utarcher has adopted no words, looked up 0 words, created 9 lists, listed 542 words, written 26 comments, added 0 tags, and loved 15 words.
Comments for utarcher
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Your citations are great. :-)
October 17, 2012
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December 2, 2009
Comments by utarcher
utarcher commented on the word instagatrix
Instagatrix, n. A female instigator. Coined snarkily on March 7, 2013 by R. Hagemann.
R Hagemann: "I really want a pie."
"I *should* eat a nice bowl of chocolate-cherry cinnamon oatmeal, but steak and potato pie is trying to convince me I don't really NEED to wait until lunch...at which point chicken and mushroom pie will say, "You enjoyed your breakfast pie SO MUCH! Have another!" and then it will cascade into pie frenzy and I'll be out of pies in a day and a half.
"This is not unlike the hazelnut/pecan cracker dilemma from last year..."
CL: "Pie for breakfast! Pie for lunch! Delicious pie in your tummy!"
R Hagemann: "You are Not Helping. Instigatrix."
CL: "I'm on the side of the pie!"
March 7, 2013
utarcher commented on the word Kosmothanatosphobia
I have created this word out of frustration that no word exists in medical texts or in common usage for "fear of the end of the world."
There is Kinemortophobia, fear of zombies or the undead, yet this does not apply to all those who harbor fears of pandemics, the collapse of the global economy, etc. There appear to be a few recent halfhearted attempts to call this fear Apocalyptophobia, though it does not seem to have caught on. Because the original word apocalypse derives from the Greek for uncovering or revealing, and because it remains tied to religion in a multitude of ways, I feel dissatisfied with this terminology.
Building off the word phobia and its Greek roots, I decided to use Greek to create the rest: "kósmo" for world and "thánatos" for death. I chose this phrase because death of the world could occur from many different causes. When people begin to feel caught up in the overwhelming fear of the end of the world, it seems to be less about the details (to continue my earlier examples, the spreading disease and its symptoms, or the way that the stock market crashes) and more that life on the planet will end. The fear may focus on the details, but at its foundation and tying together many disparate fears, is the near-existential terror that the world as we know it will end, and we won't be fine.
As far as I can deduce from my limited knowledge of Greek and the Merriam-Webster pronunciation guide, this is how to pronounce the new word:
käz-mo-thä-no-tOs-fOb-iä
Kosmothanatosphobia. Fear of the death of the world. You're welcome.
December 21, 2012
utarcher commented on the word yapping clamheads
The phrase of the night from the March 2012 Dionysium came from none other than Tim League, the creator of Austin's famous and beloved Alamo Drafthouse. Mr. League participated in the debate, arguing the negative on the following topic: "Resolved: That modern television upholds a higher artistic standard than modern cinema." During the course of the discussion, Mr. League declared that while many domestic TV programs were excellent, the majority of international TV programs were artistically worthless and full of "yapping clamheads."
June 11, 2012
utarcher commented on the word naughty aughties
A phrase used by Dionysium presenter Hank Cathey of Fusebox's Digestible Feats during the June 2012 show Revolutions and Revolutionaries. Mr. Cathey spoke on the history of the Cocktail Revolution and used the term naughty aughties to refer to the period of time spanning 2000-2009.
June 11, 2012
utarcher commented on the word the alchemy of disputation
The phrase of the night from the January 2012 Science Show, used by Dionysium President L.B. Deyo to describe the process by which the individuals of a Dionysium audience are transformed by intellectual debate.
June 11, 2012
utarcher commented on the word aquaporin
"Most of you probably have no idea what an aquaporin is, but like so many things you don’t know about it’s fundamental to your day-to-day survival. An aquaporin is essentially a channel through which water rapidly diffuses. The channel itself is made of protein and is embedded in various cell membranes around your body, most notably the kidneys where they filter water from urine. Without aquaporins you would need to consume at least 190 liters (50 gallons) of water daily just to function. They’re also a fairly recent discovery, leading to their discoverer to be given the Nobel prize in chemistry in 2003." --School Feed Science, January 2012
January 19, 2012
utarcher commented on the word orbital harmony
This phrase makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside--but on a geological or cosmic scale.
August 28, 2011
utarcher commented on the word armed to the teeth with words
"Heavy-hearted country of my birth
without warning you transformed me
from a poet singing for love
to one writing with a knife...
Losing the war after all is not so strange
in the East, we flame into battle
armed to the teeth with words."
from the poem "The Catastrophe of Arab Defeat" by Syrian diplomat and poet Nizar Qabbani in 1967 in response to the Arabic humiliation in the Six Day War, in which Israel crushed an attack from Egypt, Syria, and Transjordan
May 10, 2011
utarcher commented on the word by the bones of Becket
Prince John... added to his seneschal, "thou wilt word this our second summons so courteously, as to gratify the pride of these Saxons, and make it impossible for them again to refuse; although, by the bones of Becket, courtesy to them is casting pearls before swine."
--Ivanhoe, Chapter XIII, by Sir Walter Scott
January 10, 2011
utarcher commented on the word meed
"I bestow on thee this chaplet, Sir Knight, as the meed of valour assigned to this day's victor." Here she paused a moment, and then firmly added, "And upon brows more worthy could a wreath of chivalry never be placed!"
--Ivanhoe, Chapter XII, by Sir Walter Scott
January 10, 2011
utarcher commented on the word casque
Whether from love of form, or from curiosity, the marshals paid no attention to his expressions of reluctance, but unhelmed him by cutting the laces of his casque, and undoing the fastening of his gorget. When the helmet was removed, the well-formed, yet sun-burnt features of a young man of twenty-five were seen, amidst a profusion of short fair hair.
--Ivanhoe, Chapter XII, by Sir Walter Scott
January 10, 2011
utarcher commented on the word unhelm
Whether from love of form, or from curiosity, the marshals paid no attention to his expressions of reluctance, but unhelmed him by cutting the laces of his casque, and undoing the fastening of his gorget. When the helmet was removed, the well-formed, yet sun-burnt features of a young man of twenty-five were seen, amidst a profusion of short fair hair.
--Ivanhoe, Chapter XII, by Sir Walter Scott
January 10, 2011
utarcher commented on the word voluptuary
"His countenance bore as little the marks of self-denial, as his habit indicated contempt of worldly splendour. His features might have been called good, had there not lurked under the pent-house of his eye, that sly epicurean twinkle which indicates the cautious voluptuary."
- Description of the Prior of Jorvaulx Abbey in chapter two of 'Ivanhoe' by Sir Walter Scott
December 23, 2010
utarcher commented on the word askancey
First coined in a Facebook status update on 11/18/2010:
"R H raises her eyebrows all askancey at her car loan people, who insist on titling the automatic payment confirmation e-mails, "PAYMENT DUE NOTIFICATION: HIGH PRIORITY" and sending them out so they arrive pre-coffee."
November 19, 2010
utarcher commented on the word Guugu Yimithirr
I first heard about the Guugu Yimithirr tribe of Australia by reading
August 30, 2010
utarcher commented on the word lexicon
"There is, of course, something distasteful and absurd in the very project of parsing this lexicon of death." - Justice Blackmun
August 27, 2010
utarcher commented on the word nudibranch
Heard recently on the "Epic Win FTW" site, in regards to a sea creature that looks like a tiny alien. The species depicted there was identified by a commenter as glaucus atlanticus:
“Glaucus atlanticus is a species of medium-sized, floating, blue sea slug, a pelagic aeolid nudibranch, a marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusk in the family Glaucidae.”
August 4, 2010
utarcher commented on the word delirium
I have had a curious packet confided to me, containing an immense amount of mauscript, in an inconceivably small space; tales, dramas, poems, romances, written principally by Charlotte, in a hand which is almost impossible to decipher without the aid of a magnifying glass. ... When she gives way to her powers of creation, her fancy and her language alike run riot, sometimes to the very borders of apparent delirium.
July 10, 2010
utarcher commented on the word vicissitude
In episode three, season three of True Blood, the character named Russell Edgington, the Vampire King of Mississippi, says this word with a deep southern drawl. You can tell he really relishes the sound of the word.
The King speaks of how much Bill loves Sookie and lets him know that if Bill doesn't turn her into a vampire, then "the alternative is to subject her to the vicissitudes of mortality and to the mercy of forces such as, for instance... me."
July 9, 2010
utarcher commented on the word lollard
I'm definitely going to use this henceforth to apply to "those who use 'lol' too much" - just too priceless.
May 16, 2010
utarcher commented on the word malamanteau
Discovered this word because of an XKCD comic to be found here.
May 14, 2010
utarcher commented on the word gratitudinal
A friend of mine was counting all the ways she is grateful, and called it a "gratitudinal adjustment" :)
April 13, 2010
utarcher commented on the word prodigiality
He was always in the vanguard in battle, lavish to the point of prodigality, a lover of games and luxuries, entertainers, horses, dogs, and similar vanities.
-- Concerning Hugh earl of Chester; The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic of Vitalis, ed. And trans. Marjorie Chibnall, Vol. II (Oxford, 1969), pp. 262-263; Vol. III (Oxford, 1972), pp. 216-217.
April 4, 2010
utarcher commented on the word jort
Tight man-shorts which end above the knee, often seen as frayed jean cut-offs.
March 25, 2010
utarcher commented on the word clapper dogeons
"I will take my prince's part against all that shall oppose him, or any of us, according to the utmost of my ability: nor will I suffer him, or any one belonging to us, to be abused by any strange abrams, rufflers, hookers, pailliards, swaddlers, Irish toyles, swigmen, whip jacks, jarkmen, bawdy baskets, dommerars, clapper dogeons, patricoes, or curtals; but I will defend him, or them, as much as I can, against all other outliers whatever."
- Francis Grose, 'The Vulgar Tongue'
September 5, 2009
utarcher commented on the word cassolette
From Swordplay Blog, June 25, 2008:
"A French slang term comparing the natural scent of the vulva with a casserole of food prepared and served in a container of that name."
From the Joy of Sex:
"The woman's cassolette is her secret weapon to an extent American women don't seem to realize--French women know better. Some men respond violently to it without realizing the fact; it's also the ideal perfume fixative, and a touch behind the ears at a dance, in advance of, or instead of, bottle perfume can be deadly... Wash with white soap, and here as everywhere treat deodorants the way a chef would treat deflavorants. How the hippie generation thought you could live the good sex life without washing defeats explanation."
August 28, 2009