Comments by oroboros

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  • New Drug: Flipitor - Increases life expectancy of commuters by controlling road rage and the urge to flip off other drivers.

    April 28, 2010

  • A plebeian cookie rises to the stature of a champion.

    April 25, 2010

  • The stub of a broken tooth (from NPR's Says You)

    April 25, 2010

  • The kennel floor?

    April 24, 2010

  • I agree it can be "induced" by overlong staring at a word.

    April 24, 2010

  • When you dream in color it's a pigment of your imagination. :P

    April 23, 2010

  • laconic?

    April 22, 2010

  • Six-foot, seven-foot, eight-foot BUNCH!!

    April 21, 2010

  • Cued by ululate.

    April 21, 2010

  • Huh! I half expected to see queue in this list. Huh!

    April 21, 2010

  • I just knew I'd get some *groans*! :o)

    April 20, 2010

  • Off to School...

    A wealthy New York businessman who sent his two daughters to the University of California's Los Angeles campus in the hope that they would find something unusual to study there that would stir them out their apathy. He was considerably alarmed, however, when they wrote back to tell him that they both had decided to specialize in research on ancient Egyptian plumbing.

    He immediately sent them a telegram which read, "Under no circumstances will I support a couple of Pharaoh Faucet Majors!"

    April 20, 2010

  • Original name for

    April 18, 2010

  • Pat Metheny has re-invented this turn-of-the-twentieth-century contraption.

    April 17, 2010

  • See bathyscaphe.

    April 17, 2010

  • AMF, sjh.

    April 15, 2010

  • Cushing Biggs Hassell’s thousand-page History of the Church of God (1886) is notable for a single sentence — on page 580, beginning “The nineteenth is the century …”

    It’s six pages long, with 3,153 words, 360 commas, 86 semicolons, and six footnotes. Many regard it as the longest legitimate sentence ever published in a book.

    Essentially it’s one long indictment of the 19th century, proving for Hassell that “after all our progress, this is still a very sinful and miserable world.” Why he felt he had to show this in a single sentence is not clear.

    Here's it is.

    (via futilitycloset.com)

    April 14, 2010

  • "In 'Paint-by-Number' how many zeroes in a vermillion?" --from a Frazz cartoon

    April 10, 2010

  • "A web-footed, duck-billed mammal's approach to life." --Frazz cartoon

    April 10, 2010

  • The Comic Tragedian

    "...Coates was so transcendently, world-bestridingly awful at his chosen craft that he attracted throngs of jeering onlookers."

    April 9, 2010

  • That would also be the sound I would make falling from a tree!

    April 9, 2010

  • In 1997, University of Edinburgh linguistics professor Geoffrey K. Pullum submitted the following letter to the Economist:

    ‘Connections needed’ (March 15) reports that Russia’s Transneft pipeline operator is not able to separate crude flows from different oil fields: ‘they all come out swirled into a single bland blend.’ This is quite true. And worse yet, the characterless, light-colored mix thus produced is concocted blindly, without quality oversight, surely a grave mistake. In fact, I do not recall ever encountering a blinder blander blonder blender blunder.

    It “would have been a true first in natural language text,” Pullum wrote, “a grammatical and meaningful sequence of five consecutive words in a natural context that are differentiated from each other by just a single character.” Alas, the Economist chose not to print it.

    --from futilitycloset.com

    April 7, 2010

  • ...and douchoisie. The new hipster slurs.

    April 3, 2010

  • See fauxhemian.

    April 3, 2010

  • See douchoisie.

    April 3, 2010

  • ...and douchoisie. The new hipster slurs.

    April 3, 2010

  • I got moon-mugged once; I was being followed by a moonshadow!

    April 1, 2010

  • Poor Mr. Potatohead!

    April 1, 2010

  • Knock, knock...

    April 1, 2010

  • Oh, the malevolence! *shudder*

    April 1, 2010

  • Was it Henry Miller who first wrote quivering quim? Rings a bell, somehow....

    March 31, 2010

  • The act of falling asleep on your keyboard whilst blogging about a book review after a bottle of wine.

    March 31, 2010

  • Wrong port sivaseamy.

    March 31, 2010

  • Gimme a hug nile gimmu a Coke.

    March 30, 2010

  • See this list.

    March 30, 2010

  • Soup to Nutz

    March 28, 2010

  • AsteriskMan - Grawlix Translator

    March 28, 2010

  • Frank & Ernest

    March 28, 2010

  • Faint total?

    March 28, 2010

  • A sibilant shipment?

    March 28, 2010

  • Chewy suitor?

    March 28, 2010

  • Shards of split atoms?

    March 28, 2010

  • The hostess with the mostest!

    March 28, 2010

  • prodigiosity?

    March 26, 2010

  • Agnes

    March 25, 2010

  • Calvin was good at making these, and so was Hobbes. Watterson! What a cartoonist!

    March 23, 2010

  • A Frenchman living in New Zealand is a Kiwi wiwi.

    March 21, 2010

  • At ruzuzu's behest.

    March 20, 2010

  • For ruzuzu.

    March 20, 2010

  • This, thanks to sionnach and ruzuzu.

    March 20, 2010

  • Done, but I'd like to put the palindrome in my DYSLEXIC'S DELIGHT list, okay?

    March 20, 2010

  • Treeseed! Wherefore art thou?

    March 19, 2010

  • I hope that's not your SS#! Regards from Col. KellRoy.

    March 19, 2010

  • Yep, looks like it rt. You be a wizzard o' odds, me thinks. Thanks.

    March 19, 2010

  • I'm glad y'all like it. Chickadees are my special pals!! :o)

    Interesting 'zuzu, that song will never be the same....

    March 19, 2010

  • A creature of the snowpocalypse

    March 18, 2010

  • Are you sure this isn't supposed to be secretary bird? The topknot looks familiar.

    March 18, 2010

  • Ah ha, gotcha! *focuses binoculars*

    March 18, 2010

  • According to B.C. Comic's Wiley's Dictionary: The result of running over a smurf picnic with your lawnmower.

    March 18, 2010

  • It would be fun if this word had a connection to:

    "He had a broad face and a little round belly,

    that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly."

    March 15, 2010

  • Video of a kitler who has befriended a crow.

    March 14, 2010

  • Old MacDonald had a sheep....in the barn.

    March 14, 2010

  • NPR's Says You) sez: A bad bounce at a holiday billiards tournament.

    March 14, 2010

  • Biography of the original Doublemint Twins.

    March 14, 2010

  • Contranym: invisible v. obvious.

    March 14, 2010

  • Contranym: one type v. many types.

    March 14, 2010

  • Contranym: promote aggressively v. punish harshly.

    March 14, 2010

  • Moonshine made from bananas.

    March 14, 2010

  • Monty Python's favorite canned protein.

    March 13, 2010

  • Huh! I'll try it tomorrow morning...

    Edit: tried it a couple of times and the jury is still out.

    March 13, 2010

  • Literature for sitting on the "throne"?

    Not for the squeamish!

    March 13, 2010

  • Holy moly! I was going to add this to my list Words Waiting in the Wings and find that Edward FitzGerald used it in a letter! Ah, great minds.... :)

    March 13, 2010

  • One of my favorite birds. A real lovable little clown! Rallying/mating call "fee bee bee bee" (listen to it at pronunciation for mountain chickadee); if you whistle it in the mountains where they abound you'll soon have 'em answering and flocking around.

    More info and image here.

    March 13, 2010

  • The reading aloud of false and injurious-to-reputation printed matter. Aside: invented as a sort of mnemonic kludge for keeping libel and slander in the ole memory banks.

    March 13, 2010

  • Get yours here! (see customer reviews)

    March 12, 2010

  • See maya and lila.

    March 12, 2010

  • NPR story

    March 12, 2010

  • See unbearable.

    March 10, 2010

  • See unbearable.

    March 10, 2010

  • At a posh Manhattan dinner party, a Latin American visitor was telling the guests about this home country and himself. As he concluded, he said, "And I have a charming and understanding wife but, alas, no children."

    As his listeners appeared to be waiting for him to continue, he said, haltingly, "You see, my wife is unbearable."

    Puzzled glances prompted him to try to clarify the matter: "What I mean is, my wife is inconceivable."

    As his companions seemed amused, he floundered deeper into the intricacies of the English language, explaining triumphantly, "That is, my wife, she is impregnable!"

    March 10, 2010

  • I read it back when I went through a teaching credential program and then taught for *shudder* a year. Great book. I also enjoyed his How To Survive In Your Native Land.

    March 9, 2010

  • Mascot of Pomona College in California. It runs in circles when startled - not a good survival strategy :/.

    March 7, 2010

  • To bustle or scramble about.

    March 7, 2010

  • A lobster with parasites?

    March 7, 2010

  • I wonder if this has any relation to perseveration.

    March 7, 2010

  • The wastrel who returns to the welcoming arms of his father, much to the dismay of the model brother.

    March 7, 2010

  • See e-force.

    March 6, 2010

  • The monkeys got captionym in only a few minutes; a long way from all of Shakespeare's works, granted, but still impressive!

    reesetee: you know about right-click 'inspect element', right?

    March 6, 2010

  • I ditto yarb's use as with Spanish speakers, but otherwise I go with chilly or chillay depending on whether the universe zigs or zags at that moment. Just think of all the parallel realities that creates!

    March 6, 2010

  • Hey c_b! This was in my inbox this morning and I thought I'd pass it along to you. Interesting that tappen somehow escaped mention. Hope it's never had your eyetracks on it before.

    I want to be a bear......

    If you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.

    Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that too.

    If you're a bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you are sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute, cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that.

    If you're a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that.

    If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.

    Yup...... I want to be a bear!

    March 6, 2010

  • Field Guide to the Acronymical Kingdom

    March 5, 2010

  • "...There is in fact an ‘Ariadne’s thread’ out of the cavern of illusions; realms that are ‘like’ dreams, whilst not strictly speaking being dreams..." --Lee Horstman, BEYOND THE GODS

    March 3, 2010

  • A unit of measure equal to at least 4 billion, according to NPR's Says You.

    February 28, 2010

  • A mistake that comes back to haunt you.

    February 28, 2010

  • A unit of oenological measurement equal to 66 bottles of champagne according to NPR's Says You.

    February 28, 2010

  • legolicious

    February 26, 2010

  • " It meticulously dissects the myriad protean tricks authoritarianism employs to maneuver its subjects into place and keep them there. Access to information and accountability for one's conduct are essential for the brave new world that might emerge if the reptant strain of authoritarianism in humankind does not destroy this world first in the name of knowing better." (from a review, on Amazon.com by Ford Greene, Esq., of The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power)

    February 25, 2010

  • Egyptian (ancient?) for cat. Means "seer". (This, according to Darby Conley in his Get Fuzzy comic strip.)

    February 21, 2010

  • I first and only time I ever heard this word used was by my girlfriend speech pathologist; "You're perseverating!" It was a good lesson: I never forgot it, nor do I perseverate (uh huh).

    February 21, 2010

  • "Nook" contains two antonyms.

    February 19, 2010

  • RT: surprised not to see one of your bird lists shown under mumruffin!

    February 17, 2010

  • "For decades, New Yorker writer Alastair Reid has been collecting words, weird ones. In Ounce, Dice, Trice, the words play tricks on each other and on the reader. gongoozler, piddocks, mumruffin. Reid twists them into rhymes and draws odd connections between them in this book part dictionary, part gonomony receptacle...With black-and-white sketches by painter Ben Shahn, Ounce, Dice, Trice amounts to great fun for the average gongozzler (idle person) of any age." –The Bergen County Record

    February 17, 2010

  • Marcel Bich

    February 14, 2010

  • Unhip hop?

    February 14, 2010

  • Used on NPR's Says You show today.

    February 14, 2010

  • A ball.

    February 14, 2010

  • Using your GPS app everyday to navigate to the home you've lived in for the last twelve years. (Heard on NPR's Wait, wait, don't tell me!)

    February 14, 2010

  • The Beer Prayer

    Our lager,

    Which art in barrels,

    Hollowed be thy drink.

    I will be drunk,

    At home as in the travern.

    Give us this day our foamy head,

    And forgive us our spillages,

    As we forgive those who spill against us.

    And lead us not into incarceration,

    But deliver us from hangerovers.

    For thine is the beer. The bitter and the lager

    Forever and ever,

    Barmen.

    February 14, 2010

  • Thanks, mollusque, for severer.

    February 14, 2010

  • Done! Thanks, M.

    February 14, 2010

  • Used in Teresa's frogapplause comicstrip, today (13Feb10).

    February 13, 2010

  • Hobbes?

    February 13, 2010

  • One who repairs umbrellas.

    February 10, 2010

  • You know you're a mother when you count the sprinkles on each kid's cupcake to make sure they're equal.

    February 9, 2010

  • What, no minkey mounts!? :o) I see monkey back guarantee is a shared whimsy.

    February 9, 2010

  • *applauds ecstatically from the mosh pit*

    February 9, 2010

  • I've done this more than a few times in a number of places in Australia. Ancient history now though, sorry to say...

    February 9, 2010

  • A dance. Wiki link

    February 9, 2010

  • See monkeybite.

    February 9, 2010

  • Another term for a hickey.

    February 9, 2010

  • You're right! Good 'un, Ms Frog. :o)

    February 8, 2010

  • Please take a seat Ms. Witherspoon = Chair, Reese.

    February 7, 2010

  • The summer fur of a squirrel.

    February 7, 2010

  • A place to sleep in.

    February 7, 2010

  • *hands bilby a confection out of sionnach's new, elaborate dispenser*

    February 7, 2010

  • This is an especially useful thing if you're not happy with your monkey!

    February 7, 2010

  • Chromophores -> photovoltaic cells.

    February 7, 2010

  • I.e., unfalsifiable. Wikipedia. Also see gobbledygook.

    February 6, 2010

  • I love the lame blog too!! Btw, T., I think you want built rather than build for the new clicking balls. Or, maybe, builded? :o)

    February 6, 2010

  • In golf, taking more than 3 or more shots to get out of a sandtrap.

    January 31, 2010

  • In bowling: the 1, 2, 4 and 7 pins.

    January 31, 2010

  • To dance until one falls down. (according to NPR's Says You)

    January 31, 2010

  • Animation (thx to Frog Blog).

    January 30, 2010

  • "Puzzle Palace on the Potomac" --Ronald Reagan

    January 30, 2010

  • How can we leave out shit-ass?!

    January 30, 2010

  • 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

    111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

    111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

    111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

    111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

    111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

    111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

    111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

    111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

    111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

    11111111111111111111111111111111111111111 is prime. (via futilitycloset.com)

    January 30, 2010

  • When I was seventeen, it was a very good year. Frank Sinatra

    January 30, 2010

  • Yoiks! Just reviewed 7457 and, yes, I shoulda knowed!

    January 30, 2010

  • Huh! I'm not getting this. I see James Bond and the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything, but get lost in the middle. Somebody he'p me please!

    January 30, 2010

  • I must say I'm puzzled by "my girl and her mother". Is that girlfriend?

    January 30, 2010

  • The 'teens'? thirteen,fourteen,fifteen,sixteen,seventeen,eighteen,nineteen.

    January 30, 2010

  • If you've been divorced five times, you're a pentapopemptic!

    January 29, 2010

  • MAXiPad - the next generation (via twitter)

    January 28, 2010

  • Ooh! Ooh! Must have!

    January 28, 2010

  • Description for Apple's new whichever what's gonna be brang out today! (Maybe)

    January 28, 2010

  • Are the cows mugging?

    January 24, 2010

  • Made me all warm and toasty to read!

    January 24, 2010

  • The "wizard of ooze".

    January 24, 2010

  • The point of the elbow.

    January 24, 2010

  • In 1792, 24 stockbrokers sat under a buttonwood tree and agreed to deal only with each other, it was the beginning of the NYSE.

    January 24, 2010

  • "No me moleste mosquito, just let me eat my burrito." neato keen!

    January 24, 2010

  • Elvis left? Right.

    January 23, 2010

  • Reptile Brumation.

    January 23, 2010

  • Interestingly enough, I ran across this word in a cartoon (Little Dog Lost by Steve Boreman, 1/23/2010).

    January 23, 2010

  • Physics or women's swimwear?

    January 23, 2010

  • Geez, I thought it had to do with irate Pentagon employees!

    January 23, 2010

  • Hamgerbers on the Porch!

    January 23, 2010

  • Provisional license for student driver, usually limited to some specific duration (e.g., six months in California).

    January 23, 2010

  • Alas, never got a shot of it. Lots of ho-hum shots of the horizon and some neat clouds but nothing memorable. Usually any worthwhile event was gone before being camera-ready. It was easier and more fun to compose poetry(!).

    January 23, 2010

  • All this hilarity has made me a bit peckish!

    January 23, 2010

  • Just ganghbusters! :o)

    January 23, 2010

  • trivet, do you hail from Ojai? Saw it under pink moment. I'm a born-and-raised Santa Barbaran. Used to go play golf in Ojai and one of my favorite places there is the Krotona Library.

    January 23, 2010

  • Reesetee, your link on green sun is broken. I notice that pilot's halo isn't on the list. Recommended.

    January 23, 2010

  • Also, when conditions are right (much rarer than green flash conditions) the "green ray".

    January 23, 2010

  • I've seen this many, many times. It was always a special sight, no matter how often seen...like a beautiful sunset.

    January 23, 2010

  • You've gotta love the flow of this word. My gullfren Ouagadougou Lulu loves to watch Zulus do the Hula.

    January 23, 2010

  • Whoops! Now public. Thanks, PossibleUnderscore.

    January 23, 2010

  • The oceanographic research ship USNS Eltanin discovered this off the Antarctic coast in 1964, at a depth of 13,500 feet — that’s 2.5 miles down.

    January 23, 2010

  • For years, South African miners have been finding disks and spheres like this one (see picture and more info here.). Usually brown or red, the objects can measure up to 10 centimeters in diameter, and like this one they’re often engraved with parallel grooves or ridges.

    January 23, 2010

  • I like my water in scotch! :o)

    January 22, 2010

  • Like dontcry and gangerh, I've done a pronunciation that doesn't show on my profile page. The pron., at the word page (zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba), works but doesn't show on the profile page. Maybe there's some delay? I haven't yet experimented with any others yet...

    January 22, 2010

  • Huh! dontcry's and gangerh's minute silence prons both are inop.

    January 22, 2010

  • Learn this by heart and it'll come in handy in any roadside sobriety testing you might have to endure!

    Click on the "pronunciation" link for a sample recitation.

    January 22, 2010

  • Well, I'm altogether indifferent. :^)

    January 22, 2010

  • Answer to the riddle:

    "At a Cambridge dinner, Arthur C. Clarke asked Clive Sinclair, 'What was the first human artifact to break the sound barrier?'"

    January 22, 2010

  • See opitulation'

    January 22, 2010

  • See opitulation.

    January 22, 2010

  • "Without thy help, recruit, support,

    Opitulation, furtherance,

    Assistance, rescue, aid, resort,

    Favour, sustention, and advance?"

    --From Ode to a Thesaurus by Franklin P. Adams.

    January 22, 2010

  • District in San Francisco where the cops got such lucrative bribes they could afford steak for every meal. (via NPR's Says You)

    January 17, 2010

  • See opus moderandi.

    January 17, 2010

  • Spoonerism of modus operandi.

    January 17, 2010

  • Physical exercise is good for you. I know that I should do it daily but my body doesn't want me to do too much, so I have worked out this program of strenuous activities that do not require physical exercise.You are invited to use my program without charge.

    1) Beating around the bush

    2) Jumping to conclusions

    3) Climbing the walls

    4) Swallowing my pride

    5) Passing the buck

    6) Throwing my weight around

    7) Dragging my heels

    8) Pushing my luck

    9) Making mountains out of molehills

    10) Hitting the nail on the head

    11) Wading through paperwork

    12) Bending over backwards

    13) Jumping on the bandwagon

    14) Balancing the books

    15) Running around in circles

    16) Eating crow

    17) Tooting my own horn

    18) Climbing the ladder of success

    19) Pulling out the stops

    20) Adding fuel to the fire

    21) Opening a can of worms

    22) Putting my foot in my mouth

    23) Starting the ball rolling

    24) Going over the edge

    25) Picking up the pieces

    January 17, 2010

  • "At the UPS cargo phone center where I worked, a woman called and said, 'I need a baseball quote.'

    I immediately answered with Yogi Berra's famous 'It ain't over 'til it's over!'

    There was a brief moment of silence before the woman asked, 'What was that?'

    'You asked me for a baseball quote,' I responded, 'and that was the first thing that came into my head.'

    'Oh!' she replied. 'My husband told me to call and get a baseball quote.'

    I asked if she wanted to ship something, and she said she did. Then it dawned on me: 'Do you mean you want a ballpark figure?'"

    (found in cyberspace)

    January 16, 2010

  • The attitude of the NRA?

    January 14, 2010

  • mook-a-rectomy

    January 14, 2010

  • The only letter that does not appear in any U.S. state name.

    January 14, 2010

  • Has all the vowels in reverse order.

    January 14, 2010

  • Anagram: I'll make a wise phrase.

    January 13, 2010

  • Anagram: is no amity.

    January 13, 2010

  • Anagram: often sheds tears

    January 13, 2010

  • The f-word reviewed.

    January 11, 2010

  • A scalp with no hair. (via NPR's Says You)

    January 10, 2010

  • Adj., ungainly, awkward

    January 10, 2010

  • A mythical beast that weeps continually at its own ugliness. When surprised it dissolves entirely into tears. (via futilitycloset.com)

    January 10, 2010

  • Hmmm, I just noticed that there's no option to see my collected past comments, which I thought might be a way around the "recent activity" lack. Is that also in the works, John?

    January 9, 2010

  • A place in Wales!

    January 9, 2010

  • Pwllheli Vice

    January 9, 2010

  • I haven't got time to search all thru the comments but I've been wanting to say that I miss the "recent activity" option we had on Wordie. Am I missing some version of it on Wordnik?

    I can't always remember what the heck I did last and recent activity was a no-brains way to find it.

    January 7, 2010

  • Song by the Bikinians Also, see rhinoceroses.

    January 7, 2010

  • Yes, their crispness was divine!

    January 7, 2010

  • Rhinocirrhosis: a problem developed by heavy-drinking rhinocerwursts.

    Edit: I just discovered that this is a song by the Bikinians. Click on the word for link.

    January 7, 2010

  • It’s said that police sergeants in Leith, Scotland, used this tongue-twister as a sobriety test:

    The Leith police dismisseth us,

    I’m thankful, sir, to say;

    The Leith police dismisseth us,

    They thought we sought to stay.

    The Leith police dismisseth us,

    We both sighed sighs apiece;

    And the sigh that we sighed as we said goodbye

    Was the size of the Leith police.

    If you can’t say it, you’re drunk.

    (via futilitycloset.com)

    January 7, 2010

  • How do you catch a unique rabbit? Unique up on it!

    How do you catch a tame rabbit? Tame way, unique up on it!

    January 7, 2010

  • How crazy people get through the forest?

    January 7, 2010

  • What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? A nervous wreck!

    January 7, 2010

  • This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.

    There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure Somebody would do it.

    Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

    Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job.

    Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.

    It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.

    January 7, 2010

  • Santa's helper.

    January 7, 2010

  • Why did the Pilgrims' pants always fall down? Because they wore their belt-buckle on their hat!

    January 7, 2010

  • What you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire? See snowpire.

    January 7, 2010

  • What Eskimos get when they sit on the ice too long?

    January 7, 2010

  • I will intimate to my intimate.

    January 3, 2010

  • When Oliver Cromwell sat for his portrait he insisted he be portrayed "warts and all" or he wouldn't pay the artist.

    January 3, 2010

  • Derivation: free of shackles (footloose); free of romantic entanglements (fiancee).

    January 3, 2010

  • Derivation: the starting line for a horse race is know as the scratch.

    January 3, 2010

  • A self-made man; commoner who made good. --According to NPR's Says You

    January 3, 2010

  • To show the teeth, to snarl.

    January 3, 2010

  • We need a moderate to moderate.

    January 3, 2010

  • The wind buffeted the buffet.

    January 3, 2010

  • Sixty feet and six inches from home plate. Why the six inches? It's a misprint in the original specifications of the game (via NPR's Says You).

    January 3, 2010

  • The second oldest toy (after doll). Via Says You.

    January 3, 2010

  • The McDonald's of dry cleaning. A franchise for rapid dry cleaning.

    January 3, 2010

  • An ingredient in many shampoos.

    January 3, 2010

  • seanahan, have you read Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy? Recommended. I read Anathem last Spring and really enjoyed it. Very different direction for him. The guy's amazing...

    January 2, 2010

  • Ask Dr. Stool your poop questions!

    January 2, 2010

  • Hey! I think c_b's awesome too! A bit distracted these days with a new lil monkey, but still awesome...

    January 2, 2010

  • Ambidextrous is ambidextrous. The first half of the word is from the left half of the alphabet; the second half from the right half.

    January 1, 2010

  • See link in comment under similarly.

    December 30, 2009

  • "I can never pronounce the word 'similarly'."

    December 29, 2009

  • The dynamic occurring when hightailing it from the junkyard dog.

    December 27, 2009

  • Cf. nip and tuck.

    December 27, 2009

  • How 'bout "caged bird sings"?

    December 26, 2009

  • Italian waffle cookies (I think)

    December 24, 2009

  • "...a late 19th-century invention, offering live relay of theatrical or musical performances to the home phones of subscribers (Marcel Proust among them)."

    --From OED notes, December 2009

    December 24, 2009

  • Cf. specious.

    December 24, 2009

  • Cf. spurious.

    December 24, 2009

  • See an animated one here.

    December 23, 2009

  • "If there were a drunk button, I buy one." Penn State student on NPR's This American Life, bemoaning the execrable taste of Natural Lite beer and Vladamir vodka, the cheapness of which make them obligatory products for binge drinking at the number one-rated party-school.

    December 20, 2009

  • Pronounced "wenee, weedee, weekee" in Latin.

    December 20, 2009

  • Sex euphemisms.

    December 14, 2009

  • The gargling sound made by a female(?) llama in heat.

    December 13, 2009

  • A dark or inaccessible corner in a woman's handbag.

    December 13, 2009

  • To mumble or complain under one's breath.

    December 13, 2009

  • The whole lot, the whole way. The whole nine yards.

    December 13, 2009

  • Naked greeting?

    December 13, 2009

  • Opposite of helpmate.

    December 12, 2009

  • See gnathodynamometer.

    December 6, 2009

  • Measures the force of closing jaws.

    December 6, 2009

  • Measures the size and speed of rain drops.

    December 6, 2009

  • Should be gnathodynomometer.

    December 6, 2009

  • Measures the degree of fermentation in a solution.

    December 6, 2009

  • You could be right, u! More info.

    December 3, 2009

  • "Microastrology is not based on the movements of the planets but rather the orbits of electrons around atoms and the passage of quarks through time and space. You can get a reading and it will be incredibly accurate but only for that nanosecond." --Joe Choo

    December 3, 2009

  • A bird, according to reesetee & mollusque.

    November 26, 2009

  • Scottish for eyebrow.

    November 26, 2009

  • phantonym

    November 26, 2009

  • Pop! goes the weasel.

    November 26, 2009

  • "....Peter Lamborn Wilson on what he calls the Technopathocracy of modern society: complete disconnection, lack of community and Internet-mediated insanity, and the Intentional Community as the solution...He makes the incredibly salient point that “dropping out” of Internet culture now is the same as “dropping out” of the mainstream in the 60s."

    --dangerousminds.net (for video interview with Wilson)

    November 25, 2009

  • N. -- Laid-off workers who use exit packages to maintain the standard of living they enjoyed while still employed.

    "Former bank CEO Paul Joegriner is a member of what might be called the severance economy--unemployed Americans who use severance pay and savings to maintain their lifestyles."

    --WSJ, Nov 10, 2009

    November 23, 2009

  • STRUcTure. A strut is a structure.

    November 23, 2009

  • See comment under mine.

    November 23, 2009

  • mine (English), mien (French), and mein (German) are synonyms and anagrams in three languages.

    November 23, 2009

  • Mine (English), mien (French), and mein (German) are synonyms and anagrams in three languages. (via futilitycloset.com)

    November 22, 2009

  • How 'bout moonshine? :o)

    November 22, 2009

  • sWEaT

    November 20, 2009

  • VegEtAbLe

    November 20, 2009

  • "A Botax? Senate committee gets creative

    A tax on plastic surgery, call it a "Botax", is on the table, as senators desperately try to come up with creative ways to fund $1 trillion in health care reforms."

    --Fox News

    November 20, 2009

  • Ahh, in fragrance is France! FRAgraNCE

    November 18, 2009

  • Many people aver in tAVERns.

    November 18, 2009

  • See also anonyponymous.

    November 18, 2009

  • Also see anonyponymous.

    November 18, 2009

  • DispOSE

    November 18, 2009

  • caSINo

    November 18, 2009

  • We might be apprehensive when we aren't apprehensive of what's going on.

    November 18, 2009

  • GAMblE.

    November 18, 2009

  • exCAVatE. Make a cave.

    November 18, 2009

  • moTOrcYcle. A boy toy.

    November 18, 2009

  • "The Earl of Sandwich is famous for being the man behind a word that most people never thought was named after anyone, a man both anonymous and eponymous or, to coin a term, anonyponymous."

    --Anonyponymous by John Bemelmans Marciano

    Also, see comments under frisbee.

    November 18, 2009

  • "There was a woman named Mary Frisbie who made pies in Connecticut," Marciano tells Renee Montagne. "Students would throw around her pie plates after they had finished her pies, and kind of like you would say, 'Incoming!' they would say, 'Frisbie!' just to give people the heads-up that there was something spinning and flying coming at their head.

    Meanwhile, the Wham-O corporation, producer of the hula hoop, was having trouble selling its own flying disk, awkwardly named "The Pluto Platter".

    They went around to college campuses, knowing that this was where trends started," Marciano says. "To their surprise, in the Northeast, people were already throwing flying disks, and they had this name 'Frisbie' for it.

    For trademark purposes, "Frisbie" became "Frisbee," and a sensation was born.'

    --On-air interview by NPR of John Bemelmans Marciano about his book Anonyponymous: The Forgotten People Behind Everyday Words

    November 18, 2009

  • Contains seven pairs of letters, no singles.

    November 18, 2009

  • A leotard is a unisex skin-tight one-piece garment that covers the torso but leaves the legs free. It was made famous by the French acrobatic performer Jules Léotard (1842–1870), about whom the song "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" was written. (Wikipedia)

    November 18, 2009

  • Instructions for conquering Everest: 1. put one foot in front of the other. 2. repeat. See, easy!

    Instructions for 'achieving' enlightenment: 1. enter a small dark closet. 2. Find your shadow. 3. Embrace it. There! Nothing to it!

    November 17, 2009

  • BEST and WORST are synonyms when used as verbs:

    he bested his opponent, he worsted his opponent

    But they’re antonyms when used as adjectives, adverbs, or nouns:

    the best player, the worst player

    it best suits his skills, it worst suits his skills

    I am the best, I am the worst

    November 16, 2009

  • Duffy's take.

    November 14, 2009

  • -cracy, the most -tastic suffix!

    November 14, 2009

  • Find your state!

    November 14, 2009

  • One who's looking for a lift?

    November 14, 2009

  • "I don't know what I'm doing, but..."

    November 9, 2009

  • Kaboom!

    November 6, 2009

  • Hey, Jay! Pull my finger! (click on a hand)

    November 6, 2009

  • You deserve a kiss today.

    November 6, 2009

  • It's not the destination...

    November 6, 2009

  • See one here.

    November 5, 2009

  • See a picture of the zucchini weenie at frogapplause's Frog Blog. (It's in there somewhere!)

    Edit: Here it is!

    November 5, 2009

  • Glad to be of assistance, Teresa. Everything's working normally now with Google Chrome.

    November 3, 2009

  • Condition characterized by dryness of the eyes. Check Dictionary.com for more.

    November 3, 2009

  • Also spelled zuffolo.

    November 3, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters D P N.

    October 31, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters S K Y R.

    October 31, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters X I L.

    October 29, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters N T T.

    October 29, 2009

  • Benefit.

    October 29, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters A V A T R.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters S T M.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters C D.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters S A.

    October 28, 2009

  • Thanks whichbe! I'm slowly adding 'em.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters J L.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters R S T.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters S K P .

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters N M E.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters X S S.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters I C.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters D K.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters R A.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters M T.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters M N C T.

    October 28, 2009

  • Sounds like the letters O B C T.

    October 28, 2009

  • Laid up in the hospital, James Thurber passed the time doing crossword puzzles.

    One day he asked a nurse, “What seven-letter word has three u’s in it?�?

    She said, “I don’t know, but it must be unusual.�?

    (via futilitycloset.com)

    October 26, 2009

  • What, that I'm an idiot? :o)

    October 22, 2009

  • Puts one in mind of "spoonerism", except spoonerism derives from the name of

    October 22, 2009

  • John, it appears that comments can't be edited? The comment I added to spoony was all borked up and I couldn't do anything about it...or am I just an idiot?

    BTW, nice work on the new look!

    October 21, 2009

  • consumMATE

    October 21, 2009

  • Create links between words and enter your definition of the relation between them (and see what others think as well here.

    Takes a bit of exploration/practice with the cursor...

    October 21, 2009

  • Nectar inspector?

    October 18, 2009

  • Slang for face or mouth (smile). "Aloysius slammed Gandolph in the grill".

    October 15, 2009

  • This is probably more than you wanted to know, but what the hay!:

    "Words and music by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn (1923). One of the most successful nonsense songs of the 1920s. The writers got their idea by overhearing a Greek fruit peddler tell a customer: "Yes, we have no bananas." Frank Silver and Irving Cohn introduced their song in a New York restaurant, but it failed to catch fire. Then, in 1923, Eddie Cantor saw the song in manuscript while Make It Snappy (a revue in which Cantor was then starring) was playing in Philadelphia. Held over in that city for an extended run, the show needed some new material, since people were coming to see it a second time. Cantor decided to interpolate "Yes, We Have No Bananas" in one of his routines, one Wednesday matinee. The audience response was so enthusiastic that Cantor had to sing chorus after chorus; the show was stopped cold for over a quarter of an hour. Cantor now made the song a permanent part of his act, and he always brought down the house with it. His Victor recording became a best seller--one of many successful releases of this number. By the end of 1923 everybody was singing it throughout the country. In the Music Box Revue of 1923 it was ridiculed in a performance in which it was presented in the grand-operatic manner of the Sextet from Lucia de Lammermoor--the performers being Grace Moore, John Steel, Joseph Santley, Frank Tinney, Florence Moore and Lora Sonderson. It was interpolated in the motion-picture musical Mammy, starring Al Jolson (Warner 1930); Eddie Cantor sang it on the soundtrack of the motion-picture musical The Eddie Cantor Story (Warner 1954)"

    --American Popular Songs, David Ewen, Random House, 1966

    October 12, 2009

  • Get Rob soused?

    October 12, 2009

  • A unit of volume of champagne; equal to 1/4 bottle (187.5 ml).

    October 12, 2009

  • Put Funicello and O'toole in a play?

    October 12, 2009

  • Wound Lewinsky?

    October 12, 2009

  • “Neuroceuticals is a term I coined to describe future neuropharmaceuticals that have very low if any side effects, so that they may be used by healthy humans. There are three categories of neuroceuticals: cogniceuticals for memory, emoticeuticals for emotions, and sensoceuticals focused on sensory systems.�?

    --Zack Lynch, author of The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World

    October 10, 2009

  • My answer to Will Shortz's NPR on-air puzzle challenge. To wit: "The challenge is to find a chain of "C" words to connect "carbon" to "circuit." Will's chain has seven words between "carbon" and "circuit." The answer doesn't have to match Will's, but each word has to start with "C," and each has to combine with the words before and after to make a compound word or familiar two-word phrase."

    October 4, 2009

  • Latin "macropus" = kangaroo (via Dictionary.com)

    October 3, 2009

  • Now pigeonhole. "LONDON (Reuters) - About 16,000 words have succumbed to pressures of the Internet age and lost their hyphens in a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary."

    October 1, 2009

  • Interesting, gangerh. I like it! :)

    September 30, 2009

  • :-)

    September 30, 2009

  • Not a good feeling from a British aloha!

    September 30, 2009

  • Thanks to frogapplause!

    September 30, 2009

  • Here's a list of them.

    September 28, 2009

  • Rats! Found out about it three days late! September 24th

    September 28, 2009

  • "Penultimate, some writers are surprised to learn, does not mean ultraultimate."

    Jack Rosenthal, NY Times article On Language 9/25/09

    See penultimate and "Phantonyms" list.

    September 28, 2009

  • demeanor, behavior. And a good word for a chained_bear list! :o)

    September 28, 2009

  • I prefer multi-basking. (word from "Speed Bump" cartoon).

    September 27, 2009

  • Upper Peninsula Michiganite.

    September 27, 2009

  • "Penultimate,some writers are surprised to learn, does not mean ultraultimate."

    --Jack Rosenthal, NY Times article "On Language" 9/25/09

    September 27, 2009

  • X-word clues: "draft pick" & "inn-take".

    September 27, 2009

  • Samoa's official plant (according to NPR's Says You)

    September 27, 2009

  • "fan setting" (X-word clue)

    September 27, 2009

  • Ofttimes when I put on my gloves,

    I wonder if I’m sane,

    For when I put the right one on,

    The right seems to remain

    To be put on, that is, ‘tis left;

    Yet if the left I don,

    The other one is left, and then

    I have the right one on.

    But still I have the left on right;

    The right one, though, is left

    To go right on the left right hand

    All right, if I am deft.

    – Ray Clarke Rose

    (via futilitycloset.com)

    September 25, 2009

  • Trumpeter's tune?

    September 25, 2009

  • Fraudulent ad along the lines of phishing.

    September 18, 2009

  • Oooohhh, this is just precious. Do you suppose c_b's seen it? (are you kidding! She sees everything!)

    September 11, 2009

  • Oh, man, I'm gettin' goosebumps!! WONDERFUL NEWS, John. Congratulations-cubed! *staring off into the middle distance, counting blessings to come*

    September 10, 2009

  • "One who imagines the future and engineers towards it"

    --

    September 7, 2009

  • Cf. epitome.

    September 7, 2009

  • A good ole Southern boy barged into a brothel one night saying "I want some pussyrat now!!"

    September 7, 2009

  • Jabberwocky Spell-checked

    `Twas billing, and the smithy toes

    Did gyre and gamble in the wage:

    All missy were the brogues,

    And the mime rats outrage.

    "Beware the Jabber Wick, my son!

    The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

    Beware the Jujube bird, and shun

    The furious Bender Snatch!"

    He took his viral sword in hand:

    Long time the Manxwomen foe he sought –

    So rested he by the Tutu tree,

    And stood awhile in thought.

    And, as in offish thought he stood,

    The Jabber Wick, with eyes of flame,

    Came whiffing through the tulle wood,

    And burbled as it came!

    One, two! One, two! And through and through

    The viral blade went snicker-snack!

    He left it dead, and with its head

    He went galumphing back.

    "And, has thou slain the Jabber Wick?

    Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

    O crablouse day! Callow! Allay!'

    He chortled in his joy.

    `Twas billing, and the smithy toes

    Did gyre and gamble in the wage;

    All missy were the brogues

    And the mime rats outrage.

    --via futilitycloset.com

    September 1, 2009

  • A tiny particle of discombobulation.

    August 30, 2009

  • The Germans are starting a chain of breakfast eateries, Luftwaffle House, to compete with its American waffle rival.

    August 30, 2009

  • What you build with elbow grease.

    August 30, 2009

  • According to an NPR piece I heard today, Lester Young, the great saxophonist coined the slang usage of the word "bread" to mean money. See also, "cool"

    August 28, 2009

  • According to an NPR piece I heard today, Lester Young, the great saxophonist coined the slang usage of the word "cool" as a culturally favorable adjective. Also, "bread" to mean money.

    August 28, 2009

  • "Things are really going downhill now, yikes!"

    "At last, it's all downhill now!"

    August 28, 2009

  • That old broken-down, rusty thresher or tractor sitting out in the field that attracts kids who will play on it and possibly hurt themselves.

    August 28, 2009

  • Noose, trap, snare for small game animals.

    August 28, 2009

  • Why is it that hedgehogs just can't share the hedge? :op

    August 26, 2009

  • Iffn you don't hear it here, it ain't worth hearin'. See dang network.

    August 26, 2009

  • The good ole boys is on top o' everything; toasty hot news! See nail salon grapevine.

    August 26, 2009

  • Asian pronunciation of an STD?

    August 25, 2009

  • Joe Btfsplk!

    August 24, 2009

  • "He moved toward me lightly. His left hand palpated my chest and armpits, moved down my flanks and hips. I was glad I'd left my gun in the car, but I hated to be touched by him. His hands were epicene."

    --Ross Macdonald, The Moving Target

    August 24, 2009

  • This isn't an aviation term, but relates to the military. Anybody who's been to bootcamp or had marching training will know the term. A group of men form up in lines ("fall-in")and are told to "taller-tap". If you're taller than the man standing in front of you, tap him on the shoulder and move ahead of him. Repeat until nobody needs to tap and move. In very short order the formation is height-graded and ready for further marching commands, e.g., "Ten-hut! Riot-hace! Dress-right-dress! Layeft hace! Fowad harch! Your left, your left, your left-riot-left. *sung in cadence*'Well I don't know but I've been told, Army grub is hard and cold. Sound off!' 'ONE! TWO!', hear it again 'THREE! FOUR!', one,two,three,four 'ONE!TWO!*pause*THREE-FOUR!!'"

    So there's your little glimpse into the harrowing experience of military bootcamp. Enjoy it and avoid it if you can...

    August 24, 2009

  • C_b. If you don't want to remember/type in numbers, just run the "charmap" program on your PC (don't know about Apple) and you can select/copy the symbols there. It's a little like looking for a needle in a haystack 'tho, sometimes.

    Here's some I copied for instance: ێϊǼ♥♫▒ﯓ

    August 22, 2009

  • Organon: Aristotilian logic: A = x or not-x.

    Neo Organon: Francis Bacon: scientific method

    Tertium Organon: Ouspensky: A = x and not-x.

    August 21, 2009

  • See brolly.

    August 21, 2009

  • A free service/product that is supported $-wise by those who sign up/pay for the premium edition.

    August 20, 2009

  • Albuquerque, NM.

    August 18, 2009

  • Pauciloquent is as pauciloquent does!

    August 18, 2009

  • Pauciloquent as a clam.

    August 18, 2009

  • Here's some flat-hatting.

    I did my share of high-speed, low-level chasing sheep around in southwest Texas. Dumb, but exhilarating! I survived...

    August 18, 2009

  • Identifying moniker for radio communication between pilots and controlling agencies (or members of a flight formation). One of the best I've known amongst the fighter jocks: "fortune"; one of the worst: "rat".

    August 18, 2009

  • Morro Bay, CA to some sniffy and envious inland neighbors.

    August 18, 2009

  • Bar rat, toper. "Nearer the main street there were a few tourist hotels with neon signs like icing on a cardboard cake, red-painted chili houses, a series of shabby taverns where the rumdums were congregating."

    --Ross Macdonald, The Moving Target

    August 18, 2009

  • Thanks c_b! I'll put on my thinking cap and add some place nicknames to your list. BTW, I noticed the keyboard shortcuts you "found" a couple of months ago. Did you use "charmap" or what?

    August 18, 2009

  • Are you content with the content?

    August 18, 2009

  • Buried in the details to the extent of indecisiveness. Obsessed with details. (via NPR's Says You)

    August 16, 2009

  • Any device that goes into another device, e.g., an electrical plug into a wall socket.

    I also vote for: any container, say, for leftovers. "Hey, gimme a gazinta for this tuna salad." Synonym for doggie bag.

    August 16, 2009

  • Killing off your character in a videogame in order to go do something more important. (via NPR's Says You)

    August 16, 2009

  • According to NPR's Says You: a shrunken head.

    August 16, 2009

  • The person in the office who can tell you what the geeks are talking about; one who can actually talk to tech support. (Via NPR's Says You)

    August 16, 2009

  • A webpage requiring so much scrolling that when you reach the bottom you can't remember what's at the top. (via NPR's Says You)

    August 16, 2009

  • According to NPR's Says You: A wood plug driven into a wall to hold a nail.

    August 16, 2009

  • Reducing waste by limiting consumption. "Precycling is being thoughtful at the point of purchase in addition to at the point of throwing out." --Minneapolis Star Tribune, Aug. 4, 2009

    August 16, 2009

  • "Pynchonesque multitudes crowd into the picture. Tight-lipped federales, stoner lawyers, ex-con neo-nazis with a big thing for show tunes--they tumblesault in every page or two, each bearing, maybe, a piece of the puzzle."

    Richard Lacayo, Time Magazine review of Pynchon's Inherent Vice

    August 16, 2009

  • A device for finding furniture in the dark. (via NPR's "Car Talk")

    August 15, 2009

  • Heard on an NPR interview. You con't want to look too closely at what goes in to things made there!

    August 15, 2009

  • "I + Not-I = Everything. --Jan Cox

    August 12, 2009

  • Carpinteria, CA as the uppity and irreverent Santa Barbarans call it.

    August 12, 2009

  • San Bernardino, CA, as my grandfather used to kid us kids!

    August 12, 2009

  • A hot-dog inserted into a cored zucchini and deep-fried. Big at the San BedarnedifIknow Fair!

    August 12, 2009

  • ........__O

    ......_"\<,_

    .....(*)/ (*)

    .......................

    August 12, 2009

  • Also bivvy bag, the waterproof sack that holds your tent and/or sleeping bag.

    August 11, 2009

  • In a wine vineyard, when the grapes begin to take on color (red for red grapes and yellow for green grapes) and sugar begins to heighten during maturation. Harvest is not far off.

    August 10, 2009

  • Baseball: not good enough to play an outfield position outright, but good enough to be used as a substitue in a pinch.

    August 9, 2009

  • In politics, Social Security benefits. Don't touch 'em!!

    August 9, 2009

  • "Slapped cheek syndrome" (from red rash on cheeks) a mild viral disease (fifth in frequency of rash-producing maladies in early childhood).

    August 9, 2009

  • Two of Peter Pan's lost boys.

    August 9, 2009

  • One of Peter Pan's lost boys.

    August 9, 2009

  • One of Peter Pan's lost boys.

    August 9, 2009

  • One of Peter Pan's lost boys.

    August 9, 2009

  • One of Peter Pan's lost boys.

    August 9, 2009

  • The flags: U.S., Texas, Confederate, Mexican, Spanish, French. All have flown over Texas in its history.

    August 9, 2009

  • A hot-rod fashioned from a 1932 Ford coupe.

    August 9, 2009

  • According to NPR's "Says You": A piece cut out from a fish and used for bait. Scandinavian origin.

    August 9, 2009

  • E.g., Woody Allen films.

    August 8, 2009

  • Platinum wire.

    August 8, 2009

  • Righto, congrats!

    August 7, 2009

  • Crepuscular

    August 6, 2009

  • Gloaming

    August 6, 2009

  • Fritter

    August 5, 2009

  • Dwindle

    August 5, 2009

  • You got it!

    August 5, 2009

  • Yep, it's planet. Good going.

    August 5, 2009

  • Yah, likin' it.

    August 5, 2009

  • Nope. Try again. This one's not all that hard, but one never knows about such things, do one? :)

    August 5, 2009

  • Vagina?

    August 4, 2009

  • Pumpkin?

    August 4, 2009

  • Cephalopod?

    August 4, 2009

  • A speech that makes as much sense backwards as forwards? (Especially a resignation speech)

    August 4, 2009

  • "...the nocebo phenomenon wherein a patient produces the symptoms of a misdiagnosed disease, even to the degree of dying on the day that the doctor gave as the expected time to live, although the particular disease was not present."

    The Abundance Matrix, p. 5

    August 3, 2009

  • "At the University of Toronto, Dr. Mayberg, Zindel Segal and their colleagues first used brain imaging to measure activity in the brains of depressed adults. Some of these volunteers then received paroxetine (the generic name of the antidepressant Paxil), while others underwent 15 to 20 sessions of cognitive-behavior therapy, learning not to catastrophize. That is, they were taught to break their habit of interpreting every little setback as a calamity, as when they conclude

    from a lousy date that no one will ever love them."

    August 2, 2009

  • "Strange Discovery"

    July 31, 2009

  • Designer Brain Buckets.

    July 30, 2009

  • Betsy Ross v. main.

    July 30, 2009

  • ACCompanimENT: A scarf, say, is an accompaniment and an accent.

    July 30, 2009

  • FrEE: free v. fee

    July 30, 2009

  • bEfoRE

    July 30, 2009

  • Exhausted after a long day of insisting that one must never end a sentence with a preposition, the English teacher took a book about Australia up to her daughter's bedroom.

    "Mommy," said the girl, "what did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of about Down Under up for?"

    (via futilitycloset.com)

    July 29, 2009

  • That's one Pop-Tart more than I ate for lunch! Good goin' c_b. Must be why my brain's thumpin' like a washing machine in the spin cycle. *holds head*

    July 28, 2009

  • Hi Treeseed. How 'bout mumbletypeg?

    July 26, 2009

  • Also mumblypeg.

    July 26, 2009

  • Also mumblety-peg; mumbledepeg.

    July 26, 2009

  • A half pinch; 1/32 of a teaspoon.

    July 26, 2009

  • See manpower.

    July 26, 2009

  • One-tenth of a horsepower.

    July 26, 2009

  • To daub or plaster with adhesive mud.

    July 26, 2009

  • To swoon and faint.

    July 26, 2009

  • The final survey of an area, say, a hotel room, to check for personal items inadvertently left behind.

    July 26, 2009

  • Comprised of 1 - A, 2 - Ns, 3 - Ss, 4 - Ds, 5 - Es. (Via Futility Closet).

    July 20, 2009

  • Five words joined: T, EM, PER, AMEN, TALLY. (Thanks to Futility Closet)

    July 20, 2009

  • "When a rightsholder sends a nastygram to Amazon, you don't get a say in whether to treat the claim as valid or bogus."

    --"Amazon's Orwellian deletion of Kindle books", boingboing, July 20, 2009 (Cory Doctorow)

    July 20, 2009

  • A he-toad loved a she-toad

    That lived high in a tree.

    She was a two-toed tree toad

    But a three-toed toad was he.

    The three-toed tree toad tried to win

    The she-toad's nuptial nod,

    For the three-toed tree toad loved the road

    The two-toed tree toad trod.

    Hard as the three-toed tree toad tried,

    He could not reach her limb.

    From her tree-toad bower, with her V-toe power

    The she-toad vetoed him.

    – Anonymous

    July 16, 2009

  • See moderation for success.

    July 12, 2009

  • "Moderation is a fatal thing; nothing succeeds like excess" --Oscar Wilde

    July 12, 2009

  • "I used to be Snow White, but I drifted." --Mae West

    July 12, 2009

  • Oblong hexagonal container (wide at the shoulders) as opposed to a casket which is a rectangular box.

    July 12, 2009

  • "If a biological brain wants to develop a new cognitive capacity, it must pay a price. The currency in which the price is paid is sugar. Additional energy must be made available and more glucose must be burned to develop and stabilize this new capacity."

    Thomas Metzinger, The Ego Tunnel, p. 43

    July 11, 2009

  • "...the dream Ego does not know that it is dreaming. It does not realize the signals it is turning into an internal narrative are self-generated stimuli--in philosophical jargon, this feature of the dream state is a "metacognitive deficit." The dream Ego is delusional, lacking insight into the nature of the state it is itself generating."

    --Thomas Metzinger, The Ego Tunnel, p. 138

    In lucid dreaming, this is not the case, for the dreaming Ego is conscious it is dreaming/creating the dream state.

    July 4, 2009

  • See funemployment.

    July 3, 2009

  • Every generation has an argot to describe the confusing terrain of joblessness — the dole, deadbeat dads, UB40, and so on — and the lexicon of younger casualties in the most severe American economic downturn since World War II speaks volumes. See also: Funemployment, Unemploymentality.

    July 3, 2009

  • "Happiness is the best facelift." --Joni Mitchell

    July 2, 2009

  • Low security prison for relatively short-term non-violent offenders...where Bernie Madoff won't be spending his time behind bars.

    July 2, 2009

  • A place in the Owen's Valley of California, east of the Sierra Nevada and west of the White Mountains.

    July 1, 2009

  • "Shut yer pie-hole, or get it hit!"

    July 1, 2009

  • "Poorgeoisie and those who pretend to be less wealthy have been with us for years. What has changed is that many of them no longer have to pretend."

    --Wall Street Journal, Jun 17, 2009

    June 29, 2009

  • How about Dunmovin' (in California). Surprised not to see Lake Titicaca.

    June 29, 2009

  • Foreign Object Damage. Big concern on airport runways, ramps and taxiways, where jet engines can suck up stray objects like scraps of metal, screws and bolts, tools (even people). FOD control is a perennial prevention program in aviation.

    June 17, 2009

  • Not a good position to be in.

    June 17, 2009

  • "F**k it, I got mine!" Let the hindmost suck hind tit.

    June 17, 2009

  • "F**k it, I got my orders." Military acronym (also FIGMO) for one's attitude toward present duties with assignment orders for a new gig (or mustering-out) in hand. "Not my job, Bob, I'm FIGMO!" Also related to short (for short-timer, soon to be "separated" from active duty military]. "I'm so short I'm walking under doors!"

    June 17, 2009

  • (G)reatest (O)f (A)ll (T)ime

    June 17, 2009

  • NOW in the Land of One Hand Clapping.

    June 17, 2009

  • A confused situation.

    --Dictionary of American Regional English

    June 17, 2009

  • Mushrooms.

    --Dictionary of American Regional English

    June 17, 2009

  • (n) Bluejay (Usage: In the vicinity of Dothan, Ala., bluejays are often called "roller birds" because when chinaberries are ripe, the birds sit in the trees and gorge themselves until they grow drunk. Then they tumble out of the trees and roll on the ground...)

    --Dictionary of American Regional English

    June 15, 2009

  • Appalachian usage for pancake.

    --Dictionary of American Regional English

    June 15, 2009

  • Regional slang for diarrhea; loose bowels.

    --Dictionary of American Regional English

    June 15, 2009

  • An outing with no definite destination.

    -Dictionary of American Regional English

    June 15, 2009

  • To shell out; plunk down (money); to pay up. From Spanish Poner, to put; pongale: "put it down".

    June 14, 2009

  • Or, throwing your car out the window!?

    June 13, 2009

  • Kangaroo word: APposiTe

    June 12, 2009

  • Heard this somewhere and surprised it's virgin territory...

    June 4, 2009

  • I'm getting a 500 application error when I try the cloud feature on tags. Is that a temporary deal? It worked before, I believe.

    Edit: works normally except on the tag ghosted (so far anyway).

    Edit: found some others. Appears to relate to the size of the word collection tagged. The larger the collection the greater opportunity for 500 app error.

    June 2, 2009

  • C_b, you deserve an award from a BIG college as far as I'm concerned! And that's no excrement!! :o)

    June 2, 2009

  • (Via Time: n.--A method of sneezing used to prevent the spread of swine flu. "...last week teachers reminded students that if they have to sneeze, to put their mouths into the crook of one of their elbows. The students started calling that the Dracula Sneeze, and we picked up on that..."

    --Reuters, April 27, 2009

    June 1, 2009

  • Yah, probably so, but I edited the list intro to include them. The page really is an outlet for Says You! word play.

    May 31, 2009

  • Scuba-diving silent film star?

    May 31, 2009

  • Doughnut-loving seascape artist?

    May 31, 2009

  • Diva painter?

    May 31, 2009

  • Frankenstein on the Poseidon?

    May 31, 2009

  • Traitorous Kalifornia governor?

    May 31, 2009

  • A gift given TO a superior, more in homage than a bribe.

    May 31, 2009

  • Interesting this is not in someone's phobia list! Fear of telephones. Heard on NPR's Says You today.

    May 31, 2009

  • According to Nina Totenberg (NPR legal correspondent) a "sherpa" (presumably N.Y. Senator Chuck Shumer) will guide/lead Sonia Sotomayor in "making the rounds" on Capitol Hill in her quest to "unroil the waters" leading to the Supreme Court.

    May 31, 2009

  • The word originated from Latin "as" (plural asses) which was a copper coin and the monetary unit in ancient Rome. The word for ten asses was decussis, from Latin decem (ten) + as (coin). Since ten is represented by X, this spawned the verb decussare, meaning to divide in the form of an X or intersect.

    May 27, 2009

  • People living on the same parallel of latitude but on opposite meridians such that midnight for one is noon for the other. Singular: perioecus.

    May 26, 2009

  • n., recession-induced comfort eating. "Stressed out Britons have piled on 20 million stone in a year trying to 'comfort eat' their way through the recession, according to a report out today. The condition--dubbed the credit munch--has seen three in five Britons put on weight in the past 12 months." --the U.K.'s Daily Express, May 11, 2009 (via Time Magazine)

    May 26, 2009

  • Hole dug in a dirt floor to keep the vittles cool.

    The title of the latest Booker T. Jones release--first in twenty years!

    May 24, 2009

  • "Make no mistake. I take these children seriously. It is not possible to see too much in them, to overindulge your casual gift for the study of character. It is all there, in full force, charged waves of identity and being. There are no amateurs in the world of children."

    --Don DeLillo, White Noise

    May 18, 2009

  • Or, maybe one that starts one! :o)

    May 18, 2009

  • I was just looking at the blink and marquee pages for the first time in a coon's age. Has John disabled those features? NOT that I want to use 'em of course! :o)

    May 17, 2009

  • &radic

    May 17, 2009

  • A very large, river-loving two-facer with wiggling ears.

    May 17, 2009

  • Another of Borgmann's snowballs:

    I am not very happy acting pleased whenever prominent scientists overmagnify intellectual enlightenment, stoutheartedly outvociferating ultrareactionary retrogressionists, characteristically unsupernaturalizing transubstantiatively philosophicoreligious incomprehensiblenesses anthropomorphologically. Pathologicopsychological!

    May 17, 2009

  • 1 followed by 63 zeros. Can't imagine what a virgintillion might be. Maybe an gross exaggeration of the Jihadist's reward in paradise?

    May 16, 2009

  • "All my pretty ones?

    Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?

    What, all my pretty chickens and their dam

    At one fell swoop?"

    --Macduff, upon hearing of his family's murder in Macbeth

    May 13, 2009

  • Contains 11 personal pronouns (including possessives): I; it; its; he; his; her; hers; she; we; their; theirs!

    May 12, 2009

  • See some goofy patents here.

    May 12, 2009

  • Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown were descendants of Pullman porters — that distinctive and distinguished figure from yesteryear — the uniformed African-American train worker, who forged his way into the middle class.

    NPR Morning Edition, May 7, 2009

    May 8, 2009

  • Makes me think of a bunch of cannibals building a fire for the Missionary Soup they anticipate. "Hey, skookum!" :-)

    May 1, 2009

  • bottle of wine

    April 26, 2009

  • Secret of the Universe: "The smell of petroleum pervades throughout..."! See ethyl formate.

    April 26, 2009

  • A musician in a circus band.

    April 26, 2009

  • Structures in a particular landscape.

    April 26, 2009

  • Combination of crazy and drunk.

    April 26, 2009

  • Coined by David Steinberg during a skit where he, acting the part of a zany-disturbed patient, suddenly had a notion to change the piece midstream before his partner, the "psychiatrist" entered the room. He signaled the change with the announcement "Okay, you can send in the patient, now." The partner, upon his entrance and without missing a beat became the patient and they improvised onward. Booga booga arose somewhere in the ensuing action.

    I learned this listening to Michael Feldman's interview of David Steinberg on Whad'Ya Know?

    I still remember the joke wherein I first heard "booga booga" and had no idea of its origin. I doubt that David Steinberg had the same connotation in mind that the joke depends on...

    April 26, 2009

  • See ethyl formate.

    April 26, 2009

  • See ethyl formate.

    April 26, 2009

  • "...choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage..."

    Carrie Prejean

    April 26, 2009

  • I see your point c_b. If a typo of 'take' then not so obviously a mistake. Ah well, I try...

    April 24, 2009

  • See Moro reflex and God knows how many other umbrage takings on Wordie!

    April 23, 2009

  • Just learned this has a Shakespearean origin: Hamlet.

    April 23, 2009

  • "He raked the frizzen open against the bartop and dumped the priming out and laid the pistol down again."

    --Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

    April 18, 2009

  • "The huge and carved paneled doors hung awap on their hinges and a carved stone Virgin held in her arms a headless child."

    --Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

    April 18, 2009

  • See snarl.

    April 18, 2009

  • "The little painted horses stopped shifty and truculent and a vicious snarl of flies fought constantly in the bed of the gamewagon."

    --Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

    April 18, 2009

  • "There were buzzards squatting among the old carved wooden corbels and he picked up a stone and squailed it at them but they never moved".

    --Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

    April 18, 2009

  • Left-hand-only QWERTY words (thanks to futilitycloset.com).

    Reesetee, take note! ;o)

    April 14, 2009

  • If pronounced keekeronian everybody will be puzzled except for the Latin geeks...and the haplessfully heckalomaniacally huddled herky-jerks.

    April 12, 2009

  • Sheesh, busted for DUI while sitting on your bar stool!?

    April 1, 2009

  • How many letters are in ACE KING QUEEN JACK TEN NINE EIGHT SEVEN SIX FIVE FOUR THREE TWO?

    Fifty-two.

    --futilitycloset.com

    March 31, 2009

  • See comment under extension.

    March 31, 2009

  • The word EXTENSION can be rearranged into the words ONE, TEN, and SIX.

    String together the numbers 1, 10, and 6 and you get 1106.

    Add them and you get 17.

    The word EXTENSIVELY can be rearranged into the words SIXTY and ELEVEN.

    String together the numbers 60 and 11 and you get 6011.

    Add them and you get 71.

    --futilitycloset.com

    March 31, 2009

  • See mazzard.

    March 28, 2009

  • See mazzard.

    March 28, 2009

  • Slang for the head or face; also, mazard or mazer. HAMLET: "Chapless and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade."

    --From Slang and its Analogues, Past & Present compiled by J.S. Farmer.

    March 28, 2009

  • "At Candyality, a store in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, business has jumped by nearly 80 percent compared with this time last year, and the owner, Terese McDonald, said she was struggling to keep up with the demand for Bit-O-Honeys, Swedish Fish and Sour Balls."

    From a NYT article online 3/24/09

    March 25, 2009

  • Etym.: Gr. aphanes, invisible; Gr. pterux, a wing;

    A ground bird, incapable of flight (now extinct).

    See John's Errata Blog for Mar 22, 2009

    March 23, 2009

  • Liquidity is when you look at your 401K and wet your pants!!

    March 23, 2009

  • Molly Shannon's tree forte?

    March 20, 2009

  • Bi-sonic as in dingy blond: dirty v. dingbatty.

    March 20, 2009

  • Here are some more: limn, condemn, contemn, solemn

    March 19, 2009

  • Que Sera, Sera's been the earworm curse para mi, par excellence! For some idiot reason, always in the shower...go figure!

    March 18, 2009

  • I don't know how this really contributes to the conversations on this page, but I'm puttin' it here anyway!

    Earworm Protection?

    March 17, 2009

  • An activity where spelling counts! :)

    March 16, 2009

  • An example (from futilitycloset.com):

    Here's Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud" as rendered by Jean Lescure's "N+7″ procedure, replacing each noun with the seventh following it in a dictionary:

    The Imbeciles

    I wandered lonely as a crowd

    That floats on high o'er valves and ills

    When all at once I saw a shroud,

    A hound, of golden imbeciles;

    Beside the lamp, beneath the bees,

    Fluttering and dancing in the cheese.

    Continuous as the starts that shine

    And twinkle in the milky whey,

    They stretched in never-ending nine

    Along the markdown of a day:

    Ten thrillers saw I at a lance

    Tossing their healths in sprightly glance.

    The wealths beside them danced; but they

    Out-did the sparkling wealths in key:

    A poker could not be but gay,

    In such a jocund constancy:

    I gazed - and gazed - but little thought

    What weave to me the shred had brought:

    For oft, when on my count I lie

    In vacant or in pensive nude,

    They flash upon that inward fly

    That is the block of turpitude;

    And then my heat with plenty fills

    And dances with the imbeciles.

    March 16, 2009

  • Metaphor is made up of the thing known vs. the thing unknown, the metaphrand. The intention of the metaphor is to illuminate the metaphrand by giving it some of the features of the metaphier. E.g., "My love is like a red, red rose." "love" is the metaphrand, "rose" is the metaphier.

    Julian Jaynes

    March 15, 2009

  • Metaphor is made up of the thing known vs. the thing unknown, the metaphrand. The intention of the metaphor is to illuminate the metaphrand by giving it some of the features of the metaphier. E.g., "My hatred was a burning coal in my heart." Hatred = metaphrand, burning coal = metaphier.

    Julian Jaynes

    March 15, 2009

  • See lexulous.com for an online scrabble-type game. It used to be named Scrabulous and was available on Facebook (it was removed after Hasbro brought suit--later dropped--against the creators.)

    March 15, 2009

  • A sentence constructed with the 100 letter-tiles of Scrabble:

    COUNTRYMEN, I AM TO BURY, NOT EULOGIZE, CAESAR; IF EVIL LIVES ON, BEQUEATHING INJURY, GOOD OFT EXPIRES: A PALSIED, AWKWARD DEATH!

    From futilitycloset.com

    March 14, 2009

  • Kids game from my childhood days. There was something magical about assuming another name and being a swashbuckler. "Well, Pete, looks like they're after us now! We'd better find a good hideout." "You're right Joe, I know of a secret cave where they'll never find us; let's saddle up and make tracks." See cap gun.

    March 14, 2009

  • Cowboys and Indians, yay! "Pow,pow,kapwiiiinnnng!" "Pow, pow, got ya!"

    March 14, 2009

  • A new OED word. "...a good example of an old word that is new to the dictionary..." --Graeme Diamond, Principal Editor, New Words, Oxford English Dictionary

    March 13, 2009

  • A new OED word. One who moves to the countryside in search of a simpler, slower lifestyle.

    March 13, 2009

  • This is a new OED word.

    March 12, 2009

  • Yeasty; cheesy?

    March 12, 2009

  • Hey! Just noticed you hit the big two-oh-kay. Congratulations!...but you're making me feel waaaay underwordied! :-)

    Oh, and here's something you'll get a kick out of (I hope):

    X@#!% Birds.

    March 12, 2009

  • My goodness! A line drawn in the sand of the chocolate desert (dessert?)! :-)

    March 10, 2009

  • Alas, obsolete.

    March 10, 2009

  • I think the book is 2000 Most Challenging And Obscure Words by Norman W. Schur (Galahad Books, NY, 1994). I just picked it up at a swap meet for a buck!

    Edit: I see that the book is a compilation in one volume of two previous works by the author.

    March 10, 2009

  • Having a long, narrow (boat-shaped) skull.

    March 10, 2009

  • End-game maneuvers? From NYT crossword titled SOUND MOVES.

    March 9, 2009

  • A tax break for Gumby? From NYT crossword titled SOUND MOVES.

    March 9, 2009

  • Drab oriental fabric? From NYT crossword titled SOUND MOVES.

    March 9, 2009

  • Blessing for a shipboard romance? From NYT crossword titled SOUND MOVES.

    March 9, 2009

  • Excavate at the White Cliffs? From NYT crossword titled SOUND MOVES.

    March 9, 2009

  • Might not believe a witty Rogers? From NYT crossword titled SOUND MOVES.

    March 9, 2009

  • Fleshpot is a phonetic reversal of top-shelf, i.e., containing the same sounds in reverse.

    --From futilitycloset.com

    March 8, 2009

  • Do you think, maybe, that ponzipalooza might be a better rendition? -paloosa carries muddying connotations of horse to my mind. Love your list!

    March 4, 2009

  • “Ape Owe ‘Em�?

    When fur stews can this sill leer I'm,

    Toot rye tomb ache theme e'en ink Lear,

    Youth inked wood butt bee weigh sting thyme;

    Use eh, "It's imp lean on scents shear!"

    Gnome attar; Anna lies align!

    Nation mice lender verse says knot–

    Fork rip tick poet real Ike mine,

    How Aaron weal, demesnes allot.

    – Deems Taylor (seen at Futility Closet)

    February 12, 2009

  • The smallest integer whose name contains all five vowels (according to futilitycloset.com).

    January 27, 2009

  • Interesting to find one's blind spots. Until I heard David Brooks use this word in reference to Barak Obama's policy decisions out of the starting blocks, I saw/heard it only as the name of an insurance company--which used the rock of Gibraltar as its logo! :o)

    January 25, 2009

  • Did I just hear Tom Brokaw pronounce "grimaces" with a long a? Wow!

    January 21, 2009

  • And before the word was the peat! ;o)

    January 20, 2009

  • Thanks for your input hernesheir. Some of 'em are already on my Toot toot, beep beep list.

    January 8, 2009

  • Imperience. Introception. (Franklin Merrell-Wolff)

    December 31, 2008

  • See shadow self.

    December 31, 2008

  • Jungian Psychology. See also: I plus Not-I equals Everything.

    December 31, 2008

  • Hi whichbe. Your question puzzled me until I did a search and found it in my own comments. It stands for I plus Not-I equals Everything. I evidently never got around to adding its acronym when I was on my Jan Cox tear back then. I originally had trouble with adding my preferred version (I + Not-I = Everything) due to restrictions on symbols John had early on, thus the ipn-iee and not following up properly on a referent.

    December 31, 2008

  • Hey Bilby. Re: your comment on hate, I edited my original comment to make it clearer. I doubt however, that you're gonna find much 'joy' anyway. IPN-IEE stands for I Plus Not-I Equals Everything. I evidently forgot to add the acronym to my list back when I was on my Jan Cox tear.

    December 31, 2008

  • See I plus not-I equals everything.

    December 31, 2008

  • Well, I must say I'm gratified for this interest on everybody's part. 'Zactly why I created the list in the first place...I, uh, think!!

    December 29, 2008

  • I enjoyed ...Dangerous Things too. I think Philosophy In The Flesh is the best of all. Also, Where Mathematics Comes From (collaboration with Nunez) is great and I highly recommend it.

    December 28, 2008

  • Thanks for your input, Yaybob. Your "tropical tour" is a good recap.

    December 27, 2008

  • A word palindrome.

    December 21, 2008

  • When the Confederate soldiers returned to their homes after the Civil War, they found little to do. So they went north looking for work. They were called a name that arose out of a tool they were carrying. A hoe.

    The soldiers were walking the back roads, riding and jumping on trains, and sleeping out in the countryside hoping to find some kind of work. They were called hoe boys, which came to be called hobos.

    From a "Click and Clack" Radio Show Puzzler.

    December 17, 2008

  • See hoe boy.

    December 17, 2008

  • Heard on an interview by Bob Edwards of Roy Blount touting his new book:Alphabet Juice. The change in the English language occasioned by restricted space for headlines. The decline of newpapers will decrease this generator of new English...so Roy thinks.

    December 15, 2008

  • Close to round: circa circumcircle

    November 29, 2008

  • *nonplussed, with big grin*

    November 29, 2008

  • Bananaphone!

    November 28, 2008

  • Hi froggipaws! Don't know if you're a crossword fan or not, but you might get a kick out of this. The first I've ever seen of cartoon characters featured in the clues. Clever!

    November 26, 2008

  • CLAMorous. Noisy v. silent as a clam.

    November 26, 2008

  • Zombies are the top of the

    November 25, 2008

  • See a list of cognitive biases here.

    November 25, 2008

  • There's gold in them thar (cassette) hills! Transformers, fashion wear, jewelry and more!.

    November 21, 2008

  • In the direction of "The Night of the Living Dead"?...or the catatonic section of the asylum?

    November 20, 2008

  • Yiddish origin: a no-goodnik, scoundrel.

    November 20, 2008

  • Some of those monsters are mighty cute 'n cuddly!

    November 18, 2008

  • Fear of life, of being alive.

    November 18, 2008

  • "But the truth was out for all to see long before the big-name take-downs. For months sourcewatch.org has identified Martin Eisenstadt as a hoax. When Mr. Stein was the victim, he blogged that “there was enough info on the Web that I should have sussed this thing out.�?

    --NY Times story about an internet hoax.

    November 17, 2008

  • Pepe said, we only have one enchilada left, but don't worry wheelchair

    November 15, 2008

  • See tingling inkling.

    November 15, 2008

  • See tingling inkling.

    November 15, 2008

  • A Bill Brysonism in Thunderbolt Kid. Really has a nice feel and ring...uh huh. Had to do with "pert buttocks" shown on the early TV show Sky King whereby the first glimmerings of rampant heterosexualism almost imperceptibly inveigled itself, then reared insistent lustful elbowings into ole Bill's "Kid World".

    November 15, 2008

  • 01001110 01101111 00100000 01100110 01100001 01101001 01110010 00100001 00100000 01010111 01101000 01101001 01100011 01101000 01100010 01100101 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110101 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110101 01101110 01100001 01110101 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110010 01101001 01111010 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00100001 00100000 00101010 01100111 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100100 01110011 00100000 01110100 01100101 01100101 01110100 01101000 00101010

    November 15, 2008

  • 01011001 01100101 01101111 01110111 00100001 00100000 01010111 01101111 01101111 01100100 01110011 01110100 01101111 01100011 01101011 00101100 00100000 01110010 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01011011 01000010 01100101 01100101 01101100 01111010 01100101 01100010 01110101 01100010 01011101 00101110 00101110 00101110 01110111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 01100100 01100001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01110101 01101110 01101011 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100001

    November 15, 2008

  • Man! Post something on reesetee's profile, and....wham! You're thick in the blizzard of Wordieness! Yeah! Moughty fine! ;o)

    November 15, 2008

  • 01001000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01010111 01101111 01101111 01100100 01110011 01110100 01101111 01100011 01101011 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110101 01110011 00100001 00100000 00111011 01101111 00101001

    November 15, 2008

  • Hey reesetee! I finally got around to creating an account on Flickr. If you're interested in some views of where I do most of my birding, check out my Flickr also-on link.

    November 15, 2008

  • I switched to Internet Explorer and the problem's fixed, so, it's gotta be Mozilla.

    Edit: I reloaded Firefox and now it's working right. :o)

    November 15, 2008

  • Meeting v. bestowal.

    November 15, 2008

  • I've also got to refresh the page to show the comment I've just written!

    November 15, 2008

  • I'll say! I just got a Firefox update. I can't add books on LibraryThing either. I hope it's not a Mozilla screwup. :o/

    November 15, 2008

  • It appears that the edit function for comments is tango uniform. Anybody else agree?

    November 15, 2008

  • "Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back-alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved."

    --from "First Line of Bad Novels"

    November 15, 2008

  • Thanks for the he'p, Pro! Youse a gennemun unt a scholar. I think my also-on ducks are all properly in a row now. :o)

    November 14, 2008

  • Spanish version of the call of the dove (la paloma). An extremely beautiful Spanish song carries this title.

    November 13, 2008

  • Thanks for the bird song input, Sarra! I'll put you on the list to contribute...

    November 13, 2008

  • Hey frogapples, do you know about grawlix? A word right up a stripper's alley, don'tcha think? You otta own it, no? :o)

    November 12, 2008

  • Have a very merry one! ;o)

    November 12, 2008

  • Whoops! Missed it I guess. Well, a very merry unbirthday to yooooouuuuu!

    November 12, 2008

  • Term coined (?)/used by Sandra Tsing Loh on one of her bits on NPR--The Loh Down.

    November 11, 2008

  • Also, doddie: a cow or bull without horns.

    November 11, 2008

  • The only Zen you find

    on the tops of mountains

    is the Zen you bring up there.

    --Robert M. Pirsig

    November 10, 2008

  • Beautiful butterfly in the Hopi language (from an email; can't vouch for it but it's a pretty word anyway).

    November 10, 2008

  • The searchlight metaphor: The greater swath the searchlight penetrates, the greater is the circumference of the unknown. So, the more we know, the more we don't know.

    November 9, 2008

  • Re: "43rd person to occupy that role"--

    "Harrison defeated Cleveland in 1888, making it necessary to consider Cleveland both the 22nd and 24th president."

    From Language on Vacation by Dimitri Borgmann

    November 9, 2008

  • U N K I S S E D

    N O O N T I M E

    K O R H A N E S

    I N H A L E R S

    S T A L L A G E

    S I N E A T E R

    E M E R G E N T

    D E S S E R T S

    From Language on Vacation< by Dimitri Borgmann

    November 9, 2008

  • Looking at those pix of silkies put me in mind of Al Capp's Shmoos. I wonder if there's any connection somehow?

    November 9, 2008

  • When the revolution comes, like the lilies of the field I'll not toil...but I will revolve!

    November 6, 2008

  • Thanks mollusque, I've added you to contributors.:o)

    November 5, 2008

  • "Hey man, I'm looking for Paco, tell me if juicy him!"

    November 5, 2008

  • Pilots have emergency procedures manuals for every kind of aircraft and equipment malfunction. The manual is categorized into the various aircraft systems, hydraulic, electrical, flight controls, etc., for quick reference to the, sometimes extensive, troubleshooting steps that must be followed. Some of the emergencies are so critical (e.g., catastrophic engine failure) they are placed in a red-outlined frame, called a "red box" and pilots are required to commit these procedural steps to memory. During the occasion of a pilot's training and/or checkride in "the box" s/he is given a "mini-oral" designed to evaluate his/her knowledge of aircraft systems and always includes a recitation of these red box items. As the flight industry, both military and civilian has evolved over the years, the trend has been to limit the number and complexity of red box items due to the frailty of human memory. Increasingly, improvements in technology facilitate this trend. Nowadays emergency procedures are available on aircraft-provided computer-analysis and recommended actions are printed on flight deck instrument display screens. Often, many critical actions are automatically initiated by the computer brain of the affected system. It's a safe bet however, that red box items will never go away completely. See also, boldface procedure.

    November 4, 2008

  • Professional pilot slang for the flight simulator they must periodically visit (usually every six or nine months), wherein they thrash, sweat and strain with the aircraft equipment malfunctions, foul weather and Air Traffic Controller screw-ups that their sadistic Sim Instructor (chuckling "heh, heh") loads them up with from his control panel behind the pilots in the simulator. The box can be a real E-ticket ride. Mounted on hydraulic struts/actuators that can produce pitch, roll and yaw as well as air turbulence (even the feel of the aircraft taxiing on pavement); the actuators are a treat to watch in action from outside the simulator as they tilt the boxy structure this way and that - much more pleasant than experiencing the motion from the inside!

    Obviously, simulators save airlines money and are invaluable for practicing emergency procedures (see red box items) and inculcating habit patterns that will serve a pilot in a real-world actual emergency.

    Still, most pilots look forward to their time in "the box" with as much enthusiasm as they do going to the dentist for a root-canal!

    November 4, 2008

  • Dey = governor of Algiers under the Ottoman Empire.

    Bey = title for high ranking officials in the Ottoman Empire.

    November 4, 2008

  • EASY

    EAST

    HAST

    HART

    HARD

    November 4, 2008

  • Naw. Surprise me! ;o)

    November 3, 2008

  • An kay ooyay oktay igpay atlinlay?

    November 1, 2008

  • That's a big compliment rt! Thanks. Although, the last 5 years of my career almost cancelled the pleasure of the preceding 25 years. I knew this when I couldn't any longer recommend/encourage a pilot career to the kids who visited the flight deck. September 11 changed everything. :o(

    November 1, 2008

  • Wittgenstein's term. More here.

    November 1, 2008

  • *whew*

    November 1, 2008

  • Coy a nun yoy o u tut a lul kuk Kuk i nun gug Tut u tut lul a nun gug u a gug e?

    A, Bub, Coy, Dud, E, Fuf, Gug, Huh (or Hoy), I, Juj (or Joy), Kuk, Lul, Mum, Nun, O, Pup, Q (?), Rur (or Roy), Sus, Tut, U, Vuv, Wuw (or Woy), Xux, Yoy, Zuz

    November 1, 2008

  • Kezan yezou tezalk izzy wizzy lezanguezage?

    November 1, 2008

  • When we kids caught on to pig latin, Mom and Dad switched to izzy wizzy language.

    November 1, 2008

  • Pull Out Quick?

    November 1, 2008

  • Lez play copse 'n robbers! :)

    November 1, 2008

  • As Soon As You Get This.

    November 1, 2008

  • The Powers That Be.

    November 1, 2008

  • The End Of The World As We Know It.

    November 1, 2008

  • Sorry Could Not Resist.

    November 1, 2008

  • Your Mileage May Vary.

    November 1, 2008

  • Wish yoU Were Here.

    November 1, 2008

  • Never In a Million Years.

    November 1, 2008

  • Just One Of Those Things.

    November 1, 2008

  • Way To Much Information.

    November 1, 2008

  • "One for all, all for one."

    November 1, 2008

  • Pilot term used when unable to locate traffic called out by airport tower or other radar coverage center (if seen, however, the reply is Talley Ho!). Also, applies to any situation where the hoped-for outcome is elusive. "No joy on frequency 123.4! I'm afraid the radio may be tango uniform!"

    October 29, 2008

  • See no joy.

    October 29, 2008

  • Ditto, moving words from one list to another. I would hope there's one fix for all...

    Edit: I also get the application error when deleting a word. For some reason toothache occurs twice on one of my lists. Tried to delete one of 'em, but no joy. Then I moved one of 'em to my Potpourri list and tried to delete it there. Couldn't be done. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the duplication? Anyway, application error is making things pretty inconvenient to work/troubleshoot the system.

    Edit 2: The 'delete' option is not shown on a comment edit. Again, all these accompanied by the app error.

    October 29, 2008

  • Yeah, but I wanted to get the QWERTY-thing in there. Unfortunately Philippines doesn't work!

    October 29, 2008

  • "Bum Bill Bee". One of the characters in Geo. Herriman's Krazy Kat cartoon strip.

    October 29, 2008

  • Right-hand QWERTY word.

    October 29, 2008

  • The equivalent of an I-phone cum Blackberry in Neal Stephenson's Anathem.

    October 28, 2008

  • Ripe for a fighp, don'tcha know. Watch it, Bucky!

    October 28, 2008

  • A sort of Triple-A/GPS/google map jeejah in Neal Stephenson's Anathem.

    October 28, 2008

  • Stephenson's amazing, no? I'm about half way through Anathem and loving every minute of it!

    October 27, 2008

  • Just noticed this. Nice going whichbe! Favorited.

    October 27, 2008

  • A delicacy, a dainty.

    October 26, 2008

  • According to Futility Closet, the only state whose boundary contains no straight line.

    October 26, 2008

  • See bar-tailed godwit.

    October 25, 2008

  • Yas, dem birdies is rough-tough creampuffs!

    October 25, 2008

  • Reesetee, I was surprised to find you hadn't listed this already! ;o)

    October 24, 2008

  • "I'm so glad we had this time together..." *pulls earlobe ala Carol Burnett*

    October 24, 2008

  • Beg as in to seek vs. avoid, as in beg the question.

    October 24, 2008

  • To be soaked in riches is the opposite of "soak the rich".

    October 24, 2008

  • One known as "E7" and complete with implanted transceiver, flew 7200 miles non-stop, according to biologist, Bob Gill.

    October 24, 2008

  • See the booze news.

    October 22, 2008

  • See whiskey.

    Edit: for the liquor, both -y and -ey spelling is acceptable.

    October 22, 2008

  • Ever upward!

    October 22, 2008

  • Uncomplimentary imputation, usually justly deserved. This imprecation just has the most satisfying mouth-feel, don'tcha think?

    October 22, 2008

  • Vietnamese or maybe Thai for "bug out"..."get outta Dodge". Could be spelled deedee mao...don't know for sure.

    October 21, 2008

  • Motto for USAF Undergraduate Pilot Training Class 70-02 (Feb., 1970), Laughlin AFB. Meaning: Take A Big Bite Out Of My Ass, Sir!

    October 21, 2008

  • When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

    October 21, 2008

  • Knock Out blow. Also, see kayo.

    October 21, 2008

  • Hey, whichbe. Can't decide whether sine qua non belongs. You be the decider.

    October 21, 2008

  • Class motto for a USAF Undergraduate Pilot Training Class at Laughlin AFB, TX, ca. 1968. Latin for "Don't let the bastards get (grind) you down!"

    October 21, 2008

  • But not hairy U-s ("Fine, thanks! You?).

    October 21, 2008

  • Don't join dangerous cults, practice safe sects!

    October 21, 2008

  • A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

    October 21, 2008

  • Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

    October 21, 2008

  • Two silkworms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

    October 21, 2008

  • A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

    October 21, 2008

  • No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

    October 21, 2008

  • She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

    October 21, 2008

  • I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

    October 21, 2008

  • The roundest knight at King Arthur's roundtable was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

    October 21, 2008

  • See witches' knickers.

    October 21, 2008

  • I'm wondering if those are Brown Recluse spider boots? Don't think I'd accept any sizing for those...

    October 21, 2008

  • "The Oulipo described their work as analysis and synthesis. Anoulipo involved seeking out texts written using literary constraints since the beginning of the alphabet. The intention, according to Le Lionnais, is “to find possibilities that often exceed those their authors had anticipated.�? (Motte Oulipo 27) When an experiment that had been undertaken by a member of the Oulipo was found to have been tried in history, the previous attempt was called “plagiarism by anticipation.�? This joke suggests that the Oulipo considered their forms to be not entirely their intellectual property. These “plagiarists�? were acknowledged and honored. Georges Perec's “The History of the Lipogram�? traces the lipogram back to the origin of the alphabet with astonishing detail, including how many copies of certain texts he believes are still in existence."

    --from an essay by William Gillespie

    October 20, 2008

  • For some info re: oulipo click here.

    Also see plagiarism by anticipation.

    October 20, 2008

  • WORD

    WOAD

    ROAD

    READ

    REAL

    PEAL

    PEAT

    PLAT

    PLAY

    See my Word Ladders list for a bunch more.

    October 20, 2008

  • Thanks, frogapplause, I needed to know this. :o) In my experience, M's T is more the rule than the exception, especially if we look closely at most works of Classical art/statuary.

    October 20, 2008

  • "The Brown Book contains a number of other significant ideas that are developed further in the Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein discusses rule following, arguing that there is no rock-bottom justification for the rules we follow and that we need not consciously follow or interpret a rule every time we obey a rule. He discusses the word can and the way that misunderstandings regarding this word give us mistaken notions about the past and future. He also discusses the distinction between seeing and seeing as, arguing that we can see a bunch of squiggles on a page as a face, but we cannot see a fork as a fork, since no alternative presents itself. In other words, when philosophers speak of seeing things “as themselves," in the sense of seeing things in their essence, such statements have no meaning. For example, it would not make sense to speak of seeing someone “as a human being" or “as a person" —there's no difference between that and how we normally see people."

    --from SparkNotes.

    October 20, 2008

  • Neat, sionnach! There's also Wittgenstein's Poker.

    Edit: Oops! I see you've already got it. There's also Wittgenstein's Fork (qv.) (The Brown Book)

    October 20, 2008

  • How about: Shit! Yeah, that's right, shit!

    You can smoke shit, buy shit, sell shit, lose shit, find shit, forget shit, and tell others to eat shit.

    Some people know their shit, while others can't tell the difference between shit and Shinola.

    There are lucky shits, dumb shits, and crazy shits. There is bull shit, horse shit, and chicken shit.

    You can throw shit, sling shit, catch shit, shoot the shit, or duck when the shit hits the fan.

    You can give a shit or serve it on a shingle.

    You can find yourself in deep shit or be happier than a pig in shit.

    Some days are colder than shit, some days are hotter than shit, and some days are just plain shitty.

    Some music sounds like shit, things can look like shit, and there are times when you feel like shit.

    You can have too much shit, not enough shit, the right shit, the wrong shit or a lot of weird shit.

    You can carry shit, face a mountain of shit, or find yourself up shit creek without a paddle.

    Sometimes everything you touch turns to shit and other times you fall in a bucket of shit and come out smelling like a rose.

    When you stop to consider all the facts, it's the basic building block of the English language. And remember, once you know your shit, you don't need to know anything else!!

    Well, shit! that's enough for now. Have a nice day, without a bunch of shit. But, if you happen to catch a load of shit from some shit-head.....well,

    Shit Happens!!!

    --from some wag, somewhere.

    October 19, 2008

  • Cecil Adams explains quantum physics in an epic poem.

    October 19, 2008

  • Wow! That's about 500 more than there are Waffle Houses. Good show!!

    October 19, 2008

  • You know, wattle and waffle would have the same definition...except for two very good reasons.

    October 19, 2008

  • Or at least a friendly noogie. *not trying to change the subject*

    October 19, 2008

  • Relation to gnar?

    October 19, 2008

  • May they never be your lot...one way or the other.

    October 19, 2008

  • Underpants are overrated! Pajamas too. 'Course I'm not commenting on my own proclivities, don'tcha know. Leastwise, probably mebbe.

    October 19, 2008

  • What Leibniz said under his breath every time his unique invention of the calculus was challenged.

    October 19, 2008

  • Huh! Well, I had an ancestor on the Mayflower that wore the first Hawaiian shirt(s). So there! Unfortunately, he didn't survive the trip...I'm told. Good thing he wasn't my only ancestor. Or, if he was, I'm just a Wordie fig newton (always a possibility--see solipsism or solecism).

    October 19, 2008

  • That's so, so something, I'm gonna put it in my Dyslexic's Delight list!

    October 18, 2008

  • Watch radioactive balonium decay here.

    October 17, 2008

  • (S)uperconducting (Q)(U)antum (I)nterference (D)evice.

    October 17, 2008

  • Done!

    October 17, 2008

  • You beat me to this c_b. I wrote it down too but then dallied. Snooze ya looze, eh?

    Edit: I should have said you beat me to the comment!

    October 17, 2008

  • I 'spect he has. After all, that's how you show that you've been to Hickalulu!

    October 16, 2008

  • See the Wiki link for various military unit sizes and organization.

    October 16, 2008

  • A British race horse, son of "Eclipse," born in 1773. This last name, incidentally, was pronounced "potatoes," because if could be resolved into a homonym of "potatoes:" "POT" + EIGHT "O's."

    --Language on Vacation by Dmitri A. Borgmann

    October 11, 2008

  • Vietnamese for crazy. Don't know if it's slang or not. Could be "dinky dao". Spelling was shown in ...and a hard rain fell: a GI's story of the War in Vietnam by John Ketwig (an amazing read--highly recommended).

    October 8, 2008

  • Everybody's familiar with the bell curve. But nobody considers that other one, a second bell curve: x2 + y2 = 1, i.e., the circle. Dip the bell skirt in ink, plunk it down on paper and presto!

    October 8, 2008

  • Also see fat tail.

    October 8, 2008

  • See fat tail and long tail and Wiki link.

    October 8, 2008

  • In essence, as related to small-world network theory, the more connections a network node has, the fewer in number are such nodes. A graphing displays the classic "power law" pattern where the y axis = # of connections vs. the x axis = # of nodes with y connections generates a curve showing a rather steep fall-off--hence, the "fat tail".

    October 8, 2008

  • Whew! Telofy, you've got an intriguingly eccentric facility with English. Press on, amigo!

    October 3, 2008

  • Goggles worn by dogs as fashion statements, especially by Chihuahuas. :/

    October 2, 2008

  • From an e-mail, author unknown. It's been around awhile but always fun to see again:

    You think English is easy???

    Read to the end . . . a new twist

    1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

    2) The farm was used to produce produce .

    3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

    4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

    5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

    6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

    7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present .

    8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

    9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

    10) I did not object to the object.

    11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

    12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row ..

    13) They were too close to the door to close it.

    14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

    15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

    16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

    17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

    18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

    19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

    20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

    Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted.. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

    And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

    If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

    How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

    English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

    PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick' ?

    You lovers of the English language might enjoy this .

    There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'

    It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?

    We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

    And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

    We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP ! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many wa ys UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP . When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP...

    When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

    When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

    One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so........it is time to shut UP!

    Oh . . . one more thing:

    What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night? U-P!

    October 1, 2008

  • "Official designation for freshman cadets at The Citadel. Called such because their shaved heads resemble shiny door knobs." (Urban dictionary).

    September 27, 2008

  • Bilby; re: open lists reference you could do what Mollusque suggested below somewhere--add the URL of the open list to a list description created for that purpose. Another idea that struck: tag the latest word addition to an open list you want to go back to with "revisit" or some such.

    September 26, 2008

  • This page!!...it's a bleedin' mirkle!

    September 24, 2008

  • See 7457.

    September 24, 2008

  • Name of the organization concept in network theory behind the "six degrees of separation" between any two points. Social networks are small-worlds; the organization of the brain is a small-world. Even the English language is a small-world.

    More here.

    September 24, 2008

  • This one's not in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, but I thought it deserved honorable mention. You'll find the job description and an interview with one in Mary Roach's Stiff. She interviews a woman whose job is cutting off cadaver heads for seminars/workshops in the medical profession, specifically: cosmetic surgery. Each head is mounted in a cereal bowl-like container and covered with a cloth prior to the physicians' entrance into the seminar room.

    September 23, 2008

  • Solar eclipse as seen from the Mir space station.

    September 22, 2008

  • Yummy: typed with one finger only. See deeded, ceded and muumuu.

    September 22, 2008

  • Ceded: typed with one finger only. See muumuu, deeded and yummy.

    September 22, 2008

  • Muumuu: Typed with one finger only. Check it out!

    September 22, 2008

  • So, go for it! ;o)

    September 20, 2008

  • On Aug. 9 each year in the little Alaskan town of Kotzebue, the sun sets twice.

    Due to a quirk of the town's location and time zone, the sun goes down just after midnight on that day—and then again just before the following midnight.

    See picture here.

    September 20, 2008

  • What makes folks believers in hoax videos of cell phones popping popcorn and claims-cum-pictures of cell phones cooking eggs. See Snope's article for usage.

    September 19, 2008

  • The origin of the "c" in E = m c2. Latin for swiftness or speed as applicable to the speed of light.

    September 17, 2008

  • Also, to get pregnant, in Caribbean usage. More here.

    September 15, 2008

  • Treasure Island. See Wikipedia.

    September 15, 2008

  • See June gloom (or May gray).

    September 15, 2008

  • See June gloom.

    September 15, 2008

  • See awake.

    September 14, 2008

  • See awake.

    September 14, 2008

  • Yeah, what a loss. Jeez, one would hope such facility with language would somehow insulate...indemnify one from such a fate; alas, 'tis not so.

    September 14, 2008

  • See citation under truth.

    September 14, 2008

  • See truth for citation including faith.

    September 14, 2008

  • All Faith is false, all Faith is true:

     Truth is the shattered mirror strown

    In myriad bits; while each believes

     his little bit the whole to own.

    The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi, Richard F. Burton, translation

    September 14, 2008

  • The monster of the rip current that eats unwary chilluns.

    September 14, 2008

  • Beware the undertoad!

    September 14, 2008

  • Cf. jamais vu.

    September 13, 2008

  • "Thus it is called Void, Sunyata, Empty, Agnoia--which means only that all thoughts and propositions about reality are void and invalid.

    --Ken Wilber

    September 13, 2008

  • "It is dusk in the tropical rainforest of Papua, New Guinea. As the shrieking of parrots and parakeets fades and the tree kangaroos settle in for a long night, fireflies by the million are taking to the air and lighting it up like tiny flickering stars. For a while the fireflies' erratic flashing will animate the darkening air with a gentle, luminescent chaos. But as evening turns to night, the chaos will give way to one of nature's most bizarre displays. Fireflies, first in pairs, then in groups of three, ten, a hundred, and a thousand, will begin to pulse in near-perfect synchrony. By midnight, entire trees and clumps of trees will be flashing on and off with the crisp clarity of neon signs.

    'Imagine a tree thirty-five to forty feet high,' an eyewitness once wrote.'...apparently with a firefly on every leaf and all the fireflies flashing in perfect unison at the rate of about three times in two seconds, the tree being in complete darkness between flashes...Imagine a tenth of a mile of river front with an unbroken line of mangrove trees with fireflies on every leaf flashing in synchronism, the insects on the trees at the ends of the line acting in perfect unison with those between. Then if one's imagination is sufficiently vivid, he may form some conception of this amazing spectacle.'

    It is more than a spectacle. It is also a scientific enigma."

    --NEXUS: SMALL WORLDS and the Groundbreaking THEORY OF NETWORKS by Mark Buchanan, p. 48

    edit: there are only a handful of firefly species that can do this...

    September 13, 2008

  • Interesting. The 'y' also has anatomical implications, n'est-ce pas? An extra dimension of symbolism.

    September 9, 2008

  • Makes your pee smell funny! See Wiki link.

    September 6, 2008

  • Nice bunnies! Try Dunction Wood by Horwood. It's about moles...

    September 5, 2008

  • My goodness dontcry, this is a classic! You must be a golfer, hmmmm?

    September 5, 2008

  • Also used today on NPR's Says You "which is the real definition" segment of the show. Real definition: a man with a tail.

    August 31, 2008

  • Don't call me Shirley! ;o)

    Albino Squirrel Preservation Society

    August 31, 2008

  • See Winnie-the-Pooh for comments and links.

    August 31, 2008

  • En route to a training camp in Quebec during World War I, Canadian army lieutenant Harry Colebourn bought a bear cub for $20 from a hunter in White River, Ontario. He named her Winnipeg, after his hometown, and smuggled her to England, where "Winnie" became the mascot of his militia regiment.

    Eventually he donated her to the London Zoo, where she became a great favorite of Christopher Robin Milne, the son of a local playwright. You know the rest.

    Here's the original Winnie. And here's some "pooh" on A. A. Milne.

    August 31, 2008

  • "Next morning we splinter off into our groups. My tutor is another popular English medium. She is reminiscent of Elizabeth Taylor in her forties: a rolling terrain of voluptuousness and eye shadow, balanced on tiny, dressy black heels. Mediumship came to her one night when she went to see a gypsy. She describes a curtain opening in her mind's eye and suddenly there they were: the spit-its, to use her pronunciation."

    --Mary Roach, Spook; Science Tackles the Afterlife p. 173 (A very good and FUNNY book.)

    August 30, 2008

  • flea: circus employee?

    August 25, 2008

  • Descartes goes into a bar and orders a beer. After he finishes his drink the bartender asks him if he wants another one. "I think not," Descartes replies. Then he disappears.

    August 25, 2008

  • The Love Attitude Scale (LAS), including movie and book examples of various types of love.

    August 23, 2008

  • Blue macaw

    August 23, 2008

  • inCOnseqUeNTial. If something counts it's hardly inconsequential.

    August 23, 2008

  • aggRAndiZE. Build up vs. tear down.

    August 23, 2008

  • The antidote for earworm.

    "The response is not only emotional but involuntary. It's not just that we don't have earlids to shut out unwanted sounds. Once a word is seen or heard, we are incapable of treating it as a squiggle or noise; we reflexively look it up in memory and respond to its meaning, including its connotation."

    --What the F***? Why We Curse article by Steven Pinker in The New Republic. See chained_bear's list.

    August 21, 2008

  • Ah, Hollywoodland! Here's an online glossary of movie terms.

    August 21, 2008

  • :o)

    August 21, 2008

  • One who lives near the sea.

    August 20, 2008

  • "...is a view of existence significantly different from the conventional religious and scientific perspectives but incorporating elements of each. According to Judeo-Christian theology, the universe was created by God, man's reason cannot comprehend the manner of its creation, and that there will be a final day of judgment. Science accepts the historicity of creation in the first law of thermodynamics. In the second law of thermodynamics science accepts both the inability of man to comprehend the creation and the finality of some future. Psience, in contrast, denies the linearity of progression from Genesis to Eschaton, asserting instead that creation is a continuous process with beginning or end, and when so recognized, a process within the reach of man's reason."

    --PSIENCE: A General Theory of Existence by J.W. Nicholas p. 13

    See krankenphilosophie.

    And this from PSIence: How new discoveries in quantum physics and new science may explain the existence of paranormal phenomena by Marie D. Jones, p. 200:

    "What is the door between the implicate and explicate order of things? What is the one thing that stands between the normal and paranormal, the natural and the supernatural, the science and the psience?

    I'll give you a hint. If you are alive and breathing...you have one."

    August 20, 2008

  • "...playing theoretical tennis without a net...reasoning, sometimes plausibly and cogently sometimes not, from inadequate premises."

    --PSIENCE: A General Theory of Existence by J. W. Nicholas, p.9 of "Caveat Lector" by Richard De Mille

    August 20, 2008

  • Any time, rt. Happy to hep out!

    August 19, 2008

  • M o l a s s e s i n J a n u a r y.

    August 19, 2008

  • By the ever-inciteful Abbie Hoffman.

    August 19, 2008

  • Subtitle: The Riddle of Dracula and other Logical Puzzles.

    August 19, 2008

  • This probably isn't a list-maker but I've always admired Raymond Smullyan's What is the Name of this Book?. Oh, and also Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book.

    August 19, 2008

  • "Six-point perspective" landscape painted on a sphere by Dick Termes makes a termesphere, complete with a neat optical illusion. See a video of one here. And the 3-month creation of one shown in three minutes here.

    August 19, 2008

  • That "right on the tip of my tongue" feeling.

    August 19, 2008

  • Antonym of deja vu. See Wiki link.

    Also Cf. agnosia.

    August 19, 2008

  • Thanks, y'all!

    August 18, 2008

  • See if you can come up with a rhyming word for coif.

    August 15, 2008

  • Variant of offense.

    August 15, 2008

  • "vomiting fire"; volcanic

    August 15, 2008

  • Attempting to view tag words in cloud format still gives a 500 Application Error. I see that VanishedOne broached this eight months ago. I just wanted to make sure it's on your to-do list, John. It would be a handy display to have for voluminously worded tags.

    Edit: Well, dog my cats! Cloud format for the tag "ghosted" gives the 500 error, but, so far, other tag cloud function works fine. Must be something to do with all the words being unlisted. Go calculate!

    August 13, 2008

  • You know what the "S" stands for in Ulysses S. Grant? You guessed it!: Simpson

    August 13, 2008

  • How 'bout Monty Python's cave-dwelling attack bunny?

    August 12, 2008

  • See gound.

    August 9, 2008

  • This word's gotta be related to gunge...maybe? Used it a lot in my surfing days.

    August 9, 2008

  • ....invisible, with Bertie and juice for all. ;o)

    August 9, 2008

  • Interesting. Also, without the 'ing', the name of many a mutt, and of which they must be proud since they say it so often!

    August 9, 2008

  • One of Ammon Shea's favorites from his year of reading the OED. "To strip the pants from a person."

    August 9, 2008

  • See debag.

    August 9, 2008

  • Making applause with the stomping of feet, NOT talking goodnaturedly with your dog! ;o)

    August 9, 2008

  • See dilapidator.

    August 9, 2008

  • Slumlord

    August 9, 2008

  • Having yellow-colored teeth, like a rodent.

    August 9, 2008

  • According to Ammon Shea, the OED says secretary meant, in the 4th century, "one privy to a secret".

    August 9, 2008

  • Wow! All over sudden Wordiemates come to the rescue! Thanks all! I'm so edified I could just...(!) :o)

    FWIW, in the citation below, the "parcel" was a stack of purloined banknotes, which helped Napoleon Bonaparte ("Bony") the peerless aborigine solve the perfect crime!

    August 9, 2008

  • The enslavement of an ant colony or its members by ants of a different species. See dulocracy.

    August 9, 2008

  • Rule by slaves. See dulosis.

    August 9, 2008

  • Pester with missionaries.

    August 9, 2008

  • To wine and dine.

    August 9, 2008

  • See paracme.

    August 9, 2008

  • My Mom was a charter member of the Santa Barbara "Modern Mother's Club." Begun just after WW II, all members had small children and were united in mutual support activities. The club mothers did volunteer work, held rummage sales and (as the years passed and toddlers grew to college age) gave cash grants to college freshmen for their first book buying needs. Another of the club's traditions was that everybody had a secret pal, one who bestowed, anonymously, small gifts and/or surreptitiously benefited their assigned secret pal for the year. Eventually, every mother had been a secret pal to every other and the round commenced again. I always was intrigued with the concept and hereby immortalize it on Wordie, as well as tag it "mom" in her loving memory. Mom was always my secret pal.

    August 9, 2008

  • I can whistle some bird songs, especially mountain Chickadees and lesser Goldfinches. But I always say "quack" to Crows, Steller's and Scrub Jays...just to piss 'em off! Oh, and mooing at cows, and calling all dogs "Ralph" is always fun! "Hey, Ralph! Howzit?" :oP

    August 8, 2008

  • indiviDUAL

    August 8, 2008

  • Reiteration:

    Hey bilby! Can you help out with fracteur (see citation on word page)? Also, see my recent comments under c_b's profile.

    Arthur Upfield's mysteries are set in Australia circa 1930s.

    Thanks.

    August 7, 2008

  • Nice list, she! This will be my reference when I'm stumped on the crossword clue: "an orb of Jupiter" or suchlike. ;o)

    August 7, 2008

  • The·be (th bee): Moon of Jupiter: a small natural satellite of Jupiter, discovered in 1980. With a diameter of 100 km (60 mi), it is Jupiter's fourth most distant satellite, orbiting at a distance of 222,000 km (138,000 mi).

    August 7, 2008

  • I believe I was the first to list this word, but couldn't figure out why Asativum was shown as a first-lister and I wasn't shown at all.

    Then, I finally saw that my word has a period at the end (due to a sloppy cut/paste)! Sic transit gloria mundi! :oD

    August 6, 2008

  • ...and if you don't believe it, you're right!!

    See citation under truth.

    August 5, 2008

  • An editor in Bombay, India. He edited I AM THAT, a compendium of Sri Nisargadatta's talks.

    August 5, 2008

  • NOT aristo-fanes, as my cousin pronounced it aloud in a reading-to-class once...to her vast and enduring chagrin.

    August 5, 2008

  • C_b, how can you be bored when schadenfreudgeon is dying to be listed?

    August 5, 2008

  • Do frog's use their front feet or their croaker to applaud? :o/

    August 5, 2008

  • See mandatory picnic and/or this list.

    August 5, 2008

  • See like.

    August 5, 2008

  • See nobody.

    August 4, 2008

  • I'm nobody! Who are you?

    Are you nobody, too?

    Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!

    They'd banish us, you know!

    How dreary to be somebody!

    How public like a frog

    To tell one's name the livelong day

    To an admiring bog!

    --Emily Dickinson

    August 4, 2008

  • fRAcTIOn

    August 4, 2008

  • See implicate for usage note.

    August 4, 2008

  • See implicate for usage note.

    August 4, 2008

  • "...a new notion of order, that may be appropriate to a universe of unbroken wholeness. This is the implicate or enfolded order. In the enfolded order space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of the dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order. These ordinary notions in fact appear in what is called the explicate or unfolded order, which is a special and distinguished form contained within the general totality of all the implicate orders."

    Wholeness and the Implicate Order by Jacob Bohm, p.xv of Introduction

    August 4, 2008

  • ()()

    (=*=)

    (! !)

    (_)_(_)

    August 3, 2008

  • Suppose we hold an election with three candidates, X, Y, and Z. And suppose the voters fall into three groups:

    Group 1 prefers, in order, X, Y, Z

    Group 2 prefers, in order, Y, Z, X

    Group 3 prefers, in order, Z, X, Y

    Now, if Candidate X wins, his opponents can rightly object that a majority of voters would have preferred Candidate Z. And corresponding arguments can be made against the other candidates. So even though we've held a fair election, it's impossible to establish majority rule.

    The Marquis de Condorcet noted this oddity in the 1700s; it's sometimes known as Condorcet's paradox.

    --From Futility Closet.com

    August 3, 2008

  • As V.S. Ramachandran explains in a now famous article, “The Neurology of Self Awareness�?: “The discovery of mirror neurons was made by G. Rizzolati, V. Gallase and I. Iaccoboni while recording from the brains of monkeys performing certain goal-directed voluntary actions. For instance when the monkey reached for a peanut a certain neuron in its pre motor cortex (in the frontal lobes) would fire. Another neuron would fire when the monkey pushed a button, a third neuron when he pulled a lever. The existence of such Command neurons that control voluntary movements has been known for decades. Amazingly, a subset of these neurons had an additional peculiar property. The neuron fired not only (say) when the monkey reached for a peanut but also when it watched another monkey reach for a peanut!�?

    “These were dubbed "mirror neurons‟ or "monkey-see-monkey-do‟ neurons. This was an extraordinary observation because it implies that the neuron (or more accurately, the network which it is part of) was not only generating a highly specific command ("reach for the nut‟) but was capable of adopting another monkey's point of view. It was doing a sort of internal virtual reality simulation of the other monkeys action in order to figure out what he was "up to‟. It was, in short, a "mind-reading‟ neuron.�?

    --From Is Consciousness Physical? by David and Andrea Lane, p.21

    August 3, 2008

  • See pandit.

    August 3, 2008

  • See pundit.

    August 3, 2008

  • This was great fun. Mortifying, but great fun! Thanks bilby. Now get back to your usual irreverence! ;oP

    August 2, 2008

  • (W)ild (A)ss (G)uess

    August 2, 2008

  • Okay, here's my WAG:

    asativum : thoughtful

    bilby : groovin'

    chained_bear : stripper

    darqueau : goodbye

    dontcry : sigh

    frogapplause : quixotic

    gangerh : hunky-dory

    john : wabe

    oroboros : woof!

    palooka : relaxed

    plethora : bladder

    prolagus : cred-herring

    pterodactyl : mojo

    rolig : psychasthenic

    seanahan : inexorable

    sionnach : pluripotent

    skipvia : ingenue

    whichbe : yarb

    yarb : cavalier

    (All editing concluded; enough already!)(Wait! NOW it's done. I wash my hands...)(would you believe NOW! Foo!)

    August 2, 2008

  • I'll understand if you wanna delete this!! ;o)

    July 31, 2008

  • "Are you a leg-man, a breast-man or a callipygienthusiast?"

    July 31, 2008

  • Callipygienthusiasm!

    July 31, 2008

  • Thanks c_b! I'll have to get Bilby on it 'cause Upfield's mysteries are set in Australia circa 1930s. I can recommend them for outback and abo lore. His work was admired by, and inspired Tony Hillerman, among others.

    July 30, 2008

  • A worthless coin, according to The Master Crossword Puzzle Dictionary--An Unabridged Word Bank, H.M. Baus, ed.

    Also, an island in Lake Michigan.

    July 29, 2008

  • All of frogapplause's (and other's) suggestions that weren't entered on my list have been tagged "ten different letters" to make them accessible to any who may be interested.

    July 29, 2008

  • Hey C_b! I can't find fracteur (see the usage note on the word page).in my compact edition of the OED. Don't you have access to the online OED? Would appreciate your looking there if so. Maybe it's a French word (although I couldn't find it in any dictionary). Thanks.

    July 29, 2008

  • Thanks for the attaboy, B_c! It's easy to see you're a real random corker! ;o)

    July 28, 2008

  • See abjurer for an interesting fact.

    July 28, 2008

  • ROT13 is a simple way to encipher a message: Just advance each of its letters 13 positions forward in the alphabet. Thus ABC becomes NOP, FUR becomes SHE, and EBBS becomes ROOF.

    Curiously, ABJURER and NOWHERE … become each other.

    --Thanks to Futility Closet

    July 28, 2008

  • The route your Instant Messaging takes in cyberspace?

    From "Wiley's Dictionary" (B.C. comic strip)

    July 26, 2008

  • "Within was a parcel wrapped in black waterproof cloth, used at one time for protecting fracteur from damp."

    --Arthur W. Upfield, The Sands of Windee, p.102

    Note: I've been unable to find this word in my compact edition of the OED. Can anybody help with the definition?

    July 26, 2008

  • Applies to the players POV (e.g., service court) as much as the observers in the stands!

    July 22, 2008

  • The "oceanic pole of inaccessibility." If you want to be really, really alone, head for 48°52.6′S 123°23.6′W in the South Pacific Ocean. That's "Point Nemo," the point in the ocean farthest from any land. You'll be in the middle of 22,405,411 square kilometers of ocean, an area larger than the entire former Soviet Union.

    Never been there.

    Its twin, the point on land farthest from any ocean, is at 46°16.8′N 86°40.2′E, outside the Chinese city of Urumqi, in the Dzoosotoyn Elisen Desert. It's 1,645 miles from the nearest coastline.

    Never been there either...and not on any fancied future itinerary--you can count on it!

    Thanks to Futility Closet.com

    July 22, 2008

  • Thanks, all!

    July 21, 2008

  • "Leaves are silences

    around flowers which are their words."

    --R. Tagore, Fireflies

    July 21, 2008

  • Maybe a typo of lily?

    July 21, 2008

  • Occasional bonnet occupant?

    July 19, 2008

  • My goodness, FA! You're prolific. Thanks muchly. :-)

    BTW, love the comics!

    July 19, 2008

  • "The human head is of the same approximate size and weight as a roaster chicken. I have never before had occasion to make the comparison, for never before today have I seen a head in a roasting pan. But here are forty of them, one per pan, resting face-up on what looks to be a small pet-food bowl. The heads are for plastic surgeons, two per head, to practice on. I'm observing a facial anatomy and face-lift refresher course, sponsored by a southern university medical center and led by a half-dozen of America's most sought-after face-lifters."

    --Mary Roach, Stiff, p. 19

    July 19, 2008

  • No shit, no service! ;o)

    July 18, 2008

  • Html problem fixed...I hope. BTW, thanks for all the suggestions; however, I'm not using -s plurals.

    July 18, 2008

  • See Keeping Secrets list

    July 18, 2008

  • Presumptious

    July 18, 2008

  • See "Keeping Secrets" list for a bunch more codewords.

    July 18, 2008

  • The Age of Aquarius, for example, did not bring enlightenment, peace, and love, as we hoped, but professional anxieties and family duties spiced up with AIDS, McJobs, lessness, and biological warfare."

    --Robert B. Laughlin, A Different Universe (Reinventing Physics From The Bottom Down), p.205

    July 18, 2008

  • The Age of Aquarius, for example, did not bring enlightenment, peace, and love, as we hoped, but professional anxieties and family duties spiced up with AIDS, McJobs, lessness, and biological warfare."

    --Robert B. Laughlin, A Different Universe (Reinventing Physics From The Bottom Down), p.205

    July 18, 2008

  • Used on the TV news to describe the Pope's boat tour of the Sydney Harbor sights.

    July 18, 2008

  • Thanks for your suggestions. You may want to look at the list again, as I've changed it to "Keeping Secrets," more in line with the original intent of the list--which you might find interesting...

    July 18, 2008

  • Thanks for your suggestions. You may want to look at the list again, as I've changed it to "Keeping Secrets," more in line with the original intent of the list--which you might find interesting...

    July 18, 2008

  • Plural: tzitzimimeh. Aztec star deities. Also see tzitzimime.

    July 18, 2008

  • Thanks for the Gramogram additions, whichbe. Good work!

    July 17, 2008

  • See pi day.

    July 15, 2008

  • Sister Susie's sewing shirts for soldiers

    Such skill at sewing shirts as shy young sister Susie shows

    Some soldiers sent epistles said they'd rather sleep on thistles

    Than the saucy soft shirts for soldiers sister Susie sews

    July 15, 2008

  • Said by some (confused and not so confused) mathematicians to be the most mysterious, elegantly beautiful and bamboozling equation known to man.

    More here.

    July 15, 2008

  • e + 1 = 0

    Euler's Identity. Said by some (confused) mathematicians to be the most mysterious and bamboozling equation known to man.

    More here.

    July 15, 2008

  • No cat has two tails.

    Every cat has one tail more than no cat.

    Therefore every cat has three tails.

    --from Futility Closet

    July 15, 2008

  • 9 × 9 + 7 = 88

    98 × 9 + 6 = 888

    987 × 9 + 5 = 8888

    9876 × 9 + 4 = 88888

    98765 × 9 + 3 = 888888

    987654 × 9 + 2 = 8888888

    9876543 × 9 + 1 = 88888888

    98765432 × 9 + 0 = 888888888

    987654321 x 9 - 1 = 8888888888

    --From: Futility Closet

    (BTW, 80/81 = .987654321 with rounding)

    July 15, 2008

  • I'm wondering if ol' Rabindranath gave that any thought?

    July 14, 2008

  • The fireflies, twinkling among the leaves,

    make the stars wonder.

    --Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies

    July 14, 2008

  • In its swelling pride

    the bubble doubts the truth of the sea,

    and laughs and bursts into emptiness.

    --Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies

    July 14, 2008

  • Nothing is heavier than lead.

    Feathers are heavier than nothing.

    Therefore feathers are heavier than lead.

    (after all, two pounds of feathers weigh more than one pound of lead, right?)

    From The Futility Closet.com

    July 14, 2008

  • Here are some interesting primes:

    7

    97

    397

    9397

    39397

    739397

    73939

    7393

    739

    73

    7

    From The Futility Closet (where you'll see the proper grid arrangement I couldn't reproduce here).

    July 14, 2008

  • Before his students arrived for a graduate course in logic, Raymond Smullyan wrote on the blackboard:

    PLEASE DO NOT ERASE — BECAUSE IF YOU DO, THOSE WHO COME LATER WON'T KNOW THAT THEY SHOULDN'T ERASE.

    July 14, 2008

  • "The pulpeteers make "infidelity" their texts, it is true, but it takes a really ardent church-goer, among really intelligent classes of church-goers, not to compare the keen, lucid reasoning of our modern scientific writers with the mystic, turgid, involved utterances of the Bible, greatly to the latter's disadvantage." --Edgar Fawcett, Agnosticism and Other Essays (see agnosticism for link)

    July 12, 2008

  • Here's an elegant and suasive essay: Agnosticism and Other Essays, by Edgar Fawcett.

    July 11, 2008

  • "With wings wrought from rainbows and eyes from stars, it is but the intangible child of story, song and dream."

    --Agnosticism and Other Essays by Edgar Fawcett

    (q.v.,agnosticism for link)

    July 11, 2008

  • catkin

    July 11, 2008

  • Thanks for the input on "Boon Companions" bilby. BTW, Walt Kelly of the Pogo comics fame used a lot of Aussieisms (?) in the strip from time to time. I get most of 'em but can you enlighten me as to the meaning of "the dinkum oil"? --> The "*something* all"?

    July 10, 2008

  • GuaRANTee

    July 10, 2008

  • AgreeMENt

    July 8, 2008

  • We're going to see a lot more of this word with $5.00 gas!

    July 7, 2008

  • Metaphors found in high school essays: Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual similes and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are some of the best:

    The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

    The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

    From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.

    Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

    Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

    He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

    Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man."

    Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

    The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.

    John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

    The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

    His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

    The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

    Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

    The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

    He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant with cement shoes, and she was the East River.

    Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

    The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

    The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for awhile.

    He was as lame as a duck--not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

    It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

    He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

    (And a few really gross ones. Caveat lector!)

    She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

    The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

    She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

    McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with Hungry-Man soup.

    July 7, 2008

  • Nice, Prolagus. Thanks! Interesting study.

    July 4, 2008

  • Hi galoot. Did you mean opsimath above?

    July 4, 2008

  • "Murphy's Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will. According to the USAF Flight Test Center History Office, Murphy's Law was born at Edwards AFB in 1949. It was named after Capt. Edward A. Murphy, an engineer working on a project for determining how much sudden deceleration a person can withstand in a crash..."

    --Robert B. Laughlin, A Different Universe (Reinventing Physics From the Bottom Down), p. 225, note 14.

    July 4, 2008

  • In Franklin Merrell-Wolff's usage: materiality, physicality. See substance.

    July 1, 2008

  • Substantiality is inversely proportional to ponderability (S = 1/P). See "Physics and Yoga" comment under yoga.

    July 1, 2008

  • See integral sphere.

    July 1, 2008

  • See integral sphere.

    July 1, 2008

  • See comment "Physics and Yoga" under yoga for a synthesis.

    July 1, 2008

  • "In Chapter 61 of Pathways Through to Space, Franklin Merrell-Wolff makes the bold assertion that physics can be a path to mystical Realization..."

    --Tom McFarlane in Physics A Peculiarly Beautiful Path To Yoga

    July 1, 2008

  • "Another major source of self-deception has to do with self-promotion, self-exaggeration on the positive side, denial on the negative, all in the name of producing an image that we are “beneffective,�? to use Anthony Greenwald’s apt term, toward others. That is, we benefit others and are effective when we do it. If you ask high school seniors in the United States to rank themselves on leadership ability, fully 80% say they have better than average abilities, but for true feats of self-deception you can hardly beat the academic profession. When you ask professors to rate themselves, an almost unanimous 94% say they are in the top half of the profession!..."

    --Robert Trivers The Elements of a Scientific Theory of Self-Deception

    June 30, 2008

  • A chastity belt?

    June 28, 2008

  • Tom McFarlane in The Integral Sphere: A Mathematical Mandala of Reality presents a dynamic mathematical mandala which can be seen as an integral model of reality. In contrast with conventional two-dimensional mandalas, the mandala described here is a sphere in three (or more) dimensions. Moreover, through a process of breaking the perfect symmetry of the three-dimensional sphere and then projecting the sphere onto a plane, the sphere is related to conventional linear, planar mandalas and unfolds their implicit archetypal structures. For example, a mandala with many similarities to Ken Wilber's Four Quadrant model of the Kosmos is unfolded as a special case of the spherical mandala. A four-dimensional integral sphere also contains Wilber's nested spheres as a special case. Higher dimensional spheres can be used to represent additional aspects of existence. The paper also shows how the present model provides a tool for facilitating complex thinking with fundamental categories, revealing how they interpenetrate and transform into each other.

    June 28, 2008

  • From Answers.com: The founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935 focused attention on alcohol addiction, as well as AA's 12-step program and "support group" (1969) meetings for dealing with addictions. In the 1960s, someone had the idea of taking -holic as a suffix meaning "addict", and a whole new category of addictions followed. One of the first and most important is workaholic. It was announced in the 1968 article "On Being a 'Workaholic' (A serious Jest)" in the journal Pastoral Psychology: "I have dubbed this addiction of myself and my fellow ministers 'workaholism,'" wrote Wayne Oates, a professor of psychology of religion at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. However, it was the appearance of Oates's book Confessions of a Workaholic in 1971 that propelled that term and prompted many writers to start using the suffixes -aholic, -holic, or -oholic to describe "all-consuming obsessions," not all of them so serious.

    June 28, 2008

  • Jennarenn's third-graders on a field trip?

    June 28, 2008

  • trENCHANT. The trenchant is hardly enchanting.

    Trench ants can be trenchant beasties should they get in your pants.

    June 28, 2008

  • One of the scientific names for the roseate spoonbill, a wading bird related to the ibis

    June 21, 2008

  • "The name of a bakery at 322 West Miner Street, in Yreka, CA." --Dmitri Borgmann in Language on Vacation p.21.

    See "trivia" entry under Yreka, CA.

    June 21, 2008

  • The name of a swamp in South Carolina, north of Charleston (the northern extension of the Cypress Swamp). Legend has it that the Indian meaning of the palindrome is "the worst place ever seen".

    Found in Dimitri Borgmann's Language on Vacation p. 21. (currently out of print). Also see John's comment under detartrated.

    June 21, 2008

  • har-har --> rah-rah

    June 21, 2008

  • Exclamations used in hunting.

    June 21, 2008

  • One who exposes flax to moisture (rets it).

    June 21, 2008

  • Made wet with dew.

    June 21, 2008

  • Contains two different words using alternate letters only:

    From 'T': tinily. From 'R': renal.

    June 21, 2008

  • Found in a thrift store; about 5 inches high--so cute I just couldn't live without it! ;o) Unfortunately the door with the half-moon cut in it doesn't quite close completely (no latch).

    June 21, 2008

  • MiscOmmunicAtioN. Moan of agony vs. moan of ecstatic transport?

    June 20, 2008

  • cOnveRsATION. This word could go on either Kangaroo Word list: an oration is a conversation of sorts.

    June 20, 2008

  • Stir in the sense of moving around vs. being locked up.

    June 20, 2008

  • HEr

    June 20, 2008

  • The quality of shunning; avoidance.

    June 19, 2008

  • Apprehension of evil; fear; suspicion. OED. This word seems counterintuitive to me. To misdoubt would seem to be a misplaced or imperfect doubt such that it should be a form of trust rather than doubt.

    June 19, 2008

  • Well, we know he certainly wasn't a COD...'tho maybe a CAD!

    June 18, 2008

  • Hey m.! That's a new wrinkle. Seems good to me; go for it!

    June 18, 2008

  • I take it you already know

    Of tough and bough and cough and dough?

    Others may stumble, but not you,

    On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?

    Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,

    To learn of less familiar traps?

    Beware of heard, a dreadful word

    That looks like beard and sounds like bird,

    And dead: it's said like bed, not bead -

    For goodness sake don't call it deed!

    Watch out for meat and great and threat

    (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

    A moth is not a moth in mother,

    Nor both in bother, broth in brother,

    And here is not a match for there

    Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,

    And then there's dose and rose and lose -

    Just look them up - and goose and choose,

    And cork and work and card and ward,

    And font and front and word and sword,

    And do and go and thwart and cart -

    Come, come, I've hardly made a start!

    A dreadful language? Man alive!

    I'd mastered it when I was five!

    --Quoted by Vivian Cook and Melvin Bragg 2004,

    by Richard Krogh, in D Bolinger & D A Sears, Aspects of Language, 1981,and in Spelling Progress Bulletin March 1961, Brush up on your English.

    More here.

    June 17, 2008

  • aristocRAT

    June 17, 2008

  • LumInARy

    June 15, 2008

  • stRaIGHT

    aTRAIghT

    sTraIGHT

    StrAiGht

    June 15, 2008

  • sTENtOR

    June 15, 2008

  • CreATure

    cReATure

    CreatURe

    June 15, 2008

  • nONE

    June 15, 2008

  • POiSE

    June 14, 2008

  • abbReviATION

    June 14, 2008

  • LAviSH

    June 14, 2008

  • Yeah, how 'bout that! Artistic license? :o)

    June 14, 2008

  • The penalty for communicating badly.

    June 14, 2008

  • A week or so ago a controversy erupted in the entertainment world when a former cast member of the television show Seinfeld ranted with a racially insensitve diatribe. I'm not going to dwell on the topic at all other than to mention that I was disappointed that not once did I see a news article refer to the incident with this palindromic headline: Kramer's Remark

    When will such a logological opportunity possibly present itself again?

    -- Eric Harshbarger at LOGOLOG.

    June 14, 2008

  • "Spendthrift" is one of those words that always confuses me. I always think it means the opposite of what it actually does.

    To me I think that it would mean being "thrifty" ("tight", "frugal") with one's "spending".

    It actually means being wasteful with one's money. This comes from the fact that "thrift" as a noun means one's fortune or savings, so one who is a spendthrift literally spends his savings (presumably with little prudence).

    June 14, 2008

  • See prochlorococcus.

    June 14, 2008

  • An important wee beastie discovered only 22 years ago. The bottom of the food chain and responsible for the oxygen in one of your every five breaths. More here.

    Also neat for having four 'c's and four 'o's in its handle!

    June 14, 2008

  • THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS ABOUT THE BIBLE – ANSWERS TO A ROMAN CATHOLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEST – WERE WRITTEN BY CHILDREN. THEY HAVE NOT BEEN RETOUCHED OR CORRECTED.

    1. IN THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE, GUINESSIS. GOD GOT TIRED OF CREATING THE WORLD SO HE TOOK THE SABBATH OFF.

    2. ADAM AND EVE WERE CREATED FROM AN APPLE TREE. NOAH'S WIFE WAS JOAN OF ARK. NOAH BUILT AND ARK AND THE ANIMALS CAME ON IN PEARS.

    3. LOTS WIFE WAS A PILLAR OF SALT DURING THE DAY, BUT A BALL OF FIRE DURING THE NIGHT.

    4. THE JEWS WERE A PROUD PEOPLE AND THROUGHOUT HISTORY THEY HAD TROUBLE WITH UNSYMPATHETIC GENITALS.

    5 . SAMPSON WAS A STRONGMAN WHO LET HIMSELF BE LED ASTRAY BY A JEZEBEL LIKE DELILAH.

    6. SAMSON SLAYED THE PHILISTINES WITH THE AXE OF THE APOSTLES.

    7. MOSES LED THE JEWS TO THE RED SEA WHERE THEY MADE UNLEAVENED BREAD WHICH IS BREAD WITHOUT ANY INGREDIENTS.

    8, THE EGYPTIANS WERE ALL DROWNED IN THE DESSERT. AFTER WARDS, MOSES WENT UP TO MOUNT CYANIDE TO GET THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

    9. THE FIRST COMMANDMENTS WAS WHEN EVE TOLD ADAM TO EAT THE APPLE.

    10. THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT IS THOU SHALT NOT ADMIT ADULTERY.

    11. MOSES DIED BEFORE HE EVER REACHED CANADA .. THEN JOSHUA LED THE HEBREWS IN THE BATTLE OF GERITOL.

    12. THE GREATEST MIRICLE IN THE BIBLE IS WHEN JOSHUA TOLD HIS SON TO STAND STILL AND HE OBEYED HIM.

    13. DAVID WAS A HEBREW KING WHO WAS SKILLED AT PLAYING THE LIAR. HE FOUGHT THE FINKELSTEINS, A RACE OF PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN BIBLICAL TIMES.

    14. SOLOMON, ONE OF DAVIDS SONS, HAD 300 WIVES AND 700 PORCUPINES.

    15. WHEN MARY HEARD SHE WAS THE MOTHER OF JESUS, SHE SANG THE MAGNA CARTA.

    16. WHEN THE THREE WISE GUYS FROM THE EAST SIDE ARRIVED THEY FOUND JESUS IN THE MANAGER.

    17. JESUS WAS BORN BECAUSE MARY HAD AN IMMACULATE CONTRAPTION.

    18. ST. JOHN THE BLACKSMITH DUMPED WATER ON HIS HEAD.

    19. JESUS ENUNCIATED THE GOLDEN RULE, WHICH SAYS TO DO UNTO OTHERS BEFORE THEY DO ONE TO YOU. HE ALSO EXPLAINED A MAN DOTH NOT LIVE BY SWEAT ALONE..

    20. IT WAS A MIRICLE WHEN JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD AND MANAGED TO GET THE TOMBSTONE OFF THE ENTRANCE.

    21. THE PEOPLE WHO FOLLOWED THE LORD WERE CALLED THE 12 DECIBELS.

    22. THE EPISTELS WERE THE WIVES OF THE APOSTLES.

    23. ONE OF THE OPPOSSUMS WAS ST. MATTHEW WHO WAS ALSO A TAXIMAN.

    24. ST. PAUL CAVORTED TO CHRISTIANITY, HE PREACHED HOLY ACRIMONY WHICH IS ANOTHER NAME FOR MARRAIGE.

    25. CHRISTIANS HAVE ONLY ONE SPOUSE . THIS IS CALLED MONOTONY

    June 13, 2008

  • An ovary-action?

    June 11, 2008

  • Periodic Table of the Internet. Colorful!

    June 11, 2008

  • OED: A vast period of time, an age, through a succession of which the universe or the earth has supposedly passed.

    June 11, 2008

  • A 14 oz. "pint" draft beer. Thickened bottom allows the house to help ends meet in these days of "cost cutting" to make a buck. Heard on NPR.

    June 11, 2008

  • Don't know whether this is appropriate for your list: Tasit: Awareness of Social Inference Test. Don't miss the video embedded in the article.

    June 5, 2008

  • An almost palindrome (off by a letter: e.g., BaTHTuB. See Eric Harshbarger's LOGOLOG.

    June 4, 2008

  • "On a recent excursion to the movie store I was tempted to pick up the following three DVDs: Quigley Down Under, United 93, and X3: The Last Stand.

    Not because I particularly wanted to watch any of these films, but rather, if I purchased them, I would then own at least one DVD for each letter of the alphabet..."

    --Eric at Logolog.

    June 4, 2008

  • Summer in France.

    June 4, 2008

  • "Curse these weary dog days of the (French) season!"

    June 4, 2008

  • Hey sionnach: you might be interested to take a look at taxonomy of wordplay.

    June 4, 2008

  • Hey reesetee: you might be interested to take a look at taxonomy of wordplay.

    June 4, 2008

  • Mollusque: you might be interested to look at taxonomy of wordplay.

    June 4, 2008

  • For a wonderful compendium of language oddities online by Chris Cole click here.

    For a glossary of terms see this list and click on the individual word for a definition, e.g., "head 'n' tail word".

    June 4, 2008

  • The pleasurable feeling that surfers get when peeing in their wetsuit while sitting on their surfboards awaiting the next good wave. Also spelled urineaphoria.

    June 4, 2008

  • Texts concerned with stale army chow?

    June 4, 2008

  • Cogitating anexoric monarch?

    June 3, 2008

  • Individualities.

    June 2, 2008

  • Devoted.

    June 2, 2008

  • Early Indian people.

    June 2, 2008

  • Guam bird.

    June 2, 2008

  • A variant of kayak.

    June 2, 2008

  • Sprinkled.

    June 2, 2008

  • The meaning of a linguistic unit.

    June 2, 2008

  • The killing of a human being in a secret manner.

    June 2, 2008

  • Damned.

    June 2, 2008

  • According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the longest sequence of repeated dashes in Morse code for a common word. See motto.

    June 2, 2008

  • According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the longest common word in Morse code that is entirely dots.

    June 2, 2008

  • Natives of New Guinea.

    According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the longest uncommon lowercase upside-down word.

    June 2, 2008

  • According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the longest word on a typewriter using the left hand.

    June 2, 2008

  • Juice.

    June 2, 2008

  • An upside-down word.

    June 2, 2008

  • Eastern orthodox vestments.

    June 2, 2008

  • Respected African Muslims.

    June 2, 2008

  • An Asiatic partridge.

    June 2, 2008

  • Burmese rulers.

    According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the longest (with six others) "uncommon word" palindrome beginning with letter 's'.

    June 2, 2008

  • According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the shortest (with two others, uku & ulu) "uncommon word" beginning and ending with letter 'u'.

    June 2, 2008

  • A Hawaiian fish.

    According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the shortest (with two others, utu & ulu) "uncommon word" beginning and ending with letter 'u'.

    June 2, 2008

  • According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the shortest (with two others, uku & utu) "uncommon word" beginning and ending with letter 'u'.

    June 2, 2008

  • The sixth Hebrew letter.

    June 2, 2008

  • 1. A piece of parchment bearing the Decalogue and attached to the doorpost - in use among orthodox Hebrews.

    2. An ancient silver coin = 1/4 of a shekel.

    According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the longest (with one other, q.v., ziz) "uncommon word" palindrome beginning with letter 'z'.

    June 2, 2008

  • A giant bird in Hebrew mythology.

    According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the longest "uncommon word" palindrome beginning with letter 'z'.

    June 2, 2008

  • A sheep's small intestine.

    According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the longest "uncommon word" palindrome beginning with letter 'y'.

    June 2, 2008

  • A gambling game.

    According to Chris Cole in Wordplay, the longest (among five others) "uncommon word" palindrome beginning with letter 't'.

    June 2, 2008

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