rolig

rolig has adopted no words, looked up 0 words, created 95 lists, listed 3913 words, written 3140 comments, added 0 tags, and loved 17 words.

Comments by rolig

rolig commented on the word semicolon

Very curious. The semicolon comments have come full circle.

November 18, 2011
rolig commented on the word rhonchus

What a great word!

November 17, 2011
rolig commented on the word new interface

Perhaps it's ultimate iteration, in which case Wizard Alex, aka He Who Started Monday, would, perhaps, specialize in repeating things to the point where no further repetition is necessary.

November 17, 2011
rolig commented on the word listing

Ah, wonderful. I should do the same. And thanks for the word drupe!

November 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word listing

Hern, I actually meant first to comment on your apply day: it sounds lovely. Do you have apple trees? That's one of the things I miss in my urban life.

November 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word listing

GHibbs's grasp of grammar is less than firm, I fear. Not every modifier is an adjective -- or more precisely, it's neither standard practice nor useful to label every modifier an adjective. In the case of the listing ship, we are dealing with a present active participle (as it was termed when I was learning grammar some 40 years ago) from the verb "to list" ("lean to one side").

November 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word nouse

According to Urban Dictionary, this is Portland, Ore., slang for penis, among other definitions.

November 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word abcdefghijklmnñopqrstuvwxyz

Ru, perhaps it's a short story by Poe (http://www.yeoldelibrary.com/text/PoeEA/purloined/index.htm).

November 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word occide

So does it follow, then, that Occident means "characterized by killing"? A lot of postcolonial theorists would say that's true.

November 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word froward

Compare the word untoward, which has a similar, though not identical, meaning ("inappropriate, unacceptable, etc.). Surely, the words must be derived from to and fro (which I guess meant originally "toward and away from").

November 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word abcčdefghijklmnoprsštuvzž

Yes, it is actually, though that had not occurred to me before, since it shows up in some very common words, like fant ("boy") and in a lot of slang: ful ("completely", from the German voll), zafrkniti ("to mess up, screw, cause problems"), and of cours fukati (another borrowing from the Germanic languages) and its derivatives. But these are all borrowings (fant comes from the Romance infant, but most of the others are Germanisms) or, occasionally onomatopoeic forms (frfotati, for example, means "to flutter"). Historically, the Slavic languages did not have a separate "f" phoneme; the f-sound existed only as the devoiced allophone of the "v" phoneme. But Slovene, having lived in very close quarters with German (and Friulian) for some 14 centuries, has made "f" its own, although I guess, compared to the other letters, it is still somewhat rare. But then, the other 10-pointer, "ž" is a full-fledged Slavic phoneme and doesn't strike me as particularly rare either.
Thanks for the Scrabble counts, Froggy. That's very interesting!

November 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word mirror rim

The edge of the looking-glass brings together two inversely symmetrical worlds: a palindrome that is the image of a palindrome.

November 13, 2011
rolig commented on the word spiegeleisen

Would that be mirror rim?

November 13, 2011
rolig commented on the word If Ruzuzu is infinitely powerful, can she also be infinitely good

But can-canning (i.e. reduplicative canning) and sinning may, in fact, be related. Allow me to cite Irving Berlin: "She started a heat wave by letting her seat wave in such a way that the customers say she certainly can can-can." Here the "heat wave" caused by the can-canning of the woman in the lyric is, clearly, a not-so-subtle reference to what one may argue is, at least, a pre-sinning state or even, to be sure, a sinning one, if we accept the Gospel dictum that lustful thoughts are themselves sinful. Hence, reduplicative canning may in fact possess a relation of causality with regard to non-reduplicative sinning.

November 11, 2011
rolig commented on the word If Ruzuzu is infinitely powerful, can she also be infinitely good

But I don't think you can parse it that way. And why would you want to? Obviously, omnipotence and omniscience are not equivalent; they are different concepts. The question is, does one presume the other?

November 11, 2011
rolig commented on the word If Ruzuzu is infinitely powerful, can she also be infinitely good

I beg to differ. If knowledge is a form of power, then omnipotence -- the possession of all power -- must include omniscience -- the power of knowing all.

November 11, 2011
rolig commented on the word aābcčdeēfgģhiījkķlļmnņoprsštuūvzž

done.

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word aābcčdeēfgģhiījkķlļmnņoprsštuūvzž

Strange that "o" should be the only vowel without a macronic partner.

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word su risu de sa mela granada

But I'm glad you did. This is beautiful.

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word aswage

Don't you mean "assuage"?

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word aābcčdeēfgģhiījkķlļmnņoprsštuūvzž

Khrushchev didn't rehabilitate them with Stalin's other victims?

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word абвгдђежзијклљмнњопрстћуфхцчџш

The Serbian/Bosnian alphabet, or азбука / azbuka (Cyrillic version, or ћирилица / ćirilica).

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word new interface

I sure hope "UI" doesn't mean "under the influence" here.
*crossing fingers*

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word abcčdefghijklmnoprsštuvzž

Done: "Ab C. Defghi & Co." It's an open list, so please contribute as you can. (Milosrdenstvi, I'm looking forward to seeing the Georgian alphabet up there, and the Indonesian from Bilby, the Irish from Fox, etc.)

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word abčćddžđefghijklljmnnjoprsštuvzž

The Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian alphabet, or abeceda (Latin version, or latinica), in which "dž", "lj", and "nj" are treated as separate letters.

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word new interface

Erin, any progress on list and profile comments?

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word абвгдежзийклмнопрстуфхцчшщъыьэюя

The official Russian alphabet, called азбука / azbuka, from Old Church Slavonic names of the first two letters ("az" – "I"; "buka" – "beech").

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word abcčdefghijklmnoprsštuvzž

The official Slovene alphabet (abeceda)

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word hvalnica

Slovene: hválnica: encomium, song of praise, homage

November 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word abcedfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

The d and the e have been reversed. But I have always pronounced this something like "abseh défghi jekyll minópker stoov wyxes". Once you've tackled a Slavic language, you can find a way to pronounce almost any string of letters.

November 9, 2011
rolig commented on the word l'esprit de l'escalier

"Writers, by nature, tend to be people in whom l'esprit de l'escalier is a recurrent experience: they are always thinking of the perfect riposte after the moment for saying it has passed. So they take a few years longer and put it in print."
– Louis Menand, "Bad Comma" (a review of Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, The New Yorker, June 28, 2004.

November 6, 2011
rolig commented on the word elegant

Apparently not. There is something rather sad about GHibbs's postings.

November 6, 2011
rolig commented on the word hagiolatry

So Christinerick, in your opinion, devout Catholics do not practice hagiolatry? If you agree with that statement, then you would agree that "hagiolatry" is a word. We don't get to choose what is or is not a word on the basis of whether we support the concept the word represents.

November 2, 2011
rolig commented on the word Dick Van Dyke

In the UK, Van Dyke's name has become a byword for someone can't imitate an English accent successfully – the result of the American actor's woeful imitation of a Cockney chimney sweep in the film Mary Poppins.
Cf. the following usage:
"I’m a Londoner with a very neutral British accent living in the US and my (American) Siri doesn’t understand me either. I have to repeat myself numerous times and in an increasingly bad American accent to make myself understood. And since I am the Dick Van Dyke of American, this can get very tedious. Why not use British Siri, you ask? British Siri understands me perfectly, but unfortunately it has been programmed to say "I can only search for businesses, maps and traffic in the United States, and when you’re using US English’, which seems very unreasonable to me. Why can’t I search for US businesses in British English?"
– A reader writing on Andrew Sullivan's blog "The Daily Dish", http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/10/hogmanwhat-ctd.html

October 29, 2011
rolig commented on the word vigorish

This one is going on my Slavonicisms list.

October 20, 2011
rolig commented on the word prebendalism

And here I was thinking this had something to do with Uri Geller.

October 19, 2011
rolig commented on the word stores

Bravo, Foxy! Excellent!
(*Putting on my copy-editor hat* The comma after "squibbs", however, needs to go.)

October 19, 2011
rolig commented on the word unmasked media

fbharjo, you were there? I remember watching that game on TV.
One correction though, we natives call our town Bawlmer (the standard spelling for the native pronunciation).

October 17, 2011
rolig commented on the word awrite

Not a great word, but I guess it's aw rite.

October 16, 2011
rolig commented on the word Rolig

Froggy, I think it has something to do with the Swedish meaning of my name ("fun, amusing, comical"); curiously, I'm told that in Danish, "rolig" means "calm".

October 12, 2011
rolig commented on the word Rolig

Thanks, guys. Glad to see there's been some response to my suggestion.
*Trying to imagine Louis Armstrong with a foxy Irish brogue.*

October 12, 2011
rolig commented on the word Rolig

People are welcome to leave comments for me here, if they so desire. I would also suggest that they add their own name to my "Wordizens/Wordnikians" list and use this space for keeping in touch with each other. I would add a few names myself, but I'm not sure whether people want to be capitalized or not, and I am also afraid of forgetting someone and having all sorts of umbrage taken and fufluns flung.

October 12, 2011
rolig commented on the word Treppenwitz

For more discussion, see l'esprit de l'escalier.

October 11, 2011
rolig commented on the word get into itness with our gym lasses

I suppose one of those lasses must be Clara Bow.

October 11, 2011
rolig commented on the word postcolonialism

Once I was editing a text and this word came up, only with a hyphen: "post-colonialism". I suggesting removing the hypen in order to be consistent with the style we were using, but the author insisted that there was an important difference between "post-colonialism" and "postcolonialism". I bit my tongue.

September 20, 2011
rolig commented on the word writhle

This must be related to wriggle, surely.

September 20, 2011
rolig commented on the word kurunj

Good one, Dan.

September 17, 2011
rolig commented on the word loo

In American (and I suppose British, too?) English the idiom "go to the bathroom" doesn't mean go to a certain room, it means "to urinate and/or defecate". Which is why the sentence: "The dog went to the bathroom in the kitchen" makes sense. So the original example is misleading. Also problematic for Americans is that a room with just a toilet can certainly be called a bathroom, but it is just as likely to be called other things as well, ranging from "the head" and "the john" to "the powder room" -- terms that, I think, would never be used for a room that had a bathtub but no toilet. Unlike in Europe, where having a separate room just for the toilet (with or without a sink) is not unusual in homes, especially older ones, in the standard American home the toilet and the bathtub are usually in the same room, though there may also be another room with just a toilet and a sink ("the powder room"), which is there for convenience (e.g. it will be on the floor where one does one's entertaining, or in the basement; it will probably not be on the floor with the bedrooms).

September 16, 2011
rolig commented on the word loo

Like the first CD definition here. A Scot might say he's looking for loo, but don't believe him. He's just cottaging.

September 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word charcoal-gray

The color of Erazma.

September 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word Surtsey

There was a fine lady from Surtsey
who practiced and practiced her curtsey.
She tried to convince us
'twas done for the princess,
and not for the guardsman who's flirtsy.

September 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word earthling

Note to GHibbs: This is not the present participle of "earthle".

September 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word vino

There's nothing inferior about the vino I like to drink.

September 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word rent

I think you mean "a rupture or a tear". While a feeling of rapture (euphoria, ecstasy) may bring tears to one's eyes, a rupture (division, break, split) may be caused by a tear.

September 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word kurunj

Although a tree may eventually become a valid scrabble tile.

September 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word plowing

Mr/s Hibbs, may I ask what it is you are doing? Is it your intention to make a special note of every inflected form of every English word on Wordnik? I'm trying to imagine how such an undertaking might be helpful. If you are learning English or trying to assist learners of English, I would advise you to get hold of a good English grammar book, such as A Student's Introduction to English Grammar by Huddleston and Pullum.

September 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word new interface

Pro! I'm so sorry! Of course you're there on my list! Look again!
***offers Prolagus some extra umbrage to take, as well as a couple of fufluns to throw at me***
***gives thanks for the edit button***
***worries about who else might feel slighted***
***makes note not to write comments on Wordnik before drinking morning coffee***

September 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word new interface

Fox, I'm glad/relieved you're sticking around. And yes, I come here not just for the words (there are lots of dictionaries around, in both material and immaterial forms), but also for Bilby, you, Prolagus, Reesetee, Yarb, Chained_Bear, Dontcry, Ruzuzu, Qroqqa, Madmouth, and a dozen or so other Wordizens, some of whom I haven't seen around for a while (including John!). Which is my point about fixing the comments on list and profile pages. During my hiatus from Wordnik, I would occasionally peek in and see messages on my profile page like "We miss you". That meant a lot. Not having the ability to comment directly to other Wordniki is like not knowing how to get in touch with a good friend. I might be forced to join Fascebook, which seems a bit too Orwellian for my tastes.

September 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word kilolex

This could become a measurement in art assessment. If your average picture is worth a kilolex, the Mona Lisa must be worth a gigalex at least.

September 13, 2011
rolig commented on the word mind the gap

Yes, Yarb! Now that you mention it, I remember that ominous recording on the London tube. It's rather chilling when you think about it.
Good one, Ru. The Gap Gaffe is right up there with the Classic Coke Kerfuffle in the Annals of Really Terrible Marketing Blunders.

September 13, 2011
rolig commented on the word mind the gap

The warning posted everywhere on the Toronto subway, referring to the gap between the trains and the platform. Judging by the images below, I assume this phrase is used in the UK too.

September 13, 2011
rolig commented on the word taint

I'm guessing, but I think taint in the sense of "perineum" ("T'ain't your ass and t'ain't your balls") originated in the gay demimonde. At least, I first came across it, with an explanatory gloss, in a gay porn magazine sometime in the mid-1980s.

September 9, 2011
rolig commented on the word aquilon

Thanks, Ru!

September 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word jokes

GHibbs, most dictionaries do not give separate entries for regular inflections of words. You may safely assume that the 3rd pers. sg. present form of a verb is derived by adding an -s. Dictionaries only specify inflected forms if they are irregular, for example, is, goes, and does.

September 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word aquilon

Well, how does this sound to you guys? Is it comprehensible? The poet is addressing a waterfall -- in the previous stanza he has been admiring the great roar it makes, and now he says:
I hear the whistling aquilon –
it rocks the spruce tree till it’s groaning;
and with the weather, wild and roaring,
your own defiant roar’s in tune.
The Russian is:
Я слышу: свищет аквилон,
Качает елию скрыпучей,
И с непогодою ревучей
Твой рев мятежный соглашен.

September 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word aquilon

Bil, had you heard of this word before as the name of the north wind? Ever come across it in your reading? It is difficult for me to do any searches on Google Books because so many boats and other things are name Aquilon. That in itself is a sign that the word is known, but I haven't been able to find any relevant uses of the word in English.

September 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word bora

I am skeptical of the etymology provided above (from the classical name of the north wind, Boreas). Almost certainly, the Italians of the northern Adriatic shores borrowed this word from their Slovene and Croatian neighbors, who call this wind burja, a word that goes back to Old Slavic, meaning "windstorm", and that shares the same Indo-European root as the English word furious.

September 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word aquilon

Interesting, Pro.

September 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word new interface

While I understand that there are still a lot of problems with the new interface (it's not really new anymore, is it?), for me the most aggravating loss is the inability to comment on list or profile pages. This makes it impossible to communicate directly with my fellow list-compilers. For example, I just realized that Sionnach doesn't have aquilon on his windy list, and I know he would want it there, but how do I get the message to him? In the good old days, I would put a comment on the list itself, or perhaps on his profile page, and even if he wasn't checking Wordie every hour, he would get an email message telling him there was a comment on one of his lists. A nice idea, huh? So why can't we bring that back, like, tomorrow? After all, that's how it worked for years.

September 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word Paphian

See comments on paphian.

September 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word aquilon

The north wind, as the Century tells us. But can I get away with using in a modern translation of Baratynsky? In his day, it was part of the stock of classical poetic expressions for the various winds. But while others of these, like zephyr have survived in English, the aquilon, it seems, blows no longer in our language.

September 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word matica

also mátičen

September 4, 2011
rolig commented on the word posledica

also poslédičen

September 4, 2011
rolig commented on the word množica

mnóžica; also mnóžičen

September 4, 2011
rolig commented on the word nonplussed

There should be a usage warning with Wiktionary's 2nd definition: The use of "nonplussed" in the sense of "unfazed" may result in the speaker being mercilessly mocked by those who are better educated.

September 3, 2011
rolig commented on the word doteran

finished, polished; borrowing from SBC; the past participle of doterati, "to finish, polish, groom".

September 2, 2011
rolig commented on the word njuna nujna nuna

All right, if Sr. Bertrille were the ninja (and why not?) who saved two kittens, then she would be "njuna nujna ninja-nuna" or, more properly, according to the rules of Slovene spelling, "njuna nujna nindža-nuna", which doesn't work quite so well.

August 16, 2011
rolig commented on the word Prokudin-Gorskii Turkmen with camel

um, you all know that's not hair, right? Or at least, not his hair.

August 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word njuna nujna nuna

The aerodynamics wouldn't work and Sister Bertrille would come crashing down.
Or did you mean the kittens were still kittens, only ninja-kittens? Well, that's just silly. But it would still require the dual (not to be confused with the duel that would happen if the ninja-kittens turned on each other).

August 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word fraught

The name Varyag is itself fraught with history, which is something the Time article fails to mention. It is the Russian word for "Varangian", a group related to the Vikings.

August 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word demi

You forgot: 3. the much older wife of young studly actor (and ex-wife of a older studly actor)

August 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word decircinate

Clearly, this means: "to restore humans to their natural form after being turned into pigs by Circe".

August 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word njuna nujna nuna

Slovene for "their necessary nun".
NOTE: The "their" here (njun- is dual, meaning "belonging to the two of them". Also j is pronounced like the y in yet or boy.
There are a fairly limited number of applications for this phrase, but I can think of one right off the bat:
"When lightweight Sister Bertrille, in her wide-brimmed cornette, rescued the two kittens who had climbed into the high tree branches, the Slovenes all agreed she was 'their necessary nun' (njuna nujna nuna)!"

August 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word spruce

According to one theory, the word "spruce" may be a borrowing from a Polish expression "drzewo/drewno z Prus": "tree/timber from Prussia", in which case the initial s- would be derived from the Slavic preposition s/z, "from".

August 9, 2011
rolig commented on the word Dasani

Ruz, you may be right that this is not actually spam. After all, D1Collum links to Wikipedia, not to the Coca-Cola page. But I don't really detect any snarkiness, though it's possible my snarkometer is rusty.

August 8, 2011
rolig commented on the word Dasani

The comment below looks a lot like SPAM. Or perhaps the commenter believes that the Coca-Cola Company doesn't get enough attention in the logophile community.
By the way, I agree with one of the examples above that Dasani is simply heavily hyped bottled tap water. People should think twice about buying it.

August 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word disposophobia

Is this a "real" word? Or did somebody just think it was neat to combine "dispose" and "phobia" in this way? What, have we all become 10th-graders now? I mean, does anyone even bother anymore trying to find out if there is an applicable Greek stem that would go with -phobia here? (Qroqqa, can you help? Would apobolophobia work? In any case, it's much nicer than "disposophobia" *shudder*.)
If I were running the world, everyone would have to go through a couple of years of Greek and Latin, with some Hebrew, Sanskrit and Taoist/Confucian Chinese thrown in as well. Oh, and a bit of Quranic Arabic wouldn't hurt either. And maybe some Swahili, too. Not, of course, that I am afraid to throw away any of the great, culture-defining languages of the world.

August 2, 2011
rolig commented on the word nahash

The Hebrew word for the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Also spelled "nachash".

August 2, 2011
rolig commented on the word withe

I am a guy who writes this instead of "with the". I expect there are a lot of us.
(Very strange visuals connected with this word, by the way. What's up with all those romantic gazes and poses?)

August 2, 2011
rolig commented on the word Alquerque

Queer cat?

August 1, 2011
rolig commented on the user ruzuzu

This seems to be a fake profile for ruzuzu which is sending love messages around town. The notification I received by email said that "ruzuzâ•—u" had left a comment on my profile page.

July 29, 2011
rolig commented on the word congress

As the old joke goes, if pro is the opposite of con, then the opposite of progress is . . .

July 29, 2011
rolig commented on the word slaw

Or even cold slaw (the eggcorn I grew up with), which of course must be served chilled.

July 28, 2011
rolig commented on the word slaw

So then what would elaborately shredded cabbage be?

July 28, 2011
rolig commented on the word fetid

also spelt foetid (BrE).

July 27, 2011
rolig commented on the word qindarka

I take your point(s).

July 25, 2011
rolig commented on the word qindarka

Maybe so, but one hundredth of a lek can't be worth a whole lot.

July 25, 2011
rolig commented on the word sustainism

I don't know, blaffy, but that would be a fun list to peruse on a rainy day.

July 25, 2011
rolig commented on the list historical-euphenisms

Umm, I think you mean euphemisms.

July 24, 2011
rolig commented on the user yarb

Yarb, I just came across your villanelle on sustainism and am truly impressed. Kudos!

July 24, 2011
rolig commented on the word sustainism

This is a conversation I missed 6 months ago. I'm surprised no one has yet listed this word in order to preserve this amazing colloquy for the Wordie/Wordnik archives! I am sincerely impressed by the creativity shown here (leaving aside M. Schwarz's suistic comment, which started the volley).

July 24, 2011
rolig commented on the word editor

Dontcry, you do what's right for you. And I'm sure that whatever you do, it's fierce.

July 23, 2011
rolig commented on the user Khvalovsky

Очень интересно! Добро пожаловать на Уордник!

July 23, 2011
rolig commented on the word editor

Dontcry, I think the feminine form of "graphic designer" would be "graphic designress": the -ress suffix generally corresponds to the -er suffix, while -trix goes with -tor (though there are exceptions, for example actor/actress).
Bilby, you're right about aviatrix, which often appears in combination with the phrase Amelia Earhart.
Ruzuzu, with regard to a possible feminine form for "Wordnik", I would point out that the -nik suffix is of Slavic origin (in some cases coming into Am.English via Yiddish), and in the Slavic languages the feminine counterpart to -nik words is, as a rule, -nitsa (in the past sometimes transliterated as -nitza, and today, in the so-called scientific transliteration, as -nica), as in the Russian words любовник, любовница / lyubovnik, lyubovnitsa (male and female "lover", respectively). That would give us Wordnitsa, or if you prefer Wordnitza.

July 23, 2011
rolig commented on the word Glumac

This is the Serbo-Bosno-Croatian word for "actor".

July 23, 2011
rolig commented on the word editor

There are not many English words where the feminine forms in -trix are still in use. I have seen executrix for the female executor of a will, but the most famous -trix is, of course, dominatrix, and I expect that this word would influence the connotations of any other -trix word that one might try to revive or introduce. Thus, one feels that a woman who insists on being known as an editrix is not merely an editor without a Y chromosome, but is a really demanding editor as well. Curiously, the English cognate of this suffix, -ess has almost exactly opposite connotations, suggesting the sentimental, romantic, or temperamental side of things, as in the words poetess and authoress – which is why very early in the feminist movement women writers tended to reject such terms for themselves. Who today would dare to refer to Virginia Woolf as an authoress or Sylvia Plath as a poetess? Would anyone have called Margaret Thatcher a prime ministress? Such words were thought to be demeaning not because they referred to women but because they were associated with notions of dilletantism and weakness, in the sense of not being able to deal with the serious matters of politics and commerce.

July 23, 2011
rolig commented on the word yers

I don't know why anyone would hack for yers, since they are readily obtainable in any Cyrillic font. I think Lord Crusty must be mistaken.

July 22, 2011
rolig commented on the word glitchette

A great word, coined (or purloined) by Bilby on the Feedback page. It is refreshing to see a useful coinage that isn't some crudely hacked-together portmanteaujam.

July 21, 2011
rolig commented on the user feedback

Related to the glitchette Bilby noted: Today I noticed that when I posted comments, the display is "15 hours ago", "17 hourse ago", etc. Could this be related to the different time zones? I'm in Central Europe and Bilby is (I think) in Australia.

July 21, 2011
rolig commented on the user ruzuzu

Thanks, Ru. Actually, I'm pretty serious, but that can be fun, too. By the way, I second Prolagus's comment below about your heroicism.

July 21, 2011
rolig commented on the word balneatix

I think you mean balneatrix.

July 21, 2011
rolig commented on the word yers

No, it is a term in Slavic linguistics. Specifically, the yers are the reduced vowels, or schwas, of Old Slavic, usually represented using the Cyrillic letters ь (pronounced in Old Slavic something like the "i" in "hit") and ъ (pronounced in Old Slavic something like the "u" in "hut"). In modern Russian, these letters are known as the "soft sign" and "hard sign", respectively; they no longer represent any sound in themselves, although they still retain the power to affect the pronunciation of the letters around them. In Bulgarian, by contrast, the hard yer is still very much alive as a vowel. It is largely because of the yers, by the way – or more specifically because of their loss of phonetic value over a millennium ago – that the Slavic languages have their characteristic consonant clusters, as in the Slovene word vzdržljiv ("durable"), which at one point would have been pronounced with yers: vъzьdъržljiv (/vuziduržljiv/).

July 21, 2011
rolig commented on the word menfauxpause

I'm really happy for you and your friends, Athur. Use this word to your heart's content. But for me it just doesn't meet the standards of a successful portmanteau, which I think of as the "chortle standards" in honor of one of the best portmanteaux ever coined (by Charles L. Dodgson no less): clarity of origin (snort and chuckle), simplicity or elegance of meaning derived from the original components (a chuckle that is like a snort, or vice versa), ease of use (easily pronounced, easily inflected - chortling, chortled), and usefulness (a particular kind of laugh that until chortle came along had not been aptly named). So go ahead and have your menfauxpause, but don't expect me to chortle along with you and your word-coining associates, though I might be chortling at you.

July 20, 2011
rolig commented on the word Hart's Rules

The style guide of the Oxford University Press. A kind of British counterpart to The Chicago Manual of Style.

July 19, 2011
rolig commented on the word zaum

A type of experimental poetry introduced in the early 20th century by the Russian futurist poets, especially Aleksey Kruchyonykh, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Daniil Kharms, which was based on sound symbolism and phonaesthesia. The Russian name заумь / zaum' was coined by combining the prefix za- ("trans-", "beyond") and the root um ("mind"); hence this kind of writing is sometimes referred to as "transrational".

July 19, 2011
rolig commented on the word Onegin stanza

aBaBccDDeFFeGG
A sonnet-like form invented by Pushkin for Eugene Onegin, it can work as four quatrains plus a couplet (like a Shakespearean sonnet) or as two quatrains plus a sestet (like the Petrarchan sonnet).

July 19, 2011
rolig commented on the word horse

"A horse is a horse, of course, of course." – Gertrude Stein.

July 18, 2011
rolig commented on the word schriftlichkeitsgeschichte

Would this be Englished as "the history of writability"?

July 17, 2011
rolig commented on the list i-d-rather-have-a-bottle-in-front-of-me

An interesting variant on inkhorn's suggestion:
"Let's all glaze our asses and toast our queer dean!"

July 16, 2011
rolig commented on the list dying-arts

Wonderful list!

July 16, 2011
rolig commented on the word subeditor

The British term for what Americans call a "copyeditor".

July 16, 2011
rolig commented on the word style fetishism

Taken from a comment to John E. McIntyre's blog post "Whatever" (15 July 2011) by Gary K.:
"Alas, the Twitterverse in particular, and the #APstyle hashtag in particular, has made it quite clear that style fetishism is still alive and well on copy desks."

July 16, 2011
rolig commented on the word consistency

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance", Essays and Lectures (New York: Library of America, 1983), 265.

July 16, 2011
rolig commented on the word stylebook

"Stylebooks are useful for regularizing practice in spelling, capitalization, abbreviation, and a host of other mechanical details so that the reader is not distracted by inconsistent practice. And you want to maintain consistent practice for the ease of your readers. But it is a mistake to make idols of stylebooks, expecting them to substitute for judgment."
– John E. McIntyre, copyediting guru, on his blog "You Don't Say": "Whatever" (15 July 2011)

July 16, 2011
rolig commented on the word typographical booger

As used by the copyeditor's favorite agony aunt, the estimable Carol Fisher Saller, on the Chicago Manual of Style's Q&A page:
"The best approach is to avoid strings of hyphens or en dashes, and combining them should be an absolute last resort. Give yourself a limit of two or three typographical boogers in a row, and whenever there’s danger of exceeding it, consider rewriting."

July 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word new interface

Mollusque, but surely some panvocalics are more amazing than others. And Reesetee, are you really claiming that you have every possible bird-word ever coined or ever to be coined already on one of your lists? Really? Your Wordie work is done, at least with regard to things ornithic? (Ahem, doesn't look like you have ornithic on any list, my friend.)

July 13, 2011
rolig commented on the word talisman

JoeCool, chill. The Century Dictionary was published nearly 100 years ago. At the time, "Mohammedan" was the well-established, fully acceptable, politically correct term for someone who followed the teachings of the prophet Mohammed (just as Buddhists follow the teachings of Buddha, and Christians follow the teachings of Christ).
This is another example of Wordnik giving too little pertinent information about the definitions it provides. It would be good to tell us the edition and date of the dictionaries that are cited. Obviously, a definition from a 100-year-old dictionary will have a different value from a definition from a dictionary published in 2010.
Also, as you suggest, usage notes would be helpful. I have no idea why "talisman" is defined as a Muslim cleric, but clearly such usage of the word is obsolete today. Similarly, Century's definition no. 2 is a very narrow, technical usage of the word (in anthropology), while only the 3rd and 4th definitions reflect the way we use the word today in general speech.

July 12, 2011
rolig commented on the word -eering

There must be an -eering list somewhere on Wordnik. Maybe even a pair of them, with a matching necklace.

July 12, 2011
rolig commented on the word owl of pane

Ow! Pain!

July 12, 2011
rolig commented on the word new interface

Another thing I miss: It used to be that if a certain comment on the Zeitgeist page (I miss "Zeitgeist", too, by the way) led me to click on a word, I was interested to see what lists it had been included on and by whom. Now I can still see various lists the word is on, but I don't know who listed it. If you are going to call it a "community", can we at least know who is participating? I might, for example, wonder why a word about birds isn't on any of Reesetee's lists, or be surprised to see that Chained_Bear has listed something on one of her medieval fortification lists, or ask myself how is it that Mollusque has missed some amazing panvocalic. Please, tell us whose lists the words are on. Where did you guys get the idea that less information is an improvement?

July 12, 2011
rolig commented on the word new interface

Something in particular that I miss: an indication on the word lists of how many comments each word has received and how many lists it appears on. The reason I liked this was that when I listed an unusual word or phrase, I was always interested to find out, maybe even weeks or months later, if anyone else found this word or phrase interesting or had included it on a list. Now there is no way to know that.
As a general rule, it seems that if you are going to change the way something functions, you should make sure the new system does not remove useful information that the old system provided. Even with the change from Wordie to Wordnik, the Old Wordie used to give you links to a fairly wide list of dictionary and quasi-dictionary sources for a word. If you wondered about some current slang, you could easily click on the Urban Dictionary link; if you wanted to find out about the etymology, you had the Online Etymology Dictionary link. And if you knew about a good source of information about words (Prolagus, I remember, was all excited about Forvo), you would tell John and pretty soon you'd probably be seeing a link to that online source too. Now all we have is Century, Am. Heritage, Wiktionary, and Wordnet. The other 10 or 12 resource links from Old Wordie just aren't there. The result is you get the message: "These are the definitions," not "Here are a lot of good places where you can find a whole lot of different definitions and decide what it is you are looking for exactly. Oh, and by the way, if you come across another place that has good word information, let us know and we'll add it."
I miss Wordie.

July 11, 2011
rolig commented on the word new interface

I don't think anyone has conspired to depersonalize the site, and I don't think that is what mollusque is saying. But compared to the hands-on, very personal character of John's original Wordie site, where there was great feeling of collegiality among the users and a sense that John was always doing his best to accommodate our requests and needs, Wordnik has always felt more like a corporate undertaking - despite Erin's unchanging friendliness - where the both the social aspect (of people talking about words, goofing around, making up words) and the desire to accommodate individual needs (like my Slovene word lists) have taken second place to I am not sure what: the dictionary? Wordnik's status as the "go-to" place for information about words? Personally, I liked it better when we had a choice of dictionaries to go to or could even offer definitions from other sources. In any case, with the transition to Wordnik, and especially with the new layout, I feel like the personal user-focused aspect (comments, histories of comments, listing history, ease and flexibility of lists and tags) has been downgraded to an "added feature", not the main thing.

July 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word l'appel du vide

I only jump a story if I already know how it's going to end.

July 8, 2011
rolig commented on the word l'appel du vide

Well, the call of nature, too, is all about "tingly urges, voids or voiding, and aiming".

July 6, 2011
rolig commented on the word l'appel du vide

Well, the French word "l'appel" means "call", not "attraction", though there is a semantic overlap, or overhang, if you prefer.
And then there's the lapel of the void, which gives the phrase "haute couture" a whole new meaning.

July 2, 2011
rolig commented on the word l'appel du vide

Would an appropriate translation be the call of the void?
This reminds me of some famous lines from Pushkin's "little tragedy" Пир во время чумы / Feast During the Plague (1830):
Есть упоение в бою,
И бездны мрачной на краю,
И в разъяренном океане,
Средь грозных волн и бурной тьмы,
И в аравийском урагане,
И в дуновении Чумы.
There's rapture in a battle, bliss
Upon the brink of the abyss,
And in the raging ocean's fury,
Midst angry waves and darkness vague,
And in the desert whirlwind's hurry,
And in the breeze that brings the Plague.
(Translated by M. E. Yankelevich)

July 2, 2011
rolig commented on the word rubby

Canadian term for alcoholic, especially the ones looking for handouts on the streets. Presumably, it's derived from "rubbing alcohol".

July 2, 2011
rolig commented on the word twincest

Superlative form of twince, "cringingly quaint" (i.e. twee+wince).

July 1, 2011
rolig commented on the user feedback

A bug, I expect: today (and it has not happened until today) when I open the Community page, it does indeed open, but I also get a pop-up box with the message: "This rails.js does not support the jQuery version you are using. Please read documentation." I click on the box and it goes away and I would think nothing more about it, were it not that the box appears every time I want to join, if not enjoin, the Community. What's that about?

July 1, 2011
rolig commented on the word cmoki

Dumplings (mmm!) in Slovene.
*disappointed that there aren't any visuals and wonders why, since there are lots of pics resulting from a Google Images search"*

June 30, 2011
rolig commented on the word patefy

Many English verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively (including solidify), so, strange as it seems, there is a good chance you are both right. (No need to start throwing fufluns at each other.)

June 30, 2011
rolig commented on the user feedback

Definitely there needs to be a "Show all comments" button; otherwise much of Wordie/Wordnik history will become inaccessible.

June 30, 2011
rolig commented on the user feedback

I agree wholeheartedly with what Yarb said seven minutes ago.
29 June 2011, 1:04 a.m. CET

June 28, 2011
rolig commented on the word fell swoop

Here, surely, fell is being used as an adjective, meaning "fatal, deadly, ruthless, cruel", not as a verb.

June 26, 2011
rolig commented on the user feedback

Again, Erin, John, and Tony, thanks for your help in getting me back onto Wordnik. But now the first of my "feedback" comments. Generally, I like the clean look of the word pages, and I like the black and orange color scheme (since I'm originally from Baltimore, they are my home colors: GO, ORIOLES!). But there are two things about it that, visually speaking I don't like: the black lines running across the page dividing up the various sections make the page seem too segmented. The lines are too black, too thick, and too solid: they shout "This is DESIGN!" I loved the original almost-invisible-design look of the original Wordie. As someone in the publications business (editor, copyeditor, translator), I know how easy it is for graphic design to overwhelm the text, the words, and I think this may be a problem with the new look. The other thing about the design that is a problem for me is the black banner. I like the fact that it remains at the top of the screen when you scroll -- this is very helpful -- but does it have to be solid black? It reminds me of the borders that go around obituary notices, which is not a good omen. Perhaps a charcoal gray would be better? Solid black on a computer screen really is black-black, and for my eye at least, a little tiring to look at.

June 24, 2011
rolig commented on the word new interface

I don't mind the "love" button. Though normally I would agree with you, Dontcry, about the way so many Internet conventions cheapen the meanings of words ("friend" of course being the classic example), the fact is that a lot of people do love words, so "love" seems OK to me. But shouldn't there also be a "hate" button? Or is Wordnik now all about sweetness and light? (Despite the funereal black banner that makes the page seem like it's in mourning.)

June 24, 2011
rolig commented on the user erinmckean

Many thanks, Erin, John, and Tony for all your efforts! At last I seem to be able to view word pages. I guess it was that funny č in one of my list names that was causing the problem. How peculiar.

June 22, 2011
rolig commented on the user erinmckean

Erin, as I just wrote by email. Once I cleared the cookies, I did get access to word pages, but after I logged in I started getting the error pages again. This is very frustrating.

June 21, 2011
rolig commented on the user erinmckean

Erin, thanks for responding. I'm using a Mac OS 10.4.11 with Safari 4.0.5. Do I need to update something? (I'm posting on your profile page as well as the feedback page just in case.)

June 20, 2011
rolig commented on the user feedback

Erin, thanks for responding. I'm using a Mac OS 10.4.11 with Safari 4.0.5. Do I need to update something?

June 20, 2011
rolig commented on the user feedback

Am I the only one getting the Trouble Delivering That Page page when I click on a word? I'm feeling left out of things. I don't even know if I like the "new" Wordnik because I can't get onto any word pages.

June 20, 2011
rolig commented on the user feedback

Everytime I try to get to a word or comment page, I get the message "Trouble delivering this page". What is wrong?

June 20, 2011
rolig commented on the word krogeljc

collar (from G. Kragen, Krägelchen)

June 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word cat

mijaauuu
*Erazma, pejd stran od računalnika!*
Apologies, all. My cat Erazma was playing with the keyboard again.

June 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word oslič

the European hake; a popular food item in Slovenia and throughout the Adriatic.

June 14, 2011
rolig commented on the word moresome

It reminds me of toothsome – and the sexiest mom on family television in the early 1960s. (Why can't I find a picture of her in Capri pants that does her justice?) But then, of course, it would need another "o".

June 13, 2011
rolig commented on the word We must restore the dignity of this vegetable!

For me, the most dignified of the common vegetables is the onion, whether enclosed within itself in its multiple thin layers and fragile elegant outer skin, yellow, white, red, or purple, or presented in its "young" or "spring" version, as a small compact white ball that explodes upwards in crisp dark green shoots.
Following very close after is the leek (so similar in appearance to the "spring onion", only larger), which must be one of the few vegetables to be chosen as the emblem of an entire nation (and a nation of poets, to boot).

June 13, 2011
rolig commented on the word sir galahad a little lamb

Very clever, Fox. But shouldn't "rescued" be in quotes?

June 11, 2011
rolig commented on the word barometz

Sorry you were here all by yourself, Foxy, but I see you managed to have fun with the sheep. As for the Scythians, you probably know that Russians have been claiming the Scythian legacy for themselves at least since the mid-19th century. Not to mention all the Scythian gold they have in the depositories of the hermitage. But as for the dreaded ovine plant, when I looked up the word баранец / baranets (the Russian name for it) on the Russian Wikipedia (Википедия), all the references they had for it were Western reports, so who know what the origin of the legend is.

June 11, 2011
rolig commented on the word the magnificent ampersands

I approve. (Not that you need my approval.)

June 11, 2011
rolig commented on the word barometz

I'm claiming this for my Slavonicisms list, on the suspicion that the word derives from the Russian word баран / baran, which means "ram". (In Russian, баранец / baranets is the name of a moss, Huperzia selago, the northern firmoss or fir clubmoss, but what relation that has to sheep-bearing vegetation I don't know).

June 11, 2011
rolig commented on the word hermitage

Wow, I was there the previous autumn, when I was doing a semester abroad studying Russian through the CIEE program. The tickets were cheap and there were no lines then, so I went there at least once a week. That is where I learned to see art.
I am sure things have changed. I couldn't afford to do that now, since their prices are on a par with other major museums and there are long lines. But I think they do have more of their collection on view, and probably on rotation.

June 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word hermitage

I just read "The Curator", in the Word document Sionnach had linked to two years ago. (Thanks, Fox!) It's marvelous, and brought back memories of my own wanderings through the Hermitage some 30 years ago. It is a special place.

June 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word sleech

How do you outsleech a sleech? And isn't this a Dr. Seuss creature?

June 9, 2011
rolig commented on the user shenzhenelectronic

Right, Bil, I forgot about him:
Free Ai Weiwei!

June 9, 2011
rolig commented on the word insomnia

Sort of like War and Peace or Vasily Grossman's incredible Life and Fate about the Battle of Stalingrad?

June 9, 2011
rolig commented on the word insomnia

What's "Ender's game", Pro?

June 9, 2011
rolig commented on the word melittologist

not to be confused with belittologist, one who specializes in the study of demeaning remarks.

June 9, 2011
rolig commented on the word Prolagus

Prolagus is in fact undefinable.

June 9, 2011
rolig commented on the user shenzhenelectronic

Free Liu Xiaobo!
Free Tibet!
Stop the oppression of the Uyghur people!
Stop Chinese aggression!
Stop SPAM!!!

June 9, 2011
rolig commented on the word fledgling

It is interesting that the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, one of the leading British spelling guides, recommends the spelling fledgling (not fledgeling). But of course, it approves the British spellings acknowledgement and judgement. Now why is that?

June 8, 2011
rolig commented on the word practise

It's like advise and advice, only there is no difference in pronunciation. Or is there, Frindley?

June 8, 2011
rolig commented on the list eye-dialect

The thing with "eye dialect" is that a lot of these words are not dialectal pronunciations; they are standard pronunciations, only they are spelled the way they are pronounced. Most native speakers of English pronounce "was" as "wuz", for example, and pronounce "want to", "going to", and "don't you" as "wanna", "gonna", and "dontcha", at least in normal relaxed speech. But someone is quoted as saying "I wuz", "I'm gonna" or "I wanna", often the implication is that they are ignorant or unsophisticated or simply not part of the elite speech community, even though the most sophisticated speakers pronounce these expressions in exactly the same way. Of course a number of the words on this list do convey dialectal pronunciations ("heah", "moider") or stereotypical non-native pronunciations ("ze" for "the", "vant" for "want").
On a side point, it is interesting that we tend to consider dialectal or non-native pronunciations as a sign of ignorance, naivety, or simplemindedness. I had a friend in college who was from Russia and we almost always spoke Russian together. He was a brilliant, sensitive man, and I enjoyed our conversations. But then once I remember having a conversation with him in English. Although his English wasn't terrible, he had a strong Russian accent, and I distinctly remember having to remind myself that this man speaking broken English was not an imbecile but my intelligent, sensitive, witty friend.
And that is the main problem we face with "eye dialects": they tend to convey not the person but only, or primarily, the speech-mask.

June 8, 2011
rolig commented on the word moro reflex

Amazing.

June 8, 2011
rolig commented on the word menfauxpause

This word annoys me in so many ways I don't know where to begin. For one thing, its relation with two of its three component words – faux pas, and menopause – is virtually opaque when pronounced (and it is not easy to pronounce). Second, since the key component word, menopause, is a term that primarily refers to women's biology, it is not even clear that the men- part of this portmanteau references men (the usual element in such things is "man-"), so perhaps this is something inappropriate that women do during menopause: a menfauxpause. Why not? Third, is this a singular or plural word, or both? Who knows? The last two syllables sound like the non-standard plural pronunciation (by some) of faux pas, and yet it looks like a singular noun. And fourth, since the first syllable of faux pas is normally not reduced, but the second syllable of menopause almost always is reduced, there is no easy way to say this word that would clearly relate to both faux pas and menopause at the same time. This is not a successful portmanteau, however clever it might seem at first glance.

June 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word eye dialect

Is "eye dialect" pronouncing words the way they are spelled (like coinkidink or spelling words the way they are pronounced (like wanna). I think it's the latter.
I think the origins of the term lie in attempts to convey something perceived as "dialect" in writing, especially attempts in the 19th century to convey forms of English associated with minorities (African Americans, South Asians, Chinese), with the result that certain spellings became emblematic of illiteracy, naivety, etc. The idea was to find a visual representation of oral non-standard speech, hence "eye dialect."

June 7, 2011
rolig commented on the word Wikileeks

A user-organized site for information about Welsh nationalism, perhaps?

June 6, 2011
rolig commented on the word vreči puško v koruzo

Slovene idiom for "to give up". Literally, it means "to throw the rifle in the corn(field)".
Today, after the ruling coalition disastrously lost three referenda yesterday at the polls, the Slovene prime minister, Borut Pahor, told the press: "As long as we hold the responsibility for running the country, we are not going to throw the rifle in the corn!" ( Dokler imamo odgovornost za vodenje države, ne bomo vrgli puške v koruzo!).

June 6, 2011
rolig commented on the list collection-o-collocations

A groaning board is a table (=board, as in "room and board") overflowing with delicious food, a banquet. It is an old expression that is today quaint enough to be used by restaurants and taverns as their name. It's a true collocation, I believe, not just a compound noun.

June 6, 2011
rolig commented on the list found-in-pairs

Here in Slovenia, sausage is almost always sold in pairs. See this picture of how our famous Carniolan sausage (kranjska klobasa, Krainerwurst) is packaged for sale. When you go to buy sausage at the deli, you usually say how many pairs (pari) you want.

June 6, 2011
rolig commented on the list found-in-pairs

sausages

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word qwiche see

I think I remember reading in David Crystal's Stories of English that spellings like this are Scots English, which preserved the hw- pronounciation of the question words, but represented it as qw- or quh-.

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word comfortable

A kind of ghost metathesis, Ptero?

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word chajkovskij

Curious transliteration. Čajkovskij would make perfect sense, as would Czajkowskij or even Chaykovskiy. And then there's Tchaïkovski and Tschaikowski, not to mention English's hybrid Tchaikovsky. For more on the vagaries of transliterating Russian names into multiple languages, see my list twenty-six ways of (correctly) spelling the name of the author of the cherry orchard.

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word pinternal prevenue pservice

Getting there – to "way more fun", I mean. But still, not really. Now what would be "way more fun" is the internal parvenu service. That might even be useful too.

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word pinternal revenue service

Way more fun? Not really.

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word poops!

Now, that is way more fun.

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word prussia

Oops, I guess that's not "way more fun" than Russia.

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word amperica

A heavy metal band, perhaps?

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word háček

From Czech ("little hook"), the upside down circumflex, or caron, over certain letters, such as š, č, ř, ž, and ě in Czech.
In Slovene, this is called strešica ("little roof").
In English, this is sometimes written, illogically, haček (I mean, if you're going to use one diacritic, why not use them both?)

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word comfortable

I think the metathesis theory is probably correct, but I also find it interesting that a non-rhotic speaker (e.g. British "received pronunciation"), would probably say, "comf-ta-bull" without any metathesis, but it parallels the rhotic "comf-ter-bull", which is the result (maybe) of metathesis.

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word swine

Wouldn't that be a little like carbonara sauce?
*goes to look up recipe*

June 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word best-kept secret

Often appears in the form: one of the best-kept secrets.

June 4, 2011
rolig commented on the list which-see

I just added the obvious: q.v.

June 4, 2011
rolig commented on the word comfortable

To answer Ptero's question, "Who put the 'ter' in 'comf-ter-bull'?", I have a couple theories, perhaps not mutually exclusive:
a) It was our old friend, Mr Metathesis (the "r" and "t" sounds traded places): "com-ferta-bull" becomes "com-ftera-bull" becomes "comf-ter-bull"
b) It's a kind of rhotic-dialect insertion, like the "r" in "idea", combined with the ellision of the "-or-" syllable: "com-fer-ta-bull" becomes "comf-ta-bull" becomes, rhotically, "comf-ter-bull".
But I'm only a hobby-linguist, so I would wait for Ms Qroqqa (or, rhotically, Qroqqer) to chime in.

June 4, 2011
rolig commented on the word effortful

You just have to try real hard, blaff.

June 4, 2011
rolig commented on the word swine

And humans drink their milk, but not as a rule swine's milk. And while men are often compared to swine, comparisons to kine tend to be reserved for women, especially in British English (Am. English prefers canines as the object of comparison in this case).

June 3, 2011
rolig commented on the word swine

Cows are taller.

June 2, 2011
rolig commented on the word stakeholder

Unless your name is Buffy.

May 31, 2011
rolig commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes

Another gem culled from the STF dominoes: "out of the closet doors of perception bias".

May 30, 2011
rolig commented on the word papophthegm

A saying attributed to a pope.

May 30, 2011
rolig commented on the word biscotti

Btw, the picture below may illustrate what Italians believe biscotti to be, but in English I would simply call those cookies (American English) or biscuits (British English). When Americans say "biscotti", they are probably thinking of something like this.

May 29, 2011
rolig commented on the word Saif Al Islam Ghadaffi

"My names are Saif Al Islam Ghadaffi" – but you can call him Al. The late Al. And not because he never shows up on time. Well, he doesn't, or at least he won't ever again. We hope.

May 29, 2011
rolig commented on the user biocon

You are right about the examples for alar. If you want to bring that to the attention of the people who manage Wordnik, you should put a comment on the feedback page.

May 29, 2011
rolig commented on the word pleasantly plump

A set phrase, and one of the many euphemisms for fat.

May 29, 2011
rolig commented on the word stupiphany

very amusing, Bilby! But in fact, I see it as my sworn duty to speak against Dr Moreau-like experimentation on words that are best left in their natural habitat. (And please do not refer to such hybrid beasts as mormanteaux!)

May 27, 2011
rolig commented on the word penes

I think you might have read that wrong, HH. What I saw a moment ago on Wiktionary was this: "(chiefly sciences) Plural form of penis"

May 27, 2011
rolig commented on the word INRI

One of the mysterious words that haunted my childhood, delighting and awing me and, perhaps, nurturing my desire to understand the meanings of words and symbols. Others encountered in my otherwise austere Presbyterian church were IHS, which was both the initials of the first three words of the message in Constantine's vision: In hoc signo vinces as well as the first three letters of Jesus' name, in a kind of Latinized Greek alphabet: IHSOYS, and the intersecting Chi Rho (XP), another Constantinian symbol.

May 27, 2011
rolig commented on the word puerarchy

Qroqqa, you're right, of course: the word is ill-formed by traditional standards. But then so are television, heterosexual, and a host of other words. I suppose this is evidence that the element -archy has become, or is becoming, a widely productive suffix, regardless of the etymology of the word it joins to, similar to what happened with -ology decades ago.

May 27, 2011
rolig commented on the word puerarchy

puer is Latin for "boy"; hence, puerile.

May 26, 2011
rolig commented on the word stupiphany

Clever, Q. You're saying that today you had a stupiphany about this. It took me a moment to "see what you were doing there" (as the cliche goes). But although I think this is actually a pretty good portmanteau (not only momentarily amusing but also smart, clear, and transferable), I am so sick of the recent portmanteau mania, that I have declared a Moratorium on Portmanteaux (which must never under any circumstances be referred to as a "portmantorium"!).

May 26, 2011
rolig commented on the list things-clouds-do

Poor Bilby! Perhaps a melodious earworm from Joni Mitchell (or if you prefer, Judy Collins) might help?
In any case, a few suggestions for the list:
block the sun
rain and snow on everyone
get in the way

May 25, 2011
rolig commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes

gangerh, "inRI"? Like the inscription on the Cross? INRI - Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudæorum, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews". Was this a Paschal Freudian slip?

May 25, 2011
rolig commented on the word omne trinum perfectum

By the way, can one of our Latin scholars answer's mariep's question, which started this whole thing: 'Can this be translated as "Everything in threes is perfect"?'

May 24, 2011
rolig commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes

Thanks, gangerh! And by the way, what does easter in mean? Not to go to church on Easter Sunday? As in: "No, we're skipping the service this year. We thought we'd Easter in."

May 24, 2011
rolig commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes

Erin go bragh burning out of the closet – sounds like a chapter from the life story of a couple of people I know.

May 24, 2011
rolig commented on the list phonestheme--dr--the-pull-of-gravity

Love your phonestheme lists, Ptero!

May 24, 2011
rolig commented on the list snose-words

I second Ptero's bravo, Blafferty! I added snooty, which comes from snoot, of course, and refers to nose-turner-uppers. I see you have snob on the list, and that would seem to make sense by the same logic, but according to the etymological note in the OAD, its origins are obscure and, in fact, "earlier senses conveyed a notion of 'lower status or rank'", which surprised me.

May 24, 2011
rolig commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes

What, by the way, does east erin refer to?
Personally, I would be afraid of stirring up the Furies, especially if you're going to split their name in two. Not nice at all. Instead, I'm going to go with the luck of the Irish (though they haven't been so lucky recently), and add go bragh.

May 24, 2011
rolig commented on the word twirl

Would "twist" and "twirl" be evocative of twisting and twirling if they didn't mean what they mean? Would a non-English-speaker, upon hearing the word "twist" immediately think of rotation? I suspect that our feeling that these words somehow evoke the idea of spinning and winding may be related to other things, like our sense of the words twine, whirl, etc., as well as the onomatopoeia we associate with the initial w-/wh- sounds, as in wind, whip, whoosh, whizz, etc.
As for what word might be used for such associations, the word you use is good: evocative. I also call them fibrous words.

May 23, 2011
rolig commented on the word omne trinum perfectum

Thanks, Pro and Qroqqa, for the clarifications. Qroqqa, what did Perseus do (besides cut off Medusa's head, of course) to get himself filtered? Is it that potty mouth of his?
By the way, do you think English sayings, like "Good things come in threes" and "Third time lucky" could go back to this Latin expression? There is a comparable saying in Slovene: "V tretje gre rado", which means something like "third time lucky".

May 23, 2011
rolig commented on the word omne trinum perfectum

Shouldn't this be omne trium perfectum (see the online Latin Dictionary)?

May 23, 2011
rolig commented on the word perfect

Foxy, that sounds like something Sylvester the Cat might say (or I am thinking of Daffy Duck?).
*wonders if Fox is brushing up on his Deutsch*

May 22, 2011
rolig commented on the word perfect

But "Per-fuckin-fection!" might work, eh? Note the nice alliteration.

May 22, 2011
rolig commented on the word perfect

But do people now say "Per-fuckin-fect!"?
*not sorry that I'm a little out of it*

May 22, 2011
rolig commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes

There are some wonderful segments here: killing fields of gold fish!

May 22, 2011
rolig commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes

and joy

May 22, 2011
rolig commented on the word hosterage

Bravo, Fox!

May 20, 2011
rolig commented on the word backshift

I would punctuate this differently: I heard her say, "Who knew?" – no full stop necessary. But more to the point, this does not really illustrate the backshift, at least not as I understand it. A better illustration would be if she asks, "Who knows about the affair?" one might report this as:
She asked who knew about the affair.
The present tense of the direct speech has been backshifted to the preterite of the reported speech.

May 20, 2011
rolig commented on the word toward

Blaff, my sense is that there is no difference in usage, if you mean that the same person would say or write "toward" in certain contexts and "towards" in other contexts. Certainly there is no difference in meaning. As an editor I have no qualms about changing "towards" to "toward" in any context (except in quoted material) -- or vice versa, depending on the style sheet I am using. The same is true for me with regard to other -ward/-wards words. The one exception that springs to mind is the adjective untoward (e.g. "untoward behavior"); I would never use this with an -s. But for me "backward thinking" and "backwards thinking" are equally correct; it all depends on the style sheet.
Curiously, though, I don't think I would ever use "forwards" as an adjective: "forwards thinking" definitely sounds wrong to me. But that might just be me.

May 19, 2011
rolig commented on the word toward

There is a strong bias for edited text with Google Ngrams (its results are based on books, newspapers, and magazines), and I suspect that these results are partly, maybe largely, due to the fact that the AP stylebook, among others, insists on -ward spellings. In the spoken language and in non-edited or informal texts, I wonder if you will find the same sharp preference for toward among US speakers. It is not at all unusual for Americans to say towards. Speaking personally, as a Baltimore-born copyeditor trained to follow AP, I usually write toward, but I believe I have always tended to use towards in my speech.

May 19, 2011
rolig commented on the list things-clouds-do

Excellent list, Ptero. I have "favorited" it – which I rarely do.

May 19, 2011
rolig commented on the word fibrous words

The first list I created that I cared about. It's here.

May 18, 2011
rolig commented on the list first-lists

The first list I cared about was "fibrous words", and the first word I commented on (with a citation) was ilex, but I can't figure out what me very first word was, perhaps inveigle.

May 18, 2011
rolig commented on the word shufti

I came across this word in an unusual way. I was looking for an alternative to the word "look" (in the sense of a "look" into a certain world), and the MS Word Thesaurus gave me "shufti" on its list of synonyms. I had never encountered this word before, but apparently it is British slang (originally military slang) meaning "a quick look around".

May 18, 2011
rolig commented on the word stang

ſufferin' ſuccotaſh!

May 18, 2011
rolig commented on the word deciding not to read that Wisława Szymborska poem

Just as you cannot step twice into the same river (as Heraclitus said), you cannot read the same poem more than once – although you can not read the same poem many times over.

May 16, 2011
rolig commented on the word whilst

Thanks, Yarb, and everyone, for contributing to this topic. I'm particularly interested because in the last year or so I've been getting more requests to translate things into British English, and I thought this might mean not only writing "colour" and "analyse" but also things like "whilst" and "amongst", which goes against my American grain. But now I will revert happily to using "while" and "among" in such texts.

May 16, 2011
rolig commented on the word whilst

Yarb, do you think "whilst" carries any particular marking? Does it sound especially posh or Etonian to you? Would you be surprised to hear a teenager say it in normal speech?

May 16, 2011
rolig commented on the word whilst

Thanks, friend.

May 15, 2011
rolig commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes

One of the meanings of "stock" is the broth made from boiling something (meat, bones, vegetables), which is then used as the basis for a soup, gravy, or sauce. Hence, "sauce stock".

May 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word whilst

PU, you have probably been reading a mix of British- and US-published books. No one in the US, as far as I know, uses single quotation marks (or "inverted commas", as the Brits like to call them) to indicate first-level quotations; the single quotation marks are used (in the US) only for quotes within quotes (i.e. second-level quotations), as in: PU cited the example, "Bilby said, 'My ears are stuck!' "
As for the question of dots and spaces, first I think it is important to distinguish between using ellipsis to indicate omission of content and using it to indicate an unfinished thought or sentence. The example Ruzuzu offers sounds to me like an unfinished sentence, not omission of content. In this case I would use space, three spaced periods, space:
"Then bilby got his ears caught in the frivolous blades of the . . ."
Unless I am forced to use the "ellipsis symbol" MS Word devised, where they scrunch the three periods together in the most unnatural way. Then the space after the word looks strange. So I scrunch the symbol right up to the word:
"Then bilby got his ears caught in the frivolous blades of the…"
In the case of omission of content, it all depends where that omitted content was. If it was in the middle of the sentence, then I use space, three spaced periods, space:
"Then bilby got his ears caught in the . . . blades of the Wordnik copter. What did he expect? The ears were never seen again."
If it comes at the end of the sentence, then I use space, three spaced periods, space, sentence-final period:
"Then bilby got his ears caught in the frivolous blades . . . . What did he expect? The ears were never seen again."
If the omitted text comes after the end of a sentence, then I put in the sentence-final period, space, three spaced dots, space:
"Then bilby got his ears caught in the frivolous blades of the Wordnik copter. . . . The ears were never seen again."
Of course, in both combinations (sentence period + ellipsis; ellipsis + sentence period), MS Word's scrunched up ellipsis makes things ugly, so I use period, space, ellipsis symbol, space for both:
"Then bilby got his ears caught in the frivolous blades. … What did he expect? The ears were never seen again."
"Then bilby got his ears caught in the frivolous blades of the Wordnik copter. … The ears were never seen again."

May 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word whilst

I've come to think of the "-st" forms as standard for Brits because so many of the British-English texts I edit use them. But I just ran some Google n-gram searches on while/whilst, among/amongst, and amid/amidst for British English, and in all cases the non-st form dominates, though the showings for the -st forms are also quite healthy. When I ran the same searches for American English, the presence of the forms "whilst" and "amongst" is almost at 0 in the latter half of the 20th century (they had greater use in the 19th century), while "amidst" is still fairly competive with "amid".
More comparisons should probably be done to make any definite conclusion, but my sense is that the "-st" forms exist as acceptable unmarked alternatives in British English, without any feeling that they are pretentious.
As for my comment about commas, in British practice, the comma and period normally go outside the quotation marks (whether single or double) when quoting anything less than a complete sentence. Examples:
British style: There is considerable discussion at Wordnik about the "frivolous misuse of Australians". (The period goes outside the partial quote.)
American style: There is considerable discussion at Wordnik about the "frivolous misuse of Australians." (The period goes inside the partial quote – illogically, because it does not belong to the quotation, but Americans like the way it looks anyway.)
but both British and American styles find the following acceptable:
Pterodactyl commented, "I feel a need to do something frivolous with Australians." (The period goes inside because it is part of the complete sentence that is being quoted.)

May 15, 2011
rolig commented on the word whilst

I believe that "whilst", "amongst" and "amidst" are all quite standard in British English (like putting a comma after a quotation mark), without any of that aura of pretentiousness or foppishness that makes Americans groan and giggle.

May 14, 2011
rolig commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes

Hans + device = hand device, maybe? Pro?

May 11, 2011
rolig commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes

peace?

May 11, 2011
rolig commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy-dominoes

arrest

May 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word držati svečo komu

That's interesting, Pro. Since the Slovenes and Italians are neighbors, and there are a lot of Italian and Friulian expressions that have made their way into Slovene, I would not have expected the same idiom to have such radically different meanings. I wonder how many faux pas have been committed in the border regions around Trieste and Gorizia.
Ruzuzu, the similarity is not surprising; the Baltic and Slavic languages are fairly close cousins.

May 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word držati svečo komu

lit. "to hold a candle for someone": to expect that someone who is sick will die soon: "… so mati tako oslabeli, da smo jim že držali svečo" (A. Ingolič, "Splavar Franc Vitužnik") / "… Mother had gotten so weak, we knew she didn't have long to live."

May 10, 2011
rolig commented on the word complicity v incompetence

In the popular media, in relation to Pakistani governement agencies, the only two possible explanations for bin Laden's being able to live safely in Abbotabad for the past five years.

May 10, 2011
rolig commented on the user Prolagus

Thanks, Pro. I do poke my nose in from time to time. Hope you're doing well.

May 9, 2011
rolig commented on the user reesetee

Thanks for noticing, RT! I do miss the place and the old regulars, as well. So it's nice to stop by once in a while. And the word list function is very useful for me. But I think it was easier to make and maintain a word list, especially a non-English one, on Wordie than it is on Wordnik. Maybe that is something I need to bring up with someone (John?).

May 1, 2011
rolig commented on the word žvrkljati

No, indeed, you wouldn't want to confuse them.

May 1, 2011
rolig commented on the word izlužiti

izlúžiti to extract
izlúžen extracted

May 1, 2011
rolig commented on the word žvrkljati

žvrkljáti to beat, whisk (e.g. eggs); to make a gurgling or squeaking sound
Related words:
razžvrkljáti: to beat thoroughly

May 1, 2011
rolig commented on the word žvrklja

žr'klja whisk, beater (traditional wooden utensil)

May 1, 2011
rolig commented on the word kozica

kozíca pan for cooking, stewing, and frying (also ponev)

May 1, 2011
rolig commented on the list slavic-languages-spelling-bee-list

Here are a couple more words with Slavic origins: pistol and gherkin. Feel free to pilfer from my slavonicisms list.

March 23, 2011
rolig commented on the word gvišn

In colloquial Slovene: "of course, certainly" (from German Gewiss)

March 8, 2011
rolig commented on the word bit

In Slovene, this word means "being", as in the Slovene name of Heidegger's Bit in čas (Being and Time). And, it's a feminine noun with -ø ending in the nominative singular and -í ending in the genitive singular!

March 8, 2011
rolig commented on the word ograda

animal pen, usually surrounded by a mortarless stone wall or hedge.

March 2, 2011
rolig commented on the word brozga

slush (plundra).

March 2, 2011
rolig commented on the word till

Actually, until is long for till. "Till" came first.

February 28, 2011
rolig commented on the word postavljati se

postávljam se s čim pred kom, nad čim, nedov.; postáviti se, dov. to flaunt, show off; put oneself above someone, think oneself superior to someone
postávljam se komu po robu, nedov. to oppose someone, set oneself against someone

February 13, 2011
rolig commented on the word ubadati se

ubádam se s čem, nedov. struggle with, grapple with, have a hard time with

February 13, 2011
rolig commented on the word kolobocija

kolobócija confusion, mess, disorder; predicament, problem

February 13, 2011
rolig commented on the word 28 Barbary Lane

I just finished reading Armistead Maupin's latest extension to his classic Tales of the City series, Mary Ann in Autumn. It was what I expected: eminently devourable in a day, a low-calorie treat. But it made me realize that, for me and I think for many gay men of my age, 28 Barbary Lane is indeed a state of mind, the home of our "logical" family (as Mrs. Madrigal puts it), where people accept us, care about us, put up with us, understand us, and forgive us our failings. And we all become better for it.

February 9, 2011
rolig commented on the word Dulcinea

For this name's use as a byword, see dulcinea.

February 5, 2011
rolig commented on the word vault

This word often slips my mind in the sense of "leap", e.g. "With her new novel, she has vaulted to the top ranks of pedestrian writers."

February 3, 2011
rolig commented on the word pettish

"Ah! If we could only do what we wished!" her friend Mrs. Forman cries wistfully at one point in the story, thus giving voice … to the straitjacket morality that sentences poor Mr. Lucas to a rancorous and pettish dotage.
– David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell, "Introduction", in E. M. Forster, Selected Stories, (New York: Penguin, 2001), xvii; discussing Forster's story "The Road from Colonus".

February 3, 2011
rolig commented on the word pistol

I just read that this word originates in the Slavic languages, which I hadn't realized. It came into English from German (Pistole), which took it from the Czech word pišt'ala, which means "whistle, flute, wind instrument" – cf. Russian пищаль / pishchal', Slovene piščal, Polish piszczel, piszczałka, all of which refer to a (potentially) musical wind instrument. The ultimate Slavic root is pisk- ("a whistling sound"), which may be related to the English word "pipe", both probably deriving from the onomatopoetic PIE root pi-.

January 29, 2011
rolig commented on the word suist

Well, with words that no one really uses or understands, it is not surprising that the only citations available are those that explain what the word means.

January 19, 2011
rolig commented on the word suist

Yes, a nice word. But one of the failings of the definitions that Wordnik provides from other sources (e.g. The Century Dictionary) is that it leaves out usage tags and citations. This word, for instance, is marked as "rare" by the Century Dictionary, which also supplies the following wonderful citation from R. Whitlock's Zootomia:
"In short, a suist and selfe-projector (so far as known) is one the world would not care how soon he were gone; and when gone one that heaven will never receive; for thither I am sure he cometh not that would (like him) go thither alone."

January 19, 2011
rolig commented on the word odeum

This is the source of the name Odeon (Odéon), which was given to major theaters in Paris, Vienna, and other European capitals.
Not to be confused with odium!

January 1, 2011
rolig commented on the user thalvers

Thanks for your suggestion of shrapnel to my Surprisingly Eponymous list! Sorry it's taken me 9 months to respond.

December 28, 2010
rolig commented on the word parentheses

What idiot wrote that definition?

December 23, 2010
rolig commented on the list helpful-hints-to-avoid-unit-confusion

… and another rather obvious one: googol and Google and Gogol

December 22, 2010
rolig commented on the list helpful-hints-to-avoid-unit-confusion

tesla and Tulsa? joule and jowl? And in the spirit of the holidays: centiliter and Santa litter

December 22, 2010
rolig commented on the word meh

Czech (if given a pretentious, quasi-native pronunciation, of course)

December 17, 2010
rolig commented on the word stunning

I've been out of the country for a decade, so maybe I'm out of touch. But essentially what I hear in McFadden's usage is something like, "Oh, what a stunning war!" And that seems strange. I'm not saying his usage is incorrect; I understand what he means. And there is nothing wrong with describing the AfPak complexity in a way that points to its ability to render one dazed and senseless. The problem here is the dissonance with the more common figurative sense of "stunning", since complexity can also be astoundingly beautiful. In a different context, I wouldn't do this kind of double take, e.g. "Mr. Knightley's stunning rebuke of her treatment of Miss Bates caused Emma to question her judgement about many other things as well."
There is also the problem of mixing metaphors: Can one wrestle with something that is stunning? Isn't the implication of "stunning" – even in its figurative uses – that it leaves you incapacitated, unable to act, speechless (not a good thing for a diplomat, by the way)?
I also thought McFadden's use of the word smacked of a certain journalistic pretentiousness. All of this is just my opinion, my feeling about it. And apparently none of y'all felt that way. Which is fine. But it makes me wonder if I need to adjust my language antennae.

December 16, 2010
rolig commented on the word stunning

Still, "stunning complexity" is not the best choice if you feel no admiration for the complexity. The first meaning the OED gives is the literal meaning of the word. McFadden did not intend to say that the complexity of the situation literally knocks people out in the way a "stunning blow to the head" would. He was trying to use the word figuratively and in this sense was employing a new meaning of the word, one not listed by the OED: "extremely difficult, daunting, challenging." This would be fine if there did not already exist an established figurative meaning of the word "stunning", which the OED duly records as its second definition: "excellent, first-rate, 'splendid', delightful, etc.". So because we know from news reports that the complexity of the Afghan situation is not delightful, we are left with a certain feeling of dissonance from this collocation: it does not mean the same thing it does in, for example, the phrase: "the stunning complexity of Bach's polyphony." So I find McFadden's usage of the word strange – unless, of course, he meant to say, literally, that the complexity of the situation left Holbrooke dazed, unable to reason, unconscious.

December 16, 2010
rolig commented on the word stunning

I find the following usage of the word strange:
"More recently, Mr. Holbrooke wrestled with the stunning complexity of Afghanistan and Pakistan: how to bring stability to the region while fighting a resurgent Taliban and coping with corrupt governments, rigged elections, fragile economies, a rampant narcotics trade, nuclear weapons in Pakistan, and the presence of Al Qaeda, and presumably Osama bin Laden, in the wild tribal borderlands."
– From the Robert D. McFadden's article on the late Richard Holbrooke, New York Times, 13 Dec 2010.
Here McFadden uses "stunning" to mean something like "extremely daunting", but the word inevitably adds a note of admiration for the complexity of situation, which I find strange. Is this a fairly new usage? Pretentious/hip journalese?

December 14, 2010
rolig commented on the word tranche

"China's moves to distance itself from Kim are revealed in the latest tranche of leaked US embassy cables published by the Guardian and four international newspapers."
– Simon Tisdall, "Wikileaks cables reveal China 'ready to abandon North Korea'", The Guardian, 29 November 2010

November 30, 2010
rolig commented on the word Hottentottenpotentatentantenattentat

Thanks, C_B. I missed you, too. And Wordie. But I never really got used to Wordnik, I guess, like having to check both capitalized and uncapitalized versions of words. But as a German noun, this one properly needs its capital, I think.

November 3, 2010
rolig commented on the word Hottentottenpotentatentantenattentat

German for "attempt on the life of the Hottentot prince's aunt".

November 3, 2010
rolig commented on the list x-marks-the-spot

Hi, Reesetee! How about matrix, executrix, and editrix?

October 31, 2010
rolig commented on the word vacuous

I don't think I would describe a house as "vacuous" -- a face, an expression, a mind, yes, but not a house. For a house I would use the word "vacant". In fact, checking the Oxford American Dictionary, I see that, under "vacuous", the meaning "empty" is marked as "archaic".

October 31, 2010
rolig commented on the word Uz

"Job is a monotheist but not an Israelite; he lives in 'the land of Uz,' which Alter glosses as 'a never-never land somewhere to the east.'
– Adam Kirsch, "Counter-Revelations", review of The Wisdom Books, new translations of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes by Robert Alter (Norton & Co.), on The New Republic book review website "The Book", http://www.tnr.com/book/review/counter-revelations-wisdom-books-robert-alter

October 26, 2010
rolig commented on the word duncify

I was looking for a single word that could translate the Slovene word poneumljati, "to make stupid", and found this. Unfortunately, it is not listed in dictionaries of current English, so I decided against using it. Instead, I chose the locution "dull the mind of ..." But what a great, and timely word! It needs to be revived. Contemporary society needs this word!

October 26, 2010
rolig commented on the word vestige

A word I want to remember when I have to translate the Slovene sled, as an alternative to trace, which has become overused in post-Derridean theoretical writings.

September 6, 2010
rolig commented on the word up

I like the fact that in Slovene up (a noun) means "hope".

August 24, 2010
rolig commented on the word casemate

In Ljubljana Castle, the Kazemate – Casemates, in the plural – have been turned into a hall for art exhibitions and concerts.

August 20, 2010
rolig commented on the word zlasati

to pull someone's hair; to quarrel

August 16, 2010
rolig commented on the word savory

In Slovene, šetraj. My boyfriend discovered this herb growing wild on the island of Brač.

July 18, 2010
rolig commented on the word gherkin

This word came into English via Dutch or German from the Polish word for "cucumber", ogorek.

June 17, 2010
rolig commented on the word kotaliti

kotalíti, -lím; kotalèč
to roll (sthg)
kotalíti se
to move along awkwardly, with difficulty; shuffle, toddle, waddle, etc.

June 16, 2010
rolig commented on the word prekucniti

prekúcniti, -nem; prekúcnjen
to overturn, topple; to revolutionize
Related words:
prekúc – overturning, somersault
prekucíja – revolution, coup

June 16, 2010
rolig commented on the word dimnikar postane gospodar

lit., "the chimney sweep becomes the master" - a reversal of roles.

June 9, 2010
rolig commented on the word zadrleskniti

to slam shut; from drlesk, a loud sharp noise.

June 9, 2010
rolig commented on the word neusmiljen

merciless, remorseless

February 13, 2010
rolig commented on the word neizprosen

a possible synonym would be neusmiljen, "merciless, remorseless".

February 13, 2010
rolig commented on the word eskimo

Apparently, "Eskimo" is a Red Indian Native American Indigenous American Algonquinian word meaning "raw-flesh eaters", a term one might justifiably use for people who enjoy sushi or steak tartare, so I am not sure why it would be offensive. Certainly, when I was growing up in Baltimore in the 1960s and 1970s, I never heard used in any way that was intended to cause offense. When I lived in Canada in the 1980s, I learned that the indigenous dwellers of the Canadian Arctic preferred to be known as Inuit, while those who lived in Alaska preferred to be called Eskimos, at least by non-Inuktitut-speakers. Perhaps this was because they didn't want people to botch the pronunciation of their ethnonym or because it got on their nerves when someone referred to one of them as "an Inuit" since "Inuit" is a plural form and this should properly be "an Inuk". In any case, there was no suggestion that "Eskimo" was offensive, just that it was not what they called themselves. It annoys me that people get so sensitive when it is clear that no offense is intended. Is it insulting to refer to Angela Merkel as a "German", for example, when she calls herself a "Deutsche"? Should we refer to Japanese people as "Nihonjin"?

December 27, 2009
rolig commented on the word Hedwig

Yes, milord! What a fine-looking judicial owl. Thanks, Bilby, for brightening my day (and not for the first time)!

December 23, 2009
rolig commented on the word ice-cream

It's ironic that this little punctuation mark, which is simply trying to bring things together in order to avoid misunderstandings, should be so divisive.

December 23, 2009
rolig commented on the word polka

I had thought that this word must have originally referred to a Polish dance, but apparently the dance originated in Bohemia and the name derives from the Czech word půlka (of which polka would be an earlier spelling), meaning "half-step".

December 23, 2009
rolig commented on the word ervate

I don't think it's English, gangerh. Some of those hits may be from faulty hyphenations of enervate and coacervate. Where'd you find 55,500 search results for this word? I get only about 7,500 hits on Google.

December 14, 2009
rolig commented on the word good

Ru, it's more the case that hello became a short way of saying "How do you do?" some eighty years ago. And, I'm told, in good British society, the proper reply to "How do you do?" is "How do you do?": it's a polite formal greeting, not a question about the state of one's well-being. But today, the polite way to respond to the greeting, "How are you?" is, as you say, "Fine, thanks." But "Good, thanks," works too, meaning, "the present condition of my life is good, i.e. it's nothing for you to worry about, but thanks for showing even this formal interest."

December 14, 2009
rolig commented on the list robots--famous

Wait a sec. Karel Čapek wasn't a robot; he just invented the word.

December 8, 2009
rolig commented on the word soviesque

Shouldn't this be Sovietesque? The suffix -esque usually does not involve clipping final letters/phonemes.

December 8, 2009
rolig commented on the list lewis-carrol

If you're referring to the author of Alice in Wonderland, that's Lewis Carroll, with two l's.

December 6, 2009
rolig commented on the word muscle

There is a similar correspondance in the Slavic languages between muscles and mice, e.g. Russian мышца (myshtsa, "muscle") / мышь (mysh', "mouse"); and Slovene mišica ("muscle") / miš ("mouse"), where the suffixes -tsa, -ica form diminutives.

December 5, 2009
rolig commented on the list etymologically-awesome

another curious etymology belongs to muscle.

December 5, 2009
rolig commented on the word ciao bella!

And what would you say to a cute guy in a gay bar?

December 5, 2009
rolig commented on the list words-that-sound-dirty-but-really-aren-t

But reesetee, cummingtonite doesn't sound awful at all; it sounds like something to look forward to.

December 5, 2009
rolig commented on the word puritan purist

That's the same thing you call a broken middle finger in Queens.

December 2, 2009
rolig commented on the word WTBH

Thanks, I should have gotten that, but then, I'm not British, so "bloody" doesn't necessarily spring to mind. WTFH would be my dialect.
But now I'm wondering if WTBHAG is a sweet tooth fairy?

December 2, 2009
rolig commented on the user Prolagus

I've got a question for you on WTBH.

December 2, 2009
rolig commented on the word WTBH

I have seen Prolagus use this a couple of times and am curious about what it means. I could probably look it up in Urban Dictionary, but there's no immediate link and I'm not fully awake yet. So I'll just ask.
My first guess would be: "What's The Big Hurry", but that doesn't fit the circs, so then, remembering BHAG (wasn't that "Big Hairy-Assed Goal"?), I thought, "What The Big Hairy". That took me to "What The Big Harry", but then, who the f--k is Harry? But maybe this is short for WTBHAD: What's The Big Hairy-Assed Deal?. I'm feeling lost.

December 2, 2009
rolig commented on the user feedback

John, I suspected this was the case and that they weren't lost forever. I am in no rush at the moment, but PNs are a useful tool for noting information about a foreign word (stress, declensions, peculiarities) that would not be of interest to the general Wordnikkery. I don't need them right away, though, but if you think you'll get to them in the next couple of months, that would be dandy.

December 2, 2009
rolig commented on the word illustrated sweet tooth fairy

well done, Gangerh, FrogApplause and Co.! I am very impressed.

December 2, 2009
rolig commented on the word umbrage

Ta, Bil.

December 1, 2009
rolig commented on the user feedback

A few bugs are still lurking in my lists with regard to non-Western Roman characters:
- In pre-Transition entries, the Slovene letter "č" still appears as an unknown character (like this: �?).
- In text describing the list, characters such as "í", "š", and, again, "č" are misencoded (they look like this, respectively: Ã, Å¡, Ä). Curiously, "i" and "š" appear correctly in other environments. (See the list slo: fem. nouns with sg. nom. ending -ø, gen. -í.
- None of my private notes seem to have survived the crossing. These were particularly important to me because they contained a great deal of morphological information about Slovene words, stuff that I didn't want to bore my fellow Wordies with. Can they be found and revived? Or are they lost forever?
Finally, let me say that the Transition has gone rather well. I am impressed, as always, with John's amazing responsiveness and patience (indeed, forbearance) and am glad that he now has a team of able assistants. Wordnik is not yet the breezy pleasure that Wordie was (most of the time), but it is moving in that direction.

December 1, 2009
rolig commented on the word qualtify

Enough with the portmanteaux, please! Who started this juvenile craze? I can't open a webpage without seeing somebody's latest attempt to add a purportedly clever compact neologism to the dictionary. Are people so much in a hurry that they feel it imperative to use one neologistic, barely comprehensible word, a word that usually strikes the recipient as a slip of the tongue or typo (if written), where two or three or four words would convey the intended meaning much more directly and unambiguously. If I saw "qualtify" written out or heard it spoken, my first thought would be, "The poor guy made a mistake, has a speech defect, or simply does not know how to spell."

December 1, 2009
rolig commented on the word umbrage

What or who is JKR, PotentiallyEmphatic?

December 1, 2009
rolig commented on the word series

I would interpret the first sentence MM offers as referring to more than one series, e.g. "The three Star Trek series were on for years before being cancelled." In other words, "series" is not a pluralis tantum word (if that's the right expression) like "scissors" or "bifocals", where the plural form denotes a single referent. It is a singular noun ending in -s that has a ø-inflection in the plural.

December 1, 2009
rolig commented on the word autocomplete

I would vote for doing away with autocomplete entirely. It's really annoying.

November 29, 2009
rolig commented on the word self-destruct

I just realized this is a back-formation from self-destruction. After all, there is no word "to destruct". Doesn't someone have a list of back-formations where this belongs?

November 28, 2009
rolig commented on the user john

Thanks, John!

November 26, 2009
rolig commented on the word piece of work

I expect today's colloquial expression, as in: "That Madge, she's a real piece of work!" comes from the sense of someone who is complex or complicated, not easy to figure out. This is an ironic twist on a phrase whose origin is almost certainly Shakespeare (Hamlet, II, ii): "What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!"

November 25, 2009
rolig commented on the word mien

They're not synonyms, Oro; at least in my understanding, synonyms all have to belong to the same language. But they do happen to be cognates; hence the similarity.

November 23, 2009
rolig commented on the word software

I would say that the -ware words (silverware, hardware, earthenware) all tend to be collective nouns and take singular verbs. That doesn't mean, however, that someone cannot distinguish between different "softwares" (in the sense of different "kinds/species of software", not different individual programs) and be perfectly well understood. But this would be an anomalous usage.

November 22, 2009
rolig commented on the word Askatoon

A city in Askatchewan.

November 22, 2009
rolig commented on the word bol

If Wordnik weren't capital-equipped, I would guess this was Bol, a beautiful beach on the Dalmatian island of Brač.

November 22, 2009
rolig commented on the word sipek

The venerable Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika (Dictionary of Standard Slovene) provides the following definition for this adjective (I translate): "being composed of tiny, small particles that do not cling to each other"; it gives the examples sipek pesek ("?? sand"), sipek sneg ("?? snow"). I suppose powdery would work (esp. for "snow"), but is there another word that conveys this sense of tiny, non-viscous dry particles that can slip through your fingers? The expression I needed to translate was "sipek čas" ("?? time"), which clearly meant to evoke the sand in an hourglass. Unable to think of a suitable adjective, I decided on "time slipping away".

November 22, 2009
rolig commented on the user feedback

FB, thanks for the answer about the log-out. Now another bug, relating to encoding. In words entered in the Wordie Age, the Central European character "č" (c+caron) appears like this: �? (e.g. mrš�?iti), which makes these words impossible to look up. Can this be fixed?
And a related question: in the first days after the Great Transition, I tried to fix the names of two of my lists which contain problematic characters, namely the aforementioned "č" and the Russian letter "я". I was able to rename the lists with a visible "č" character, but now they are unopenable. Clicking on them takes me to the following URLs, both redirecting me to Not-Found-Land (I feel like I've arrived in Goosed Bay). Here are the list names and the URLs
Pogovorno: Zoran Hočevar, Rožencvet: http://www.wordnik.com/lists/pogovorno-zoran-hoÄevar-i-roÅ¾encvet-i
i~je~я~ich~jaz: http://www.wordnik.com/lists/i-je-Ñ-ich-jaz
Any help would be appreciated.

November 22, 2009
rolig commented on the user uselessness

About my pronunciations: I didn't see how to preview them. But in any case, I think my microphone is fried. I am enjoying your pronunciations, by the way.

November 22, 2009
rolig commented on the user feedback

Prolagus (thanks, Pro) suggested I place this comment here instead of on bugs:
Here's a peculiar bug. I clicked on the Blog, which mentioned an interesting list I thought I'd check out, so I clicked on the list, and when I went to comment on it I discovered I was no longer signed in! Seems like the Blog is the EXIT door.

November 21, 2009
rolig commented on the word arse

And, Classically, ars means "art" in Latin. In Slovenia, Radio Slovenia 3, which features mainly classical music and high-culture programming, is called, Radio Ars, which used to crack me up (no pun intended). And their is an upscale chain of shoe stores in Ljubljana, which is also called ARS. Shoecabbages, indeed.

November 21, 2009
rolig commented on the word bugs

Here's a peculiar bug. I clicked on the Blog, which mentioned an interesting list I thought I'd check out, so I clicked on the list, and when I went to comment on it I discovered I was no longer signed in! Seems like the Blog is the EXIT door.

November 20, 2009
rolig commented on the word wordnikkers

Are wordknickers now available from the merchandising department? I'd buy me a pair. Boxers, please.

November 20, 2009
rolig commented on the list capitonyms-and-capitonyms

I would question only the inclusion of commercial names, such as Fiat, Time, and Life, which would basically mean you would include any word that had a magazine or newspaper named after it (Look/look, Times/times, Sun/sun etc.).

November 19, 2009
rolig commented on the list capitonyms-and-capitonyms

Great list, Ru! I love "Tangier/tangier" – never considered that before.

November 19, 2009
rolig commented on the word synecdouche

Doesn't someone have a list of words that are waiting to be defined? Any suggestions for this one?

November 19, 2009
rolig commented on the word flaccid

I have always pronounced this to rhyme with "acid", and I see that the New Oxford American Dictionary acknowledges both pronunciations.

November 19, 2009
rolig commented on the word mancession

How do I know that this doesn't refer to men seceding from something, or to a procession of men, or to men ceasing to exist (a "man-cessation"), or if I simply hear it, to a session of some body at which women are excluded. This tendency to form portmanteau words at the drop of a hat (at a drat!?) really gets my billygoat gruff. No problem, if it's done in jest, but when people start acting like these are serious words, I start getting a little scared.

November 18, 2009
rolig commented on the word beantownbandit

This almost makes sense. Boston, aka "Beantown" (from the poor Irish immigrants there who made their diet on baked beans, which later became famous in their own right) used to be a very Catholic, very conservative place, so the more risqué traveling theater shows proudly touted that they were "Banned in Boston", but they might have said as well: "Beantown banned it!"

November 18, 2009
rolig commented on the word cake

Pro, pretty much any English noun can become a verb – can be verbed, as some would say illustratively – not that that's always a good thing. Please don't umbrage me for saying that.

November 18, 2009
rolig commented on the word tantalize

Oroboros, for anyone who loves etymology and morphology, that word is like fingernails on a blackboard. What is -nypo- supposed to mean?

November 18, 2009
rolig commented on the word my own private idaho potato

A movie that gives a very different meaning to the term "couch potato".

November 17, 2009
rolig commented on the word comments

John, in the first day or so of the Transition, where problems with text-encoding did strange things with my list names, I tried to fix two of them, but only ended up sending these two to the Province of Not-Found-Land. The two lists in question are titled "Pogovorno: Zoran Hočevar, Rožencvet" and "i~je~я~ich~jaz". Can they be fixed? Also, the letter "č" ("c" with a caron) still appears in list names and pre-Transition words as "�?". Can I fix this myself in the list names, or will I only screw things up?

November 17, 2009
rolig commented on the word Sue Pine

And she does it on her back.

November 13, 2009
rolig commented on the word comments

On case-sensitivity: I like the idea of putting the different variants together. After all, sometimes the gap between the uppercased form and the lowercased form is not as wide as in Polish/polish: "The august ruler was born in August." "She enjoyed a cheese danish in the Danish capital." "The morocco-bound tome was shipped to Morocco." "After our turkey dinner, I went with my friend from Turkey to see the latest Tom Cruise flick, and I couldn't believe I paid 12 bucks to see that turkey."

November 12, 2009
rolig commented on the word comments

Is this a good place to leave general comments -- or point out bugs -- about the transition?
I just clicked on the word celadon and noticed that my list "paintboxes and rainbows" was not one of the lists noted in the sidebar. And yet, this word is indeed on that list. Will old Wordie lists be listed as listing words in the list sidebar of the Comments section? (Yes, I am trying to see how many forms of the word "list" I can use in one sentence; it's called polyptoton.)

November 12, 2009
rolig commented on the user john

Oops, but now, when I tried to fix a couple more list titles ("i~je~я~ich~jaz" and "pogovorno: Zoran Hočevar, Rožencvet") and then clicked on them, I get the "Not found" page.

November 11, 2009
rolig commented on the user john

By the way, I see that the "č" appears correctly in the comment I just wrote here. And I was able to fix the title of my list "slovenščina" simply by retyping the "č". So I am feeling hopeful.

November 11, 2009
rolig commented on the user john

Thanks for your comment, John. I'm impressed that things look as much like Wordie as they do. I am sure you will keep trying to work out all the bugs, including the apparent difficulties imposed by the Cyrillic alphabet and even certain characters in the Central European Latin alphabets (like "č"). It is amusing that Hindi and Chinese characters should appear in my "slovenščina" list. When I click on such words, I get the message, "Disallowed key characters in global data", which curiously points to the different meanings of the word global. Good luck with finding an effective bug spray.

November 11, 2009
rolig commented on the word u.s. marshall aid

"Marshall aid" refers to money the United States made available to European countries for rebuilding after World War II. The plan was designed by the U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, hence the name.

November 10, 2009
rolig commented on the word glans

pl. glandes (two syllables), thus, "They delighted in rubbing their glandes together" scans as an anapestic tetrameter.

November 10, 2009
rolig commented on the user ruzuzu

Hi, Ru, sorry to take so long in replying. I can't help you with the origin of the Czech ano, I'm sorry to say. Historically, the Slavic "yes" was da, though in some languages, under the influence of German (I'm guessing), it became ja (in Slovene) or jo (in colloquial Czech).

November 10, 2009
rolig commented on the word fireplace fender bender

Slovene and other South Slavic languages, sort of like Georgian I suppose, have an affix to indicate place. In the case of Slovene, it's the suffix -iš�?e:
igriš�?e – "playground" or "playing field", from the verb igrati, "to play";
pokopališ�?e – "cemetery", from the verb pokopati, "to bury";
letališ�?e - "airport", from the noun letalo, "airplane", which comes from the verb letati, "to fly";
težiš�?e – "center of gravity", from the verb težiti, "to be heavy, to weigh down on";
gledališ�?e – "theater", from the verb gledati, "to look".
This last is particularly interesting in comparison with its Croatian counterpart, kazalište, "theater", from kazati, "to show" (an older meaning; in modern Croatian, this means "to say").

November 10, 2009
rolig commented on the word u.s. marshall aid

I was copyediting a text today and came across this expression and thought, "Why, that's a Sweet Tooth Fairy! No, wait, it's a Perfect Sweet Tooth Fairy!"

November 10, 2009
rolig commented on the word strawberry's.

Do you mean you hate strawberries (the plural of "strawberry") or some store/café/place of business called "Strawberry's"?

November 7, 2009
rolig commented on the word enure

an alternative spelling of inure.

November 6, 2009
rolig commented on the word victualry

Great! I'm adding this to my "pocketful of -ry" list.

October 31, 2009
rolig commented on the word enow

It's enow or enever, Milo.

October 31, 2009
rolig commented on the word cartagena, spain

The ruthless plundering of place names is an ancient practice.

October 31, 2009
rolig commented on the word punctoglyph

I would say it's a good example, moll.

October 30, 2009
rolig commented on the word ethnomasochism

Sure, Pro, take whatever you need.

October 29, 2009
rolig commented on the word ethnomasochism

MM, the "might" referred to the possibility of your disdaining not only the bigots (which I am sure you do) but also the overanxious liberals who worry about never offending anyone, even those who would like to implement Shariah law in Ontario. By the way, I never take umbrage; there's so much of it around that it's pretty near worthless to me.

October 29, 2009
rolig commented on the word punctoglyph

My ad hoc coinage for a symbol composed of punctuation marks, often called "emoticon", a word I cannot love (I'm not especially fond of the phenomenon itself either).

October 29, 2009
rolig commented on the word ethnomasochism

Well, it did occur to me that MM might (justifiably, perhaps) disdain both the bigots on Youtube and the so-called "pussies" (sorry, C_b; I know, people who use the word "pussies" like this are dicks) whose zeal for multiculturalism extends even to considering whether to allow the practice of Shariah law (which is a current issue in Canada, which I believe is where MM grew up). And there is, by the way, plenty of evidence that Miss Mouth has a fondness for provocative, non–politically correct words and phrases. My point was merely to register a dislike for the whole "dangerous agenda" argument. I certainly am not interested in policing any Wordie content. But part of the freedom of Wordie is the freedom to say "I don't like this and here's why" without anyone feeling like they're being either censored or censured.

October 29, 2009
rolig commented on the word the hague

There is a similar thing in Slovene (and other Slavic languages), whereby certain place names take the preposition "na" (lit. "on/at"), while most take the preposition "v" ("in"). The most interesting example, perhaps, is with the city of Vienna, which in Slovene is called Dunaj, a name that comes from the old Slavic name of the Danube River. So one says, e.g. Živijo v Berlinu ("They live in Berlin") but Živijo na Dunaju ("They live in Vienna"). With the latter, the original idea was that one was saying, "They live on the Danube", which obviously meant in the capital of the empire.

October 29, 2009
rolig commented on the word train stations of the crossword puzzle

an elaboration on Bilby's stations of the crossword puzzle.

October 29, 2009
rolig commented on the word stations of the crossword puzzle

I am familiar with this from rail travel – which, I guess, would be train stations of the crossword puzzle.

October 29, 2009
rolig commented on the word ethnomasochism

Well, MM, you should put it in quotation marks if it's a quote; that would at least indicate that it is not necessarily your view. I admit that I don't know how to interpret the punctoglyph "-_-": does that mean sarcasm?
Unfortunately, with political and social discourse in America (especially, and of course especially on the Internet) sinking to new depths everyday, it's getting more and more difficult to tell the difference between sarcasm, hyperbole, intentional insult, strategic prevarication, disinformation, sheer ignorance and downright nastiness. What tends to stand out, however, because it's so rare, is serious, respectful, informed and well-considered comment.

October 29, 2009
rolig commented on the user ruzuzu

No prob. I'm nothing if not helpful.

October 29, 2009
rolig commented on the word ethnomasochism

I object to the whole clause "who are letting their country get taken over by the Islamic Agenda"; I remember when people started talking about the "gay agenda". The fact is that the people who talk in such terms are usually doing so to promote their own agenda of fear- and hate-mongering, as a way of ensuring that people who think like them (i.e. narrow-mindedly, selfishly, unimaginatively, naively) stay in charge of things.

October 28, 2009
rolig commented on the word elixir

Elixir? 'E 'ardly knows 'er!

October 27, 2009
rolig commented on the word traduce

What is that famous Italian (I think it's Italian) saying that goes something like "the translator is a traitor" or "translation is betrayal"? I bet you know it, Pro.

October 23, 2009
rolig commented on the word paratactic

I don't see what's paratactic about the example the reviewer cites.

October 23, 2009
rolig commented on the word ida dunham-fershore

A girl with a roving eye.

October 22, 2009
rolig commented on the word auroch

The standard spelling is aurochs, which is both the singular and plural forms of this word: one aurochs, two aurochs, many aurochs.

October 22, 2009
rolig commented on the word aloysius

A curious case in which the combination oy is pronounced as two separate vowels.

October 22, 2009
rolig commented on the list looks-like-a-digraph-but-isn-t

Btw, I once had a brilliant professor who was Czech. He generally spoke excellent English, but in one lecture at least he kept referring th "haffazard" events (with the stress on the third syllable). I should perhaps have quietly informed him of the correct pronunciation after the lecture, but it was so cute I wanted to start saying it myself.

October 22, 2009
rolig commented on the word twink

Theory (a) seems like clever retrofitting. Back in the day (my day, the early 90s), in bars you tended to hear "twinkie" (perhaps because sweet and empty-headed = sweet and empty calories?) as much as "twink"; the short form really developed more as a category of porn on the internet (where character is rarely evident) than as a description of a certain kind of actual person.

October 21, 2009
rolig commented on the word mother of all deadbeat dads gets 6 months in prison

Should she really be punished for what her children did?

October 21, 2009
rolig commented on the word severed head offers few answers

Stupid severed head.

October 21, 2009
rolig commented on the list •open-list-plural-looking-singular-nouns

Isn't scissors a pluralis tantum? "The scissors are lying on the table." NOT "The scissors is lying on the table."

October 21, 2009
rolig commented on the word avatar

In Hindu philosophy, avatar is the bodily manifestation, or incarnation, of a released soul or deity. It's a shame how this word has become diluted, not to say cheapened, by computer jargon.

October 21, 2009
rolig commented on the list looks-like-a-digraph-but-isn-t

In English, kh is a digraph in khan, Kharkov, and Khrushchev, where it conventionally represents the voiceless velar fricative /x/ in other languages, though in English it is usually pronounced as the voiceless velar plosive /k/.

October 21, 2009
rolig commented on the word ĳ

In Croatian dictionaries, Lj and Nj are listed separately, and I think that in an alphabetized list, the word lutka would come before the word ljubav (since Lj comes after L). Also you see vertical signs like this in Zagreb:
     K
     NJ
     I
     Ž
     A
     R
     A
(knjižara - "bookstore").
I would guess that this practice (including the treatment of the digraph dž as a single letter) stems from the effort to create a one-to-one correspondence between the Croatian Latin alphabet and the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, where lj=љ, nj=њ, and dž=џ.
Slovene, by the way, can't be bothered with Serbian Cyrillic correspondences and treats all its digraphs as two letters for the purposes of alphabetization.

October 21, 2009
rolig commented on the word carbon copy editor

I've known a few of these.

October 20, 2009
rolig commented on the word cooling off period furniture polish

This is a sweet tooth fairy godmother!

October 20, 2009
rolig commented on the list looks-like-a-digraph-but-isn-t

My guess would be that it came into English via Latin, which took it from Greek (Θωμᾶς), though orginally it's an Aramaic name meaning "twin". In any case, that "h" was part of a digraph representing the Greek letter theta.

October 20, 2009
rolig commented on the word auroch

there is more than one internet?

October 20, 2009
rolig commented on the list looks-like-a-digraph-but-isn-t

Fun list! I would question, however, the inclusion of Thomas, where "Th" is still a digraph (two letters representing one phoneme), just as "ch" is still a digraph in "character". An interesting case is threshold, where "sh" represents "sh + h".

October 20, 2009
rolig commented on the word ĳ

Molly is right. In Dutch, this is a digraph, two letters that together represent one phoneme. English digraphs are ch, sh, th, ph (in "phone" but not in "upholstery"), among many others. Some languages consider certain digraphs as single letters, such as Dutch with ij, German with ß (= ∫ + s), Czech with ch, Croatian with lj and nj, and Russian with ы. I don't know if there is a special term for such cases, however.

October 20, 2009
rolig commented on the word auroch

HH is right: the singular form is aurochs, and according to my dictionary (useful things, dictionaries), the plural is the same, like deer. One aurochs, two aurochs, many aurochs. I would label this form a misspelling (and in fact I have done so).

October 20, 2009
rolig commented on the word planemo

This also means "we pounce!" in Slovene!

October 20, 2009
rolig commented on the word zajeziti

lit. to block, dam
fig. to curb

October 16, 2009

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hernesheir commented on the user rolig

Oy, count-nouning, Noice.

December 8, 2011
oroboros commented on the user rolig

Thanks for mirror rim - nice!

December 1, 2011
ruzuzu commented on the user rolig

Just stopping by to say you're awesome.
You're awesome.

November 26, 2011
ruzuzu commented on the user rolig

You give meaning to my otherwise oppressive life! Irregardless of where you live we can live together and love another so! I've ascertained that we are meant for each other! Say YES, my love!

July 29, 2011
yarb commented on the user rolig

Thank you!

July 25, 2011
Prolagus commented on the user rolig

Got the message in my email. You can remove the comment now if you want. Thanks.

July 21, 2011
Prolagus commented on the user rolig

Hi rolig, how can I contact you privately?

July 21, 2011
ruzuzu commented on the user rolig

You're fun. :-)

July 21, 2011
erinmckean commented on the user rolig

Hi Rolig --- want to try again? John and Tony edited your list title.

June 22, 2011
erinmckean commented on the user rolig

Hi rolig -- any luck getting word pages to load yet?

June 21, 2011
Prolagus commented on the user rolig

We miss you!

May 5, 2011
reesetee commented on the user rolig

It was a little easier to do certain things on Wordie--but there are lots of functions here that I'd have wished for there too. If you want to suggest something, we generally post questions/suggestions/bitching/complaining/all-purpose-comments at feedback.
Hope you stick around. :-)

May 1, 2011
sionnach commented on the user rolig

Yes, rolig -- we miss your wit and rigor. Not to mention the Slovenian updates!

May 1, 2011
reesetee commented on the user rolig

Nice to see you stopping by, rolig. :-)

May 1, 2011
gangerh commented on the user rolig

You cannot escape the charge that you have previously engaged in the amazing pastime that is IDENTIFY THE WORDIE.
You are therefore prime target material for inviting to IDENTIFY THE WORDIENIK.
The whole of the bit of Wordnik that joins in on this would be truly honoured should you participate this time round.
Easily find the right page right now because it is currently the most commented on list shown on the Community page.

April 14, 2011
ruzuzu commented on the user rolig

"Rolig has added 72 lists containing 3,480 words, 56 comments, 56 tags, 50 favorites, and 2 pronunciations."

September 5, 2010
reesetee commented on the user rolig

Rolig sneaked in a post a few days ago. :-)

June 15, 2010
frogapplause commented on the user rolig

I miss rolig.

June 15, 2010
reesetee commented on the user rolig

Rolig! You're back! (Or are you?)

June 15, 2010
ruzuzu commented on the user rolig

I was just reading zelena zelena and thinking about how much I appreciate your comments - especially the ones about etymology. Thank you!

June 2, 2010
yarb commented on the user rolig

rolig! I miss you!

April 14, 2010
reesetee commented on the user rolig

Me too! Funny, Pro, I was just coming here to do the same.

February 5, 2010
Prolagus commented on the user rolig

I just wanted to say hi.

February 3, 2010
feedback commented on the user rolig

Rolig, just wanted to let you know that there are indeed situations in which moving from certain parts of the site to other parts of the site logs you out. Engineers are working on it. The rest of us are putting wood on the fire.

November 21, 2009
uselessness commented on the user rolig

I'm unable to hear your pronunciations! I can play the audio files, but they all come across as a few seconds of silence (or white noise). Are you previewing them before saving, just to make sure your microphone's working?

November 19, 2009
frogapplause commented on the user rolig

I hope you'll pronounce some words and phrases in Slovene.

November 18, 2009
ruzuzu commented on the user rolig

Thanks for getting back to me on the Czech no/ano question. I was curious because I think Latvian (a Balto-Slavic language) has a word spelled "no," which means something more like "of" or "from."

November 14, 2009
john commented on the user rolig

Hi rolig, wanted to apologize for the character encoding issues that have appeared on some of your lists. It's my doing--the Wordie database was kind of a mess after a few years not always careful noodling. We did the best we could moving things over, but some characters got a bit mangled.

November 11, 2009
ruzuzu commented on the user rolig

Hello helpful rolig,
I had been asking Milosrdenstvi about the etymology of the Czech no/ano, but Milosrdenstvi said that would be probably more up your alley. Any suggestions?

November 7, 2009
ruzuzu commented on the user rolig

Thanks for offering to pack her alpaca. That's a big help.

October 29, 2009
gangerh commented on the user rolig

I played with your name.

October 4, 2009
Prolagus commented on the user rolig

It would make me extremely happy to come to Slovenia someday. In that case, I will bring some home-made fufluns.

May 27, 2009
zaggan commented on the user rolig

wow thaz cool

May 26, 2009
alandriadenisewalker commented on the user rolig

WOW, crasy comments dude!

May 23, 2009
madmouth commented on the user rolig

Thank you; a labour of love.
I find your lists and comments unique and noteworthy.
It's hard to know what's a goodly time to reach comment or word quantities here...there's a bizarre absence of date-stamping on Wordie. Does anyone know why?

May 23, 2009
rolig commented on the user rolig

Thanks, Pro! I wasn't really paying attention. I have no idea when I hit my fourth chiliad.

May 12, 2009
Prolagus commented on the user rolig

3008 words, rolig! Congratulations! I can't see your recent activity, what's your 3000th entry?

May 12, 2009
jfk commented on the user rolig

What does "23" mean? As in "23 squidoo!"

May 6, 2009
madmouth commented on the user rolig

done.

April 27, 2009
madmouth commented on the user rolig

Thank you. I don't know why fate hadn't led me to Wordie (and kimchi) earlier.

April 18, 2009
madmouth commented on the user rolig

I'm a Bosno, actually, though it's always tricky; half the time I tell people Yugoslavian just because that's my sense of things.
I take it you're Slovenian?

April 18, 2009
nuxiy commented on the user rolig

Thank you :) Im still trying to get the whole concept of Wordie :P

March 17, 2009
nuxiy commented on the user rolig

Norsk? :P

March 17, 2009
qroqqa commented on the user rolig

The distinction between 'dis-' and plural '-s' is that the former is derivational, the latter inflectional. The non-existence of a free noun *'scissor' doesn't mean that the bound base 'scissor' can't be used in various ways: by conversion it can be used as a verb; it can take plural endings to become a free noun; and it can be used as a noun in attributive function ('scissor parts').
It's a bit difficult to see because in English bases almost always have free existence: unlike in Latin or Greek where there's no such thing as simply the 'word for' X, but rather a bound base with obligatory complex inflexion.

March 9, 2009
fbharjo commented on the user rolig

I thought of "interstice" in terms of something "standing", but it has a sense of "liminality" also. Thanks for the suggestion.

March 9, 2009
qroqqa commented on the user rolig

On *scissor, *underpant, *hijink—sorry, I only saw this yesterday—I've had a look through a couple of books and the closest I can find is the CGEL term bound base. They distinguish bases from affixes, so 'lighthouses' contains bases 'light' and 'house', and 'disperse' and 'discombobulate' contain bound bases, ones that can't exist as words once the affix 'dis' is removed. Some pluralia tantum bound bases have some marginal independent (or loosely-bound) existence in attributive constructions, as in 'trouser leg', 'scissor blade'.

February 27, 2009
morganscorpion commented on the user rolig

Thanks for your help, rolig

February 6, 2009
mcritz commented on the user rolig

Oh, good point! I probably should have spelled it with an apostrophe. I created a new entry for b'icicle. Much funnier! Thanks!

February 1, 2009
mcritz commented on the user rolig

Oh, good point! I probably should have spelled it with an apostrophe. I created a new entry for b'icicle. Much funnier! Thanks!

January 31, 2009
Prolagus commented on the user rolig

*32-tooth smile*
Phantom Limb is waiting for you.

January 29, 2009