Comments by agatehinge

  • I wouldn't be surprised (if es was a reCAPTCHA word) but it wouldn't be one of my favorites. I added a few that charmed me.

    February 26, 2011

  • I'm no mathematician, I couldn't tell you what berity pi is, but I'm sure I would ask for a second slice of berity pie.

    February 26, 2011

  • I don't know how I added es to this list. Sorry. I deleted it.

    February 25, 2011

  • Thank you for your liminal words list, which I found when I looked up extranoematic for my newest poem. I promptly made off with strand, peridrome and snowbroth for the same poem.

    February 20, 2011

  • Dear Erin,

    One specific thing I miss from the old thesaurus is the access to Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms. Is that still available somewhere on the site?

    September 16, 2010

  • I've tried to see the advantages of your new thesaurus, but I don't see the "more". I see less words, less choices, a lot less. I feel very hesitant to comment because I don't see anyone else who is disappointed. Your old thesaurus, the Related words function, was the best thing I liked on Wordnik.

    September 16, 2010

  • So why isn't demption a word?

    August 29, 2010

  • Made me think unbrellie could be a viable word someday.

    June 10, 2010

  • Verb: to close a brellie.

    The rain stopped suddenly, and the entire crowd unbrellied in nearly perfect unison.

    June 10, 2010

  • For umbrella, chiefly British, I believe. Also brelly.

    June 10, 2010

  • Thank you! During my years as a drapery seamstress, I've done a fair amount of pleating, mostly French, box and goblet.

    June 10, 2010

  • You might consider pelmet. I am fond of this mostly British term for valance.

    June 10, 2010

  • Never mind the Monseigneur, it's only what chocolate deserves.

    June 10, 2010

  • Not really a tropical plant--the Wordnet definition is wrong about that. Other Datura species are tropical, but jimson weed is native to the American Southwest, Texas & California.

    June 7, 2010

  • "According to records from the 18th century, the elastic substance from tropical plants got its name thanks to its common use of being rubbed over pencil marks to erase them. Since using this substance as an eraser required a lot of rubbing, people began calling it 'rubber.' Another name for rubber from the same era that didn’t catch on quite as well was 'lead-eater.'"

    http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/57276

    June 7, 2010

  • A gharry driver.

    May 14, 2010

  • Is antivenom correct? I thought the word was antivenin.

    I'm dismayed to learn about the cut-back in black widow antivenin. That's a very common spider around here. I've squished many.

    May 13, 2010

  • See ghat.

    May 13, 2010

  • This reminds me of my mail-sorting rack. It's a standing rack for 45 rpm single records. I thought it would be perfect for sorting correspondence. It holds 30 records, or pieces of mail, in the top rack, 30 in the bottom, and occupies minimal floor space, about 8" by 20". But I could never find a place for it where it wasn't in the way, and apparently I'm just not the type of person who sorts their mail, except for putting it in large sliding piles in various places around the house.

    My 45 rpm records are kept in a fake miniature milk crate.

    May 11, 2010

  • A phrase that seems to be dying out with my mother's generation. Said in departure: "I'm off in a cloud of whale dust." One of my mother's friends expands it further as "I'm off like a herd of turtles in a cloud of whale dust." I equate whale dust with bubbles.

    May 6, 2010

  • I've never read Rowling. She put flying brains in Harry Potter?

    Fiend & Killer Shrews are fond memories from my childhood, much like the flying monkeys from Oz.

    May 6, 2010

  • I think gilding the lily would be a more effective idiom for sarcasm or irony. But I love icing, so "icing the cake" is all about joy for me.

    May 6, 2010

  • In Fiend Without a Face, the lab creatures are flying brains with spinal cords as tails. Not sure if they qualify as animals, but they could be considered a kind of animal matter.

    May 6, 2010

  • See advidya

    Ignorance, but more often the absence of knowledge rather than ignorance. Irrationality, nescience. According to non-dualistic Vedanta it is responsible for the perception of multiplicity in the relative world and also for man's bondage and suffering. Sanskrit, from a "not" + jnana "knowledge", from the verbal root jna "to know, perceive, understand".

    May 6, 2010

  • This word is completely ordinary, and kinda ugly, and it's an adverb and I love not adverbs despite making free use of them. So why do I have this sudden mad crush on this word? Today, I will adore this word.

    May 6, 2010

  • Yes, cream cheese. What's even more horrifying is that sometimes I underpaint it with butter. And overpaint it with Miracle Whip. Add mustard, horseradish and relish. Also excellent for tomato sandwiches.

    The downside is I have to fast for two days afterwards.

    May 6, 2010

  • I like my aspargus spears to be no thicker than pencils, I don't know if this is wrong or unnecessary. Favorite way to eat them: a little clear soup to deglaze a pan in which I braised pork or beef, cook aspargus until most of the liquid is gone, eat with melted butter.

    May 5, 2010

  • Another idea for an image of defenestrated boffins... a depiction in the manner of Monty Python re: Admiral Nelson.

    May 5, 2010

  • I'm afraid I have always put the condiments on the bread. Next time, I will try "dressing the dog" as recommended, but I insist on spreading the cream cheese on the bun. I have never put ketchup on my hotdog, but I have only two uses for ketchup: french fries and cocktail sauce.

    May 5, 2010

  • Defenestrated boffins, as I imagine them: cartoon

    May 5, 2010

  • This should also be a hard stale biscuit that you may throw out of a window above the second floor.

    May 3, 2010

  • Question #2 scared me too.

    April 16, 2010

  • Neato!

    April 16, 2010

  • Came across this today, I thought you might enjoy it.

    "Poe had no little talent for drawing, and Mr. John Willis states that the walls of his college rooms were covered with his crayon sketches, whilst Mr. Boiling mentions, in connection with the poet's artistic facility, some interesting incidents. The two young men had purchased copies of a handsomely-illustrated edition of Byron's poems, and upon visiting Poe a few days after this purchase, Mr. Bolling found him engaged in copying one of the engravings with crayon upon his dormitory ceiling. He continued to amuse himself in this way from time to time until he had filled all the space in his room with life-size figures which, it is remembered by those who saw them, were highly ornamental and well executed." From John H. Ingram's memoir of Poe in The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe

    April 13, 2010

  • Thank you.

    April 12, 2010

  • BTW, I should mention the impressiveness of this list is unholy.

    April 12, 2010

  • I'm hardly an expert--it's just bit a pratical knowledge I picked up in the workroom. Don't know etamine by name, but I thought of another one, flax.

    April 12, 2010

  • I've got three fabrics for you that are or have been mainstays of the drapery trade. I've sewn miles and miles of these fabrics.

    I thought I saw antique satin on your list but now I can't find it. It's not old satin, it's a slubbed fabric and a distinct entity from satin.

    In the drapery business, tergal is synonymous for sheer, specifically a polyester-type sheer fabric that is 118" wide. True tergal is from France, where it originated, and where Tergal is a brand name.

    Another fabric from the wonderful world of window coverings you might consider is casement. It used to be an industry standard, but fell out of popularity around the time English cottage look came in, which was all flower-print cotton. Casement is a machine-made loose-weave fabric which was only used, as far as I know, for draperies. I assume it got its name from the fact it is full of little casements, like lace or net, but the look is nothing like lace or net.

    April 12, 2010

  • This seems like a good place to ask...What is Wordnik's serif typeface?

    April 11, 2010

  • This list is truly appalling.

    April 11, 2010

  • Must be a misspelling of maenadic, maenad. Darn.

    April 11, 2010

  • Of course. There's a list.

    April 10, 2010

  • I suppose the more popular spelling is holy moly guacamole, but I prefer this one. When your guacamole is full of holes and moles, it's worth an expletive or two.

    April 10, 2010

  • To me lonely has a sense of yearning while alone does not.

    April 10, 2010

  • oh wow

    I didn't see this until just now. Must've been lost in the bony labyrinth.

    April 10, 2010

  • This contradicts my g'ma, who always told me: "Men are like rakes, dear--just because it has a head doesn't mean it has a brain."

    April 9, 2010

  • This list reminds me of the witch doctor's song we sang when we were kids. Oo ee oo aw aw bing bang walla walla bing bang.

    April 9, 2010

  • "Meanwhile, Deh-Yan, being intensely practical, was hardly giving her husband's music the applause and critical attention which he may have thought due to it. Hungry and cold as she was she must set to work ere the great unwieldy carcass should have stiffened, and, labouring as she had never laboured in her life, heaved, thrust, wrenched and tugged until the hide came away. During this moenadic spasm of toil I am bound to confess that my heroine worked stark naked despite the cold, and neither ate nor drank save for the morsels of raw bear-meat with which she filled a distended cheek at intervals. For Deh-Yan, though a savage, was no fool. She knew, none better, that the smell of so much spilt blood would bring upon the scene eagle and lammergeier, buzzard and raven, and what she feared more, wolverene, lynx, wolf, and she knew not what beside, possibly Man ! Whilst it lay there it was a menace to herself and to her husband ; but, promptly and properly dealt with, it was warmth and food and safety for the remainder of the winter." Ashton Hilliers, The Master Girl

    Found through frantic, at Related, under Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms.

    April 8, 2010

  • Or pierced?

    April 8, 2010

  • Hey, what happens after you eat it is between you and your colon.

    April 6, 2010

  • Dump cake is not very pie-like, but some people put it in the cobbler category.

    April 6, 2010

  • In baking dish, dump cans of fruit, drained. Dump in cake mix, mixed. Dump in chunks of butter on top. Bake.

    April 6, 2010

  • It's not spork-like, is it?

    In my family, we use a piece of bread. Not adorable, but yummy and suitable for less challenging soups.

    April 6, 2010

  • What the heck is a zuzuniknik? Besides adorable.

    April 6, 2010

  • "Sometimes of a night we'd set about the fire and talk. Nick Shadow had education, but he never tired to hear our mountain expressions. We'd lost a few of them coming west, but an argument or a quarrel we still called an upscuddle, which seemed almighty funny to Nick." Louis L'Amour, Galloway

    March 28, 2010

  • Urban Dictionary has an entry for facerant. Not as nuanced as facerage.

    March 25, 2010

  • A reason why whales are a species superior to human beings. Humans would have to be able to poop gold to be comparable.

    March 25, 2010

  • We used to fight over the player pieces. All the girls wanted to be the Southern belle in a ball gown, no one wanted to be the wheelbarrow.

    March 25, 2010

  • This should be a word by now. Thread & fabrics made of cotton & polyester blends are commonly referred to as cotton/poly. I think it's about time to remove the slash.

    March 25, 2010

  • Thank you for the link to the article about the NYT comment-box poets! I read it with fascination.

    March 19, 2010

  • For henceforth, it depends nearly altogether on yourself: if you can but learn the lessons which Experience will teach you, it matters little whether these be of a sweet or bitter nature: the bitter as well as the sweet are but the rind enclosing a fruit of Wisdom, which is in itself celestial and perennial. Diligence, unwearied steadfast Endeavour; ‘like the stars, unhasting, unresting’!2 This is the sceptre with which man rules his Destiny; and tho' fragile as a reed, removes mountains, spiritual as well as physical. I need not remind you here that such Diligence as will avail is not of book-studies alone; but primarily, and in a far higher degree respects the heart and moral dispositions. He who loves Truth, knows it to be priceless, and cleaves to it thro' all shapes, in thought, word, and deed, as to the life of his soul.

    2. Carlyle recalls a phrase from Goethe.

    From Thomas Carlyle's letter to Henry Inglis, Craigenputtoch, 31st March, 1829.

    March 16, 2010

  • I had a vintage costume jewelry company that lasted one day, for one arts-and-crafts festival, called the Niagra Falls Toboggan Co. (Just Co not Company.) Our motto was "Over in a barrell."

    March 16, 2010

  • Cometh the horse, cometh the horseman, but cometh the hour, cometh the hors d'œuvre.

    March 16, 2010

  • I'm all for Cloche Day. Anything for an excuse to buy a new hat. And any excuse to get men out of their ubiquitous baseball caps. Is there an entry for baseball cap? It should be tagged "tiresome".

    March 15, 2010

  • I'm developing a preference for hyperpitacarponucleic, possibly because -nucleic reminds me of nuclear which will always and forever summon up a most charming memory of our nutball ex-president.

    March 15, 2010

  • Wow.

    March 15, 2010

  • I've been to Four Corners! I put one of my limbs in each of the four states at the same time and then reassembled myself, ta-daa!

    Thank you for the link. I have a weakness for agate, actually for any striated or patterned stone. But I did not see any specific mention of hinges.

    March 15, 2010

  • I would like a polysyllabic word with obfuscated Greek etymology for "nuttier than a fruitcake", please.

    March 14, 2010

  • Look at that. Googled Cyclopedic Lexicon of Sex and it led me back to the Wordnik comments for crytoscopophilia. The world really is round.

    March 14, 2010

  • Googled amomaxia: apparently, J. E. Schmidt (1967) is the source, from Lecher's Lexicon or Cyclopedic Lexicon of Sex.

    March 14, 2010

  • For pronunciation, see Hank Azaria's delivery of the line: "Armand, why don't you let me be in the show? Are you afraid of my Guatemalan-ness?" in the movie The Birdcage

    March 14, 2010

  • That reminds me, I need to buy a new hat. Another cloche would be perfect.

    March 14, 2010

  • I prefer "Niagra" myself, but I believe "Niagara" is technically correct.

    March 14, 2010

  • Also illskiller.

    March 14, 2010

  • You have my favorite Le Guin titles.

    I work in a book store and see hundreds of titles for books I have no time (or inclination) to read. I have come to love some titles for themselves, and some covers, and I'm not sure I want to read the books because I fear they will only disappoint.

    March 12, 2010

  • This is a disappointment, and membranous labyrinth too. Really, if all was right with the universe, this would be the funnest part of Hell, and a membranous labyrinth would be a minimum requirement for any alien planet worth visiting.

    March 11, 2010

  • Whenever I see SCOTUS I think SCROTUS and then I think...scrumptious?

    March 11, 2010

  • Chert, breccia, gneiss, gabbro, anthracite! *hugs* I don't know what this thing is with me and semi-precious & nonprecious stones, but on Valentines Day, don't give me diamonds.

    March 11, 2010

  • This word feels Sherlockian to me, as if the heyday of vitriol was the Victorian era.

    March 11, 2010

  • Glockerite! Glockerleft! Stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!

    March 11, 2010

  • Thanks. I've been browsing a few of your lists with pleasure. I added a cat.

    March 10, 2010

  • Ink, from the Ogden Nash poem about the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.

    March 10, 2010

  • Nice to learn I deliberately ingest at least 3 of these substances daily.

    March 10, 2010

  • See alizarin and charbon.

    March 10, 2010

  • "screenies" makes me feel like I need to put on some intment. But where?

    March 10, 2010

  • But, ruzuzu, for that, don't you need to know italic characters in alligator shoes and vicuna coats?

    March 10, 2010

  • Oh. That's what it means! I had something more censorable in mind.

    March 10, 2010

  • Okay, I agree, not stupid. But "stupider" is relative. Personally, I feel it's no shame to be stupider than a near-omniscient presence of mighty proportions. Despite the defeat of a candidate for Local Group Galactic Minister in 2212, helped by a campaign of attack-ads with the slogan "Stupider than Jupiter".

    March 10, 2010

  • Makes me all misty and nostalgic for Edgar Rice Burroughs.

    March 10, 2010

  • I've never seen a thing that was hidden by the snow, isn't that sad? But if I did, I should like to find Ramses' big toe (made out of stone, not one of his mummified toes). And, to be practical, a large waterproof suitcase full of cash.

    March 10, 2010

  • Bracketed w/ comment.

    March 10, 2010

  • Somewhat similar to an intelligent being of planetary size most often encountered in space operas, but stupider and smaller.

    March 10, 2010

  • "Bon-seki (tray-stone) is the Japanese art of creating a landscape on a tray with stone and sand. Its origin in Japan is traced to the reign of the empress Suiko (593-628) when stones of rare shapes were presented to the court from China. Placed on a board or tray, the stone was admired on account of its beautiful lines or shape that might, perhaps, suggest a stately mountain or a tremendous precipice." Encyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition, 1929

    March 10, 2010

  • Thank you for your welcomes! I have been writing poetry with exuberance lately and I've been using Wordnik (insert synonym for exuberantly).

    reesetee, "The Agate Hinge" is the title of a poem I wrote a few years ago--I've been lugging the phrase "agate hinge" around with me since, without really understanding why I chose it. Last year, a gentleman asked me if it was wordplay for "a gate hinge", which had not occurred to me, which only reaffirmed my self-image as a vast obtuse entity.

    March 9, 2010

  • You can put bananas in the freezer. The skins turn black, but the fruit stays good. Or so I've been told. I have only used this method to save bananas that are already blackening and mushifying, to bake into banana bread later.

    March 9, 2010

  • Thank you!

    March 9, 2010

  • yarb, you think I don't feel daft?

    March 9, 2010

  • bilby, I hope you're not thinking "wound" as an injury, that would be hurtful. Be assured, I was not angling to become the poet laureate of Wordnik.

    March 9, 2010

  • As for the question of self-promotion, this is hardly an effective venue for a poet to promote his/her work, is it? But if there is a "No Poetry" policy, I can abstain.

    March 9, 2010

  • Since poetry has an intimate relationship with metaphor, a short poem seems as illustrative as any comment I've seen made by others here at Wordnik. I hoped to make a contribution to what you're trying to achieve here.

    March 9, 2010

  • So you think I should delete it?

    March 9, 2010

  • "Constellations Reel" by lcmt

    Whole night drummers came down

    from outcropping stars to join singers

    strangers, wayfarers, mariners, minstrels, storytellers,

    pilgrims, sightseers, passers-by, songbirds, dancers, beggars

    exiles

    on mapped floors of the rivermouth,

    onrushing voices wound in diffuse

    asymmetry, outstretched and generous.

    copyright © 2010

    March 9, 2010

  • Do not expect to receive

    the regard of the dunegrass

    ever unaware

    of aimless bodies, brown-skinned,

    flat-bellied, chattering at

    the ear of the immediate world.

    The dunegrass listens only

    to its kin and kind, to all

    that is bitter, brittle,

    sharp-edged and sparse,

    and to weathered limestone

    fossils piping saurian airs

    between sand rattles and

    the unseen choir of the wind.

    "The regard of the dunegrass" by lcmt

    copyright © 2010

    March 6, 2010

  • Hmm...snail-laden might be fitted after sawtooth or hoopskirt...

    March 5, 2010

  • I too hope so.

    March 5, 2010

  • Chosen over debris, turmoil, clamor and riot.

    February 12, 2010