Comments by stpeter

  • "Nature and Nature's Laws lay hid in night;

    God said, 'Let Newton be!' -- And all was light."

    December 16, 2008

  • I assume you mean synecdoche?

    September 30, 2008

  • I think this word always deserves to end with a bang: Whee!

    September 29, 2008

  • A person who lives off a trust fund.

    September 21, 2008

  • This has got to be one of the ugliest constructions in the English language. (Naturally, it's "and/or" but it seems that Wordie doesn't let you include a slash in a Wordie-word.)

    September 18, 2008

  • A neologism that you made up. I made this word up, so for me "idiologism" is an idiologism. :)

    September 17, 2008

  • An idiologism meaning "bullshit detector".

    September 17, 2008

  • A singular, naturally (there is no such thing as a "kudo"!). It's borrowed directly from the ancient Greek word for praise, and it's pronounced "ku-doss", not "ku-doze".

    January 22, 2008

  • A combination of flustered and frustrated.

    September 15, 2007

  • Naturally the opposite is epimethean.

    August 14, 2007

  • Kind of a cross between junky and skanky.

    July 25, 2007

  • A neologism for the annoying little stones that get stuck in the treads of your shoe soles and make a clicking sound as you walk along (also applies to tire treads).

    July 17, 2007

  • Erk, I misspelled my own neologism -- I meant tread pebble, not *thread* pebble!

    July 17, 2007

  • A neologism for the mist that hits your windshield as you drive along the highway after a rainstorm, requiring you to use your windshield wipers even though it's not raining.

    July 16, 2007

  • A neologism for the annoying little stones that get stuck in the threads of your shoe soles and make a clicking sound as you walk along (also applies to tire threads).

    July 16, 2007

  • Gotta love those plurals from Greek (the plural is very much not octopi!). Oh and it's pronounced okk-TOP-oh-deez. Jeez. :)

    May 11, 2007

  • Feeling uncertain in one's thoughts or feelings. As in "I'm feeling a bit perhapsy about going to the movies tonight."

    April 5, 2007

  • Given to thought and reflection; more precise than thoughtful methinks. :)

    March 12, 2007

  • A censor-friendly version of shit (seemingly first used in the 1995 film Tommy Boy).

    February 21, 2007

  • Supposedly, the past tense of shit, falsely formed on the model of sit and sat. But it's amusing nonetheless.

    February 21, 2007

  • See also randian and randanista.

    February 21, 2007

  • Used by the late Hao Wang (in his book "Beyond Analytic Philosophy: Doing Justice to What We Know") to denote the charting or mapping of human knowledge (similar to aspects of Francis Bacon's Great Instauration).

    February 20, 2007

  • See also randanista. :-)

    February 18, 2007

  • A more colorful word for randian.

    February 18, 2007

  • Conscience as the directive force of one's actions.

    February 12, 2007

  • A modification of lumphead, it seems.

    February 2, 2007

  • As in confiscatory taxation...

    January 26, 2007

  • Avaunt, you cullions! (Henry V: Act 3, scene ii)

    January 14, 2007

  • Why do people get into such a lather over words like ain't?

    January 14, 2007

  • See also atramentous.

    January 14, 2007

  • A combination of chaos and order.

    January 14, 2007

  • Ain't is a contraction for "am not". Another form is "amn't" but that's hard to pronounce, no? It was further shortened to "a'n't" or "ain't". We're accepting of "we aren't" in the first person plural, "they aren't" in the third person plural, "he isn't" and "she isn't" and "it isn't" in the third person singular, and "you aren't" in the second person singular and plural. So why the resistance to "I ain't" in the first person singular? Granted, the extension of "ain't" to the second person singular (cf. the song "Is You or Is You Ain't My Baby" by Billy Austin and Louis Jordan) and to the third person singular (cf. "It Ain't Me Babe" by Bob Dylan) is problematic, albeit fun. But as far as I can see, "I ain't" is fair game.

    January 14, 2007

  • Contrast with uniformitarianism.

    January 10, 2007

  • Contrast with catastrophism.

    January 10, 2007

  • As long as it's not simple and desultory. ;-)

    January 10, 2007

  • Enough about me, let's talk about you!

    January 10, 2007

  • As in a leopard-skin pillbox hat, perchance?

    January 10, 2007

  • And my favorite contraction, the future y'all'll.

    January 6, 2007

  • As in, you got some 'splainin' to do!

    January 6, 2007

  • A contraction of "do on". Contrast with doff.

    January 5, 2007

  • A contraction of "do off". Contrast with don.

    January 5, 2007

  • From the same root as friend and free.

    January 5, 2007

  • Usually I ain't a pedant, but I guess about supersede I am! :-)

    January 3, 2007

  • I once wrote a poem about collective nouns -- http://www.saint-andre.com/poems/problem.html :-)

    January 1, 2007

  • I think you mean breadth.

    December 31, 2006

  • I think you mean supersede, no? From Latin super (over) and sedere (to sit).

    December 31, 2006

  • I think you mean aphrodisiac, no?

    December 31, 2006

  • There's a building Manhattan that I used to call the fubs building -- for "fat, ugly, big, squat". Imagine my surprise when I discovered the meaning of fubsy. :-)

    December 30, 2006

  • Inky black. What a cool word!

    December 30, 2006

  • A fine Aristotelian word -- The Philosopher often introduced aporiai as a way of motivating the discussion.

    December 30, 2006

  • Contrast with allochthonous, naturally.

    December 29, 2006

  • I think it's autochthonous.

    December 29, 2006

  • The source seems to be the Japanese word sukoshi.

    December 29, 2006

  • I thought the spelling was skosh.

    December 29, 2006

  • I learned this term from IBM Fellow Jerry Woodall, who went to school with Oliver Smoot at MIT. If I recall correctly, he may even have been involved in the original measurement process. :-)

    December 28, 2006

  • Erk, haven't checked out this page in a while...

    Colleen: There were two words a high school English teacher of mine never let us use: "very" and "nice". I guess that stuck with me.

    Oroboros: That's an error, will fix.

    December 28, 2006

  • Did you mean syzygy?

    December 28, 2006

  • Did you mean puerile?

    December 28, 2006

  • Did you mean lineament?

    December 28, 2006

  • I quite like this word as a verb -- as in sentences like "John will brook no dissent around here." (Not true.)

    December 27, 2006

  • What does it mean to "handle plurals better"? Some folks might simply prefer the plural form. Example: I prefer interstices to interstice because that final "s" adds further sibilance. Why discourage folks from listing one form over the other? And why does the "root" word get preferential treatment in the first place? Sounds like wordism to me. ;-)

    BTW, the WSJ story is cool (through which I find yet another parallel between us -- we're both Columbia grads).

    December 27, 2006

  • Know spelled backwards.

    December 17, 2006

  • Only three? In what dwarfish world do the West Wing writers dwell? Have they been drinking too much dwale? And what kind of dwelling is the White House, anyway? Is the current dweller a mental dwarf (as some allege) or merely a dweeb? Etc.

    December 16, 2006

  • I think you folks mean tumescent no?

    December 16, 2006

  • Yet another member of the 2000 club! :-)

    December 15, 2006

  • This word is great as a verb (I feel the same about brook).

    December 11, 2006

  • Right, I think the spelling is schlep.

    December 10, 2006

  • Those of us who are on a first-name basis just call this one hapax. :-)

    December 10, 2006

  • Another pseudonym seeking a patronym, eh? Welcome to the 2000 club! :-)

    December 10, 2006

  • Thanks for the return comment; I'm happy to have brought a smile to your face. Sadly, you and I seem to be diametric opposites when it comes to nice. :(

    December 10, 2006

  • F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition.

    December 10, 2006

  • Situation Normal, All F***ed Up. Beyond snafu is fubar. :-)

    December 10, 2006

  • Just added another: sonofabitch. As in "he's a helluva sonofabitch"... :-)

    December 9, 2006

  • The opposite of aubade.

    December 9, 2006

  • Hey John, I just discovered that you're a fellow maineiac. :-)

    December 9, 2006

  • Yet this shocking word is cognate with quaint. Odd, eh?

    December 9, 2006

  • Poor ain't. So universally reviled by Latin-loving prescriptivist grammar Nazis. Yet so wonderfully Anglo-Saxon.

    December 9, 2006

  • Frenzied. Not to be confused with amuck.

    December 9, 2006

  • Getting stuck in the muck. Not to be confused with amok.

    December 9, 2006

  • A tendency to extreme loquacity. Not to be confused with blogorrhea.

    December 9, 2006

  • A tendency to extremes of blogging. Not to be confused with logorrhea.

    December 9, 2006

  • Welcome to the 2000 club! :-)

    December 9, 2006

  • A notoriously untranslatable Dutch word meaning the combination of cozy, warm, comfortable, enjoyable, sociable, pleasant, et alia.

    December 8, 2006

  • Aw, I find it quite fun, myself! And do you mean retch? :-)

    December 8, 2006

  • This is an idiologism meaning an architect of emergent order (if there can be such a thing).

    December 8, 2006

  • Did you mean unctuous?

    December 7, 2006

  • Oh, and how about a Jabber bot that enables you to add a word via IM? I could probably hack one up for you...

    December 4, 2006

  • Here's another techie suggestion -- enable ClaimID support (it's easy!) so that Wordies can proudly say "yes, this really is my very own Wordie page" (or list). Thanks for the great service!

    December 4, 2006

  • Hey John, since you use Jabber, how about adding it to the service dropdown list on the profile page? :-)

    December 4, 2006

  • Count me addicted. I blogged it here.

    December 4, 2006