In my world (Australian music scene) we are extremely envious of the thriving musical life that we witness in Finland. Lots of orchestras (relative to population), great music education from the youngest ages, and so on.
@plethora: don't go dropping the zero off the front. All these keypad codes for foreign and funny characters are four digits and most begin with zero. So you need: en 0150 and em 0151.
But Wikipedia goes on to say: 'It is a portmanteau of "loser" and "user" and is usually pronounced "loser".'
But I guess if it were being used in the sense of the command "/lusers" list users then you would pronounce it with the el distinct from the user part.
I've never heard it used (or if I have, I've probably assumed the IT guy was calling the person a regular "loser"), but I assumed it would be pronounced the same as loser. But then, for a long time I thought SQL was pronounced "sequel", which apparently is ok, but not the official thing: /ɛskju�?ˈɛl /
The Pimply-Faced Youth, assistant to the Bastard Operator from Hell, a rogue system administrator who takes out his anger on users (often referred to as lusers) – his colleagues, his bosses, and anyone who gets in his way.
I'm not actually proposing anyone do this (I wouldn't, too much trouble) but, depending on the laptop, usually you have to hit a function key (Num-Lock on a MacBook) or Fn plus another key to engage the "keypad" option where J=1 K=2 and so on. Then you can use ALT plus whatever numerical codes you want. Once finished you have to toggle back off with the original function sequence. Remember, I'm not recommending it!
;-)
This Firefox extension appears to allow you to set up your own keyboard shortcuts for commonly used special characters. I've never tried it though and it doesn't look entirely elegant.
I really recommend that you don't go running on smooth tiles while wearing socks on a rainy day. Sitting down suddenly and hard on your tail bone when your feet go from under you hurts!
MAC: OPTION and the "hyphen/underscore" key that sits between 0 and +/= in the top row.
WIN: ALT and (on numeric keypad) 0150
(MS Word on both platforms has a setting that will auto-correct space hyphen space to space en-dash space, ditto double hyphens with spaces either side --)
em-dash (width of capital M)
MAC: OPTION SHIFT and the hyphen/underscore key
WIN: ALT and 0151
(The em-dash when used as punctuation typically does not have spaces either side, the en-dash does. Ergo, Word will correct double hyphens with no spaces to an em-dash, e.g. a dash--to go becomes a dash—to go)
I like the usage of particular that often turns up in Jane Austen, where some young woman will be another's particular friend, as in best or great.
Then there are the particular Baptists: who believe some but not all are redeemed.
But is "particular individual" truly redundant? If particular is being used here in the sense of singling out one from a group (in the way that you might say "this particular car" or "this particular company" or "this particular person" as opposed to all the other cars/companies/people you could have identified) then it would seem to be a proper usage. There is a subtle distinction, which would be more evident in context, between "this particular individual" and "this individual"
So the photo comes from the flockbook on a Dutch site, Blauwe Texelaar. And it's really very interesting. For example:
"The use of the term 'blue' (in Dutch: 'blauw') originates from the fact that although the fleece looks white/gray or brown the colour inside the fleece is steel blue." emphasis mine
Apparently they are calm and nice to get on with, and I will say that the lambs are very cute.
I almost graduated from uni not knowing what I wanted to do (or thinking I wanted to do something that was in fact the wrong thing to want to do). I was saved in the nick of time by an ad in the newspaper which drew to my attention the fact that out in the big wide world people (not very many, mind you, but enough) got paid to do what I ended up doing. Just think, I might have ended up in Holland, an ordinary baroque flute player, and instead…
@mollusque: I proffer "punkt" as a nice, brief tag for items ending with a period, aka full stop or full point, aka punkt in another part of the world.
John's right. I'm only 173 years old, but I still remember how my cohort lived, breathed and worried over the NSW Higher School Certificate and whether we'd get the score we wanted/needed. And within a week of starting university it was as if it were the most inconsequential thing in the world and we wondered what the hell we'd been worrying about. Not that the HSC wasn't Very Important, because it was, but we simply regained much-needed perspective.
The frindley has completed a Wordie gestation. That is, nine months ago she added her first word to her first list. It was mediæval, with the ligature. Kind of says it all.
The movie Tous les matins du monde shows such a scene with Lully conducting at the French court (although not the actual historic moment). You can watch it here, with Gérard Depardieu as Lully.
French baroque musicians "conducted" by thumping the aforesaid grotty great staff on the floor. Hence the connection with the foot and the grotty but not great case of gangrene.
Here in Sydney I go to the chemist (shop) to consult my pharmacist and buy drugs. Some shops are labelled pharmacy, but I'd usually refer to them as chemists anyway.
Oh, you don't want to do that. Did you hear how Lully died of gangrene, after he stabbed himself in the foot while conducting? And that was just a grotty great conducting staff, not even a pointy arrow.
My visual image of history is a kind of loose, erratic coil.
It's linear in that it goes through time and so must follow a "line", even though that line curls and, yes, bends, and loops up on itself. The spiral/coiling aspect of my image helps me deal with the way history repeats itself: it keeps curling back and picking up something that's happened before, but in a different plane, before heading off again. (Kind of like good teaching, too.) Oh, how I wish I could just draw a picture in this comment box. Perhaps for me history is like a big, unruly slinky.
I think you need to take the whole phrase: "stood in the eye of history". That's what signals the eye=centre meaning. (Not that it would be terribly easy to stand in the eye of a hurricane, but it sure would be exciting once you got there.)
Me too!!! Ark, as in ark of the covenant (and yes, Raiders), the arc in which was enshrined a promise…
So I heard it as suggesting something vaguely like "a shrine to the promise of history". Which still seems more sensible to me than "arc of history".
I mean, does history really arc (whether in an electrical sense or a spatial sense)? I always think of history being a relentlessly linear thing, for all that it repeats itself, like the history lesson.
Edit: I shouldn't be flippant about "arc of history" not making sense. Truth is: when I heard it as "ark" I puzzled briefly and captured only the spirit/sentiment and not the beauty of the rhetorical concept. Upon reading it, here, just now, it did actually make sense as a beautiful, empowering image.
But bilby, don't you just love standing there in a flimsy cardboard booth with a blunt pencil filling in every last box below the line on the senate voting form with a number and then double-checking to make sure you haven't used a number twice or something, just to ensure that the most obnoxious of those little parties are right down the bottom of the count? (Yeah, I need to get a life.)
Meanwhile I think fondly of the Australian ballot, the benefits of which our friends across the Pacific have been enjoying today.
Has anyone else found that they can't get home? By which I mean, clicking on the Wordie wordmark or "home" link yields a "gone all 500 Application Error on you" page.
I can search for words, and follow links and get to the Last 100 Comments by typing in the URL directly, but the home page itself seems to be off limits. I get the same 500 error when I click on the "987 comments" (soon to be 988) link on my own profile, although the equivalent link is fine from others' profiles.
The usage in Shagz's citation (i.e. bragging about one's blog) offers a variation on the definition of brogging as bragging about oneself on one's blog.
If you go back far enough, lute comes via Old French from the Arabic al-ud, and in fact there is a middle-eastern, lute-like instrument that's commonly spelled oud in Western countries, which is the same thing.
Whereas prelude gets back to præ (pre) + ludus (play), i.e. to play before. Præludium and præludere are the Latin words.
Ok, frindley has to ask the kind of naive, embarrassing question that foreigners ask. Here goes: In and around all the US election news are posts and items that draw attention to what sounds to me like excessive waiting in line. I just saw a piece with instructions about what to bring, what to wear and what to do while waiting. Folding chairs are mentioned, not drinking too much water is advised. Is it really so bad that people are queuing 2, 4, even 12 hours to vote? What's the background for that? (I don't think I've ever had to queue for more than 10 minutes to vote, so this seems surreal.)
@VanishedOne: I suspect the former. Check the profile: Alex Cos' twitter feeds lead to ebay items that are – surprise! – carved wooden baskets. His flickr stream (like Wordie, but without the words) features a handsome item of the same description. I fear he is indeed using Wordie to try and sell stuff.
In these times of change, when schools are being increasingly stringent about their firewalls and are vainly attempting to enforce good reasearchsic habits on recalcitrant students (aka you little turds), it is necessary for all Wordies to equip themselves with a fine set of turd deflectors.
We recommend also the Side Skirts, to prevent serious cases of road rash when girls such as annie attempt to run under one's car.
Did anyone notice that Bonnie actually listed quite a few words, a few of them vaguely interesting?
But she makes me sad: "…nobody really knows about this website…"
And concerned, because scholiosis is under her list ME ME ME. Does she in fact suffer from scoliosis? Or is she an inventive soul with some twisted aversion to scholarship?
Ultimately, I cannot completely dislike anyone who favorites the word mouse.
School originally meant leisure? Is that why I enjoyed it so much? Thank the Lord for the turds, else I might never have discovered this illuminating etymology.
@plethora: I'm with you. The bummer of it, I was awake till very late, but this was the point where I really did go to sleep!
A 8-course double-strung lute will have 15 strings (yeah, I know, the sums are off); archlutes, theorbos etc. will have more (over 20). And the gut strings don't hold their pitch so well and succumb to all sorts of variations in ambient temperature. So yes, a lutenist spends most of his or her time tuning.
This is how preluding was invented. A lutenist would prelude by improvising in the key of the proper piece they were about to play. The free-form improvisations were meant to disguise the fact that they were actually checking their tuning. Then everyone started doing it because preluding is just plain fun.
I've just realised though that the lyrics I copied have a mistake. It's not upholstered walls at all but "the postered walls"! (Duly corrected in original comment)
It's on imeem and as far as I can tell you can listen to the whole song without needing to sign up. Google (song title + mp3) and iTunes will probably yield alternatives.
Have you ever noticed how incredibly loud a concert harp is? People think of it as this sweet, angelic instrument, but just one of them can pluck away and be heard over 90+ other instruments in a symphony orchestra, including the brass. Impressive.
Another time (when it's not so late in the night), I'll share the story of the harp "format" wars that went on in Paris in the early 20th century. Exactly like HD-DVD/blu-ray.
(or, if you're Tchaikovsky and a sadist, a pppppp for the contrabassoon – so difficult is this to play with any success that the note is often given to a bass clarinet)
It seems my Wordie friends are uncomfortable with the idea that they might find themselves wielding limitless power! (Not that I don't find the idea of writing poetry, drinking and reading Rabelais very appealing.)
When the revolution comes I'll personally shoot every journalist who has ever committed "rising to a crescendo" to print. They should know better. And if the journalist in question is a music journalist then I'll have an extra special fate ready for them, something too awful to contemplate.
Oh, don't get me started on this one. I begin to go completely nuts* when people start using the term fondant for something they then describe as "fluffy" and "whipped".
But seriously, I'm sorry to see that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's online style guide for Radio National says:
gaol: current usage is jail, not gaol
Then again, who cares what a radio station (which deals in the spoken word) thinks? So I go look at The Penguin Working Words: An Australian Guide to Modern English Usage, and it says:
"The preferred Australian spelling is gaol, even though it has been known on many occasions to give rise to the typographical error 'goal'. Contrary to popular opinion, jail is not an Americanism but was used by Samuel Johnson and John Milton among others as a variant of gaol." emphasis mine
I like the perversity of gaol. And gaoler is a much more satisfying word than jailer. On the other hand, it's always been jailbird for me – perhaps that's an Americanism, not sure…
Is it my imagination, or is mobile gradually taking over from cell/cell phone in the States?
It's always been "mobile" in Australia. I used to have a landline answering machine message that went something like "Hello… you've reached me on my immobile phone, please leave a message."
Personally I like the German term: handy. As in, "I'll call you on the handy."
While lecturing at Oxford, geologist William Buckland kept a bear named Tiglath Pileser. (Buckland was a lunatic.) In 1847 he dressed "Tig" in a cap and gown and took him to the annual meeting of the British Association and to a garden party at the Botanic Gardens. "The bear sucked all our hands and was very caressing," remembered Charles Lyell. Eventually banished from Christ Church, Tig retired to Islip, where he terrorized the local sweetshop owner until he was sent to the Zoological Gardens.
Byron kept a bear in his chambers at Cambridge — because, he said, Trinity rules forbade dogs. "I had a great hatred of college rules, and contempt for academical honors." It's said he conducted it there in a stagecoach (as "Lord Byron and Mr. Bruin") to sit for a fellowship.
"There was, by the by, rather a witty satire founded on my bear," Byron later remembered. "A friend of Shelley's made an ourang-outang (Oran Hanton, Esq.) the hero of a novel ('Melincourt'), had him created a baronet, and returned for the borough of One Vote."
Oh, my favourite too! Except I discovered it as a song not a poem. I used to sing it all the time, accompanying myself on the piano forte. Unfortunately none of the recordings on iTunes (try Winken as well as Wynken) seem to use the setting I learned. But there are all sorts of options, including one that is effectively a reading superimposed on Bach's Air on the G string.
I prefer multishirker – it's so much more impressive to be multiple-y involved in something active like shirking than simply to be slack on multiple fronts.
Welcome to Wordie! One suggestion: you may want to put comments relating to a specific word in the comments/citations area for the word itself rather than in the general comments area for the list. That way if one of us comes across the word outside your list we'll still see the background and definitions you've supplied.
I prefer Benesh notation myself. And the absolute prettiest form of dance notation is the one adopted by Feuillet at the end of the 18th century – unfortunately not useful for anything other than baroque dance.
And source card! I really don't get it. There are more amusing ways to IM. Unless they're in a school that blocks all the usual methods, in which case one has to hand it to them for resourcefulness even if they're singularly unimaginative and petty.
In regular English this means running the gauntlet of real students in the classroom in order to practise one's newly acquired teaching skills under the supervision and guidance of an experienced teacher-mentor.
(What's scary is the people who write such things as "The goal of the practicum experience…" claim to be educating teachers (i.e. communicators, among other things) and yet they are incapable of clear, regular expression themselves, instead resorting to weasel words of the worst kind!)
This might not be as hilarious as mi-vox, which I have just now read for the first time, but it's still been very entertaining. However, I must go do some work before I hit the sack.
A very small, supernova-like explosion. (Thanks to lexicographer Erin McKean.)
But here's the funny part: I thought it was an informal word, possibly a madeupical playing on the famous Bose sound systems, which have made their name through the superior miniaturisation of loudspeakers. But no, it's a real scientific term and it derives its name from scientist Satyendra Nath Bose.
trivet is right: cadaver is the (mainly) medical term for corpse. Both words have Latin origins, so that's clearly not the reason for the doctors choosing "cadaver" over the other. Cadaver comes from cadere to fall, while corpse comes from corpus meaning body.
So perhaps the doctors want to make it clear that the body is not merely a body but a fallen (dead) one before they start hacking it about???
When you're browsing in an environment that is all about words, singing generally, and especially operatic singing, can be very off-putting – even to classical music lovers.
I personally prefer shops and restaurants with no music at all. And I'll avoid going into any shop that has music playing above the level of a musical "whisper", regardless of the style.
I was recently in a record shop where some very grand-sounding music from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition was being played at high volume. I basically couldn't concentrate and just wanted to get out of there – a shame since they were having a closing down sale and there was lots more I probably would have bought if I'd been able to concentrate sufficiently to decide to buy it!
Of course, this is not as outrageous as it may seem. Urine may well have been involved in the manufacture of those marvellous old violins…
"Nagyvary began soaking chunks of spruce and maple in brews of preservative chemicals. He knew that some woodworkers soaked their lumber in solutions containing bovine dung and urine. So he put up a sign above a tub in a men's room in the biochemistry lab: "Please contribute generously to violin research."
Then there's this bit: "Rabbits were thought to compete with marsupials for food and to deprive them of sheltering vegetation. Dr McRae said attempts to eradicate rabbits in the reserve had failed, and a decision was made to leave them be. Surprisingly, the bilbies are doing well and may even be controlling rabbit numbers by eating their young."
Shorter Oxford: The branch of knowledge that deals with music as a subject of study rather than as a skill or performing art; esp. academic research in music.
I get very uncomfortable when people call me a musicologist. Perhaps I shouldn't: I have a musicology and performance degree, I write and speak about music for a living. But it's that "esp." that gets me every time. I'm not an academic (no wish to be) and I don't carry out original research or analytical study, so in my mind I'm not a musicologist. Problem is, what do I call myself then? Wordies to the rescue…?
(In Germany musicology is musikwissenschaft. The musicologist is in some way a "music scientist". This doesn't really help, though.)
"Get your hands on a blank ballot, fill it out, and pay someone to cast it while smuggling out another blank, and you can vote as many times as you like without ever casting a ballot. (The dodge was eventually defeated by numbering or stamping the ballots, a system in place, in one form or another, in every American precinct today.)"
"The reform that ended this unsettling state of affairs Election Day riots was imported from Australia, and was not achieved in the United States until the 1890s. The American adoption of the 'Australian ballot'—and the radical idea that governments should provide ballots—was hard fought."
"Victoria's Electoral Act of 1856 minutely detailed the conduct of elections, requiring that election officials print ballots and erect a booth or hire rooms, to be divided into compartments where voters could mark those ballots secretly, and barring anyone else from entering the polling place.… In 1877 Western Australia introduced the placement of an empty square next to a candidate's name, requiring voters to indicate their selections by marking an X in the box. Then there was a clever scam called the Tasmanian Dodge… The British Parliament adopted the Australian ballot in 1872. … In 1888 Massachusetts passed the nation's first statewide Australian-ballot law."
I think c_b wants to take care of cross-referencing for later on when we stumble across these words in isolation. No apology needed. (Was always fond of the surrey with the fringe on top myself.)
But it does appear to have currency in scientific writing, if Google is any guide. And I quote this footnote:
"On 'confluescence'…when liquid containing solid matter in suspension gathers together and becomes stationary, the solid matter separates out and is deposited. He further suggests that the notion of underground confluescences of water, and in general of underground caverns, prominent in various aspects of ancient Greek physical theory, 'was a natural supposition for men living among limestone mountains'…and that the processes of filtration and confluescence reflect the use of sifting and panning in ancient metallurgy."
(Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for His Life, Writings, Thought, and Influence)
My Chambers Dictionary of Science and Technology (1971, a good year) includes the presumably related confluent: (Bot.) Said of two or more structures which, as they enlarge, grow together and unite.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. Australian Macworld has published this travesty in an interview with a Microsoft Business Unit marketing manager:
"There are a lot of reasons behind that, and we expected that just because of the response to the beta version of the product. It also has a lot to do with the prod, which was a lot more Mac-ified. One of the things we really wanted to do in terms of launching the prod was looking at ways of enhancing it to provide a more simplified user experience."
Apparently saying "product" takes too long nowadays…
Other creepy, weasely things in this interview include:
"…one thing we're doing is always listening to customer feedback to improve anonymously." (I'm not even sure that it's possible to improve anonymously…)
"While it's essentially a different prod across the platform, it's different because the usability is different." (huh?)
"It's called a View but it has a lot of functionality." (’cause most views are completely without function)
My mother kept hers in an old-fashioned handbag. The kind that had a shallow round woven straw base, with a simple suede drawstring bag attached to that.
“Photocopicus, dammit! Photocopicus! He needs a sacrifice. Grab some paperclips and go to the storage closet in the copier room. We’ve got a small altar there. Bow your head, state your desires, and leave the paperclips as an offering.�?
Mouli (Moulinex?) was the dominant (or perhaps only) brand to make this particular style of grater, with the rotating cylinder, the cavity for the food and the pressing arm. Could be used for cheese, but more commonly used for other foods. Not so popular anymore, except in Europe.
Whereas in my neck of the woods the "cheese grater" was and remains a simpler thing, with no moving parts. More like these.
My mother had a vintage one. I would use it to crush the sugared biscuits (no, not that kind of biscuit, the sweet, brittle kind) when she made cheesecake.
Oh happy, I think. Better to get people using a word. Spelling is easily fixed; even Microsoft can do it. Although apparently not South Australian(?) sub-editors.
Type of woman's full brief underpants worn whilst playing sport (aka bum freezers), or close-fitting swimming trunks. (Also a brand-name for the sports brief kind.)
Seems like a lot of trouble for…? The egg coddler, on the other hand, can be a thing of beauty. My mother has a lovely porcelain pair, and every so often we would have coddled eggs.
Is it all post-Harry Potter, or did you observe the misspelling before that thoroughly odious woman arrived on the scene? (Miss Umbridge, that is, not Ms Rowling.)
"Rarely has it been thought that the way to show you deserve to be the most powerful person on earth is to demonstrate you're also the touchiest. This presidential campaign has been an offense fest. From the indignation over a fashion writer's observation about Hillary Clinton's cleavage, to the outraged response to the infamous Obama New Yorker cover, to the histrionics over "lipstick on a pig," taking offense has been a political leitmotif. Slate's John Dickerson observed that umbrage is this year's hottest campaign tactic. And we can assume it will reach an operatic crescendo in these final weeks before Election Day."
Oh, gangerh and other dear friends, please please have a heart for us Wordies who use Wordie on our mobile phones when out and about. There is nothing more disheartening than to see that the "last 20 comments" are restricted to one word and, in essence, one comment.
The most revealing moment happened earlier, when Palin was asked about Obama's attack on McCain's claim that the fundamentals of the economy are sound. "Well," Palin said, "it was an unfair attack on the verbage that Senator McCain chose to use, because the fundamentals, as he was having to explain afterwards, he means our workforce, he means the ingenuity of the American people. And of course that is strong, and that is the foundation of our economy. So that was an unfair attack there, again, based on verbage that John McCain used." This is certainly doing rather more than mere talking, and what is being done is the coinage of "verbage." It would be hard to find a better example of the Republican disdain for words than that remarkable term, so close to garbage, so far from language.
From "A Critic's Notebook: Verbage: The Republican war on words" by James Wood
Baggy bloomers as I recall. Worn by girls under their gym tunics in the days before lycra or jersey gym pants (the latter known as bum freezers at my school).
In Australia you'll often hear the phrase blended with "done like a dinner" to give "done like a dog's dinner" in the sense of being completely screwed.
Which is probably why if we want the ostentatious sense then we're more likely to say "done up like a dog's dinner".
"Dog's dinner" on its own means a complete mess, i.e. much the same meaning as dog's breakfast. Still fits with the idea of being dressed extravagantly since that use is pejorative.
Whereas its my term for a complete mess of things, especially in connection with graphic design that lacks a clear aesthetic and visual focus, as in "That new poster concept looks like a dog's breakfast."
The name combines "spoon" and "blade" (its genuine cutting ability making it superior to the spork); it has a decent set of tines as well. The Powerhouse Museum's site gives a good run down.
Originally "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services", now just Qantas, in the way that CSR no longer stands for "Colonial Sugar Refining Co."
Aka the flying kangaroo, although nowadays it's effectively lost its wings.
It's officially banned nowadays, owing to the practice degenerating into rampant vandalism on the part of less imaginative cohorts. In Western Australia they tried to sanitise it by renaming it "Activity Day" – now that's just lame!!
I recall (about 30 years ago now) my big sister spending a whole evening drawing red hearts on a roll of toilet paper, as did many others. Apparently a teacher's car was wrapped in this. I'm not willing to tell you what my school got up to. We were very nerdy.
I am reminded of the "Songs of Praise" episode of The Vicar of Dibley. Alice has the Bible reading and is becoming increasingly confused by the descending or "long s" common in ye olde worlde printing.
ALICE: Ye are the falt of the earth, and fainted. Sainted. Thou shalt feel…seal your endeavours until ye fit on his right hand. Therefore fight the good fight for his…fake, and he shall be thy f…
VICAR: Succour. "And he shall be thy succour," thank you Alice!
You really have to watch it, the scene starts around 6:35 on this clip.
(Incidentally, Alice's reading has nothing with Song of Solomon 6:2 to do. It's more like a portmanteau Bible verse.)
Me too. My most common use of the word (other than the negative "that sucks") is when talking about my favourite brand of dustbuster, which not only has an amazing battery life but also "plenty of suck".
When I was very young this was my name for a kind of rain experienced quite frequently in Melbourne (and also on occasion in Sydney). It is very soft, almost misty, with fine droplets, so that it feels like the caressing of fur against your cheeks. Lovely.
What's the deal with theatre and theater in the US? That's one pair where both options seem to have a decent presence. (Say, if you check a national directory of theatre companies and venues.)
A theatrical lighting term: "a template or pattern cut into a circular plate used to create patterns of projected light. The name may be derived from go between, or from Goes Before Optics. Go between refers to its position between the lamp and the lens. Another origin may be: Graphical optical blackout."
But also (and this was something I didn't know): "a slang term used by sound recording engineers to refer to a movable acoustic isolation panel…an acoustics gobo is parallel in use to a photography gobo, which is used to block direct light sources, and also shares its name with the stage lighting gobo."
"At the High Heels Walking Workshop, I wore what I call my 20-minute "shoeters" – shoes that I can stand for 20 minutes before I want to shoot myself. I lasted a good 40 minutes. With practice, I bet I could get to a really quick party."
(verb) the act of finding a new home for an abandoned or otherwise unwanted pet, say, a kitten. "The kittens were so cute that all of them were rehomed within an hour of arriving." (This, from my local paper – what DO they teach them in sub-editor school?)
Cute. I've never seen that. Very occasionally I've seen/used RSVP at the end of a message. Usually only in more formal situations where a reply is required.
Why cut? I think it's something to do with the swimming-when-hunting again. Either their naturally thick, curly coats would become waterlogged and slow them down and/or when wet they wouldn't dry quickly enough and then they'd catch cold. Something along those lines.
So the solution was to trim most of the coat close to the skin except in those locations where it was essential for keeping the dog warm and healthy.
I've witnessed, nay, perpetrated, a better plan: stand around in a public place with a large tray of miniature cupcakes (aka babycakes, just a mouthful each). It's absolutely terrifying.
Maieutic is one of my favourite obscure words. It means pertaining to intellectual midwifery and describes as no other word does a phenomenon that happens more often than you might think. It is very rewarding when you can match the moment to the word.
Zareba – a protective hedge around a village or camp, particularly in the Sudan. Used to great effect by PG Wodehouse in, for example, The Clicking Of Cuthbert, with his description of a Russian novelist: "Vladimir Brusiloff had permitted his face to become almost entirely concealed behind a dense zareba of hair."
Spanghew – to cause (esp. a toad or frog) to fly into the air off the end of a stick. (In northern and Scottish use.) Why? Well, all one has to do is imagine the myriad situations in which one might use this word.
Omphaloskepsis (self-absorbed, navel-gazing). I'm not really a selfish person, but I do occasionally need someone to remind me to look up from my navel. Plus, things that have to do with belly-buttons are generally pretty fun.
Perhaps it is the case that the verb is simply never used in its basic form "to cricket". (Unless you count "to cricket the neck in an attempt to see opera surtitles from the cheap seat in the front row of the stalls".)
The definitions claim that "cricket" can be a verb. I have never heard anyone use cricket that way, and I live in a land where the game (noun) reigns supreme!
There is also the idiom: "It's just not cricket." (That's unfair. Bad sportsmanship.)
This is the closest that I could find in a quick search. It gives the idea, but the bit I remember has less "noise" in the form of background music, speech etc. (Or perhaps it just works better on a big screen in a cinema.) Starts at 5:45 on this clip.
Wait. The beginning of this clip is more like it. Although youtube does not in any way do justice to the sensual effect.
Perhaps. But developing the habit of thinking before saying "I can't" wasn't such a bad thing. Ultimately she was trying to cultivate in us the mindset of possibility and giving things a go, and it worked.
From here it appears that c_b has made 24 misspellings for: "the sound of a quill pen scratching on vellum accompanied by the sight of a hand scribing an elegant 16th-century Italic script as shown for a few truly orgasmic moments in Greenaway's film Prospero's Books"
Years ago my ballet teacher took ownership of can't. Every time one of us said "I can't" we had to put 20 cents in the fundraising moneybox for the Guide Dog Association. She raised a fair bit of money that way. We must have been real wimps.
"The Enigma I will not explain – its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the connexion between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ’goes’, but is not played…"
Edward Elgar in the program note for the first performance of the Enigma Variations
The best I can explain it is this: The list is literally an ark – the place where I list words of interest that are in danger of otherwise escaping me because they don't fit in a thematic list (think "Noah's ark") and the place where I list words I especially treasure that also don't really fit anywhere else (more like ark as in "ark of the covenant"). Often when I frame a word and then it turns out no one has listed it yet it goes in the ark, unless I have an existing list that fits better.
Oh, and as I suggest in my list description, it's a play on what happened to Keneally's book when it was turned into a film. The novel's original title was "Schindler's Ark", but it became, for the movies, "Schindler's List". So to the extent that my very first list was inevitably going to be called "frindley's list" everyone has a list like that, right? I thought it would be fun to reverse the process and call it "frindley's ark" instead.
There is a certain logic to this style, which I seem to see only in venerable New York publications. After all, there's no doubt that the two vowels form part of different syllables, and it's nicer than "co-operation".
If not British/Aussie then you have to be Arthur Miller.
The Crucible was the first and as far as I can recall the only time I've ever encountered this word in print/literature, and then in its "technical" sense. Although it was long familiar to me as a term of endearment for little girls here in Australia.
In my neck of the woods we get gently stuck into people for using the redundant term "ATM machine" – in fact it even formed the basis for one bank's television ads a few years ago.
In a discussion about celebrity perfumes it transpires that "Svetlana Stalin's Svetlana's Breath, was regrettably discontinued soon after her father's death in 1953, and so is ineligible for scrutiny here."
An Australian newspaper – which shall remain nameless since it has amended the online version, and in any case you can read all about it in anotherAustralian newspaper – reported Mr Sarah Palin as having a retirement account of US$401,000.
Methinks the subeditor had never heard of a 401(k).
Daniel from the Toxic Custard Guide to Australia reports that ‘for some years, his sister has been promoting use of the word "fensterbunk" for the bit of a car between the back seats and the windows. This is a misheard version of the Dutch word "vensterbank", meaning "window sill". There is an English term for this: "rear parcel shelf", but this is not a good thing to call it, because anybody with the remotest idea about car safety will tell you it's a bloody stupid place to put parcels.’
The Sentimental Bloke was a verse novel by poet C.J. Dennis (1876–1938), subsequently turned into a film in 1919 and now regarded as "one of the greatest silent films Australia every produced". But over time the complete film was lost and only shortened versions survived. That is, until a researcher pottering around in an American film archive found original reels catalogued as "The Sentimental Blonde". It had been decided that "bloke" was a misprint!
The asp is a serpent that avoids the enchantment of music by pressing one ear against the ground and plugging the other ear with its tail. In some versions the asp guards a tree that drips balm; to get the balm men must first put the asp to sleep by playing or singing to it. Another version holds that the asp has a precious stone called a carbuncle in its head, and the enchanter must say certain words to the asp to obtain the stone.
Other names: Baselicoc, Basiliscus, Cocatris, Cockatrice, Kokatris, Sibilus
Its odor, voice and even look can kill.
The basilisk is usually described as a crested snake, and sometimes as a cock with a snake's tail. It is called the king (regulus) of the serpents because its Greek name basiliscus means "little king"; its odor is said to kill snakes. Fire coming from the basilisk's mouth kills birds, and its glance will kill a man. It can kill by hissing, which is why it is also called the sibilus. Like the scorpion it likes dry places; its bite causes the victim to become hydrophobic. A basilisk is hatched from a cock's egg, a rare occurence. Only the weasel can kill a basilisk.
The weasel is a dirty animal that must not be eaten. It conceives at the mouth and gives birth through the ear (though some say it is the other way around). If the birth takes place through the right ear, the offspring will be male; if it is through the left ear, a female will be born…
The weasel is the enemy of the basilisk and is the only animal that can kill one.
The hedgehog has the appearance of a young pig, but is entirely covered with sharp spines or quills, which protect it from danger. When it is time for the harvest, the hedgehog goes into a vineyard, and climbing up a vine, shakes the grapes off onto the ground. It then rolls around on the fallen grapes to spear them with its quills, so it can carry the fruit home to feed its young. (Some say that the fruit the hedgehog carries away is the apple or fig.)
The cinnamalogus is a bird that lives in Arabia. It builds its nest using the fruit of the cinnamon tree, which men value greatly. The men who want to cinnamon cannot climb the tree to reach the nest, because the nest is too high and the tree branches too delicate, so they throw lead balls to knock down the cinnamon. Cinnamon obtained from the nest of this bird is the most valuable of all.
The bonnacon is a beast with a head like a bull, but with horns that curl in towards each other. Because these horns are useless for defense, the bonnacon has another weapon. When pursued, the beast expels its dung which travels a great distance (as much as two acres), and burns anything it touches.
Bears give birth in the winter. The bear cub is born as a shapeless and eyeless lump of flesh, which the mother bear shapes into its proper form by licking it (the origin of the expression "to lick into shape"). The cub is born head first, making its head weak and its arms and legs strong, allowing bears to stand upright. Bears do not mate like other animals; like humans they embrace each other when they copulate. Their desire is aroused in winter. The males do not touch the pregnant females, and even when they share the same lair at the time of birth, they lie separated by a trench. When in their fourteen day period of hibernation, bears are so soundly asleep that not even wounds can wake them. Bears eat honey, but can only safely eat the apples of the mandrake if they also eat ants. Bears fight bulls by holding their horns and attacking their sensitive noses. If injured, a bear can heal itself by touching the herb phlome or mullein. The fiercest bears are found in Numibia.
There are two interpretations of what an ant-lion is. In one version, the ant-lion is so called because it is the "lion of ants," a large ant or small animal that hides in the dust and kills ants.
In the other version, it is a beast that is the result of a mating between a lion and an ant. ow It has the face of a lion and and the body of an ant, with each part having its appropriate nature. Because the lion part will only eat meat and the ant part can only digest grain, the ant-lion starves.
The alerion is a bird like an eagle; it is lord over all other birds. It is the color of fire, is larger than an eagle, and its wings are as sharp as a razor. The is only one pair in the world. When she is sixty years old, the female lays two eggs, which take sixty days to hatch. When the young are born, the parents, accompanied by a retinue of other birds, fly to the sea, plunge in, and drown. The other birds return to the nest to care for the young alerion until they are old enough to fly.
This tale is told in the Bestiaire of Pierre de Beauvais; a similar tale is found in the letter of Prester John on the marvels of the east.
"Barnacle geese come from trees that grow over water. These trees produce birds that look like small geese; the young birds hang from their beaks from the trees. When the birds are mature enough, they fall from the trees; any that fall into the water float and are safe, but those that fall on land die."
It amuses me as an Australian how, when visiting London-based artists agents and managers, I would arrive to see that they had their "Far East" file ready on the desk. I've never thought of Australia as being part of the Far East, but I guess to them it is.
Interesting. As I understood it, the word also referred to women at the time of the French Revolution, who were often obliged to go without knickers under their dresses.
It's more complicated than that. At least in the frindley household, you have to take it down off the top of the pantry cupboard every three months or so and dowse it in brandy. Then wrap it back up in the heavy brown-paper wrapping and return it to the top of the cupboard. Then after about 12 to 18 months of that you have the most wonderful, wonderful creation, ready to be covered in a thin layer of marzipan, followed by two layers of delicately tinted fondant icing, and finally decorated with elegant swirling curlicues of royal icing in a slightly paler shade. Modelled fondant flowers are optional. Personally, I think my best cake of all was the one surmounted by a fondant muddleheaded wombat, made for my sister's birthday.
The "common venereal disease" definition has led to the idiom "a case of the clap". This has in turn led to the humorous usage referring to unbidden or "inappropriate" applause in the middle of a live classical performance, e.g. "The audience had a case of the clap tonight."
(Disclaimer: I am not against applause between movements at concerts, but there are certainly times when it's ill-judged.)
Xee is a convenient software of viewing your image and to browse quickly. It is designed to be a powerful tool to view image and management. Besides, it is sometimes necessary to use more than a program to view different types of pictures. To view your pictures, what of more troublesome than to see the slowness of scrolling.
I'm Australian (Sydney born and bred) and I use orient/oriented and, of course, disoriented. But I certainly do hear, in Australia, usage such as: "I need to orientate myself" and even "I felt disorientated", which always makes me twitch a bit.
When I lived in America (eastern edge of the Midwest) I think I heard "orientated" at least as frequently as "oriented".
My Shorter OED says that orientate is most likely a 19th-century back-formation from orientation and refers the reader to orient.
And isn't it a wonderful word, with that idea of facing east, and the specific meaning coming from church architecture? (St Andrews Anglican Cathedral in Sydney has only just recently reoriented its altar to the eastern end of the building after moving it at some point in its history to avoid seeming popish.)
PS. This discussion has made me think of acclimate vs acclimatize, the former being almost exclusively US, the latter Australian/British.
ALGERNON. Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don’t try it. You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.
JACK. What on earth do you mean?
ALGERNON. You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn’t for Bunbury’s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn’t be able to dine with you at Willis’s to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.
I propose Bunbury from Oscar Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest:
ALGERNON. Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don’t try it. You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.
JACK. What on earth do you mean?
ALGERNON. You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn’t for Bunbury’s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn’t be able to dine with you at Willis’s to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.
The Macquarie Dictionary sponsored Australian Word Map is a fascinating attempt at using a kind of crowdsourcing to capture the diversity and intricacies of Australian regionalisms.
Actually, there's a similar principle behind serving duck with orange. I have read that it is necessary because the duck eats its own faeces, which is a horrible thought that not even copious amounts of orange will dispel.
Just for inspiration, Erin McKean gives a very entertaining presentation about dictionaries on TED.
And my favourite dictionary story of all time appears in Andrew Clements' Frindle (no, not named after me, alas).
I personally love the stories behind words and the ways they are used. So dictionaries that are "just" definitions are always less interesting to me than the ones with etymologies and historical usage.
In isolation, I think strange before I think gay. But how often does one encounter words in genuine isolation? Almost never. And to that end, nearly all situations in which I hear/read the word queer nowadays are referring to homosexuality.
That's why I always get lost in the New York subway, but have never gotten lost on the Underground, not even the first time I ventured into it. And while I'm at it, the person who devised the Underground map is a genius. Absolute genius!
I don't think there's anything offensive about it all. But for someone who was brought up with "sitting cross-legged" and encounters the term for the first time it does seem unbearably cutesy and a bit juvenile. And you could certainly say cute and juvenile is fine for kids, who are the people who sit this way the most. But I like to take a long view with language and children. After all, I am comfortable using "cross-legged" as a grown up, but what would I say today if as a child the only term I'd ever been given was "criss-cross applesauce"? – I'd feel like a right dork saying that! Of course, all the teaching I've done has been with children aged 10 to 17, and I have no kiddies of my own, only niblings, so that's an influence, I'm sure.
ROSALIND. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not furnish'd like a beggar; therefore to beg will not become me. My way is to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you; and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women - as I perceive by your simp'ring none of you hates them - that between you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleas'd me, complexions that lik'd me, and breaths that I defied not; and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.
Ah, my prudishness theory is indeed shot to pieces. Will abandon it forthwith, at least in the matter of beets. I had quite forgotten to make a connection with the fact that Aussies snicker whenever Americans talk about rooting for a sports team.
My mother liked beetroot way too much. Every week she'd be boiling some up in the pressure cooker. I couldn't stand it and refused to eat it. (Refused to eat anything it had even touched!) I was once left to sit in my high chair for quite some hours after lunch with a plateful of tomato and beetroot staring at me – these being the two salad vegetables I hated. By dinner time my mother realised there was no way I was ever going to eat them. In the end she indulged me because I would eat just about everything else, including baby prawns, which were very useful for keeping me amused while she unpacked the shopping.
True. Actually, thinking of beet/beetroot always makes me think of roach/cockroach. I've long held the possibly erroneous and almost certainly unfair view that the use of the two shortened forms is a further sign of American prudishness, i.e. an unwillingness to use the words root and cock in polite company, along with the word toilet, which I have only just trained myself back into using in a unselfconscious way, two-and-a-half years after returning to Australia!
1. It's just so messy – all that crimson juice everywhere – and furthermore, it makes many people think of blood, so deep-set taboos probably come into play at the subconscious level.
2. Because it is commonly prepared by pickling in vinegar, there will be many who don't care for or can't stand the taste. (I count as one of these people; the couple of times I have eaten raw beetroot, which is rather sweet, I haven't minded it so much.)
Dried raw shredded beetroot manages to avoid both problems, but it's hardly ever served that way. Only in those sloppy, bleeding, vinegary slices that stain everything in the salad or burger with which they're served. A shame really.
Then Tabitha Twitchit came down the garden and found her kittens on the wall with no clothes on. She pulled them off the wall, smacked them, and took them back to the house.
"My friends will arrive in a minute, and you are not fit to be seen; I am affronted," said Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit.
She sent them upstairs; and I am sorry to say she told her friends that they were in bed with the measles; which was not true.
I am affronted. Where is my exclusive, personalised invitation to join Wordie PRO! at great personal expense and to thereby enjoy full benefit of the pronunciation filter?
"In 1685 Naples was as populous, as noisy, and as dirty as it is now. Even then it was a little battered, and from the summit of the town its crumbling medieval fortresses looked out over the harbor. Up the hill from the waterfront swarmed a jumble of splendor and squalor, of magnificence and filth. Palaces with the stench of the gutter rising to their very cornices bounded broad sunlit squares or concealed narrow alleys that were then as much out of bounds to the respectable rich as they were to the Allied soldiers of 1944.
Ah, the niceties of language! Down here in the Antipodes, if you were sitting on a chair with your legs crossed you'd say you were "crossing your legs" or that you had your "legs crossed" and an old-fashioned etiquette maven might tell you "don't cross your legs, cross your ankles".
"Sitting cross-legged" is a defined idiom that means sitting on the floor in something approximating a half-lotus.
I guess the difference is between crossed legs/legs crossed and cross-legged, with one describing the position of the legs and the other a style of sitting.
@dontcry: There's no "r" in sauce, but there's also no "r"-sound when an Aussie or Brit says "source". For us "sauce" and "source" sound identical, that is: /s�?�?s/
Cross, on the other hand, sounds like: /krɒs/
(cf. vowel with the first syllable of sausage: /'sɒsɪdʒ/, which I imagine is closer to an American's pronunciation of sauce: /sɒ�?s/ ?? )
For me to get the rhyme right I would have to write: criss-cross applesoss.
For an American to get the rhyme "wrong" the way I do, you'd have to think of it as more like:
Oh yes, I need this word! I've never been impressed by Supré, but I found a new-minted antagonism towards this chain when they took over my beloved Gowings building, turning something truly iconic and full of fond associations into something ordinary and cheap.
Cross does not rhyme with sauce. (Always happy to oblige!)
On the other hand, if one thinks of the dialect/accent group in which sauce sounds more like the beginning of sausage and less like "source" then it's possible to make the leap of imagination and hear a rhyme between cross and sauce. But you have to be sitting cross-legged for the leap to work!
Reaction 3: so what's wrong with just calling it "sitting cross-legged" then?
Google took me to a fairly comprehensive and much commented upon post from 2006. Seems that "criss-cross applesauce" has been adopted by the "PC police" in early childhood educational circles as an alternative to "sitting Indian style", despite there being nothing specifically offensive about such usage (cf. taking tea while kneeling "Japanese style" - innocuous, it just refers to an old cultural practice). In Britain as in Australia it seems this was and is called "cross-legged"; some comments from Europe said they called it "Turkish style" (in Germany), and "tailors' style".
A sitting style. Also known in some contexts as the lotus (half or full depending on your flexibility!).
I add it now because I have just come across a bizarre alternative term, which apparently has enjoyed a wave of popularity since the turn of the century, but which I'd never heard before: criss-cross applesauce.
The Renaissance madrigalist Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, wrote some amazingly modern-sounding music, but is perhaps even more famous for murdering his wife and her lover on catching them in flagrante delicto (or, it is said, asleep post flagrante delicto).
"Rapturously fragrant, sweetly aromatic" purpled ink – that first intoxicating inhalation of isopropanol and methanol from the freshly made school stencil.
Ever noticed how many new picture books have a distinctive smell of vomit? It's the particular size that they use to stiffen and finish the paper. That's the scent I mean.
This is the fourth scent in a series of primal smells.
Wild Hunt is the scent of an ancient forest in the heat of a summer afternoon. It is a blend of Torn Leaves, Crushed Twigs, Flowing Sap, Fallen Branches, Old Leaves, Green Moss, Fir, Pine and Tiny Mushrooms.
The prime note in this scent is Coppertone 1967 blended with a new accord…created especially for this perfume – North Atlantic. The base of the scent contains a bit of Wet Sand, Seashell, Driftwood and just a hint of Boardwalk. The effect when you wear At The Beach 1966 is as if you’ve been swimming all day in the ocean.
This is the first scent in a series of primal smells.
Eternal Return is the scent of sailing toward the shore. It is a blend of Fresh Ocean Air, Wooden Ship and a faint hint of Cypress Trees growing on the cliff above the water…
Comments by frindley
Show previous 200 comments...
frindley commented on the user kamtsatka
The frindley is a flute player too! (Although I should also admit that I haven't practised properly for a very long time. Sigh.)
November 11, 2008
frindley commented on the user kamtsatka
In my world (Australian music scene) we are extremely envious of the thriving musical life that we witness in Finland. Lots of orchestras (relative to population), great music education from the youngest ages, and so on.
November 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word moments like these
While we're onto confectionery, this is the long-standing slogan for Minties.
November 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word tree-
It's moments like these that make Macs look so very good.
November 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word tree-
@plethora: don't go dropping the zero off the front. All these keypad codes for foreign and funny characters are four digits and most begin with zero. So you need: en 0150 and em 0151.
November 11, 2008
frindley commented on the user kamtsatka
That's true (about us being interested). Valituskuoro caught my attention a few months back!
November 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word luser
But Wikipedia goes on to say: 'It is a portmanteau of "loser" and "user" and is usually pronounced "loser".'
But I guess if it were being used in the sense of the command "/lusers" list users then you would pronounce it with the el distinct from the user part.
I've never heard it used (or if I have, I've probably assumed the IT guy was calling the person a regular "loser"), but I assumed it would be pronounced the same as loser. But then, for a long time I thought SQL was pronounced "sequel", which apparently is ok, but not the official thing: /ɛskju�?ˈɛl /
November 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word pfy
The Pimply-Faced Youth, assistant to the Bastard Operator from Hell, a rogue system administrator who takes out his anger on users (often referred to as lusers) – his colleagues, his bosses, and anyone who gets in his way.
November 10, 2008
frindley commented on the list ovine-affairs
Ow. That looks like it would hurt.
November 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word tree-
I'm not actually proposing anyone do this (I wouldn't, too much trouble) but, depending on the laptop, usually you have to hit a function key (Num-Lock on a MacBook) or Fn plus another key to engage the "keypad" option where J=1 K=2 and so on. Then you can use ALT plus whatever numerical codes you want. Once finished you have to toggle back off with the original function sequence. Remember, I'm not recommending it!
;-)
This Firefox extension appears to allow you to set up your own keyboard shortcuts for commonly used special characters. I've never tried it though and it doesn't look entirely elegant.
November 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word coccyx
I really recommend that you don't go running on smooth tiles while wearing socks on a rainy day. Sitting down suddenly and hard on your tail bone when your feet go from under you hurts!
November 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word tree-
Frindley's typography tip of the day:
hyphen - whatever you usually do
en-dash (width of capital N)
MAC: OPTION and the "hyphen/underscore" key that sits between 0 and +/= in the top row.
WIN: ALT and (on numeric keypad) 0150
(MS Word on both platforms has a setting that will auto-correct space hyphen space to space en-dash space, ditto double hyphens with spaces either side --)
em-dash (width of capital M)
MAC: OPTION SHIFT and the hyphen/underscore key
WIN: ALT and 0151
(The em-dash when used as punctuation typically does not have spaces either side, the en-dash does. Ergo, Word will correct double hyphens with no spaces to an em-dash, e.g. a dash--to go becomes a dash—to go)
November 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word ocarina
That iPhone app isn't just amusing. It's bloody brilliant. Check it out: it actually responds to breath and articulation. It's a work of genius.
I almost wish I owned an iPhone.
November 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word particular individual
I like the usage of particular that often turns up in Jane Austen, where some young woman will be another's particular friend, as in best or great.
Then there are the particular Baptists: who believe some but not all are redeemed.
But is "particular individual" truly redundant? If particular is being used here in the sense of singling out one from a group (in the way that you might say "this particular car" or "this particular company" or "this particular person" as opposed to all the other cars/companies/people you could have identified) then it would seem to be a proper usage. There is a subtle distinction, which would be more evident in context, between "this particular individual" and "this individual"
November 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word foiled chocolate baby bilby
Actually, my favourite Haigh's bilby has magnets in its paws so it can hang on my fridge door.
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word foiled chocolate baby bilby
Foiled again?
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word freddo
But it's for a good cause, right? Fundraising and all that.
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word pianist
Regional variations – I have come across all of these in my neck of the woods:
P-YANno as in nano-second
P-YANnist as in cannister
PYEERnist drop the American r
PYAHno closest the Aussies get to the Italian pronunciation, unfortunately it's guaranteed to make one sound posh and pretentious, as would…
PYAHnist
The Shorter Oxford makes an interesting distinction in pronunciation based on definition/usage:
piano, as in the musical term meaning soft, is pronounced /'pjɑ�?nəʊ/ , i.e. close to the Italian
But piano as in the musical instrument (piano-forte) is pronounced /pɪ'anəʊ/, with the stress moved and the change of vowels.
Pianist is officially /'pɪənɪst/
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word when the revolution comes
When the revolution comes, frindley will…
replace the Sydney Opera House forecourt with smooth paving that's pleasant to walk on instead of the nasty rough granite setts.
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word freddo
Switch to Haigh's, I say. Especially since they also make a pretty mean chocolate bilby. Delicious that is, not "mean".
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the list the-end-is-nigh
Oh, well if you're talking about when we're grown up…
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word tree-
Oh yes!
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word blue texel
So the photo comes from the flockbook on a Dutch site, Blauwe Texelaar. And it's really very interesting. For example:
"The use of the term 'blue' (in Dutch: 'blauw') originates from the fact that although the fleece looks white/gray or brown the colour inside the fleece is steel blue." emphasis mine
Apparently they are calm and nice to get on with, and I will say that the lambs are very cute.
I especially like the site's slogan: bèèèhhhh.
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word blue texel
Yes, I think someone let a stylist loose on it before the photograph.
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the list the-end-is-nigh
I almost graduated from uni not knowing what I wanted to do (or thinking I wanted to do something that was in fact the wrong thing to want to do). I was saved in the nick of time by an ad in the newspaper which drew to my attention the fact that out in the big wide world people (not very many, mind you, but enough) got paid to do what I ended up doing. Just think, I might have ended up in Holland, an ordinary baroque flute player, and instead…
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word tree-
The frindley typography nerd emerges bleary eyed from pedants corner and says: But nay, this is not a dash that you see! Rather it is a hyphen. Thus: -
Whereas an en-dash is thus: –
And an em-dash thus: —
@mollusque: I proffer "punkt" as a nice, brief tag for items ending with a period, aka full stop or full point, aka punkt in another part of the world.
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word german exam
Eben ist das Leben.
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the list the-end-is-nigh
John's right. I'm only 173 years old, but I still remember how my cohort lived, breathed and worried over the NSW Higher School Certificate and whether we'd get the score we wanted/needed. And within a week of starting university it was as if it were the most inconsequential thing in the world and we wondered what the hell we'd been worrying about. Not that the HSC wasn't Very Important, because it was, but we simply regained much-needed perspective.
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word idiots
Your employer is sadly lacking in the sense of humour department.
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word blue texel
While the wool yields a fibre capable of withstanding repeated washing without losing its natural dusky shade.
November 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word features
I'd like to add my voice in support for a system of managing or categorising "favorite" lists.
November 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word gestation
The frindley has completed a Wordie gestation. That is, nine months ago she added her first word to her first list. It was mediæval, with the ligature. Kind of says it all.
November 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word ute
No, nothing so glamorous. A ute is a utility truck, shortened in the characteristic Australian way.
As in, "My sister is going to get a ute, so that when her kids are old enough to drive they'll always want to borrow their dad's car!"
November 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word wasilla hillbillies
I don't know the Beverly Hillbillies Theme, but this is great anyway!
November 7, 2008
frindley commented on the word deer god
Bambi taught me how to say American "R"s. After his mother is killed, he stands in the clearing, all forlorn, calling out "Motherrrr? Motherrrr?"
November 7, 2008
frindley commented on the word 2008 election
How well do you know your American presidents? A chance to test your knowledge as well as enjoy a celebratory wallpaper here.
November 7, 2008
frindley commented on the word flatmate
See cheesed off.
Need to find those references to bilby's flatmates and roadkill as well. Wordie search isn't helping there.
November 7, 2008
frindley commented on the word math vs maths
If maths is short for mathematics (as in "the study of"), how did math emerge as a subject name?
November 7, 2008
frindley commented on the word kraft
As a German word it's very misleading to English speakers, since it means "strength" or "power", not "craft".
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word ute
I play with or via machines. :(
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the list strewth-mate-or-the-antipodean-anhang
True, kelpies are the best. I had a black kelpie once – she was one sheep short of a paddock (inbreeding I suspect), but adorable all the same.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word king john's archers
The movie Tous les matins du monde shows such a scene with Lully conducting at the French court (although not the actual historic moment). You can watch it here, with Gérard Depardieu as Lully.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word ute
It frustrates me no end that the official Scrabble dictionary doesn't recognise "ute".
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word king john's archers
French baroque musicians "conducted" by thumping the aforesaid grotty great staff on the floor. Hence the connection with the foot and the grotty but not great case of gangrene.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word lever voting v electronic voting
I agree, it's more tangible and satisfying.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word drugstore v chemist's v pharmacy
Would that I could find an apothecary, preferably one whose drugs were quick. But he is a dying breed I fear.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word drugstore v chemist's v pharmacy
Here in Sydney I go to the chemist (shop) to consult my pharmacist and buy drugs. Some shops are labelled pharmacy, but I'd usually refer to them as chemists anyway.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word kath and kim
Noice one.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word cordigal
See different for Wordie anecdotes and confessions on this word. I too knew kiddies who would say "cordigal" instead of cordial.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word noice
Different, noice, unusual.
Kath and Kim
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word different
But bilby, Rumpelstiltskin is different.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word wmd
My first paid article appeared in the Brisbane Courier Mail.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word billiards vs pool (vs snooker)
Ya got trouble
Yes, ya got lots and lots o' trouble
I'm thinkin' of the kids in the knickerbockers, shirttails, young ones
Peekin' in the pool hall window after school
Ya got trouble, folks, right here in River City
With a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'P'
And that stands for 'pool'!
More here. As you'll see, the song appears to use billiards and pool to mean much the same thing.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word grotty great
See king john's archers for usage citation.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word king john's archers
Oh, you don't want to do that. Did you hear how Lully died of gangrene, after he stabbed himself in the foot while conducting? And that was just a grotty great conducting staff, not even a pointy arrow.
November 6, 2008
frindley commented on the word the chance for us to make that change
Twenty-one months…
** shakes head in gentle bemusement **
I thought it was kind of neat that his "winter" came out sounding almost like "winner".
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word good old days
These are the good old days, just you wait and see.
In the meantime, check out history is the present.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word the arc of history
My visual image of history is a kind of loose, erratic coil.
It's linear in that it goes through time and so must follow a "line", even though that line curls and, yes, bends, and loops up on itself. The spiral/coiling aspect of my image helps me deal with the way history repeats itself: it keeps curling back and picking up something that's happened before, but in a different plane, before heading off again. (Kind of like good teaching, too.) Oh, how I wish I could just draw a picture in this comment box. Perhaps for me history is like a big, unruly slinky.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word history lesson
Too true. Poets for example.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word the eye of history
I think you need to take the whole phrase: "stood in the eye of history". That's what signals the eye=centre meaning. (Not that it would be terribly easy to stand in the eye of a hurricane, but it sure would be exciting once you got there.)
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word history lesson
History Lesson
History repeats itself.
Has to.
No-one listens.
A poem by Steve Turner
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word the arc of history
Me too!!! Ark, as in ark of the covenant (and yes, Raiders), the arc in which was enshrined a promise…
So I heard it as suggesting something vaguely like "a shrine to the promise of history". Which still seems more sensible to me than "arc of history".
I mean, does history really arc (whether in an electrical sense or a spatial sense)? I always think of history being a relentlessly linear thing, for all that it repeats itself, like the history lesson.
Edit: I shouldn't be flippant about "arc of history" not making sense. Truth is: when I heard it as "ark" I puzzled briefly and captured only the spirit/sentiment and not the beauty of the rhetorical concept. Upon reading it, here, just now, it did actually make sense as a beautiful, empowering image.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word high spirits
Yee ha!
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word yes we can!
Bravo. I couldn't vote, but that doesn't mean I'm not just as happy: for the world, for America and for my American friends.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word welsh pit pony legs
Short and sturdy, in other words. Possibly Celtic.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word king john's archers
Ooh, me, me, me – can I be elite too? **jumps up and down on short Welsh pit pony legs to attract attention**
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word lever voting v electronic voting
But bilby, don't you just love standing there in a flimsy cardboard booth with a blunt pencil filling in every last box below the line on the senate voting form with a number and then double-checking to make sure you haven't used a number twice or something, just to ensure that the most obnoxious of those little parties are right down the bottom of the count? (Yeah, I need to get a life.)
Meanwhile I think fondly of the Australian ballot, the benefits of which our friends across the Pacific have been enjoying today.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word bugs
See home – I can't get to the front page and certain other links.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word home
Has anyone else found that they can't get home? By which I mean, clicking on the Wordie wordmark or "home" link yields a "gone all 500 Application Error on you" page.
I can search for words, and follow links and get to the Last 100 Comments by typing in the URL directly, but the home page itself seems to be off limits. I get the same 500 error when I click on the "987 comments" (soon to be 988) link on my own profile, although the equivalent link is fine from others' profiles.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word when the revolution comes
We are the revolution we've all been waiting for.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word brogging
The usage in Shagz's citation (i.e. bragging about one's blog) offers a variation on the definition of brogging as bragging about oneself on one's blog.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word sound lantern
Any connection do you think with Word Wizard?
Edit: Sound Lantern is Basil Miles; Word Wizard was founded by Rufus Miles.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the list ebaysalvageyard
Oh hilarious! Basil invited ebaysalvageyard to contribute to his audio site!
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the list suburbs-of-sydney
And there is always the notorious Sylvania Waters. Ha!
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the list suburbs-of-sydney
How about? Newtown – new no longer; Chippendale; Mount Druitt; Cherrybrook; Greystanes…
And kewpid, whatever you do, don't forget Carlingford, the suburb where they won't allow a school to keep pigs.
November 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word pumpkin hour
Damn that slipper…
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word urisible
adj. such as to provoke laughter in a bear.
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word ursurp
You don't want an ursine list? Or a urisible one?
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word queue
Thank you :)
I did hear that with the early voting there was a limit to one voting location per electorate (right term?), hence long lines in that instance.
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word queue
Is this under-resourcing the result of a pessimistic miscalculation of the number of people who will actually turn out to vote?
Or is it stinginess? Or are there bureaucratic or practical impediments to providing more booths?
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word english reasearch paper
Ok, head over to queue – I need help (or rather illumination and insight).
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word lute
If you go back far enough, lute comes via Old French from the Arabic al-ud, and in fact there is a middle-eastern, lute-like instrument that's commonly spelled oud in Western countries, which is the same thing.
Whereas prelude gets back to præ (pre) + ludus (play), i.e. to play before. Præludium and præludere are the Latin words.
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word queue
Ok, frindley has to ask the kind of naive, embarrassing question that foreigners ask. Here goes: In and around all the US election news are posts and items that draw attention to what sounds to me like excessive waiting in line. I just saw a piece with instructions about what to bring, what to wear and what to do while waiting. Folding chairs are mentioned, not drinking too much water is advised. Is it really so bad that people are queuing 2, 4, even 12 hours to vote? What's the background for that? (I don't think I've ever had to queue for more than 10 minutes to vote, so this seems surreal.)
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the list ebaysalvageyard
@VanishedOne: I suspect the former. Check the profile: Alex Cos' twitter feeds lead to ebay items that are – surprise! – carved wooden baskets. His flickr stream (like Wordie, but without the words) features a handsome item of the same description. I fear he is indeed using Wordie to try and sell stuff.
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word turd deflectors
In these times of change, when schools are being increasingly stringent about their firewalls and are vainly attempting to enforce good reasearch sic habits on recalcitrant students (aka you little turds), it is necessary for all Wordies to equip themselves with a fine set of turd deflectors.
We recommend also the Side Skirts, to prevent serious cases of road rash when girls such as annie attempt to run under one's car.
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word zonesmithing
I second your objection!
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word when the revolution comes
Come now, be specific.
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the list joe-the-plumber
The truth about Joe the Plumber.
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word english reasearch paper
Did anyone notice that Bonnie actually listed quite a few words, a few of them vaguely interesting?
But she makes me sad: "…nobody really knows about this website…"
And concerned, because scholiosis is under her list ME ME ME. Does she in fact suffer from scoliosis? Or is she an inventive soul with some twisted aversion to scholarship?
Ultimately, I cannot completely dislike anyone who favorites the word mouse.
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word english reasearch paper
School originally meant leisure? Is that why I enjoyed it so much? Thank the Lord for the turds, else I might never have discovered this illuminating etymology.
@plethora: I'm with you. The bummer of it, I was awake till very late, but this was the point where I really did go to sleep!
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word lute
So true, so true. Love this quote.
A 8-course double-strung lute will have 15 strings (yeah, I know, the sums are off); archlutes, theorbos etc. will have more (over 20). And the gut strings don't hold their pitch so well and succumb to all sorts of variations in ambient temperature. So yes, a lutenist spends most of his or her time tuning.
This is how preluding was invented. A lutenist would prelude by improvising in the key of the proper piece they were about to play. The free-form improvisations were meant to disguise the fact that they were actually checking their tuning. Then everyone started doing it because preluding is just plain fun.
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word upholstered walls
See New York friendship.
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word new york friendship
I've just realised though that the lyrics I copied have a mistake. It's not upholstered walls at all but "the postered walls"! (Duly corrected in original comment)
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word new york friendship
Here's one link to Another Hundred People from Company by Stephen Sondheim.
It's on imeem and as far as I can tell you can listen to the whole song without needing to sign up. Google (song title + mp3) and iTunes will probably yield alternatives.
November 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word harp
Have you ever noticed how incredibly loud a concert harp is? People think of it as this sweet, angelic instrument, but just one of them can pluck away and be heard over 90+ other instruments in a symphony orchestra, including the brass. Impressive.
Another time (when it's not so late in the night), I'll share the story of the harp "format" wars that went on in Paris in the early 20th century. Exactly like HD-DVD/blu-ray.
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word vowel
Then you'd be hyperventilating, which might put you in a comma if done to excess.
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word crescendo v climax
More destinations for the peripatetic diminuendo:
G.P. (general pause)
pianissimo, pp
(or, if you're Tchaikovsky and a sadist, a pppppp for the contrabassoon – so difficult is this to play with any success that the note is often given to a bass clarinet)
nadir
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word u-ey
A U-turn – as in "chuck a u-ey"
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word chuck
Also useful in phrases such as:
chuck a sickie
chuck a u-ey
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word sickie
Alternatively, to chuck a sickie
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word chuck a sickie
See sickie.
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word sick vs ill
I agree, should I feel the urge to chuck a sickie – that is, to egrote – my pretext would always be that I am ill.
But when I'm ill, I find that I feel "really sick".
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word when the revolution comes
It seems my Wordie friends are uncomfortable with the idea that they might find themselves wielding limitless power! (Not that I don't find the idea of writing poetry, drinking and reading Rabelais very appealing.)
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word hcceren
I've always tended to think of Pig Latin as a verbal cipher, technically a transposition cipher. (Although it has an additive element too.)
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word when the revolution comes
When the revolution comes, frindley will also…
(see crescendo v climax)
What will you do?
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word crescendo v climax
When the revolution comes I'll personally shoot every journalist who has ever committed "rising to a crescendo" to print. They should know better. And if the journalist in question is a music journalist then I'll have an extra special fate ready for them, something too awful to contemplate.
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word icing vs frosting
Oh, don't get me started on this one. I begin to go completely nuts* when people start using the term fondant for something they then describe as "fluffy" and "whipped".
*Not angry nuts, just overwhelmed nuts
November 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word your outside is in and your inside is out
Do you think it's something along the lines of:
On mules we find two legs behind,
And two we find before.
We stand behind before we find,
What the two behind be for!
When we're behind the two behind,
We find what these be for —
So stand before the two behind,
Behind the two before!"
?
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word noh drama
*Presses palms together and makes deep bow from hips*
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word gaol v jail
But seriously, I'm sorry to see that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's online style guide for Radio National says:
gaol: current usage is jail, not gaol
Then again, who cares what a radio station (which deals in the spoken word) thinks? So I go look at The Penguin Working Words: An Australian Guide to Modern English Usage, and it says:
"The preferred Australian spelling is gaol, even though it has been known on many occasions to give rise to the typographical error 'goal'. Contrary to popular opinion, jail is not an Americanism but was used by Samuel Johnson and John Milton among others as a variant of gaol." emphasis mine
Well I feel better now.
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word gaol v jail
I like the perversity of gaol. And gaoler is a much more satisfying word than jailer. On the other hand, it's always been jailbird for me – perhaps that's an Americanism, not sure…
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word grey vs gray
Me too.
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word chained v fettered
Well, for a start, "fettered_bear" just wouldn't have the same ring to it.
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word cell phone v mobile phone
Is it my imagination, or is mobile gradually taking over from cell/cell phone in the States?
It's always been "mobile" in Australia. I used to have a landline answering machine message that went something like "Hello… you've reached me on my immobile phone, please leave a message."
Personally I like the German term: handy. As in, "I'll call you on the handy."
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word terror vs horror
What's interesting to me is that terrific is something quite good, while horrific is bad.
@yarb: bad fart - yes!!
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word noh drama
There's no drama like noh drama
Like no drama I know.
Acting very slowly is so thrilling
Wearing thick white makeup under lights
We don't rehearse, but if the gods are willing
The seats keep filling for many nights…
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word byron
Bears at Oxbridge
While lecturing at Oxford, geologist William Buckland kept a bear named Tiglath Pileser. (Buckland was a lunatic.) In 1847 he dressed "Tig" in a cap and gown and took him to the annual meeting of the British Association and to a garden party at the Botanic Gardens. "The bear sucked all our hands and was very caressing," remembered Charles Lyell. Eventually banished from Christ Church, Tig retired to Islip, where he terrorized the local sweetshop owner until he was sent to the Zoological Gardens.
Byron kept a bear in his chambers at Cambridge — because, he said, Trinity rules forbade dogs. "I had a great hatred of college rules, and contempt for academical honors." It's said he conducted it there in a stagecoach (as "Lord Byron and Mr. Bruin") to sit for a fellowship.
"There was, by the by, rather a witty satire founded on my bear," Byron later remembered. "A friend of Shelley's made an ourang-outang (Oran Hanton, Esq.) the hero of a novel ('Melincourt'), had him created a baronet, and returned for the borough of One Vote."
From the marvellous Futility Closet
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word lick into shape
See bear for possible origin of this phrase…
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word maleducato
I think I may have muttered it while out of range.
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word wynken, blynken and nod
Oh, my favourite too! Except I discovered it as a song not a poem. I used to sing it all the time, accompanying myself on the piano forte. Unfortunately none of the recordings on iTunes (try Winken as well as Wynken) seem to use the setting I learned. But there are all sorts of options, including one that is effectively a reading superimposed on Bach's Air on the G string.
November 2, 2008
frindley commented on the user frogapplause
Ostentatious night – beautiful!
November 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word multislacker vs multishirker
Well… perhaps polyester slacks bastard would be better. No, the required plural is inelegant.
November 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word multislacker vs multishirker
I prefer multishirker – it's so much more impressive to be multiple-y involved in something active like shirking than simply to be slack on multiple fronts.
November 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word fish vs fowl
Neither fish nor fowl, they say…
November 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word apple v orange
These must always be different so we can compare apples and oranges.
November 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word duck
Three men walked into a bar, the fourth one ducked.
November 1, 2008
frindley commented on the user stevencbarr
Welcome to Wordie! One suggestion: you may want to put comments relating to a specific word in the comments/citations area for the word itself rather than in the general comments area for the list. That way if one of us comes across the word outside your list we'll still see the background and definitions you've supplied.
November 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word help
See video for how to specify a particular point in a linked YouTube video.
November 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word video
How to link to a specific point in the Youtube video.
Basically just add this to the end of the video URL:
#t=XmYYs
Where X = the minute number and YY = the two digits for the seconds number.
November 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word maleducato
My mother would say: "And who brought you up?"
November 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word simip
I think she said she had a modelling gig.
bored to distraction.'>And it's been nearly 15 minutes of quiet now. Perhaps they're bored to distraction.
October 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word labanotation
I prefer Benesh notation myself. And the absolute prettiest form of dance notation is the one adopted by Feuillet at the end of the 18th century – unfortunately not useful for anything other than baroque dance.
October 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word chaconne
Bach. D minor. Solo violin. 15 minutes of heaven.
October 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word source card
I was wondering whether it shouldn't be Lynyrd. I guess it depends on who the inspiration is.
October 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word source card
tawft?!
October 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word simip
You know, it's been quiet for a good 3 minutes – I wonder if Mrs Slaton caught them?
October 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word semisomnia
My Friday in a nutshell.
October 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word source card
You're gonna have six kids? Wow.
October 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word source card
"firnedly" says if you're going to IM here you'd better work on your spelling.
October 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word simip
And source card! I really don't get it. There are more amusing ways to IM. Unless they're in a school that blocks all the usual methods, in which case one has to hand it to them for resourcefulness even if they're singularly unimaginative and petty.
October 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word community sponsorships
Just remember, whenever sponsoring a good cause we must always insist that the beneficiary make our logo bigger!
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the user friday
Cyrillic is such a beautiful alphabet. Definitely the alphabet of choice for the discerning spammer, although simip prefers Hebrew.
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word simip
Wordie alert! I think simip has taken up Russian and changed his/her name by deed poll as well as moving into the car business.
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word practicum
In regular English this means running the gauntlet of real students in the classroom in order to practise one's newly acquired teaching skills under the supervision and guidance of an experienced teacher-mentor.
(What's scary is the people who write such things as "The goal of the practicum experience…" claim to be educating teachers (i.e. communicators, among other things) and yet they are incapable of clear, regular expression themselves, instead resorting to weasel words of the worst kind!)
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word simip
This might not be as hilarious as mi-vox, which I have just now read for the first time, but it's still been very entertaining. However, I must go do some work before I hit the sack.
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word simip
Duly noted and screenshot taken of last vestige for amusement in perpetuity, or something.
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word simip
But go look at the list description again. Seems to have decided it wants to be a scientist now, instead of an Israeli IT company's spambot.
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word simip
Meanwhile, we have a problem. And it's currently sitting at No.2 on the first Google page for our new favourite project.
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word simip
I don't know about you, but Dr Goodword was more fun. At least he professed an interest in words…
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word simip
How careless, it seems to have provided the wrong URL. Genuinely interested visitors should go to SIMIP.
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word marathon of phony umbrage taking
This intolerance must stop! It is endangering our collective reputation!
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word new york friendship
Here's an excerpt from my favourite song that manages to evoke the spirit of New York (and a New York friendship) without mentioning it once:
Another hundred people just got off of the train
And came up through the ground,
While another hundred people just got off of the bus
And are looking around
At another hundred people who got off of the plane
And are looking at us
Who got off of the train
And the plane and the bus
Maybe yesterday.
It's a city of strangers,
Some come to work, some to play.
A city of strangers,
Some come to stare, some to stay.
And every day
The ones who stay
Can find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks,
By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks,
And they walk together past the postered walls with the crude remarks.
And they meet at parties through the friends of friends who they never know.
"Do I pick you up or do I meet you there or shall we let it go?"
"Did you get my message? 'Cause I looked in vain."
"Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn't rain?"
"Look, I'll call you in the morning or my service will explain."
And another hundred people just got off of the train.…
(That first verse is most effective if sung, or said, in one breath. It gives it a nice "freneticity".)
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word corpse vs cadaver
Sir Cadaveric, your phone is ringing.
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word bosenova
A very small, supernova-like explosion. (Thanks to lexicographer Erin McKean.)
But here's the funny part: I thought it was an informal word, possibly a madeupical playing on the famous Bose sound systems, which have made their name through the superior miniaturisation of loudspeakers. But no, it's a real scientific term and it derives its name from scientist Satyendra Nath Bose.
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word corpse vs cadaver
trivet is right: cadaver is the (mainly) medical term for corpse. Both words have Latin origins, so that's clearly not the reason for the doctors choosing "cadaver" over the other. Cadaver comes from cadere to fall, while corpse comes from corpus meaning body.
So perhaps the doctors want to make it clear that the body is not merely a body but a fallen (dead) one before they start hacking it about???
October 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word wrathful crackup
When you're browsing in an environment that is all about words, singing generally, and especially operatic singing, can be very off-putting – even to classical music lovers.
I personally prefer shops and restaurants with no music at all. And I'll avoid going into any shop that has music playing above the level of a musical "whisper", regardless of the style.
I was recently in a record shop where some very grand-sounding music from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition was being played at high volume. I basically couldn't concentrate and just wanted to get out of there – a shame since they were having a closing down sale and there was lots more I probably would have bought if I'd been able to concentrate sufficiently to decide to buy it!
October 29, 2008
frindley commented on the list why-can-t-people-pronounce-these-properly
We need verbage, of course!
And perhaps old-timers disease.
October 29, 2008
frindley commented on the word autant pisser dans un violon
See autant pisser dans un violin for the discussion.
October 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word autant pisser dans un violin
Of course, this is not as outrageous as it may seem. Urine may well have been involved in the manufacture of those marvellous old violins…
"Nagyvary began soaking chunks of spruce and maple in brews of preservative chemicals. He knew that some woodworkers soaked their lumber in solutions containing bovine dung and urine. So he put up a sign above a tub in a men's room in the biochemistry lab: "Please contribute generously to violin research."
(From the Guardian, 14/10/2000.)
October 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word bilby
Wise bilby. All the same, the photo accompanying the article was a fine one.
October 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word bilby
Hey bilby, do you read The Australian? Lovely article today: "Rescue helps bilbies beat extinction by a whisker", including a very strikingly composed photograph.
Then there's this bit: "Rabbits were thought to compete with marsupials for food and to deprive them of sheltering vegetation. Dr McRae said attempts to eradicate rabbits in the reserve had failed, and a decision was made to leave them be. Surprisingly, the bilbies are doing well and may even be controlling rabbit numbers by eating their young."
October 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word cacophony
I'd pronounce it ka-KO-fo-nee, with first syllable to rhyme with "cack" and a stress on the second syllable, which rhymes with "coffer".
Great word!
October 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word onomatopi*
Oh, I always thought it was a word whose circumference resembled the relationship of a circle's diameter to its sound.
October 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word passulation
Mmmm, chocolate coated ones… that would be chocopassulation.
October 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word verbunkos
But maybe this would!
October 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word raven
"The Raven" as a limerick
There once was a girl named Lenore
And a bird and a bust and a door
And a guy with depression
And a whole lot of questions
And the bird always says "Nevermore."
(from Famous Poems Rewritten as Limericks)
October 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word törpök
The kiddies in the pictures at the moment appear to be dressed up as Dalmatians.
October 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word musicology
Shorter Oxford: The branch of knowledge that deals with music as a subject of study rather than as a skill or performing art; esp. academic research in music.
I get very uncomfortable when people call me a musicologist. Perhaps I shouldn't: I have a musicology and performance degree, I write and speak about music for a living. But it's that "esp." that gets me every time. I'm not an academic (no wish to be) and I don't carry out original research or analytical study, so in my mind I'm not a musicologist. Problem is, what do I call myself then? Wordies to the rescue…?
(In Germany musicology is musikwissenschaft. The musicologist is in some way a "music scientist". This doesn't really help, though.)
October 25, 2008
frindley commented on the list ologies-ographies-onomies-c
musicology?
October 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word verbunkos
Hungarian recruiting dance.
October 25, 2008
frindley commented on the list dance-dance-revolution
How about verbunkos?
October 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word fuck
Thanks, I've fixed it now. Careless space after "href"…
October 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word tasmanian dodge
Proceed thus for the Tasmanian Dodge:
"Get your hands on a blank ballot, fill it out, and pay someone to cast it while smuggling out another blank, and you can vote as many times as you like without ever casting a ballot. (The dodge was eventually defeated by numbering or stamping the ballots, a system in place, in one form or another, in every American precinct today.)"
(From The New Yorker, Oct 13, 2008)
See Australian ballot
October 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word australian ballot
The New Yorker reports on the Aussies' gift to democracy.
"The reform that ended this unsettling state of affairs Election Day riots was imported from Australia, and was not achieved in the United States until the 1890s. The American adoption of the 'Australian ballot'—and the radical idea that governments should provide ballots—was hard fought."
"Victoria's Electoral Act of 1856 minutely detailed the conduct of elections, requiring that election officials print ballots and erect a booth or hire rooms, to be divided into compartments where voters could mark those ballots secretly, and barring anyone else from entering the polling place.… In 1877 Western Australia introduced the placement of an empty square next to a candidate's name, requiring voters to indicate their selections by marking an X in the box. Then there was a clever scam called the Tasmanian Dodge… The British Parliament adopted the Australian ballot in 1872. … In 1888 Massachusetts passed the nation's first statewide Australian-ballot law."
October 23, 2008
frindley commented on the list movies-ive-seen
Criticker also has a page and application on facebook.
October 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word tall poppy syndrome
In the sense of cutting down the tall poppies.
October 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word is no elitist
Elitism is good. Tall poppy syndrome is bad.
October 23, 2008
frindley commented on the user frindley
I think c_b wants to take care of cross-referencing for later on when we stumble across these words in isolation. No apology needed. (Was always fond of the surrey with the fringe on top myself.)
October 22, 2008
frindley commented on the word glibberig
Quick too. Positively glibberig!
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word glib
Or you can use a techie (GLib) reference, but interpret in the usual sense:
"Why o' why glib? Don't you know that glib abort()s when memory allocation fails?"
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the list great-character-names
No Becky Sharp yet?
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word glibberig
See glib
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word glib
Well, you made me go look it up and I discover Dutch origins…
1. ready and fluent, often thoughtlessly or insincerely so: glib speakers; a glib tongue.
2. easy, as action or manner. glibberig'>backformation from obsolete glibbery slippery, from Dutch glibberig
Would "glibbery slippery" be sufficient to help you remember?
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word bob's yer auntie
Normal people would say Bob's your uncle. Kind of like saying "there you have it" as in:
So once you have the cap screwed back on, it's ready to go and Bob's your uncle or auntie.
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the list words-and-phrases-i-picked-up-from-my-mother
Wonderful, wonderful!
I tend to use "Bob's yer auntie" myself, but that's just frindley perversity.
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word confluescence
Nice mouthfeel too.
But it does appear to have currency in scientific writing, if Google is any guide. And I quote this footnote:
"On 'confluescence'…when liquid containing solid matter in suspension gathers together and becomes stationary, the solid matter separates out and is deposited. He further suggests that the notion of underground confluescences of water, and in general of underground caverns, prominent in various aspects of ancient Greek physical theory, 'was a natural supposition for men living among limestone mountains'…and that the processes of filtration and confluescence reflect the use of sifting and panning in ancient metallurgy."
(Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for His Life, Writings, Thought, and Influence)
My Chambers Dictionary of Science and Technology (1971, a good year) includes the presumably related confluent: (Bot.) Said of two or more structures which, as they enlarge, grow together and unite.
Finally, there's always poetry:
"Puddles of confluescence…"
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word body search
A friend has recently returned from a journey to the US. Apparently at LAX there is a sign at customs which reads (and I think I've got this right):
"You may elect a private area* for your body search."
Can I choose the inside of my left elbow? Or my oxter?
*it may have been "private location"
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word tepidarium
You have reminded me of the body search.
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the list talk-like-frindley
Ah yes, requires a comment for itself…which I have now provided.
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word when the revolution comes
When the revolution comes, frindley will…
wipe all copies of PowerPoint from every PC on the planet.
What will you do?
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word not across that
See prod for citation.
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word improve anonymously
Well this one's simply perplexing. See prod for citation.
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word user experience
See prod for citation.
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word core competencies
See prod for citation.
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word prod
Ugh, ugh, ugh. Australian Macworld has published this travesty in an interview with a Microsoft Business Unit marketing manager:
"There are a lot of reasons behind that, and we expected that just because of the response to the beta version of the product. It also has a lot to do with the prod, which was a lot more Mac-ified. One of the things we really wanted to do in terms of launching the prod was looking at ways of enhancing it to provide a more simplified user experience."
Apparently saying "product" takes too long nowadays…
Other creepy, weasely things in this interview include:
"I'm not across that" (try: I don't know)
"…one thing we're doing is always listening to customer feedback to improve anonymously." (I'm not even sure that it's possible to improve anonymously…)
"While it's essentially a different prod across the platform, it's different because the usability is different." (huh?)
"It's called a View but it has a lot of functionality." (’cause most views are completely without function)
"This is one of the core competencies of the product…" (whimper)
"the OpenXML base file formats – which are a lot less susceptible to corrupting" (corruption perhaps?)
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word buttons
My mother kept hers in an old-fashioned handbag. The kind that had a shallow round woven straw base, with a simple suede drawstring bag attached to that.
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word photocopicus
Photocopicus: god of office machines
“Photocopicus, dammit! Photocopicus! He needs a sacrifice. Grab some paperclips and go to the storage closet in the copier room. We’ve got a small altar there. Bow your head, state your desires, and leave the paperclips as an offering.�?
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the user chained_bear
Still, we'd be right to suspect you. Only a very clever bear could aim for a girl's "left lip". (Looks like her upper lip to me, but hey…)
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word buckypaper
As a product name it doesn't really inspire confidence!
October 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word jean dimmock
orangery
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word mouli grater
Mouli (Moulinex?) was the dominant (or perhaps only) brand to make this particular style of grater, with the rotating cylinder, the cavity for the food and the pressing arm. Could be used for cheese, but more commonly used for other foods. Not so popular anymore, except in Europe.
Whereas in my neck of the woods the "cheese grater" was and remains a simpler thing, with no moving parts. More like these.
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word potato ricer
For crushing and grating, as opposed to mushing and milling, there was always the mouli grater.
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word mouli grater
My mother had a vintage one. I would use it to crush the sugared biscuits (no, not that kind of biscuit, the sweet, brittle kind) when she made cheesecake.
Actually, I'm sure she still has it…
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word umbrage
Oh happy, I think. Better to get people using a word. Spelling is easily fixed; even Microsoft can do it. Although apparently not South Australian(?) sub-editors.
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word scungies
Type of woman's full brief underpants worn whilst playing sport (aka bum freezers), or close-fitting swimming trunks. (Also a brand-name for the sports brief kind.)
The scungies.com website explains. Or not.
Scungy, singular, has a quite different meaning, more like dirty, unpleasant, gross, sordid even.
Oh, what would Dr Goodword make of all this?
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word scrungy
Makes me think of scungies.
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word egg coddler
There is even a website devoted to the study of egg coddlers.
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word egg cuber
Seems like a lot of trouble for…? The egg coddler, on the other hand, can be a thing of beauty. My mother has a lovely porcelain pair, and every so often we would have coddled eggs.
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word read other wordies' private notes
Someone remove Pro's connection to teh interwebs! He's snooping again!
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word manscape
Is it necessarily about beards? Or is it about below-the-belt grooming. I wonder…
Drunk guy #1: Alright, just saying, if all of us and our friends were chicks, who would get a boob job?
Drunk guy #2: Oh, definitely Mike*. You know, I would definitely say him. He's pretty vain.
two innings and many beers later
Drunk guy #1: Alright, if we all were chicks, who'd be clean shaven?
Drunk guy #3: It'd be Steve*. I mean, he already manscapes!
From Overheard in New York
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word umbrage
Is it all post-Harry Potter, or did you observe the misspelling before that thoroughly odious woman arrived on the scene? (Miss Umbridge, that is, not Ms Rowling.)
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word umbrage
"Rarely has it been thought that the way to show you deserve to be the most powerful person on earth is to demonstrate you're also the touchiest. This presidential campaign has been an offense fest. From the indignation over a fashion writer's observation about Hillary Clinton's cleavage, to the outraged response to the infamous Obama New Yorker cover, to the histrionics over "lipstick on a pig," taking offense has been a political leitmotif. Slate's John Dickerson observed that umbrage is this year's hottest campaign tactic. And we can assume it will reach an operatic crescendo in these final weeks before Election Day."
Emily Yoffe in Slate
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word mallemaroking
Oh, gangerh and other dear friends, please please have a heart for us Wordies who use Wordie on our mobile phones when out and about. There is nothing more disheartening than to see that the "last 20 comments" are restricted to one word and, in essence, one comment.
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word verbiage
For Sarah Palin's particular usage, see verbage.
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word verbage
The most revealing moment happened earlier, when Palin was asked about Obama's attack on McCain's claim that the fundamentals of the economy are sound. "Well," Palin said, "it was an unfair attack on the verbage that Senator McCain chose to use, because the fundamentals, as he was having to explain afterwards, he means our workforce, he means the ingenuity of the American people. And of course that is strong, and that is the foundation of our economy. So that was an unfair attack there, again, based on verbage that John McCain used." This is certainly doing rather more than mere talking, and what is being done is the coinage of "verbage." It would be hard to find a better example of the Republican disdain for words than that remarkable term, so close to garbage, so far from language.
From "A Critic's Notebook: Verbage: The Republican war on words" by James Wood
The New Yorker, October 13, 2008
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word witches' knickers
Witches britches equals primitive sports wear in my mind.
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word witches britches
Baggy bloomers as I recall. Worn by girls under their gym tunics in the days before lycra or jersey gym pants (the latter known as bum freezers at my school).
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word tinker's damn
Tinker's cuss in my neck of the woods too. That's if you hear it at all…
October 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word the dog's dinner
In Australia you'll often hear the phrase blended with "done like a dinner" to give "done like a dog's dinner" in the sense of being completely screwed.
Which is probably why if we want the ostentatious sense then we're more likely to say "done up like a dog's dinner".
"Dog's dinner" on its own means a complete mess, i.e. much the same meaning as dog's breakfast. Still fits with the idea of being dressed extravagantly since that use is pejorative.
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word dog's breakfast
Whereas its my term for a complete mess of things, especially in connection with graphic design that lacks a clear aesthetic and visual focus, as in "That new poster concept looks like a dog's breakfast."
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word brioche
Apparently what Marie Antoinette really said was "Let them eat brioche."
Or then again, perhaps not.
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word jean dimmock
paradiddle
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word splayd
Where to start? Just buy a set, I say.
The name combines "spoon" and "blade" (its genuine cutting ability making it superior to the spork); it has a decent set of tines as well. The Powerhouse Museum's site gives a good run down.
See also knork and Nelson fork.
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word nelson fork
Beautiful. Puts the spork and even the world-changing splayd to shame.
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word qantas
Originally "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services", now just Qantas, in the way that CSR no longer stands for "Colonial Sugar Refining Co."
Aka the flying kangaroo, although nowadays it's effectively lost its wings.
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the list qs-with-no-us
Useful crib for Scrabble!
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word underpants
I have knickers! As do 29 other Wordies. Me, I prefer pyjamas. Silk.
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word jaywalker
“an alleged human being who crosses the street at other points than the regular crossings�?
(Fort Wayne newspaper report from 1913) WWW
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word stimthought
These are the good old days, just you wait and see.
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word muck up day
An Aussie rite of passage (or milestone®©) involving pranks and other fun stuff perpetrated by graduating high school students. (According to wikipedia the term has spread to the UK on the back of such cultural icons as Neighbours and Home and Away. This alone strikes more fear into my heart than the average Muck Up Day.)
It's officially banned nowadays, owing to the practice degenerating into rampant vandalism on the part of less imaginative cohorts. In Western Australia they tried to sanitise it by renaming it "Activity Day" – now that's just lame!!
I recall (about 30 years ago now) my big sister spending a whole evening drawing red hearts on a roll of toilet paper, as did many others. Apparently a teacher's car was wrapped in this. I'm not willing to tell you what my school got up to. We were very nerdy.
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the list the-end-is-nigh
No MUD2008? (Muck Up Day, that is.)
October 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word jean dimmock
riveting
October 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word fuck
I am reminded of the "Songs of Praise" episode of The Vicar of Dibley. Alice has the Bible reading and is becoming increasingly confused by the descending or "long s" common in ye olde worlde printing.
ALICE: Ye are the falt of the earth, and fainted. Sainted. Thou shalt feel…seal your endeavours until ye fit on his right hand. Therefore fight the good fight for his…fake, and he shall be thy f…
VICAR: Succour. "And he shall be thy succour," thank you Alice!
You really have to watch it, the scene starts around 6:35 on this clip.
(Incidentally, Alice's reading has nothing with Song of Solomon 6:2 to do. It's more like a portmanteau Bible verse.)
October 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word triantiwontigongolope
There's a very funny insect that you do not often spy,
And it isn't quite a spider, and it isn't quite a fly;
It is something like a beetle, and a little like a bee,
But nothing like a wooly grub that climbs upon a tree.
Its name is quite a hard one, but you'll learn it soon, I hope.
So try:
Tri-
Tri-anti-wonti-
Triantiwontigongolope.
It lives on weeds and wattle-gum, and has a funny face;
Its appetite is hearty, and its manners a disgrace.
When first you come upon it, it will give you quite a scare,
But when you look for it again, you find it isn't there.
And unless you call it softly it will stay away and mope.
So try:
Tri-
Tri-anti-wonti-
Triantiwontigongolope.
It trembles if you tickle it or tread upon its toes;
It is not an early riser, but it has a snubbish nose.
If you snear at it, or scold it, it will scuttle off in shame,
But it purrs and purrs quite proudly if you call it by its name,
And offer it some sandwiches of sealing-wax and soap.
So try:
Tri-
Tri-anti-wonti-
Triantiwontigongolope.
But of course you haven't seen it; and I truthfully confess
That I haven't seen it either, and I don't know its address.
For there isn't such an insect, though there really might have been
If the trees and grass were purple, and the sky was bottle green.
It's just a little joke of mine, which you'll forgive, I hope.
Oh, try!
Tri-
Tri-anti-wonti-
Triantiwontigongolope.
C.J. Dennis (Australian poet, 1876–1938)
October 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word panmnesia
Australian poetry to the rescue!
"Its name is quite a hard one, but you'll learn it soon, I hope.
So try:
Tri-
Tri-anti-wonti-
Triantiwontigongolope."
(C.J. Dennis)
October 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word suck
Me too. My most common use of the word (other than the negative "that sucks") is when talking about my favourite brand of dustbuster, which not only has an amazing battery life but also "plenty of suck".
October 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word fur rain
When I was very young this was my name for a kind of rain experienced quite frequently in Melbourne (and also on occasion in Sydney). It is very soft, almost misty, with fine droplets, so that it feels like the caressing of fur against your cheeks. Lovely.
October 17, 2008
frindley commented on the list those-aren-t-cats-and-dogs
I'd like to propose fur rain as being especially appropriate for this list.
October 17, 2008
frindley commented on the list words-descriptive-of-the-colour-of-the-sea
What's the deal with theatre and theater in the US? That's one pair where both options seem to have a decent presence. (Say, if you check a national directory of theatre companies and venues.)
October 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word mallemaroking
I think we could revive this for contemporary urban usage. Or is there an existing word for "carousing of shoppers in carpark-bound malls"?
October 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word gobo
A theatrical lighting term: "a template or pattern cut into a circular plate used to create patterns of projected light. The name may be derived from go between, or from Goes Before Optics. Go between refers to its position between the lamp and the lens. Another origin may be: Graphical optical blackout."
But also (and this was something I didn't know): "a slang term used by sound recording engineers to refer to a movable acoustic isolation panel…an acoustics gobo is parallel in use to a photography gobo, which is used to block direct light sources, and also shares its name with the stage lighting gobo."
October 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word pendant
Ah. Like the knob on a brioche. That's a kind of pendant.
October 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word shoeter
A very special kind of shoe.
"At the High Heels Walking Workshop, I wore what I call my 20-minute "shoeters" – shoes that I can stand for 20 minutes before I want to shoot myself. I lasted a good 40 minutes. With practice, I bet I could get to a really quick party."
Belinda Luscombe, "Heeling Power"
(Time, 13 Oct 2008)
October 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word rehome
(verb) the act of finding a new home for an abandoned or otherwise unwanted pet, say, a kitten. "The kittens were so cute that all of them were rehomed within an hour of arriving." (This, from my local paper – what DO they teach them in sub-editor school?)
October 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word poodle-faker
Another source i found specified older women and implied something along the lines of a gigolo.
October 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word rsvp
I get all itchy when I see invitations that say: "Please RSVP by…" Not so pleasing.
October 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word volley
Cute. I've never seen that. Very occasionally I've seen/used RSVP at the end of a message. Usually only in more formal situations where a reply is required.
October 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word more languages
�?���?�?
October 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word poodle-faker
I've heard the same theory that c_b outlined.
Why cut? I think it's something to do with the swimming-when-hunting again. Either their naturally thick, curly coats would become waterlogged and slow them down and/or when wet they wouldn't dry quickly enough and then they'd catch cold. Something along those lines.
So the solution was to trim most of the coat close to the skin except in those locations where it was essential for keeping the dog warm and healthy.
October 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word poodle-faker
Hmm. Perhaps something to do with the haircut. It's sad that a hunting breed has basically become a lapdog in the popular imagination.
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word airpod
Working in a pod is no fun at all, I can tell you!
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word interestingnessfulness
Hey, I might meet some of my deadlines and get some proper sleep with this one!
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the list names-for-women
Poodle, apparently (an obsolent slang term).
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word bimbo
My grandmother called her dog Bimbo. It was so embarrassing when we had to mind him for her – standing at the back door calling, "Bim-bo! Bim-bo!"
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word cupcake terrorism
And beware the cupmudgeon.
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word cupcake terrorism
I've witnessed, nay, perpetrated, a better plan: stand around in a public place with a large tray of miniature cupcakes (aka babycakes, just a mouthful each). It's absolutely terrifying.
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word sloane ranger
Now this is a term I haven't heard in a long time.
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the user Prolagus
We must add voluntary Wordie rationing to Wordie PRO!
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word poodle-faker
One source I found said that poodle was once a slang term for a woman.
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word maieutic
Maieutic is one of my favourite obscure words. It means pertaining to intellectual midwifery and describes as no other word does a phenomenon that happens more often than you might think. It is very rewarding when you can match the moment to the word.
(Martin Ackland, London)
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word kakistocracy
Word: kakistocracy. Definition: The government of a state by the worst citizens. A very useful word!
(Helen Collins, London, England)
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word frippet
Frippet (noun) – A flighty young woman prone to showing off. Could be used for the vast majority of contestants on Big Brother.
(Charley, Bristol)
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word urt
One of my favourite words is urt. Urt is almost onomatopoeic, since an urt is a "leftover bit".
(Eric McConnachie, Clear Lake, Ontario, CANADA)
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word ischial callosities
Ischial callosities is a great description, because of its precision. It refers to the leather-like pads on a monkey's bum.
(Paul Edward Hughes, Langley, Canada)
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word zareba
Zareba – a protective hedge around a village or camp, particularly in the Sudan. Used to great effect by PG Wodehouse in, for example, The Clicking Of Cuthbert, with his description of a Russian novelist: "Vladimir Brusiloff had permitted his face to become almost entirely concealed behind a dense zareba of hair."
(Peter Skinner, Morpeth, UK)
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word scrimshanker
Scrimshanker - one who accepts neither responsibility nor work.
(Maurice De Ville, Chesterfield)
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word spanghew
Spanghew – to cause (esp. a toad or frog) to fly into the air off the end of a stick. (In northern and Scottish use.) Why? Well, all one has to do is imagine the myriad situations in which one might use this word.
(Michael Everson, Ireland)
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word mallemaroking
Mallemaroking - the carousing of seamen in icebound ships. A wonderfully useful word! How many icebound ships do we all know?
(Sue H, Tiverton)
frindley thinks c_b may be able to give this word a home as well…
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word omphaloskepsis
Omphaloskepsis (self-absorbed, navel-gazing). I'm not really a selfish person, but I do occasionally need someone to remind me to look up from my navel. Plus, things that have to do with belly-buttons are generally pretty fun.
(Anise Brock, San Francisco, USA)
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word poodle-faker
Poodle-faker – a young man too much given to taking tea with ladies.
(Jane, Pembroke)
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word cricket
And there is cricketing too.
Perhaps it is the case that the verb is simply never used in its basic form "to cricket". (Unless you count "to cricket the neck in an attempt to see opera surtitles from the cheap seat in the front row of the stalls".)
October 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word self-refresh
Be afraid. Be very afraid. With self-refresh the Wordie PRO! user can be passively addicted with no outward sign of frenetic delirium.
October 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word midnight
Exactly how does one find oneself conversing with bots?
October 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word cricket
The definitions claim that "cricket" can be a verb. I have never heard anyone use cricket that way, and I live in a land where the game (noun) reigns supreme!
There is also the idiom: "It's just not cricket." (That's unfair. Bad sportsmanship.)
October 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word labio-dental voiced fricative
There is now a t-shirt.
October 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word kern
K E RN
UR doin it wrong
October 14, 2008
frindley commented on the list a-few-of-my-favorite-things-2
This is the closest that I could find in a quick search. It gives the idea, but the bit I remember has less "noise" in the form of background music, speech etc. (Or perhaps it just works better on a big screen in a cinema.) Starts at 5:45 on this clip.
Wait. The beginning of this clip is more like it. Although youtube does not in any way do justice to the sensual effect.
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word your words, literally
Perhaps. But developing the habit of thinking before saying "I can't" wasn't such a bad thing. Ultimately she was trying to cultivate in us the mindset of possibility and giving things a go, and it worked.
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the list a-few-of-my-favorite-things-2
From here it appears that c_b has made 24 misspellings for: "the sound of a quill pen scratching on vellum accompanied by the sight of a hand scribing an elegant 16th-century Italic script as shown for a few truly orgasmic moments in Greenaway's film Prospero's Books"
** breathes in **
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word necrotizing fasciitis
Eeeuw.
** quickly clicks (close) on the box that displays pictures **
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the list frindley-s-ark
*** blushes, profusely ***
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word your words, literally
Years ago my ballet teacher took ownership of can't. Every time one of us said "I can't" we had to put 20 cents in the fundraising moneybox for the Guide Dog Association. She raised a fair bit of money that way. We must have been real wimps.
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word shavian
Observe this man: George Bernard Shaw.
His beard is long! It scrapes the floor!
It makes him look quite shrewd and grave -
(A Shavian, he never shaved.)
Though Fabian, he told no fables,
But told the truth whenever able.
A noted modern dramatist,
And famous epigrammatist,
He'd love to epi- me or you.
I'd like to epigram him too:
I can't. Alas! He is quite dead!
This is an epitaph instead.
A poem posted by Tim on Will Type for Food
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word worries
No worries, mate.
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word connexion
"The Enigma I will not explain – its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the connexion between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ’goes’, but is not played…"
Edward Elgar in the program note for the first performance of the Enigma Variations
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word connexion
Always makes me think of Jane Austen.
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the list frindley-s-ark
The best I can explain it is this: The list is literally an ark – the place where I list words of interest that are in danger of otherwise escaping me because they don't fit in a thematic list (think "Noah's ark") and the place where I list words I especially treasure that also don't really fit anywhere else (more like ark as in "ark of the covenant"). Often when I frame a word and then it turns out no one has listed it yet it goes in the ark, unless I have an existing list that fits better.
Oh, and as I suggest in my list description, it's a play on what happened to Keneally's book when it was turned into a film. The novel's original title was "Schindler's Ark", but it became, for the movies, "Schindler's List". So to the extent that my very first list was inevitably going to be called "frindley's list" everyone has a list like that, right? I thought it would be fun to reverse the process and call it "frindley's ark" instead.
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word coöperation
There is a certain logic to this style, which I seem to see only in venerable New York publications. After all, there's no doubt that the two vowels form part of different syllables, and it's nicer than "co-operation".
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word poppet
If not British/Aussie then you have to be Arthur Miller.
The Crucible was the first and as far as I can recall the only time I've ever encountered this word in print/literature, and then in its "technical" sense. Although it was long familiar to me as a term of endearment for little girls here in Australia.
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word atm
In my neck of the woods we get gently stuck into people for using the redundant term "ATM machine" – in fact it even formed the basis for one bank's television ads a few years ago.
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word cash machine
Magic Money Machine is my preferred term – not that there's anything magic about the things.
October 13, 2008
frindley commented on the word llllorenzo
The one-l lama, he's a priest,
The two-l llama, he's a beast,
And I will bet a silk pyjama
There isn't any three-l lllama.
But the four-l llllama, as I was saying to Otis,
Is waiting patiently for you to notice.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word svetlana's breath
In a discussion about celebrity perfumes it transpires that "Svetlana Stalin's Svetlana's Breath, was regrettably discontinued soon after her father's death in 1953, and so is ineligible for scrutiny here."
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word 401,000
An Australian newspaper – which shall remain nameless since it has amended the online version, and in any case you can read all about it in another Australian newspaper – reported Mr Sarah Palin as having a retirement account of US$401,000.
Methinks the subeditor had never heard of a 401(k).
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word jean dimmock
Passepied
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word fug
Then there's pestilential fug. That's no euphemism.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word pestilential fug
That is, pestilential fug. Two great words, one great phrase!
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word purulent
Love this word, despite its icky definition and tendency to trip the tongue. See quick for Roger Pearson's wonderful use of it.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word quick
Roger Pearson describes the "pestilential fug" of Paris at the end of the 17th century in Voltaire Almighty: A life in pursuit of freedom:
"…churches with their rotting dead and hospitals with their purulent quick…"
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the list lets-get-back-to-our-enraged-sheep-grandmas-in-the-nettles-again
From north-east China: "Silk trousers with corn in the belly" (outward or superficial prosperity cloaking poverty). Courtesy World Wide Words.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word fensterbunk
Daniel from the Toxic Custard Guide to Australia reports that ‘for some years, his sister has been promoting use of the word "fensterbunk" for the bit of a car between the back seats and the windows. This is a misheard version of the Dutch word "vensterbank", meaning "window sill". There is an English term for this: "rear parcel shelf", but this is not a good thing to call it, because anybody with the remotest idea about car safety will tell you it's a bloody stupid place to put parcels.’
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word lol
Now this is cool: in Dutch "lol" means fun or lark(s). (And lol maken means to have fun.)
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word boofy
Slang, with two definitions:
1. Buffed, brawny (as in "boofy bloke")
2. Bouffant (as in "big, boofy hair", or "big, boofy sleeve" for puffed sleeves)
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word bloke
Aussie too.
The Sentimental Bloke was a verse novel by poet C.J. Dennis (1876–1938), subsequently turned into a film in 1919 and now regarded as "one of the greatest silent films Australia every produced". But over time the complete film was lost and only shortened versions survived. That is, until a researcher pottering around in an American film archive found original reels catalogued as "The Sentimental Blonde". It had been decided that "bloke" was a misprint!
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word zeugma
I always thought that fruit flies prefer an orange.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word removalist
Usually used in the plural: "I have to finish packing all my books in boxes before the removalists come."
Known in North America as movers, removalists are the boofy blokes with the truck who help you move house.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word nightingale
Pronunciation survey – Do you say:
1. Nigh-ting-gale
2. Nigh-tin-gale
?
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word farthingale
Takes the form of a coarse linen underskirt stretched over iron wire to support the skirts. Also known as a vertugardin or in Spain as a guard-infanta
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word martingale
Martingale breeches: breeches held to belt with buttons and points, having a movable panel between legs. (Renaissance)
Makes me think of farthingale.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word martingale
In fencing: a strap attached to the sword handle to prevent a sword from being dropped if disarmed.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the list a-selective-mediaval-bestiary
I like that it includes the illustrations.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word asp
The asp is a serpent that avoids the enchantment of music by pressing one ear against the ground and plugging the other ear with its tail. In some versions the asp guards a tree that drips balm; to get the balm men must first put the asp to sleep by playing or singing to it. Another version holds that the asp has a precious stone called a carbuncle in its head, and the enchanter must say certain words to the asp to obtain the stone.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word basilisk
Latin name: Regulus
Other names: Baselicoc, Basiliscus, Cocatris, Cockatrice, Kokatris, Sibilus
Its odor, voice and even look can kill.
The basilisk is usually described as a crested snake, and sometimes as a cock with a snake's tail. It is called the king (regulus) of the serpents because its Greek name basiliscus means "little king"; its odor is said to kill snakes. Fire coming from the basilisk's mouth kills birds, and its glance will kill a man. It can kill by hissing, which is why it is also called the sibilus. Like the scorpion it likes dry places; its bite causes the victim to become hydrophobic. A basilisk is hatched from a cock's egg, a rare occurence. Only the weasel can kill a basilisk.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word weasel
The weasel is a dirty animal that must not be eaten. It conceives at the mouth and gives birth through the ear (though some say it is the other way around). If the birth takes place through the right ear, the offspring will be male; if it is through the left ear, a female will be born…
The weasel is the enemy of the basilisk and is the only animal that can kill one.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word hedgehog
The hedgehog has the appearance of a young pig, but is entirely covered with sharp spines or quills, which protect it from danger. When it is time for the harvest, the hedgehog goes into a vineyard, and climbing up a vine, shakes the grapes off onto the ground. It then rolls around on the fallen grapes to spear them with its quills, so it can carry the fruit home to feed its young. (Some say that the fruit the hedgehog carries away is the apple or fig.)
(From The Medieval Bestiary)
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word cinnamologus
The cinnamalogus is a bird that lives in Arabia. It builds its nest using the fruit of the cinnamon tree, which men value greatly. The men who want to cinnamon cannot climb the tree to reach the nest, because the nest is too high and the tree branches too delicate, so they throw lead balls to knock down the cinnamon. Cinnamon obtained from the nest of this bird is the most valuable of all.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word bonnacon
The bonnacon is a beast with a head like a bull, but with horns that curl in towards each other. Because these horns are useless for defense, the bonnacon has another weapon. When pursued, the beast expels its dung which travels a great distance (as much as two acres), and burns anything it touches.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word bear
Bears give birth in the winter. The bear cub is born as a shapeless and eyeless lump of flesh, which the mother bear shapes into its proper form by licking it (the origin of the expression "to lick into shape"). The cub is born head first, making its head weak and its arms and legs strong, allowing bears to stand upright. Bears do not mate like other animals; like humans they embrace each other when they copulate. Their desire is aroused in winter. The males do not touch the pregnant females, and even when they share the same lair at the time of birth, they lie separated by a trench. When in their fourteen day period of hibernation, bears are so soundly asleep that not even wounds can wake them. Bears eat honey, but can only safely eat the apples of the mandrake if they also eat ants. Bears fight bulls by holding their horns and attacking their sensitive noses. If injured, a bear can heal itself by touching the herb phlome or mullein. The fiercest bears are found in Numibia.
(From The Medieval Bestiary)
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word ant-lion
There are two interpretations of what an ant-lion is. In one version, the ant-lion is so called because it is the "lion of ants," a large ant or small animal that hides in the dust and kills ants.
In the other version, it is a beast that is the result of a mating between a lion and an ant. ow It has the face of a lion and and the body of an ant, with each part having its appropriate nature. Because the lion part will only eat meat and the ant part can only digest grain, the ant-lion starves.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word alerion
The alerion is a bird like an eagle; it is lord over all other birds. It is the color of fire, is larger than an eagle, and its wings are as sharp as a razor. The is only one pair in the world. When she is sixty years old, the female lays two eggs, which take sixty days to hatch. When the young are born, the parents, accompanied by a retinue of other birds, fly to the sea, plunge in, and drown. The other birds return to the nest to care for the young alerion until they are old enough to fly.
This tale is told in the Bestiaire of Pierre de Beauvais; a similar tale is found in the letter of Prester John on the marvels of the east.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word barnacle goose
In the Mediæval Bestiary:
"Barnacle geese come from trees that grow over water. These trees produce birds that look like small geese; the young birds hang from their beaks from the trees. When the birds are mature enough, they fall from the trees; any that fall into the water float and are safe, but those that fall on land die."
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word far east
It amuses me as an Australian how, when visiting London-based artists agents and managers, I would arrive to see that they had their "Far East" file ready on the desk. I've never thought of Australia as being part of the Far East, but I guess to them it is.
October 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word loverly
Or just a Cockney pronunciation of lovely, as in "Wouldn't it be luvverly?"
October 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word shepherd's pie
TODD: What is that?
MRS LOVETT: It's fop.
Finest in the shop.
Or we have some shepherd's pie peppered
With actual shepherd
On top.
And I've just begun
Here's a politician – so oily
It's served with a doily –
Have one?
TODD: Put it on a bun.
Well, you never know if it's going to run.
MRS LOVETT: Try the friar.
Fried, it's drier.
TODD: No, the clergy is really
Too coarse and too mealy.
MRS LOVETT: Then actor –
It's compacter.
TODD: Yes, and always arrived overdone…
Now Stephen Sondheim's a man who belongs on Wordie – what a lyricist – such internal rhyming – oh wait, I'm going to swoon – pass me a pie!
(Angela Lansbury and George Hearn sing the full song on YouTube. Or if you prefer, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter from Tim Burton's film.)
October 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word spiny anteater
Common name for the echidna.
October 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word echidna
Two tails?! That's nothing. The male echidna has, they tell me, a four-headed penis. Even the Greeks didn't think of that.
And yes, a "damn cute little spiky critter" is by far the best definition.
October 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word puggle
Young of the echidna or spiny anteater.
October 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word poking
…handschuhschneeballwerfen…
October 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word handschuhschneeballwerfer
Avoiding-compound-noun-onslaught-ducker!
October 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word sans-culottes
Oh, I think it's a wonderful word!
October 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word knickers
Undies!
October 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word sans-eulotte
Interesting. As I understood it, the word also referred to women at the time of the French Revolution, who were often obliged to go without knickers under their dresses.
October 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word ha ha
Don't fall in!
October 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word fruitcake
It's more complicated than that. At least in the frindley household, you have to take it down off the top of the pantry cupboard every three months or so and dowse it in brandy. Then wrap it back up in the heavy brown-paper wrapping and return it to the top of the cupboard. Then after about 12 to 18 months of that you have the most wonderful, wonderful creation, ready to be covered in a thin layer of marzipan, followed by two layers of delicately tinted fondant icing, and finally decorated with elegant swirling curlicues of royal icing in a slightly paler shade. Modelled fondant flowers are optional. Personally, I think my best cake of all was the one surmounted by a fondant muddleheaded wombat, made for my sister's birthday.
October 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word opera
When I taught music in Australian high schools for a time (1994–95) my students tended to refer to all classical music as "opera".
I found this fascinating and probed numerous individual students in an attempt to find out why, but never really reached a satisfying conclusion.
October 7, 2008
frindley commented on the list wordie-s-first-s-half-s-million
Alas, unique words are way behind: 182,669.
October 7, 2008
frindley commented on the word clap
The "common venereal disease" definition has led to the idiom "a case of the clap". This has in turn led to the humorous usage referring to unbidden or "inappropriate" applause in the middle of a live classical performance, e.g. "The audience had a case of the clap tonight."
(Disclaimer: I am not against applause between movements at concerts, but there are certainly times when it's ill-judged.)
October 7, 2008
frindley commented on the word xee
Xee is a convenient software of viewing your image and to browse quickly. It is designed to be a powerful tool to view image and management. Besides, it is sometimes necessary to use more than a program to view different types of pictures. To view your pictures, what of more troublesome than to see the slowness of scrolling.
October 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word jean dimmock
Interrogate?
October 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word private room
We have private rooms so you can sit by yourself.
(New Yorker cartoon)
October 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word acclimate
An Aussie would say acclimatize.
October 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word orientated
I'm Australian (Sydney born and bred) and I use orient/oriented and, of course, disoriented. But I certainly do hear, in Australia, usage such as: "I need to orientate myself" and even "I felt disorientated", which always makes me twitch a bit.
When I lived in America (eastern edge of the Midwest) I think I heard "orientated" at least as frequently as "oriented".
My Shorter OED says that orientate is most likely a 19th-century back-formation from orientation and refers the reader to orient.
And isn't it a wonderful word, with that idea of facing east, and the specific meaning coming from church architecture? (St Andrews Anglican Cathedral in Sydney has only just recently reoriented its altar to the eastern end of the building after moving it at some point in its history to avoid seeming popish.)
PS. This discussion has made me think of acclimate vs acclimatize, the former being almost exclusively US, the latter Australian/British.
October 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word bunbury
Bunbury makes his first appearance:
ALGERNON. Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don’t try it. You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.
JACK. What on earth do you mean?
ALGERNON. You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn’t for Bunbury’s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn’t be able to dine with you at Willis’s to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
October 4, 2008
frindley commented on the list bywords
I propose Bunbury from Oscar Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest:
ALGERNON. Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don’t try it. You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.
JACK. What on earth do you mean?
ALGERNON. You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn’t for Bunbury’s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn’t be able to dine with you at Willis’s to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.
October 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word emu parade
The picking up of litter from an area, usually by an organised group of people, often as a school punishment.
From the Australian Word Map.
October 4, 2008
frindley commented on the user pterodactyl
The Macquarie Dictionary sponsored Australian Word Map is a fascinating attempt at using a kind of crowdsourcing to capture the diversity and intricacies of Australian regionalisms.
October 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word criss-cross applesauce
Actually, there's a similar principle behind serving duck with orange. I have read that it is necessary because the duck eats its own faeces, which is a horrible thought that not even copious amounts of orange will dispel.
October 4, 2008
frindley commented on the user pterodactyl
Just for inspiration, Erin McKean gives a very entertaining presentation about dictionaries on TED.
And my favourite dictionary story of all time appears in Andrew Clements' Frindle (no, not named after me, alas).
I personally love the stories behind words and the ways they are used. So dictionaries that are "just" definitions are always less interesting to me than the ones with etymologies and historical usage.
October 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word fairy godmother
Shuffles Wordie PRO! user off to bed when said user stays up using Wordie past pumpkin hour.
October 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word pedant's corner
Or perhaps it was pedants' corner? Or pedants corner? Or ped'ants corner? Or my favourite misspelling: pendants corner. I forget now.
October 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word nice
I prefer to make a nice distinction.
October 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word nice distinction
Pretty much the only way nowadays that you can use nice in its older sense.
October 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word fallaciloquence
I think the linked picture is trying to say that you can recognise a liar when he begins to pick his nose.
October 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word pronunciation filter
Will detect your preferred pronunciation and filter comments accordingly. Can detect more than 500 varieties of spoken English, including true Ocker, fake Ocker, totally over-the-top you-can't-possibly-understand-us-mate-gday Ocker, non-standard received, substandard received, ABC broadcaster and volunteer broadcaster trying too hard to pronounce foreign classical composer names authentically.
October 3, 2008
frindley commented on the list london-underground-stations
I especially like the RSC's theatrical take on things. Detail here.
October 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word queer
In isolation, I think strange before I think gay. But how often does one encounter words in genuine isolation? Almost never. And to that end, nearly all situations in which I hear/read the word queer nowadays are referring to homosexuality.
October 2, 2008
frindley commented on the list london-underground-stations
That's why I always get lost in the New York subway, but have never gotten lost on the Underground, not even the first time I ventured into it. And while I'm at it, the person who devised the Underground map is a genius. Absolute genius!
October 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word nibling
Yes, and an uncle too.
October 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word criss-cross applesauce
I don't think there's anything offensive about it all. But for someone who was brought up with "sitting cross-legged" and encounters the term for the first time it does seem unbearably cutesy and a bit juvenile. And you could certainly say cute and juvenile is fine for kids, who are the people who sit this way the most. But I like to take a long view with language and children. After all, I am comfortable using "cross-legged" as a grown up, but what would I say today if as a child the only term I'd ever been given was "criss-cross applesauce"? – I'd feel like a right dork saying that! Of course, all the teaching I've done has been with children aged 10 to 17, and I have no kiddies of my own, only niblings, so that's an influence, I'm sure.
October 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word telephone wordie
I definitely want the different voices!
October 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word i am affronted
And The Tale of Jeremy Fisher, with the mackintosh that doesn't taste so good…
October 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word extra-slanty italics
Oh no, surely extra-slanty italics are a Typographical Abomination in the Eyes of the Lord? I'm with reesetee on this.
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word beetroot
*** falls out of chair laughing ***
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word epilogue
ROSALIND. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not furnish'd like a beggar; therefore to beg will not become me. My way is to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you; and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women - as I perceive by your simp'ring none of you hates them - that between you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleas'd me, complexions that lik'd me, and breaths that I defied not; and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.
(As You Like It)
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word prologue
ROSALIND. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue.
(As You Like It)
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word beetroot
Ah, my prudishness theory is indeed shot to pieces. Will abandon it forthwith, at least in the matter of beets. I had quite forgotten to make a connection with the fact that Aussies snicker whenever Americans talk about rooting for a sports team.
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word poking
See Thus poke Zarathustra.
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word borscht
Nureyev had a favourite recipe.
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word beetroot
Just like I surmised: possibly erroneous.
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word beetroot
My mother liked beetroot way too much. Every week she'd be boiling some up in the pressure cooker. I couldn't stand it and refused to eat it. (Refused to eat anything it had even touched!) I was once left to sit in my high chair for quite some hours after lunch with a plateful of tomato and beetroot staring at me – these being the two salad vegetables I hated. By dinner time my mother realised there was no way I was ever going to eat them. In the end she indulged me because I would eat just about everything else, including baby prawns, which were very useful for keeping me amused while she unpacked the shopping.
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word beetroot
Then there's borscht.
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word beetroot
True. Actually, thinking of beet/beetroot always makes me think of roach/cockroach. I've long held the possibly erroneous and almost certainly unfair view that the use of the two shortened forms is a further sign of American prudishness, i.e. an unwillingness to use the words root and cock in polite company, along with the word toilet, which I have only just trained myself back into using in a unselfconscious way, two-and-a-half years after returning to Australia!
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word beetroot
My theory involves two factors:
1. It's just so messy – all that crimson juice everywhere – and furthermore, it makes many people think of blood, so deep-set taboos probably come into play at the subconscious level.
2. Because it is commonly prepared by pickling in vinegar, there will be many who don't care for or can't stand the taste. (I count as one of these people; the couple of times I have eaten raw beetroot, which is rather sweet, I haven't minded it so much.)
Dried raw shredded beetroot manages to avoid both problems, but it's hardly ever served that way. Only in those sloppy, bleeding, vinegary slices that stain everything in the salad or burger with which they're served. A shame really.
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word i am affronted
Then Tabitha Twitchit came down the garden and found her kittens on the wall with no clothes on. She pulled them off the wall, smacked them, and took them back to the house.
"My friends will arrive in a minute, and you are not fit to be seen; I am affronted," said Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit.
She sent them upstairs; and I am sorry to say she told her friends that they were in bed with the measles; which was not true.
(The Tale of Tom Kitten, by Beatrix Potter)
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the list •-wordie-pro
I am affronted. Where is my exclusive, personalised invitation to join Wordie PRO! at great personal expense and to thereby enjoy full benefit of the pronunciation filter?
October 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word splendor and squalor
"In 1685 Naples was as populous, as noisy, and as dirty as it is now. Even then it was a little battered, and from the summit of the town its crumbling medieval fortresses looked out over the harbor. Up the hill from the waterfront swarmed a jumble of splendor and squalor, of magnificence and filth. Palaces with the stench of the gutter rising to their very cornices bounded broad sunlit squares or concealed narrow alleys that were then as much out of bounds to the respectable rich as they were to the Allied soldiers of 1944.
Domenico Scarlatti, Ralph Kirkpatrick (1953)
September 29, 2008
frindley commented on the word bashful jacarandas
I want some!
September 29, 2008
frindley commented on the word crossed-leg cafe
An establishment without toilets. Technically illegal if alcohol is served.
September 29, 2008
frindley commented on the word criss-cross applesauce
Ah, the niceties of language! Down here in the Antipodes, if you were sitting on a chair with your legs crossed you'd say you were "crossing your legs" or that you had your "legs crossed" and an old-fashioned etiquette maven might tell you "don't cross your legs, cross your ankles".
"Sitting cross-legged" is a defined idiom that means sitting on the floor in something approximating a half-lotus.
I guess the difference is between crossed legs/legs crossed and cross-legged, with one describing the position of the legs and the other a style of sitting.
Then there's another, related idiom: crossed-leg cafe.
September 29, 2008
frindley commented on the word criss-cross applesauce
@bilby: don't cry!
@dontcry: There's no "r" in sauce, but there's also no "r"-sound when an Aussie or Brit says "source". For us "sauce" and "source" sound identical, that is: /s�?�?s/
Cross, on the other hand, sounds like: /krɒs/
(cf. vowel with the first syllable of sausage: /'sɒsɪdʒ/, which I imagine is closer to an American's pronunciation of sauce: /sɒ�?s/ ?? )
For me to get the rhyme right I would have to write: criss-cross applesoss.
For an American to get the rhyme "wrong" the way I do, you'd have to think of it as more like:
criss-cross apple-saws
September 29, 2008
frindley commented on the word suprecilious
Oh yes, I need this word! I've never been impressed by Supré, but I found a new-minted antagonism towards this chain when they took over my beloved Gowings building, turning something truly iconic and full of fond associations into something ordinary and cheap.
September 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word criss-cross applesauce
Cross does not rhyme with sauce. (Always happy to oblige!)
On the other hand, if one thinks of the dialect/accent group in which sauce sounds more like the beginning of sausage and less like "source" then it's possible to make the leap of imagination and hear a rhyme between cross and sauce. But you have to be sitting cross-legged for the leap to work!
September 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word criss-cross applesauce
Reaction 1: huh?
Reaction 2: google
Reaction 3: so what's wrong with just calling it "sitting cross-legged" then?
Google took me to a fairly comprehensive and much commented upon post from 2006. Seems that "criss-cross applesauce" has been adopted by the "PC police" in early childhood educational circles as an alternative to "sitting Indian style", despite there being nothing specifically offensive about such usage (cf. taking tea while kneeling "Japanese style" - innocuous, it just refers to an old cultural practice). In Britain as in Australia it seems this was and is called "cross-legged"; some comments from Europe said they called it "Turkish style" (in Germany), and "tailors' style".
September 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word cross-legged
A sitting style. Also known in some contexts as the lotus (half or full depending on your flexibility!).
I add it now because I have just come across a bizarre alternative term, which apparently has enjoyed a wave of popularity since the turn of the century, but which I'd never heard before: criss-cross applesauce.
September 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word absence
Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Get Absence!
(Courtesy poet Steve Turner)
September 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word in flagrante delicto
The Renaissance madrigalist Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, wrote some amazingly modern-sounding music, but is perhaps even more famous for murdering his wife and her lover on catching them in flagrante delicto (or, it is said, asleep post flagrante delicto).
September 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word spirit duplicator
"Rapturously fragrant, sweetly aromatic" purpled ink – that first intoxicating inhalation of isopropanol and methanol from the freshly made school stencil.
September 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word picture book size
Ever noticed how many new picture books have a distinctive smell of vomit? It's the particular size that they use to stiffen and finish the paper. That's the scent I mean.
September 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word 'em
But be sure to use an apostrophe and not an open quote or a vertical accent for ’em.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the list words-of-eulogistic-praise
You've been reading too much classical music marketing copy!
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word russian caravan tea
Smoked black Indian tea, bergamot and the hint of shelves full of old books.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word wild hunt
This is the fourth scent in a series of primal smells.
Wild Hunt is the scent of an ancient forest in the heat of a summer afternoon. It is a blend of Torn Leaves, Crushed Twigs, Flowing Sap, Fallen Branches, Old Leaves, Green Moss, Fir, Pine and Tiny Mushrooms.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word winter 1972
A field of untouched new fallen snow, hand knit woollen mittens covered with frost, a hint of frozen forest & sleeping earth.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word at the beach 1966
The prime note in this scent is Coppertone 1967 blended with a new accord…created especially for this perfume – North Atlantic. The base of the scent contains a bit of Wet Sand, Seashell, Driftwood and just a hint of Boardwalk. The effect when you wear At The Beach 1966 is as if you’ve been swimming all day in the ocean.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word memory of kindness
The shining green scent of tomato vines growing in the fresh earth of a country garden.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word gathering apples
Thousands of Ripe Red Mackintosh Apples and a bit of old weathered wood from the bushel baskets.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word eternal return
This is the first scent in a series of primal smells.
Eternal Return is the scent of sailing toward the shore. It is a blend of Fresh Ocean Air, Wooden Ship and a faint hint of Cypress Trees growing on the cliff above the water…
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word burning leaves
The smoke of burning maple leaves - pure & simple.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word in the summer kitchen
Fresh garden vegetables & herbs on a clear summer evening with a touch of smoked old wooden rafters.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word mr hulot's holiday
The salty breath of the breeze off the Mediterranean, driftwood, rocks covered with seaweed and the smell of old leather suitcases.
September 26, 2008
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