felonious little plans,
His capacity for innocent enjoyment
Is just as great as any honest man's.
-- The Pirates of Penzance
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word emeutes
For when threatened with emeutes,
Tarantara! tarantara!
And your heart is in your boots,
Tarantara!
There is nothing brings it round
Like the trumpet's martial sound,
Like the trumpet's martial sound!
I think it means riots, of some sort. From the Pirates of Penzance.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word diction
"If I hadn't in elegant diction
Indulged in an innocent fiction
Which is not in the same category
As telling a regular terrible story."
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word orphan
Not to be mistaken for 'often'.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word commissariat
'When I know precisely what is meant by commissariat'
-- The Major-General's Song in the Pirates of Penzance
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word caravanserai
Hold, monsters! Ere your pirate caravanserai
Proceed, against our will, to wed us all,
Just bear in mind that we are Wards in Chancery,
And father is a Major-General!
-- The Pirates of Penzance
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word parsonified
Here's a first-rate opportunity
To get married with impunity,
And indulge in the felicity
Of unbounded domesticity.
You shall quickly be parsonified,
Conjugally matrimonified,
By a doctor of divinity,
Who resides in this vicinity.
-- The Pirates of Penzance
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word homely face
Oh, is there not one maiden here
Whose homely face and bad complexion
Have caused all hope to disappear
Of ever winning man's affection?
To such an one, if such there be,
I swear by Heaven's arch above you,
If you will cast your eyes on me,
However plain you be, I'll love you!
-- The Pirates of Penzance
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sympathy
In that case unprecendented
Single I shall live and die,
I shall have to be contented
With your heartfelt sympathy.
-- several characters at different moments in Gilbert & Sullivan's "Patience"; it is pronounced there to rhyme with 'die', which apparently used to be a valid pronunciation.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fervid
Your love would be uncomfortably
fervid, it is clear
If, as you are stating
It's been accumulating
Forty-seven year.
-- Pirates of Penzance
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sanctimonious
Oh, better far to live and die
Under the brave black flag I fly,
Than play a sanctimonious part,
With a pirate head and a pirate heart.
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word capital
Also a useful synonym for excellent.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word vociferate
Sit down, sir - or I'll instantly vociferate "Police!"
-- Cox and Box
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word phiz
Archaic Britishism for face.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rasher
As in a 'rasher of bacon'.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word singularity
Ah! then you mean to say that this gentleman's smoke, instead of emulating the example of all other sorts of smoke, and going up the chimney, thinks proper to affect a singularity by taking the contrary direction?
-- Cox and Box
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gyrate
Mistaking my instructions, which within my brain did gyrate,
I took and bound this promising boy apprentice to a pirate.
Ruth, The Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert & Sullivan
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rataplan
The centerpiece of an aria sung by Sergeant Bouncer of his days in the army in Cox & Box.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word protuberant
Bouncer. Good morning, Colonel Cox. I hope you slept comfortably, Colonel.
Cox. I can't say I did, B. I should feel obliged to you, if you could accommodate me
with a more protuberant bolster, B. The one I’ve got now seems to me to have
about a handful and a half of feathers at each end, and nothing whatever in the
middle.
-- Cox and Box
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word burglary
Confused by the Attorney for the Defense with bigamy in Gilbert & Sullivan's 'Trial by Jury'.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word overbearing
Oh, the monster overbearing!
Don't go near him, he is swearing!
-- Cousin Hebe in H.M.S. Pinafore, by W.S. Gilbert
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word emollient
Hail, poetry, thou heav'n-born maid!
Thou gildest e'en the pirate's trade!
Hail, flowing fount of sentiment!
All hail, all hail, Divine Emollient!
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance
I really ought to do a G&S list.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word vivisection
I participated in the vivisection of a frog last year. We bathed it in cocaine first, so it died happy. I subsequently removed its heart, which continued beating for an hour afterwards.
Awesome!!
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word elision
Elision was used in Greek to avoid pausis, a glottal stop between two vowels, which they considered ugly. Hence we got silly constructs like ta auta becoming tauta, rendering the word for 'the same things' virtually identical to the one for 'that' with the minor exception of having an unused breathing mark left in the middle of the word.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ubiquitous
There's a character in Comenius's Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart whose name is translated in English 'Searchall Ubiquitous'. He turns out to be rather a rogue...
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word uranus
There is a great deal of debate as to the pronunciation of classical Greek (and what I said earlier I meant to apply only to general American pronunciation). I'd heard that alpha had two distinct sounds, but other theories do exist. It's probably just my archaicism coming across, but I'd rather not pronounce according to the way the Vowel Shift has gone when there's a perfectly good Greek cognate to base my pedantry off of. And I may be wrong about the accent of ouranos, I don't have any of my references with me, but I thought I remembered the accent being nearer the front. If I remember my rules correctly, it's unusual to have an accent on the ultimate in a three-syllable word; I guess because the penult and ultimate are both short it might be on the penult, but I really would have thought it was on the antepenult.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word undecimber
That may be, but Undecimber is the term used; contrary to what is normal, I didn't coin this one!
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word uranus
Remember, however, that long a in Greek is the difference between 'father' and 'cat'. If it were truly what we consider as long a, it would be transcribed ē (and often those are mispronounced as an English long e!) Based on the pronunciation of the Greek, I would recommend 'oo-rahn-us' with stress on either first or second syllable (the Greek would actually take the first, or sometimes third depending on declension, but the second sounds better imo...)
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word pusillanimous
Shrivel and die, you pusillanimous wimp!
-- SMAC insult given to head of U.N.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word undecimber
The thirteenth month of the calendar. Bet you didn't know there were thirteen months, did you? In fact, you can technically have as many months as you want. Our Gregorian calendar only uses twelve of them. But certain calendars, such as the Hebrew or Arabian, have the potentiality for thirteen months: and to support these in computer programs, specifically the Java language, the term Undecimber was introduced.
The name derives from the Latin undecim, or eleven.
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bear
I picked up this usage from my father, an investor; he would call something 'a real bear' if it was particularly difficult, troublesome, or annoying, as in "the Beltway was a real bear to drive this morning" or "setting up that program can be a real bear unless you know how to do it".
August 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bose-einstein condensate
A totally awesome state of matter.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word thalassocracy
Venice about that time is a classic example of a thalassocracy. Spain or England is less good, as they had extensive land-based colonies. A thalassocracy is where the power is almost 100% in ships and islands and trade, i.e. early Renaissance Venice, classical Athens, or (the ultimate example) the mediaeval-era Hanseatic League of the North and Baltic Seas.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word i.e.
Not to be confused with e.g.! The two are not interchangeable.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word fair to middling
Learnt this phrase in Uncle Remus.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mace
I think a chain mace might have unspiked balls. Probably the terms have some serious blending.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word recalcitrant
Useful to describe children. "Ma'am, I'm afraid your child has been quite recalcitrant."
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word redolent
"Our new cars, redolent of pine, spruce, and other all-natural scents..."
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word comestibles
To be humourously contrasted with combustibles.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word panache
Brought into English by Rostand in his play Cyrano de Bergerac; his dying words declare that it is the only thing that cannot be taken away from him.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word littoral
"A Long Littoral" was one of the assets of a successful country described by President T. Roosevelt.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word moue
In Cheaper By The Dozen (or its sequel; can't remember) the mother tells the girls that it is improper to make a 'depreciating moue'...or something to that effect.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gryphon
A form I much prefer to griffin.
This also has the much-sought rare distinction of containing the three consecutive letters 'gry', though not ending with them.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word athwart
"...if NATIONAL REVIEW is superfluous, it is so for very different reasons: It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it."
-- Wm. F. Buckley
I always thought that was a neat turn of phrase.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word daemon
Conversation I had working IT:
Guy: I got this problem, I keep getting these emails.
Me: Emails?
Guy: Yeah, and I can't understand a word of them, they're all letters and numbers all jumbled up, can't make head nor tail of them.
Me: So where are you getting these emails from?
Guy: I don't know, they're all from a guy named Damon. I don't know who he is, I thought maybe he worked with you guys.
Me: Damon?
Guy: Yeah, Mailer Daemon. You know him?
Me: Ohhhhh! That's not Damon, that's DEMON! That's way above my level, that means your computer's possessed. I'm just IT, you need an exorcist.
I actually like to pronounce it as the Greek, 'daimon' with ai as in Thailand. This is actually the intermediate vowel between ay and ee, so it sounds all right for people who have been used to pronouncing it either way. This should be the general rule for all uses of the ae ligature (and oe is oi as in voice). If you have to choose something else, however, I'd take demon.
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word brogue
Isn't this also a sort of an accent?
August 19, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word anhedonia
From Greek hedonē, pleasure, and a-privative.
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word hypocritous
Minor coinage; virtually identical with 'hypocritical'.
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word umbolistic
In my Ptolemy classes I misheard "apparent anomalistic motion of the sun" as "apparent and umbolistic..." So it actually doesn't mean anything. But I want it to.
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the list creative-phone-answering
Unfortunately, yes; one must re-add the deleted word.
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word hierophant
A prophet; from Greek: 'hiera' holy things 'phanein' to bring to light.
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word omnibus
Just a so-much-funnier way to say bus. Quick! Get on that omnibus!
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word taximeter cabriolet
Just a so-much-more-pedantic way to say taxicab.
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ambuscade
Just a so-much-cooler way to say 'ambush'.
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gynander
From Greek 'gune', woman, and 'aner' ('andros' related form), man.
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word phlogiston
See also dephlogisticated.
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word artefact
how does this differ from artifact?
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word brother, can you spare a dime
Once I built a railroad, made it run, made it race against time,
Once I built a railroad, now it's done, brother can you spare a dime?
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ktisis
Creation.
August 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word neume
That's silly. Why don't you just use pneuma? For some reason English speakers are frightened of more than two consonants beginning a word. So they drop the beginnings of gnomon, Ptolemy, pterodactyl, chthonic, pneumatic, psychology, mnemonic, Cnidarian, bdellium, and the wonderful middle of phenolphthalein, in addition to who knows what else. But it's fun to begin a word with two consonants! Similar wishy-washiness is seen beginning words with x; Xerxes and xanthrophyll are not Zerkzes and zanthrophil! It's particularly annoying with words that begin with ps -- that's one letter and pronounced as one letter! We don't say Cyclos, we say Cyclops -- so why not psalter?
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word maladicta
Malacious -- like malicious and salacious at the same time!
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word christopher lee
I.E. in a stentorian or Cape Horn voice?
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word praying mantis
One of Ogden Nash's finest:
From whence arrived the praying mantis?
From outer space, or lost Atlantis?
I glimpse the grin, green metal mug
That masks the pseudo-saintly bug,
Orthopterous, also carnivorous,
And faintly whisper, Lord deliver us.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word domicile
A word I use as a regular synonym to home, often in conjunction with resident as in resident domicile. It's pretentious as gehunteschpundt, but it makes me feel good. :)
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word kosmos
A form I prefer to cosmos, but that's just me.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word swimmingly
A word I am fond of.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word oleaginous
Rather like unctuous. I'm not sure which I like better!
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word naufragous
Sounds like you could use it as an adjective for reefs or rocks.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word callistilogical
Pertaining to, or having the property of being, the most beautiful word. A coinage.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word laconic
Laconic tends to me more about spare speech, and spartan more about spare living....
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word langton’s ant
Is it formicatious?
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word eximious
A word which describes itself.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the list scambiguous
That's bizarre!!
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word deprecate
Because I generally use it more in the sense of "I don't think so" instead of "that's WRONG!"
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dodecahedron
It is often referred to by lower forms of life as a 'D12'.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gnomon
Also, the L-shaped thing left over when you remove a square from the corner of a square. Used extensively in Euclidean geometry. The g is pronounced.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mace
A friend gave it to me. I am utterly innocent of the knowledge of how he came about it.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word escutcheon
* GENERAL: Why do I sit here? To escape from the pirates' clutches, I described myself as an orphan; and, heaven help me, I am no orphan! I come here to humble myself before the tombs of my ancestors, and to implore their pardon for having brought dishonour on the family escutcheon.
FREDERIC: But you forget, sir, you only bought the property a year ago, and the stucco on your baronial castle is scarcely dry.
GENERAL: Frederic, in this chapel are ancestors: you cannot deny that. With the estate, I bought the chapel and its contents. I don't know whose ancestors they were, but I know whose ancestors they are, and I shudder to think that their descendant by purchase (if I may so describe myself) should have brought disgrace upon what, I have no doubt, was an unstained escutcheon.
-- W.S. Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dodecahedron
Constructing these is just totally awesome. I demonstrated it out of Euclid last year; basically you just mark off golden sections on a cube, raise equal lines perpendicularly, and connect the dots. I even made a model.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cape horn voice
Making Capt. Aubrey distentorian, then? Perhaps supradistentorian?
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word deprecate
Totally awesome in the form "I deprecate the validity of that assertion." (Technically that's more the territory of depreciate, but I've sort of merged the two words into the one that sounds good.)
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word supercilious
See my interesting client,
Victim of a heartless wile!
See the traitor all defiant
Wear a supercilious smile!
Sweetly smiled my client on him,
Coyly woo'd and gently won him.
-W.S. Gilbert, 'Trial by Jury'
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mooncalves
Foo-Foo the First, King of the Mooncalves!
-Twain.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word eudaimonia
Never particularly run across anagnorisis before. Looks like Aristotle might have dealt with it in his Poetics. Pretty sure it doesn't mean self-knowledge. I'd have to check my lexicon or Perseus.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word thus
Pardon me, but I'm off to play the grand piano.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word craic
Quite; it merely means, roughly, something going on...Wiki explains it better, link below.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word lambaste
Is lambaste or lambast more correct?
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mace
The morning star has other interesting names as well; the holy water sprinkler and goedendag, Dutch for 'good morning'. I agree, it is a pity that it has all three good names to itself among the three weapons.
My college also has a ceremonial mace, carried by the most senior professor at the matriculation ceremony for freshmen.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word personages
Camille Saint-Saens, in writing his 'Carnival of the Animals', called one movement 'Personages with Long Ears' (subtitled) 'Critics'.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word onager
Cited by Ogden Nash:
Have ever you harked to the jackass wild,
Which scientists call the onager?
It sounds like the laugh of an idiot child,
Or a hepcat on a harmoniger.
But do not sneer at the jackass wild,
There is a method in his heehaw.
For with maidenly blush and accent mild
The jenny-ass answers shee-haw.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word craic
A spectacular word. Unfortunately, I can't use it in USA because nobody knows what it means, and I can't use it in Eire because I don't have the trick of using it right. So I content myself with using it to myself, now and again.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mace
Morning star is a spiked ball on a shaft, no chain. I am a proud possessor of a flail, but most people refer to it as a mace. A mace, as was described by Wiki, is just really a club with a metal head. It was famously carried by the blind Czech general Jan Zizka.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word thus
viz. is awesome also, but useful only in writing. This is commonplace and ordinary. Thus is not used by everybody, and serves a cool purpose. IMO.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word stentorian
Also, a microscopic protozoan which bears a marked resemblance to a trumpet.
In fact, Stentor is not mentioned in the Iliad but is only referenced when Hera speaks in Book V, 'with a voice like Stentor, as loud as fifty other men'.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mace
The stereotypical mace, with spiked balls and chain, is in fact not a mace but a flail.
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word eudaimonia
Extremely important in Aristotle's philosophy; this is the state in which lives all men who can live lives of complete moderation (sophrosune) and fulfill their reason of existence (entelechia, translated by Joe Sachs as being-at-work-staying-itself).
August 16, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word tabor
Also, a military formation of circled wagons (like a laager).
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word lăutari
Romanian musicians who play at weddings.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word onager
A wild or feral donkey, originally; it was adopted as a Roman name for a catapult. Apparently it kicks about as hard.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word passacaglia
A musical theme and variations on a bass line. Bach wrote a very famous one.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word hemisemidemiquaver
I think it ought to be hemidemisemiquaver.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the user super-logos
As I mention at logos, rhema is an alternate word, as are alternate forms of logos itself.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word thus
One of the most useful words in the language.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word books
I wonder how accurate those statistics are.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word anciented
I like using this word as an alternative for antiquated.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word sanguinary
I keep confusing this word with sagacity, and think it means some sort of wisdom.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word wiseacre
Came across this word in an English translation of Comenius's Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart, an allegory. The protagonist is constantly being told not to be a wiseacre by the people who lead him around, showing him the attractions of the world, when he questions their lasting value.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word pendragon
As in Arthur Pendragon; a sort of Early English nobleman.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word atheling
As in Edgar the Atheling; a sort of Early English nobleman.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word engorged
I immediately thought of disgorged...
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word qua
Actually, it looks like Aristotle didn't use anything; I just looked at a manuscript translated "man qua man" and it was just "anthropos anthropou"...
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word logos
As I said, the primary meaning is 'word', not 'God'; I would say rather both you and God are associated with the same concept, rather than you being associated with God. If it bothers you that much, though, there's a secondary Greek word also meaning 'word', which is rhema. Or you could pluralise and use logoi, or peri log�?n 'concerning words', or something similar.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word lion-eating poet in the stone den
See the Wikipedia aricle on this: a Classical Chinese poem composed entirely of the sound 'shi', in different intonations.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word homunculus
Already we have turned all of our critical industries, all of our material resources, over to these...things...these lumps of silver and paste we call nanorobots. And now we propose to teach them intelligence? What, pray tell, will we do when these little homunculi awaken one day and announce that they have no further need of us?
-- Sister Miriam Godwinson,
"We Must Dissent"
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word loquacious
"His mother, whom drink had made loquacious..."
-- Cordwainer Smith
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word yurt
I've had a lot of fun comparing ugly modern church buildings to yurts. The resemblance is really quite striking.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bultitude
Mr. Bultitude is the name of a bear in "That Hideous Strength" by C.S. Lewis. I always thought it ought to mean something, like "of great size or strength."
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word pronounced
Or marked.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rodomontade
Also spelt rhodomontade, a form I actually prefer because it means you're allowed to say it with pronounced trilled-r.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word logos
A spectacular word of Greek, meaning alternately words, spoken speech, written letters, numerical accounts, record-keeping, debate, discussion, speaking, logic, histories, arguments, several dozen different things, and, of course, the Christian sense as well, which superseded most of the classical sense. It covers five columns in the Comprehensive Liddell & Scott Lexicon of the Greek Language, not even beginning to mention all the subsidiary forms in which it combines with other words to make new concepts.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word disquisition
One of my favourites, which I use alternately to refer to talks and written papers.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word discommodious
A friend told me once that he had been referred to, by an aunt, as a 'discommodious jackanapes'. That, in my opinion, is just awesome.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word hecatomb
Famously used in Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word qua
Not quite a Greek Remark, as is my list title, but its use in Arisotle warrants its inclusion.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word propensity
Remarkably similar to a proclivity.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gharial
A sort of a sub-Indian crocodiliac.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word connexion
Used best with 'prodigious', as in 'the prodigious connexion between x and y demonstrates...'
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cachinnation
And then did my excellent friend Mr. Smooth-it-away laugh outright, in the midst of which cachinnation a smoke-wreath issued from his mouth and nostrils, while a twinkle of lurid flame darted out of either eye, proving indubitably that his heart was all of a red blaze. The impudent fiend! To deny the existence of Tophet, when he felt its fiery tortures raging within his breast.
-Hawthorne, The Celestial Railroad (a parody of Pilgrim's Progress)
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word incorrigible
Used neatly in the construct 'hopeless and incorrigible'.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the list scambiguous
You might be interested in the Classical Chinese poem The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den. It is a whole ten-line verse composed entirely of the sound 'shi'. It's also funny as all-get-out.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word homonym
My Greek teacher used this example sentence, to illustrate participles, infinitives, and gerunds (of which the latter there are none in Greek): "The dying king was dying to die for a living."
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word perspicuity
A word which, unlike bombastic, does not describe itself.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ergatic
Used in Plato's Meno accompanying zetetic; working hard.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word zetesis
The process of being zetetic; inquiring. From Greek. Verbal comrade to ergatic.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rhododendron
In my opinion, one of the funniest words in the English language.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word accident
"It was not an accident! You're not careful!"
-Neal, to Jeff.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word domkop
Dutch for blockhead, I believe. There was a wonderful children's book about Anton von Leeuwenhoek, the final lines of which were:
"This man is mad!" the people said.
"This Anton's crazy in the head!
He says he's seen a horsefly's brain.
We ought to ship him off to Spain."
(overleaf of Mr. Leeuwenhoek, looking sad, in a boat by a sign pointing forward, labelled 'To Spain.')
They called him domkop, which means 'dope'.
And that's how we got the microscope.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word pertain
Can be used as a synonym for 'belong'.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word citoyen
French 'citizen', made famous in the French Revolution and literature thereof.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word pfifltriggi
One of the four Martian races in C.S. Lewis's "Out of the Silent Planet"; mostly unseen.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word prolegomena
From Greek pros, before, and legomena, speaking.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word yeta
Not averted in entire; merely averted from the 1860s. Slavery had to go one way or another; but under better leadership from the 15th president it might have gone quite a bit less bloodily.
As for Coolidge, I can only repeat what was said of him by a friend when told that he had been nominated vice-president. "But that's horrible!" he said. "I've known Cal Coolidge all my life, and he is the luckiest dog you've ever met. Harding's going to die or get assassinated or something!" I don't particularly think you can blame Coolidge really for all that happened later. Nobody saw it coming. Nobody wanted him to do anything. He, serving the will of the people, didn't do anything. I'm also somewhat of the opinion that the attempts to fix the Depression rather lengthened it. But I gave up debating politics a long time ago, when I became an apathetic anarchomonarchotheocratic anticonstitutionalist.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word zmay
I like to use it as an exclamation. "Zmays!" or "Raging zmays!" for a more emphatic. The plural is all wrong, it ought to be zmayu or something like that. But it's fun to say.
(I am also known to use "domkops" as the plural. A Dutchie corrected me once, so now I know I'm wrong. But I still do it.)
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word acute intramalar lingualism
I would prefer calling it 'intramalar glossophony' (or 'glottophony', depending on preference for Attic dialect or not)
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word yeta
No offense taken; and I certainly don't intend to lay the entire Civil War on Buchanan's doorstep. I still feel that a sufficiently strong leader could have either prevented the war in entire, or made the North's situation a good bit better than it ended up being. Just as not the entire blame for the Iraq War can be laid on Bush's doorstep.
Doing nothing as president can be really good -- I cite Coolidge as an example of somebody who did nothing for near six years while nothing went wrong. If you have crisis unfolding under you, like Buchanan, it can be awful.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word octopodes
Pous being a type-3 Greek noun, the plural is podes, in two syllables. This is a rare form; more commonly, as in hippopotamus, the plural will take the form hippopotamoi. Rhinoceros becomes rhinocera (although that also is irregular, as it ought to be rhinocerata).
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word stout old ladies
Which can progress from "leaving the cripples and stout old ladies simply nowhere", a line from Jerome K. Jerome, to "what if they were from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania? They would be teetotalers and object to stout!" to "well, are we applying stout to these old ladies or not?" to "yes, apply the stout to them, straight from the bottle!"
Good times...
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word drivel
"At this B.'s intellect gives way, and he becomes simply drivelling."
Jerome K. Jerome, Diary of a Pilgrimage
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word banal
Drives me berserk when people pronounce it to rhyme with 'anal'. Makes me simply wild! It is pronounced how yarb explained; anything else is simply indicative of where your mind's been.
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ignivomous
something that a zmay might do
August 15, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word effluvium
Used along with effulgence to try to translate a Greek pun in some editions of Plato's Meno. (That's where I remember it from, at least.)
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word zmay
In various Slavic dialects (spelled alternately zmaj, zmiy, etc.) a worm, snake, or dragon.
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word yeta
Come on! Those are a study in genius and honesty compared with Buchanan, Harding, Grant, Pierce, and the redoubtable William Henry Harrison (although truth be told, he accomplished about as much as Coolidge, the chief crime which can be urged against him being that he was not bright enough to come in out of the rain).
Buchanan particularly. If Bush by dishonesty got us into the Iraq War, Buchanan by cowardice and incompetence got us into the Civil War.
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ultracrepidarious
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A640207
Granted, now that I look more closely, not strictly the work of the BBC...
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ice cream murders
Reminds me of the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars.
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ultracrepidarious
So I was ultracrepidarious for listing it under this form? Perhaps I was only being ultracrepidarian. On the other hand, I stole it from the BBC.
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word rathskeller
More properly ratskeller.
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gonfalon
One who uses a gonfalon is called a gonfalonier.
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word gonfalonier
One wielding a gonfalon. In mediaeval Florence, one of the highest offices in the city was the Gonfalonier of Justice, which I think is just the coolest title ever.
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word petrichor
Probably from the greek petros, rock; and ichor, the essence of the gods.
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word knave
"Silence, knave!"
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word manse
For a Presbyterian, actually, clergyman is much more likely than clergyperson.
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word deinos
The truest Greek autantonym, meaning both awesome, awful, terrible, terrific, horrible, horrific, amazing, astounding, shocking, disgusting, in all the meanings of all those words. English cognate in deinos + sauros (lizard)
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the list autantonyms-2
First couple are culled from Wikipedia. Anybody is welcome to suggest new ones and explain the reason why here.
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word ultracrepidarious
Acting or speaking beyond the sphere of actual knowledge or experience; ignorantly criticising.
August 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word bixicated
Silly; simple.
August 13, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word mugwump
I had thought the etymology was because the Republicans crossing party lines to vote for Grover Cleveland had their "mugs" on one side of the fence, and their "wumps" on the other.
August 13, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word cacophony
From the Greek kakos (bad) and phonē (sound)
August 13, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word unctuous
This word is the first that comes to mind to describe Mr. Collins from Pride and Prejudice.
August 5, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word moil
Often used, poetically, in the phrase "toil and moil".
July 31, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word halcyon
If it's derived from Greek it ought to be HAL-kee-on, or actually probably HAL-kae-on
July 29, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word physiognomy
"My aged employer, with his physiognomy
Shining from soap like a star in astronomy
Said, "Mr. Cox, you'll oblige me and honour-me
If you will take this as your holiday,
If you will take this as your holiday!"
--Cox and Box
July 14, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dephlogisticated
Unoxygenized.
July 13, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word flocculent
A brilliant word.
July 6, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word threne
In the villages men knew better. There they remembered the threnes that had been composed when news came that the city had fallen, punished by God for its luxury, its pride and its apostasy, but fighting a heroic battle to the end. They remembered that dreadful Tuesday, a day that all true Greeks still know to be of ill omen; but their spirits tingled and their courage rose as they told of the last Christian Emperor standing in the breach, abandoned by his Western allies, holding the infidel at bay till their numbers overpowered him and he died, with the Empire as his winding-sheet.
--Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople
July 5, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word elegaic
Generally: something sad. Technically: a poetic rhythm used by the Greeks to write sad poems with.
July 5, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word eupraxis
Sorry, fellows, meant to write "good deed" and had my mind on the wrong thing and wrote "good word" instead.
July 5, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word eupraxis
Derived from Greek: Good word.
July 4, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word moot
Also, when used as a noun archaically, has the sense of 'a place of meeting'. Derived, I think, from Icelandic.
July 4, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word verisimilitude
Of course, the most famous usage of it in literature:
"Corroborative detail intended to provide artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."
-- W.S. Gilbert, "The Mikado"
July 4, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word allumette
A very small shred. Originally used with potatoes, is used of paper in Little Women.
July 4, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word allumette
A very small shred. Originally used with potatoes, is used of paper in Little Women.
July 4, 2008
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