More WWII landgirls join the narrowboats keeping the commodities flowing through England. Offal joins the list of protected products, alongside coal and grain.
Is the spirit of this to nominate a word coined or popularised in 2008, or one which sums up the zeitgeist? Or is it more like the Nobel Prize, that you just keep tactically voting for your favourites year after year until the right one wins, eventually?
Is the spirit of this to nominate a word coined or popularised in 2008, or one which sums up the zeitgeist? Or is it more like the Nobel Prize, that you just keep tactically voting for your favourites year after year until the right one wins, eventually?
Yes, I understand it doesn't matter, but if I enter cletter, not knowing that there is already clettering or clettering stick, then I lose out from not seeing others' contributions, links, citations, etc.
Oh, I forgot: reason C), to demonstrate that one can pronounce French, and that therefore one is a properly brought up middle class person; see Posie Simmonds's modern updating of "Madame Bovary".
I think I just coined this on the spur of the Wordie. Sort of like carbon-neutral, but not as precise. Used of a lifestyle option that produces less carbon dioxide (and presumably less of the other greenhouse gases too) than another, superficially more appealing, option. For example, holidaying "at home", which in British English means in Britain, not literally in one's own home. Taking the train instead of flying. Going vegetarian but not yet vegan in the attempt to minimise anthropogenicclimate change.
A holiday apartment in France, pronounced "jzeet". (Does Wordie support IPA?) The French word is often used by British people, as A) it is several syllables shorter than any reasonable alternative, and B) it handily announces that one is off for a foreign, but relatively carbon-benign, holiday.
First drink of the day at a hunt meet, usually port or brandy. Served not by the hunt servants but by the house staff (e.g. butler or footman) of whoever is hosting the lawner.
Can also refer to the vessel in which the drink is served. It is of a distinctive shape, without handle or foot, designed to be clasped in one gloved hand whilst the other controls the mount. The cup is often in the shape of the quarry, the fox, but may also represent any hunted animal, game or vermin, or the hound.
First drink of the day at a hunt meet, usually port or brandy. Served not by the hunt servants but by the house staff (e.g. butler or footman) of whoever is hosting the lawner.
Can also refer to the vessel in which the drink is served. It is of a distinctive shape, without handle or foot, designed to be clasped in one gloved hand whilst the other controls the mount. The cup is often in the shape of the quarry, the fox, but may also represent any hunted animal, game or vermin, or the hound.
A play on literati, coined in the 1990s? It was used loosely of lipstick lesbians within the chattering classes, i.e. publishing, media, politics, PR, marketing....people paid to go to parties. Retroactively, I suppose it could be applied between the wars to Vita Sackville-West and the Americans in Paris.
An example of telegraphese invented by Evelyn Waugh. The journalists, sent to cover a war in Darkest Africa, are instructed by their editors to investigate the bombing by Italian forces of a hospital run by an international charity and the supposed death of a foreign (i.e. white, i.e. newsworthy) nurse. They travel, with some difficulty, to the town, eager for their scoop, but find nothing amiss. On returning to the capital they cable to London, minimising words in a way even Twitter cannot emulate, "Nurse unupblown".
plashy fen features as semi-purple prose in a newspaper column by an amateur naturalist, the unwilling protagonist of Evelyn Waugh's darkly comic ''Scoop''
A neologism, analogous to the old marine flotsam and jetsam. All the unclaimed stuff that has built up over the years and is now floating around in cyberspace: abandoned email accounts, domain names bought but sitting empty. It's taking up space, and could be dangerous, like those items jettisoned in space that whirl around forever and one day might crash into (and indeed through) a space station.
Yeah, I see that, but I can't even find the good conversations easily. And when I look at the old ones, it is hard to figure out what is idiolect and basically , private banter, and what is intended as wiser / wider (Freudian typo) discourse.
The husband & wife couple that make up CommonCraft are cool people. You never know, they might be able to help you out! (Check out their Halloween spoof.)
Thanks, Prolagus and yarb. I am having fun, but don't know if I will stick around or not. Aside from my lists being an external memory, I can't see easy ways to usefulness. Like, I spent this time adding "Cold Comfort Farm" words, and only later discovered that someone has a list of them already. I appreciate (i.e. understand) that this is a stripped-down site, but don't necessarily appreciate (i.e. like) it. For example, I didn't see your helpful commments till I came looking for them; Wikipedia has welcome messages (not automated) and pings you with new messages. I'm not saying WOrdie should do this, just that I am taking a while to figure out how to get the best from this. Tips?
You don't have to understand French to get the joke of this bilingual (subtitled) video on the perils of cross-cultural non-communication, but it helps to know that the word for the animal "seal" is ''phoque'', pronounced "fuck". The three-minute clip is funny, not vulgar, with a political point. (There's also an 8-minute version with a lot more "fucks" and ''phoques''.) It trades on a special type of false friends, words that are homophones between languages.
Also, and again this is a general point that I don't know where to put, couldn't a list like this be usefully subdivided (or broken?) into newly minted coinages and words the author just hapens to fancy?
It is a wonderful list, and a wonderful novel. But I am just getting used to Wordie, having spent a few hours on it today (when I should have been doing other things, natch). How could I have found your list before half-creating my own? And how can I find, e.g., cletter if the lists are long and non-alphabetical?
Mollocking is the favourite activity of Seth Starkadder of ''Cold Comfort Farm'' by Stella Gibbons. Its exact nature is undefined but it invariably results in the pregnancy of a local maid.
Thanks for the coding tip! I have just read thrugh half these comments, and clearly here is where the action is (my main analogy is Wikipedia -- talk pages I guess). You guys are so civilised! Seeing as how you were discussing wooden stirring spoons, may I introduce you to bishkek and spirtle? The pleasure is mine!
One of the cows kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. Big Business, the bull, services her and her companions Pointless, Aimless, and Feckless.
One of the cows kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. Big Business, the bull, services her and her companions Graceless, Pointless, and Feckless.
One of the cows kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. Big Business, the bull, services her and her companions Graceless, Aimless, and Pointless.
One of the cows kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. Big Business, the bull, services her and her companions Graceless, Aimless, and Feckless.
Actually, the capitals are important. This is the bull kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. He services the cows (no straws for AI in those days) with the priceless names of Graceless, Aimless, Feckless and Pointless.
I also had a lurid imagining of what it might be, and am glad it is of and not for. Early autobiography of Frankie Goes to Hollywood was entitled "A Bone in my Flute".
Fascinating. Rosehips do this too, but AFAIK the verb "blet" is only used with medlars. I love the specificity! I even made an entry for bletted medlars.
Yes, it is also known as the open-arse. In Shakespeare's time the fruit was associated with sex, but for the Victorians it was connected to death. Medlars need to be bletted, the only use of that wonderful word.
Also known as a meet. A group of riders and horses and grooms and hounds (NOT "dogs"!) meet at a time and place, decided by the MFH, in order to hunt a fox. In British English, this is hunting, plain and simple, but in American English that involves guns, so this is fox hunting.
You do know that he wrote at least two endings -- the edition I have just returned to the library had a bleak one and a less bleak one. Both bitingly funny. (Although I like the cannabalistic end to the aviatrix in his Ethiopian-inspired novel.)
A ''bishkek'' is the paddle used to stir fermenting mare's milk until it turns into koumiss. Kyrgyzstan's national drink is koumiss, so it (re-)named its capital after the culinary implement. Sort of like renaming Edinburgh "spirtle".
At the beginning of "Mary Poppins", the eponymous nanny is unpacking her ~, and her new little charge, upon learning what it was called, asks her if it was of or for carpet. Mary Poppins then performs the first of her tricks.
Hi John. I don't really know how to use this site in a social way, e.g. where to ask questions. So here I am, wearing my nasaaq. I wanted to point out to you (and others) that the inimitable Douglas Adams produced not a list but a book of words he had coined, "The Meaning of Liff", and this is available online
Inuktitut is the language of the Inuit people of the Arctic. There are some groups in Alaska who call themselves Eskimo, but for people in Canada, that is an uncomfortable exonym and Inuit is the only current term.
Isn't it disparaging or pejorative? I'm not sure if it is out and out racist like spic (does ANYONE say that anymore, even racists?) or merely dismissive, like foreigner itself in many contexts.
On another note, transliterations bedevil all word studies of this sort!
From ''Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day'' (1939). A dowdy governess is somewhat disapproving and somewhat in awe of the glamour of her new employer and friends. (There should be at least one comma in the phrase, but I don't know how to retroactively insert it.)
Well, I was the first to bring this word to Wordie, so I'll have a go. It is a type of Inuit knitted hat similar to a toque, with or without a bobble on the top. Mine was made, I am told, by a Mary Nasaaq, and the gift-giver, who had only lived a year in Arctic Canada, did not know if the hat was named after her family ("That must be a Nasaaq hat you've got there") or her family name came from skill at making the article. I don't expect the word or the garment will catch on, but stranger things have stalked the Parisian runways. The hat is ideal for wearing with a big parka-like hood, as it comes well down over the forehead to conserve warmth. It is brimless, of course, and not very stretchy. By the way, one of the few Inuktitut words in common English use is anorak. Others are igloo, which just means "dwelling", not of snow necessarily, and kayak, not to be confused with an open canoe or an umiak.
"The singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note. Music of ancient cultures used melismatic techniques to induce a hypnotic trance in the listener, useful for early mystical initiation rites (such as Eleusinian Mysteries) and religious worship." from Wikipedia
A castrated male sheep. Female mammals can also have their reproductive potential eliminated.
Most famously, this is the bellwether, the lead animal or an outlier, who creates just enough noise for the shepherd to keep track of where the whole flock is.
Comments by brainybabe
Show previous 200 comments...
BrainyBabe commented on the word maidens' tripe
More WWII landgirls join the narrowboats keeping the commodities flowing through England. Offal joins the list of protected products, alongside coal and grain.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word old comfort farm
Stella Gibons revisits the Starkadders, only to find the farm has now been retrofitted with central heating and turned into a B&B.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word tales of the geek heroes
Athena springs fully-grown from the head of Zeus, thus doubling processing capacity at one fell swoop.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word urethra
Snork!
But seriously... not to be confused with ureter.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word gibbous
I hadn't picked up on that. Maybe he was thinking of the fourth definition, about the bulge.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the list supralist
Phrases from British novels, between the wars
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word wordie word of the year 2008
I nominate blet, just because I like it.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word wordie word of the year 2008
Is the spirit of this to nominate a word coined or popularised in 2008, or one which sums up the zeitgeist? Or is it more like the Nobel Prize, that you just keep tactically voting for your favourites year after year until the right one wins, eventually?
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word wordie word of the year 2008
Is the spirit of this to nominate a word coined or popularised in 2008, or one which sums up the zeitgeist? Or is it more like the Nobel Prize, that you just keep tactically voting for your favourites year after year until the right one wins, eventually?
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the list supralist
Evelyn Waugh words
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word gibbous
Opposite of crescent. Collocates with wax and wane.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the user Prolagus
Thanks for the welcome. I don't really speak Italian, but I do understand it somewhat.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the user BrainyBabe
Yes, I understand it doesn't matter, but if I enter cletter, not knowing that there is already clettering or clettering stick, then I lose out from not seeing others' contributions, links, citations, etc.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word ghits
Also kGhits, MGhits; noted with erratic capitalisation.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word gite
Oh, I forgot: reason C), to demonstrate that one can pronounce French, and that therefore one is a properly brought up middle class person; see Posie Simmonds's modern updating of "Madame Bovary".
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word gite
Thanks for the IPA! How does one do that?
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word carbon-benign
I think I just coined this on the spur of the Wordie. Sort of like carbon-neutral, but not as precise. Used of a lifestyle option that produces less carbon dioxide (and presumably less of the other greenhouse gases too) than another, superficially more appealing, option. For example, holidaying "at home", which in British English means in Britain, not literally in one's own home. Taking the train instead of flying. Going vegetarian but not yet vegan in the attempt to minimise anthropogenic climate change.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word gite
A holiday apartment in France, pronounced "jzeet". (Does Wordie support IPA?) The French word is often used by British people, as A) it is several syllables shorter than any reasonable alternative, and B) it handily announces that one is off for a foreign, but relatively carbon-benign, holiday.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word ghit
Usually plural, as in " 'gubernatoric hubris' was a Googlewhack, but now it gets three ghits."
Also kGhits, MGhits, etc. Capitalisation yet to be solidified by use.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word stirrup cup
First drink of the day at a hunt meet, usually port or brandy. Served not by the hunt servants but by the house staff (e.g. butler or footman) of whoever is hosting the lawner.
Can also refer to the vessel in which the drink is served. It is of a distinctive shape, without handle or foot, designed to be clasped in one gloved hand whilst the other controls the mount. The cup is often in the shape of the quarry, the fox, but may also represent any hunted animal, game or vermin, or the hound.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word stirrup cup
First drink of the day at a hunt meet, usually port or brandy. Served not by the hunt servants but by the house staff (e.g. butler or footman) of whoever is hosting the lawner.
Can also refer to the vessel in which the drink is served. It is of a distinctive shape, without handle or foot, designed to be clasped in one gloved hand whilst the other controls the mount. The cup is often in the shape of the quarry, the fox, but may also represent any hunted animal, game or vermin, or the hound.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word cliterati
A play on literati, coined in the 1990s? It was used loosely of lipstick lesbians within the chattering classes, i.e. publishing, media, politics, PR, marketing....people paid to go to parties. Retroactively, I suppose it could be applied between the wars to Vita Sackville-West and the Americans in Paris.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word unupblown
An example of telegraphese invented by Evelyn Waugh. The journalists, sent to cover a war in Darkest Africa, are instructed by their editors to investigate the bombing by Italian forces of a hospital run by an international charity and the supposed death of a foreign (i.e. white, i.e. newsworthy) nurse. They travel, with some difficulty, to the town, eager for their scoop, but find nothing amiss. On returning to the capital they cable to London, minimising words in a way even Twitter cannot emulate, "Nurse unupblown".
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word plashy
plashy fen features as semi-purple prose in a newspaper column by an amateur naturalist, the unwilling protagonist of Evelyn Waugh's darkly comic ''Scoop''
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word lawner
OK, thank you for the tip. Hope you will join in with the Waugh list!
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word vagina
Not to be conflated with vulva.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word dotsam and netsam
A neologism, analogous to the old marine flotsam and jetsam. All the unclaimed stuff that has built up over the years and is now floating around in cyberspace: abandoned email accounts, domain names bought but sitting empty. It's taking up space, and could be dangerous, like those items jettisoned in space that whirl around forever and one day might crash into (and indeed through) a space station.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the user BrainyBabe
Yeah, I see that, but I can't even find the good conversations easily. And when I look at the old ones, it is hard to figure out what is idiolect and basically , private banter, and what is intended as wiser / wider (Freudian typo) discourse.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word netsam
Seen as a somewhat cutesy but useful and euphonious neologistic pair: dotsam and netsam.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word dotsam
Seen as a somewhat cutesy but useful and euphonious neologistic pair: dotsam and netsam.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word mornington crescent
It's also a famous game on Radio 4 a comedy programme.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the list •-wordie-for-dummies
The husband & wife couple that make up CommonCraft are cool people. You never know, they might be able to help you out! (Check out their Halloween spoof.)
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the user BrainyBabe
Thanks, Prolagus and yarb. I am having fun, but don't know if I will stick around or not. Aside from my lists being an external memory, I can't see easy ways to usefulness. Like, I spent this time adding "Cold Comfort Farm" words, and only later discovered that someone has a list of them already. I appreciate (i.e. understand) that this is a stripped-down site, but don't necessarily appreciate (i.e. like) it. For example, I didn't see your helpful commments till I came looking for them; Wikipedia has welcome messages (not automated) and pings you with new messages. I'm not saying WOrdie should do this, just that I am taking a while to figure out how to get the best from this. Tips?
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word fuck
You don't have to understand French to get the joke of this bilingual (subtitled) video on the perils of cross-cultural non-communication, but it helps to know that the word for the animal "seal" is ''phoque'', pronounced "fuck". The three-minute clip is funny, not vulgar, with a political point. (There's also an 8-minute version with a lot more "fucks" and ''phoques''.) It trades on a special type of false friends, words that are homophones between languages.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the list cold-comfort-farm
Also, and again this is a general point that I don't know where to put, couldn't a list like this be usefully subdivided (or broken?) into newly minted coinages and words the author just hapens to fancy?
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the list cold-comfort-farm
It is a wonderful list, and a wonderful novel. But I am just getting used to Wordie, having spent a few hours on it today (when I should have been doing other things, natch). How could I have found your list before half-creating my own? And how can I find, e.g., cletter if the lists are long and non-alphabetical?
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word mollock
Mollocking is the favourite activity of Seth Starkadder of ''Cold Comfort Farm'' by Stella Gibbons. Its exact nature is undefined but it invariably results in the pregnancy of a local maid.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word cold comfort
Not much comfort at all. See the classic satire ''Cold Comfort Farm'' by Stella Gibbons.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word something nasty in the woodshed
What Ada Doom saw when she was a girl in Stella Gibbons's classic satire ''Cold Comfort Farm''.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the user chained_bear
Thanks for the coding tip! I have just read thrugh half these comments, and clearly here is where the action is (my main analogy is Wikipedia -- talk pages I guess). You guys are so civilised! Seeing as how you were discussing wooden stirring spoons, may I introduce you to bishkek and spirtle? The pleasure is mine!
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the user chained_bear
Thanks! Seeing as how you were discussing wooden stirring spoons, may I introduce you to bishkek and spirtle? The pleasure is mine!
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word graceless
One of the cows kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. Big Business, the bull, services her and her companions Pointless, Aimless, and Feckless.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word aimless
One of the cows kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. Big Business, the bull, services her and her companions Graceless, Pointless, and Feckless.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word feckless
One of the cows kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. Big Business, the bull, services her and her companions Graceless, Aimless, and Pointless.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word pointless
One of the cows kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. Big Business, the bull, services her and her companions Graceless, Aimless, and Feckless.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word big business
Actually, the capitals are important. This is the bull kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. He services the cows (no straws for AI in those days) with the priceless names of Graceless, Aimless, Feckless and Pointless.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word clettering
See first entry at cletter.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word cletter
To cletter is to clean the dishes by scraping them with a dry stick. Adam is a 90 year old farmhand and this is one of his main indoor activities.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word clettering
Adam Lambsbreath, the aged retainer of Cold Comfort Farm, would cletter in the kitchen for hours.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word spurtle
But I never heard "spirtle" as a verb.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word spurtle
clettering -- yes! and what was the vine?
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the user chained_bear
Have you read the novel "Bear"? (you don't have to answer, obviously) -- Now I will try to insert a link:
http://www.librarything.com/work/83734/book/20334358
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word bone folder
I also had a lurid imagining of what it might be, and am glad it is of and not for. Early autobiography of Frankie Goes to Hollywood was entitled "A Bone in my Flute".
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word bletted
Fascinating. Rosehips do this too, but AFAIK the verb "blet" is only used with medlars. I love the specificity! I even made an entry for bletted medlars.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word blet
How do you move anything?!?
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the list legal-phrases-that-sound-cool
synallagmatic
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word lawner
Do you know how this place works? For example, how could I find any existing Waugh lexicon lists?
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word dar al-baida
I always loved that, ever since I first saw the film at a romantically impressionable age, circa 14.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word bilk
If the milk beer meaning is correct, then see also koumiss, a fermented dairy beverege treated much like beer.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word medlar
Yes, it is also known as the open-arse. In Shakespeare's time the fruit was associated with sex, but for the Victorians it was connected to death. Medlars need to be bletted, the only use of that wonderful word.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word synallagmatic
Like middle class dinner parties.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word synallagmatic
Mutually or reciprocally obligatory.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word porphyrogenite
A prince born after his father's succession, or literarlly "into the purple". Leo Blair, for example.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word mfh
Master (or Mistress?) of fox hounds. The person in charge of a foxhunt and the associated members.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word hunt meeting
Also known as a meet. A group of riders and horses and grooms and hounds (NOT "dogs"!) meet at a time and place, decided by the MFH, in order to hunt a fox. In British English, this is hunting, plain and simple, but in American English that involves guns, so this is fox hunting.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word lawner
You do know that he wrote at least two endings -- the edition I have just returned to the library had a bleak one and a less bleak one. Both bitingly funny. (Although I like the cannabalistic end to the aviatrix in his Ethiopian-inspired novel.)
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word spurtle
Also "spirtle". Akin to a bishkek.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word spirtle
Akin to a bishkek.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word bishkek
A ''bishkek'' is the paddle used to stir fermenting mare's milk until it turns into koumiss. Kyrgyzstan's national drink is koumiss, so it (re-)named its capital after the culinary implement. Sort of like renaming Edinburgh "spirtle".
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word koumiss
Also transliterated kumis, and various alternates. Known in Mongolia as airag.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word royal icing
When used thickly enough, it bears some resemblence to reinforced concrete and will hold a crumbling cake together with no problem.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word carpetbagger
See carpet bag and Mary Poppins.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word carpet bag
At the beginning of "Mary Poppins", the eponymous nanny is unpacking her ~, and her new little charge, upon learning what it was called, asks her if it was of or for carpet. Mary Poppins then performs the first of her tricks.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word carpet bag
A bag made of carpet. A relatively lightweight alternative to cumbersome trunks. Hence easy travel, hence carpetbagger.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word bone folder
Yes but what is it? Made of, or for, bone, as the little boy asked Mary Poppins about her carpet bag?
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word kayak
It is a boat, not a ship. Is there any way to remove someone else's erroneous tag?
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word brilliant future terminated on zebra crossing
This wasn't my life, obviously, but an exceptional young woman I know who died last month. I honour her.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word nasaaq
O John, I will dedicate the next cake I bake to you, and decorate it with gold braid atop the royal icing.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the user john
Hi John. I don't really know how to use this site in a social way, e.g. where to ask questions. So here I am, wearing my nasaaq. I wanted to point out to you (and others) that the inimitable Douglas Adams produced not a list but a book of words he had coined, "The Meaning of Liff", and this is available online
http://folk.uio.no/alied/TMoL.html
(How can I embed a link?)
Very amusing and often aposite.
Thanks for all your work!
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word anorak
Many would consider it the same garment as a parka.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word igloo
Its Inuktitut meaning is "dwelling" in general, not specifically a snowhouse, although that is its meaning in English.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word anorak
A more current transliteration would be "anoraaq".
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the list loan-words-from-inuktitut
Inuktitut is the language of the Inuit people of the Arctic. There are some groups in Alaska who call themselves Eskimo, but for people in Canada, that is an uncomfortable exonym and Inuit is the only current term.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word nasaaq
Oh my goodness. You can tip your hat to me any day. (Any sort of hat will do.) I am weak at the knees.
December 23, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word piblokto
See SAD and foehn, by the sounds of it.
December 22, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word kabloona
Isn't it disparaging or pejorative? I'm not sure if it is out and out racist like spic (does ANYONE say that anymore, even racists?) or merely dismissive, like foreigner itself in many contexts.
On another note, transliterations bedevil all word studies of this sort!
December 22, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word nasaaq
Oh wow. Is that THE John? The one who made Wordie happen? I am honoured that you show an interest in my obscure contribution!
December 22, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word hygrometer
Digital ones are usually combined with a thermometer.
December 22, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word lust legs and lipstick
From ''Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day'' (1939). A dowdy governess is somewhat disapproving and somewhat in awe of the glamour of her new employer and friends. (There should be at least one comma in the phrase, but I don't know how to retroactively insert it.)
December 22, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word lawner
From Evelyn Waugh's ''A Handful of Dust''. A hunt meeting hosted on the lawn of someone's home, complete with stirrup cup. Colloquial speech.
December 22, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the user whichbe
I have risen to your challenge at nasaaq. You are the first to acknowledge my attempts on Wordie, so thank you!
December 22, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word nasaaq
Well, I was the first to bring this word to Wordie, so I'll have a go. It is a type of Inuit knitted hat similar to a toque, with or without a bobble on the top. Mine was made, I am told, by a Mary Nasaaq, and the gift-giver, who had only lived a year in Arctic Canada, did not know if the hat was named after her family ("That must be a Nasaaq hat you've got there") or her family name came from skill at making the article. I don't expect the word or the garment will catch on, but stranger things have stalked the Parisian runways. The hat is ideal for wearing with a big parka-like hood, as it comes well down over the forehead to conserve warmth. It is brimless, of course, and not very stretchy. By the way, one of the few Inuktitut words in common English use is anorak. Others are igloo, which just means "dwelling", not of snow necessarily, and kayak, not to be confused with an open canoe or an umiak.
December 22, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word melisma
"The singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note. Music of ancient cultures used melismatic techniques to induce a hypnotic trance in the listener, useful for early mystical initiation rites (such as Eleusinian Mysteries) and religious worship." from Wikipedia
December 22, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word wether
A castrated male sheep. Female mammals can also have their reproductive potential eliminated.
Most famously, this is the bellwether, the lead animal or an outlier, who creates just enough noise for the shepherd to keep track of where the whole flock is.
November 17, 2008
BrainyBabe commented on the word quince
A ripe quince smells like the Queen of Sheba - nay, like her silken undergarments.
November 17, 2008