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…
My favourite is In the Library: "English Novel taken from a Signed First Edition…Russian & Moroccan leather bindings, worn cloth and a hint of wood polish." I'm almost tempted…
A broadsheet newspaper that has succumbed to tabloid standards of journalism and integrity. Given The Plain Dealer's recent treatment of Cleveland music critic Donald Rosenberg, I'd be inclined to propose it as the latest candidate for broadloid status.
Judy Ryan is waiting to be defined in the Macquarie Dictionary. Ms Ryan is a focalologist, or tie collector, and the Tie Society of Australia has applied to have the word put in the dictionary. Focale is Latin for neck cloth, cravat and scarf.
Definitely singular. I wore a leotard to ballet class for 12 years (not the same leotard). If I ever wore leotards, plural, it was because it was extra cold or one the leotards was kind of see-through.
Selects set of facial features from inventory, and arranges features to form composite image of persons suspected of criminal activities based on descriptions obtained from victims and witnesses to crimes: Assembles and arranges outlines of features, such as head contours, noses, eyes, lips, chins, and hair lines and styles, to form composite image, according to information provided by witness or victim. Operates photocopy or similar machine to reproduce composite image. Draws moles, scars, and other identifying marks, using pens, pencils, and other artist's work aids, to retouch copy. Alters copy of composite image until witness or victim is satisfied that composite is best possible representation of suspect. Classifies and codes components of image, using established system, to help identify suspect. Searches, or helps witness or victim to search, police photograph records, using classification and coding system, to determine if existing photograph of suspect is available.
This is one of those wonderful words that sounds Italian but is really English.
The New Shorter Oxford gives the etymology as brag or braggart combined with the Italian augmenting suffix "-occio". First(?) used by Spenser as a proper name in Færie Queene (1590).
Australians invented these. No, not wooden wine barrels, but the nifty plastic "wineskin" in a box fitted with a tap. Useful for those occasions where you want a lot of wine and no one's especially concerned about the quality.
Oh yes, the ubiquitous Aussie cooler box. Although I believe the correct spelling is Esky. The real thing was invented by Malley's and is now made by Nylex, but, as with the bandaid, the name has been adopted for coolers generally.
colloquial noun: a remarkable or excellent person or thing (19th-century origins?):
"The doomed beauty Grace Kelly was also in Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, which was a much lesser film, mainly because Hitch couldn't really open up its stage-play format beyond a certain point. But the score by Dimitri Tiomkin, a refugee from Russia, was a lulu."
"I think they might reconsider it given the fun and knowledge gained by the the logophiles and verbivores visiting sites like this one."
A nice example of pontification from everybody's (everybodie's? no…) favourite pompous old git. Notice the delightful way in which the writer assumes his readership to be, oh I don't know, about 50 years younger than he is, and the beautifully old-fashioned "for fun and profit" tone.
Not sure. My knowledge of tectonic plate movements is a bit hazy. Perhaps we only move westwards at night, and maybe this is why I often get my best work done after pumpkin hour.
Australian slang. One who dobs someone in by reporting their misdemeanour(s) to an authority – an especially heinous act if it gets one's friends into trouble. ("No one likes a dobber.") Think: to grass, to squeal, to finger.
Grr. Still awake. Ah well, will traipse off to bed with Anna Karenina – there's nothing like a Russian novel chock-full of patronymics for the full soporific effect.
Particularly effective in the phrase "pompous old git". Today's wordie link on twitter brought it to mind immediately! Par 5 just takes the cake. Give me the playful "superficiality" of wordies any day.
Mary Queen of Scots had frequent headaches, for which the only relief was a special citrus conserve. When she was ill she would call for it. Having lived in exile in France she had French ladies in waiting, and so these sweet girls would flutter about the palace calling to each other: Maria malade! Maria malade! Which soon become Mar'malade…
Try to find the recording by Frans Brüggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century (on Glossa, a Spanish label, GCD921101). They're a period instrument orchestra (a lot of modern orchestras will substitute tuba for the ophicleide and it's not quite the same; also Brüggen's recording is really good!).
For nothing but solo ophicleide try: "Back From Oblivion" on the Australian label Melba (301111, available in the States and elsewhere, try arkivmusic.com). The player is Nick Byrne, a Sydney boy.
Here's one for you that Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe likes to use in his ensemble pieces: fuori di passo.
It translates "out of step", and he uses it, for example, in a piece called Mangrove where he wants the members of the cello section to play ever-so-slightly out of time with each other. Great effect. Actually extremely difficult for well-trained musicians to pull off!
Professional orchestral violinists often keep a second (cheap) bow to use when a composer calls for extended passages of col legno, because it's very bad for the bow! (And some of the good bows are made from beautiful, and now rare/endangered, species of wood.)
Didjeridu seems to be the favoured spelling for many indigenous performers.
The truly amazing William Barton is one such. (NB. He'll be touring in Italy with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in September – worth catching if you're in that neck of the woods.)
Otherwise the more "anglo" spelling is the one for this page didgeridoo. Then there are variants, which tend to combine aspects of these two. (And yes, for languages that aren't traditionally written, and in a culture where there are a great many language groups, the matter of spelling is indeed moot.)
Incidentally, the true art of didjeridu playing lies not in the "blubbery sounds", as uselessness delightfully puts it, but in the circular breathing that is necessary to sustain a performance of more than a few seconds. I can't really do circular breathing (tried when I was a serious flutist) but I guess this isn't an issue, since I'm a girl.
Unkindly known in Victorian times as the chromatic bullock. Mendelssohn requires one in his overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream. It does Bottom's braying beautifully.
Orchestra Planning and Administration System. A whiz-bang, super-duper, truly amazing database for planning concerts, managing artists, musicians, library records, etc. etc. Even better, in my mind, than Tessitura – or at least I'm more fond of it. Alternatively, perhaps it's just German for "grandfathers".
I've come across plethora's usage, also "I cacked myself", where the "laughing" part is understood.
There is also "cack-handed", which can mean left-handed, but mostly I hear it in the sense of clumsy or inept. Apparently it's British, but it certainly has some currency in Australia.
No, not an ad for pizzas. This is a large ad for a tabloid page in which the space is divided into four quadrants, each used to promote a different event under the banner of a single presenter.
Or, a whiz-bang, super-duper database, developed by the New York Metropolitan Opera House to manage ticketing, customer relations and philanthropic giving.
Oh that's very good. I used to love eating the skin off the custard. I would fight my sisters for it. Being the youngest I always seemed to get my way – and the custard skin.
This wouldn't surprise me. I used to play a set of variations, Engels Nachtegaeltje, by Jacob van Eyck. He was a Dutch recorder virtuoso, of noble birth but blind hence his musical profession. Famous for his work as a carillonneur but also paid an additional six silver pieces a year to play his flute (i.e. recorder) in the cemetery when people were strolling there. Or something like that. Anyhow, he was born at the end of the 16th century and died in 1657. He worked in Utrecht, though, not Bruges, but the bell-ringing tradition is strong in the Benelux region so a continuous post of four hundred years doesn't really surprise me.
Also an adverb, as in "to mouse goofy", which is where a right-handed person mouses with her left hand (but not necessarily switching the buttons, so a left-click is still a left-click).
I'll check it out. Alas, I don't have a television and the Olympic coverage here was not conducive to the gatecrashing of friends' homes for the purpose of watching an arcane sport. Sigh.
The frindley took up fencing when she was, well, too old. (All the best fencers begin at the age of six or so, like ballet I guess.)
And why? Mainly because she was suffering, in the professional environment, from a particularly obnoxious and petty boss. And so it seemed like the right time to pursue a long-held dream while enjoying general catharsis. She was also somewhat inspired by the Australian conductor, Simone Young, also a fencer, who once talked about how conducting and fencing both involve waving a stick, but with conducting you are trying to communicate intent, whereas with fencing you are trying to conceal intent. Very interesting thought. She had probably seen The Fencing Master on television as well, and had spent her childhood reading books like the Scarlet Pimpernel and other period romances. Oh, and the oft-quoted analogy of fencing being like chess speeded up probably had an influence too.
A postscript. Given her story, the frindley was especially amused by this site, which offers "fencing" as a corporate team-building exercise. (A "modern, collaborative experience" is their way of describing it.) Sounds dodgy to me.
Descending, reesetee, descending. The ascending pillagers are meant to be hampered by the clockwise orientation, while you, the worthy householder, are permitted to descend with sword a-flashing and a-slashing.
c_b: consider it moved, with more shocking revelations from the frindley past…
Frindley respectfully offers balestra as a preferred spelling. (This Italian word, with the one-l, means "crossbow" and there just can't not be a connection there.)
Well Nike have called their fencing shoe the "Ballestra", but as far as I can tell, all the reputable fencing websites spell it with the single "l". Indeed, one fencing forum discussing the Nike shoe correct the spelling and refer to it as the "Balestra".
But the clincher seems to reside in my Italian dictionary, where a "balestra" is defined as a crossbow, which really is an extremely apt way of thinking about this particular move.
Finally, though, in the process of pursuing spelling, I found this little video demonstrating a bal(l)estra. The commentary is kind of annoying (simplistic) and the demonstration not very inspiring, but it more or less conveys the idea.
Well bad, bad Wordies do all the good, good Wordies a wonderful service when they take the trouble to bring such beauties as these into the Wordie world. So thank you!
And I say this because I've just come home from a "Meet the Music" orchestral concert (attended for the most part, but not exclusively, by large numbers of high school student groups), in which Arabella Steinbacher played Korngold's Violin Concerto and from my eavesdropping this seems to have been the general consensus regarding the performance.
It's interesting that to this day nearly all spiral staircases are still built to ascend in a clockwise manner, thus allowing modern men and women to keep their sword arms free.
I find this appealing even though my prowess in fencing is strictly limited to the balestra, a move of which I'm especially fond.
It seems to me that commenting on profiles is the only reliable way of carrying on a specific conversation via Wordie, and that's because you receive a notification when someone comments on your profile, whereas you don't if they use word or list comments to "talk" to you. But it does mean that you only ever see one side of a conversation on any given profile. If a Wall-to-Wall type feature could be achieved without clutter or spoiling Wordie's simplicity then I'd be all for that.
But perhaps it's better as is. Conversations on profiles aren't terribly convenient to sustain and so we focus our attention on the things that really matter on this site!
When the French first landed on Australian soil they attempted (in a kind of early "ethnomusicology") to notate the songs and "war cries" of the Aborigines, including the famous cooee. I've seen the results, beautifully presented in music copperplate, with the words written in a sort of French phonology, e.g. "couille" for cooee. The Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe tells a funny story about perfecting his pronunciation for a presentation about all this to a French audience. The nice librarian at the embassy who was helping him failed to mention that "couilles" in fact means balls.
Since mobile wordie has recently received a plug, I have a feature suggestion for that.
At present in the mobile version we can add words to existing lists and we can follow the recent comments. But it's virtually not possible to add comments to new words (a huge minus for me, since I rarely add a word without wanting to say something about it right then and there). It's also virtually not possible to contribute to conversations via the mobile version.
I say "virtually not possible" because I did discover one day when my train was delayed that it is possible to go through a circuitous process that effectively brings up the regular version of the site onto my mobile screen, at which point I can do all the normal things, albeit in a pretty clumsy interface. Basically it involves clicking on a username (e.g. from a comment header), which takes you to that profile in the non-mobile version. From there you have access to searching and other functions. But it's pretty clunky. Indeed it's probably a bug - but please don't fix it before adding these features…
A troublemaker. According to Richard Tognetti, artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, ratbaggery is absolutely essential to the health of the performing arts. I'm inclined to agree. There should be more ratbaggery and more larrikins.
Incidentally, you won't hear this song in the recent Tim Burton movie version because he and Sondheim decided to cut the prologue chorus for various dramatic and cinematic reasons. I respect the decision, but I was still bitterly disappointed, because it is an amazing number, complete with melodic quotations of the dies irae chant.
I've only ever encountered manse used in the very specialised sense of a clergyman's residence, never as a variant for mansion. In many instances (but not all) a manse is a relatively modest affair, while a mansion is, of course, meant to be imposing.
That said, there is, in a particularly beautiful Federation suburb of Sydney, a manse that almost makes a girl want to (a) join the Uniting Church and (b) study for the ministry. Handsome, of a goodly size, characterful, lovely garden and not in the slightest bit pretentious.
aka bum bag. In Australia, one of the places where they are known as bum bags, it is not only a faux pas to wear one, but it is an even bigger faux pas to call it a fanny pack, since fanny is slang for female genitals.
In my neck of the woods, where tailgate parties are unknown, tailgating refers exclusively to a very rude and inconsiderate, not to mention dangerous, driving technique (actually "technique" is too generous a term), in which someone drives too close to the car in front, often in an attempt to intimidate. An expression of road rage in many instances.
Brilliant. For this I would be willing to break my cardinal fashion rule: if you are old enough to have worn it the first time ’round, give it a miss the second time ’round.
Which of course is something that actually happens in certain versions of Cinderella: the stepmother hacks off one of her daughters' heels in a vain attempt to make her fit the slipper. What's Greek for "ow"?
Years ago I learned something very useful from C.S.Lewis. (The Last Battle in the Narnia series, I think.)
In the book one character whispers to another while on a night-time reconnaissance: "Get down, thee better."
Lewis then explains that she says this not because she has a lisp but because she knows that the sibilants are the noisiest part of any whisper and the sound most likely to give you away if you're trying to go undetected.
And ever since I have always made a point of lithping when whithpering. Or at least avoiding words with sibilants in them.
Well we'll have to do something about that. After all, it's the kind of word that's probably even more useful in the 21st century than it would have been in the 18th. So if enough people start using it, and using it in print, it's only a matter of time… (as Andrew Clements makes evident in his delightful children's book Frindle).
A condition in which one is unable to type the word "pedantic" at a first attempt. In severe cases can spread to other words, so that, for example, "composition" comes out (perhaps appropriately) as "compostion".
Short for "hazardous chemicals", but it has always seemed to me that it could be a rather satisfying word in its own right: "hazchem". Has a vaguely Slavic or Yiddish flavour.
I should be doing this. I really should. But I don't want to look at the season brochure one more time. Sigh. Off I go. See if I can find any lingering flagships or sublime beauties or…
The first shelf of my library happens to be my "practical arts" shelf: The Australian Manual of Calligraphy; Edward Johnston's Writing & Illuminating & Lettering (Johnston belonged to the same crowd as William Morris and Eric Gill, and was responsible for the revival of hand lettering in the early 20th century); Your Penmanship, and Good Handwriting and How to Acquire It (two period pieces that my father bought in the 1950s - both quite beautiful and full of sensible advice); Jaxtheimer's How to Paint and Draw (another oldie, originally published in German in 1961). I find when it comes to "how to" books for the visual arts, anything published before I was born is almost always superior to the current crop of beautiful but insubstantial volumes. For a start, they assume the reader is serious and not out for instant gratification.
She lives! (Or rather, the 2009 season brochure is nearly put to bed, the worst part of the year's schedule is just about over, a fortnight's holiday has brought refreshment, the niblings' birthday presents have all been found, and frindley roams again.)
I made small ones once when I was living in the States and feeling homesick. They were 1.5" cubes and I put cointreau in the chocolate icing, so you could say they were on the sophisticated side. It was extremely difficult to find dessicated coconut in the local supermarkets, however. Could only find the flaked coconut, which is too coarse. Spent a good half an hour with a mezzaluna knife cutting the flakes into crumbs. At which point you understand why I only did it once and thereafter stuck to making pavlova.
How funny. I learnt about Library Thing via Wordie!
It's great. Especially for those series of reference books where I was forever finding myself at book sales unable to remember which volumes I owned and which ones were familiar simply ’cause I'd borrowed them from libraries. With Library Thing on my mobile phone – no more inadvertent duplication!
from the kitchen of an Anglo-Irish Australian, no Armenian within coo-ee...
A moist, spicy cake with a biscuit base (that’s “biscuit�? in Australian lingo, i.e. crisp and crumbly). Looks humble and unassuming. Look again, and it looks…gone.
To begin, remove one 4 oz stick of butter from the fridge and cut into 1/2 inch cubes (unless it’s a stinking hot day, in which case it’s perhaps best to live with cold butter, and why are you baking anyway?).
Grease and line an 8-inch springform cake tin.
Set oven to moderate (350° F).
INGREDIENTS
2 cups dark brown sugar (no lumps)
2 cups self-raising flour
4 oz butter, cubed
1 tspn bicarb soda
1 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tspn nutmeg
a few walnuts (or pecans), chopped
METHOD
Mix sugar, flour and butter together until texture is crumbly (like breadcrumbs). Resist temptation to use a machine for this as the results tend to be too homogenous, even sloppy – better to massage the butter cubes through the dry ingredients using your fingers. (Very therapeutic too.)
Press half the crumb mix into the base of the lined springform pan. Ensure that the layer is even, and not thicker at the sides.
Dissolve bicarb soda in milk. Add egg, nutmeg and nuts to remaining crumb mix with milk and soda solution. Pour over crumb mix layer in tin.
Bake in a moderate oven (350° F) for 60 minutes. Allow to stand 15 minutes before turning out.
NOTES
Shelf-life – It is a rarely known fact that this cake will go stale very quickly. However, for the single cook with serious will-power, the cake can be made to last four to five days if wrapped tightly in waxed or parchment paper and kept in an airtight container.
Spices – The unknowing always seem to think this cake has ginger in it (perhaps because of the textures involved and the overall spicy/brown sugar taste). It can be fun to add cinnamon and/or ginger to the nutmeg. But it would also be a convincing ginger-less ginger cake for emergencies!
This is excellent. And it is especially useful since (alas!) the front page only indicates how many times a word is listed rather than how many comments it has attracted. And it is the latter which is the true sign of an interesting conversation.
Well, thank you for the nice thought. The past month or so I've been doing the work of two people (quite literally) and it has caused me to neglect all my favourite past times. Perhaps I'll create an empty list: something like "I'm too busy to scratch myself, let alone think of cool words to list."
Very few people are genuinely tone deaf. Very few.
But there are a lot of people who've been told – usually as a child by some thoughtless and ignorant adult – that they are tone deaf. These are the kids who are told to mouth the words in choir and are generally discouraged from singing or otherwise participating in music making, and who are then deprived of great enjoyment often for the rest of their lives. What makes me really furious is when the adult in question has been a "music teacher".
The maiden part may be stretching things somewhat, but otherwise this is an apt description of me at present. (A maiden over is a cricket term, by the way.)
I just love the way the very sound of this word plays down in laconic Aussie fashion the seriousness of what it's describing. I've always associated it with an older generation - it's a word my parents, aunts and grandparents would have used but not my contemporaries. I think, however, it may be about to enjoy a comeback: saw today that a budget car insurance company has adopted it as a name: www.bingle.com.au. How endearing!
The Lion went once a-hunting along with the Fox, the Jackal, and the Wolf. They hunted and they hunted 'til at last they surprised a Stag, and soon took its life. Then came the question how the spoil should be divided. "Quarter me this Stag," roared the Lion; so the other animals skinned it and cut it into four parts. Then the Lion took his stand in front of the carcass and pronounced judgement: The first quarter is for me in my capacity as King of Beasts; the second is mine as arbiter; another share comes to me for my part in the chase; and as for the fourth quarter, well, as for that, I should like to see which of you will dare to lay a paw upon it."
"Humph," grumbled the Fox as he walked away with his tail between his legs; but he spoke in a low growl. "You may share the labours of the great, but you will not share the spoil."
A FOX entered into partnership with a Lion on the pretense of becoming his servant. Each undertook his proper duty in accordance with his own nature and powers. The Fox discovered and pointed out the prey; the Lion sprang on it and seized it. The Fox soon became jealous of the Lion carrying off the Lion’s share, and said that he would no longer find out the prey, but would capture it on his own account. The next day he attempted to snatch a lamb from the fold, but he himself fell prey to the huntsmen and hounds.
(Translated by George Fyler Townsend. Rendered into HTML on Wed Jun 10 17:25:21 1998, by Steve Thomas for The University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection.)
A WILD ASS and a Lion entered into an alliance so that they might capture the beasts of the forest with greater ease. The Lion agreed to assist the Wild Ass with his strength, while the Wild Ass gave the Lion the benefit of his greater speed. When they had taken as many beasts as their necessities required, the Lion undertook to distribute the prey, and for this purpose divided it into three shares. “I will take the first share,�? he said, “because I am King: and the second share, as a partner with you in the chase: and the third share (believe me) will be a source of great evil to you, unless you willingly resign it to me, and set off as fast as you can.�?
Joseph Bottum has found a new function for this word. An extract:
"Let's coin a term for this kind of poetic, extralogical accuracy. Let's call it agenbite. That's a word Michael of Northgate cobbled up for his 1340 Remorse of Conscience — or Agenbite of Inwit, as he actually titled the book. English would later settle on the French-born word "remorse" to carry the sense of the Latin re-mordere, "to bite again." But Michael didn't know that at the time, and so he simply translated the word's parts: again-bite or (in the muddle of early English spelling) agenbite.
"Anyway, these words that sound true need some kind of name. And since they do bite back on themselves, like a snake swallowing its tail, Michael's term will do as well as any other. Ethereal is an agenbite, isn't it? All ethereal and airy. Rapier, swashbuckler, erstwhile, obfuscate, spume — agenbites, every one. Reverberation reverberates, and jingle jingles. A friend insists that machination is a word that tells you all about its Machiavellian self, and surely sporadic is a clean agenbite, with something patchy and intermittent in the taste as you say it."
Click on Verbosity once you're there. You're matched with an anonymous online partner and take turns guessing secret words, chosen by the game, based on clues provided by the other partner.
Interesting. When I was a kid my drama teacher got us to do breathing exercises that involved saying "pippety peppety poppety" x number of times on a single breath.
I don't believe so. If you read him carefully, and the full context makes it clearer, he's effectively saying that being dressed is our natural state, and that it takes a verb (i.e. an action) to render us undressed and therefore naked. So I doubt he would have had much sympathy for "naturists", whom I understand consider nudity to be the natural state.
Asphalt is used in Australia, but not so much in connection with roads or highways - it's a surface I strongly associate with school playgrounds.
Tarmac, at least for this Aussie, is exclusively an aviation/airport term, referring to the runway, as in "we hit the tarmac at about 9.30". Oh, I can see, over on tarmac, that resetee has identified tarmac=runway as a British usage dating from 1919.
Think of it more like judging a wedding cake according to its icing, decoration and overall structure; then slicing it in order to judge the quality and taste of the actual fruitcake that's inside all that marzipan and fondant.
Hey bilby, what's the Aussie term for "petting zoo" - is it a "Friendship Farm" or some such thing where you can go ooh and ah over the piglets and lambs and so on?
A livestock competition in which the animal, usually a steer, is judged twice: once in the parade ground (on the hoof) and again, as a carcass, after slaughtering (on the hook).
Another view from the Antipodes. Sherbet always refers to the effervescent, usually lemon-flavoured, powdered confectionary (e.g. lemon sherbets, which enclose the sherbet in hard candy, mmm). A sorbet would be called a sorbet.
Pronunciation here is 'ʃɜb�?t (SHERbuht) i.e. with the unstressed schwa vowel in the second syllable, so the bets are off.
The word naked was originally a past participle; the naked man was the man who had undergone a process of naking, that is, of stripping or peeling (you used the verb of nuts and fruit). Time out of mind the naked man has seemed to our ancestors not the natural but the abnormal man; not the man who has abstained from dressing but the man who has been for some reason undressed.
Which is perhaps why it's better that the multi-tasking musician (say, the violinist directing from the concertmaster's chair) be referred to as "violin-director" rather than "violin/director".
Just in case you were mislead by the usage example on fossick, sook isn't always used harshly. It can also be used kindly and can even serve as a term of endearment, as in these examples taken from a list of NZ and Australian words:
sook: kindly description of someone who is being silly, or behaving like a softy or scaredy cat. As in:- "you're being a sook"... "just a big sook" and so on... More often than not the phrase is used as a term of endearment.
To this can be added the idea of teariness or being prone to crying, hence "sooky baby".
Almost exclusively Australian word of Cornish origin. I am told that sook - as in "Grow up, stop crying and don't be such a bloody sook" (or "sooky baby") is also of Cornish origin.
Now this one's interesting, because I made it up too. And it was some years ago now, my niblings are aged between 10 and 15. Then someone else I know made up the exact same word, quite independently of me; and now jruberto, and it appears dontcry. And even a quick fossick on the interwebs suggests that we are not alone. Not in the slightest.
Wiktionary cites examples dating back to 1989. Urban Dictionary gives it some cred. And the really cute thing: in 2004 a group of English schoolchildren lobbied to have the word admitted to the OED. (Shades of Andrew Clements's Frindle in that story.)
But that's a digression; my main point is that I don't think I've come across a word that is so consistently and independently invented by so many people. That says to me that there is a deeply compelling logic in the construction as well as a deeply compelling need for the word.
Actually no: French pianos (the Pleyels and Érards) as well as the early Viennese pianos had comparatively light actions, whereas the English Broadwoods were the heavy ones. But nowadays it's one-size-fits-all and every concert pianist wants a Steinway. (Not that these don't vary, but the differences in action are much more subtle than they were in the 18/19th centuries.) It's to do with the touring life: pianists don't have time to get to know a new piano action for every gig*, so the makers have made consistency and conformity a virtue.
*Krystian Zimerman's solution is to carry his own Steinway action around with him – just the keyboard and hammer mechanism, that is.
But back to the point: I think it's interesting that frappé in ballet suggests a sharp and precise striking action (e.g. of the foot against the floor in a battement frappé), but not necessarily a heavy action.
Reminds me of the english horn: neither English nor a horn.
Of course, it was wrong-headed to attempt to translate the original name (cor anglais) in the first place, since that's an example of Franglais, most likely meaning angled "horn".
It's a shame, though, that predictive text dictionaries couldn't be a bit more extensive. Although if they were I wouldn't encounter such amusing non-words as captaingog and volatus…
In my experience a good many tend to be names, e.g. N for Nellie.
And the use can often be selective, with not all letters given a phonetic helper, just the ones that need it most: F and S can often be confused, so they'll be identified in phone calls, similarly D and T, N and M and so on. But L, for example, is often left alone. Ditto E.
"…a macabre form of investment, popular in Europe and America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which the amount you got back depended on how many of your fellow-investors you outlived."
Term coined by Alan Greenspan in a lecture on the importance of price stability and the Federal Reserve System for the American Enterprise Institute on 5 Dec 1996.
"How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions, as they have in Japan over the past decade? And how do we factor that into monetary policy?"
When used in reference to fabric it's usually pronounced pee-kay, and in fact the NSOED's preferred spelling for this sense is piqué. (But "pique" is allowed as an alternative.)
Ah, I think I see – this is related to my question on features about including square brackets as square brackets (instead of as a way of creating word links). Should I say sneaky or nifty?
Which means that one probably shouldn't need to use Cyrillic or other special characters at all, just the character entity numbers for the standard Latin alphabet…
That's what I've been doing too, and they certainly do the trick. But the geekette at heart is curious as to whether there is a neat technical solution.
My apologies. Too obscure. The MS predates the first recorded English nursery rhymes in the 17th century. De Kay therefore posits the following theory: Protestant Picard émigrés in London (prior to the Edict of Nantes in 1598) would surely have congregated in taverns, and...recited or even sung their native rames…Locals hearing the verses as French-accented English, might well have…learned them by heart and…made them their own. And as the French rhymes became a part of English oral tradition, they would have been forgotten in France, the usual fate of such ephemera.
Help please: If, in a comment, I want to put square brackets around a word or phrase – not to link to a word or phrase entry, but simply to use the brackets as punctuation, e.g. editorial aside, or because it's in the original source for a citation – how do I do that?
Oh yes, that happens to me too!! Annoying as all get-out, as you say.
I did once discover – perhaps in Word, or may it was at system level – a way to map Help to a different key. If I can find it again I will post the solution here.
It helps to read these lines aloud in the sonorous, measured classic style of the Comédie Française (or failing that, one's best attempt at a strong French accent), at which point they assume an overpowering air of nostalgia. In this respect the manuscript has similarities with the somewhat older Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames.
I know this is plant name noun, but I do think it's yearning, deep down in its little weedy heart, to adopt a useful function in the world as an adjective.
I'm proposing "fiery and furious", based in part on the etymology and in part on feelings a particular variety of pellitory (the Parietaria judaica aka asthma weed) arouses in me.
From the 1930s until the 1960s, the Australian Broadcasting Commission broadcast a daily children's show "The Argonauts". It was also a radio club: each member had a number and was allocated to a ship in Jason's fleet (the membership records are now lost). It was hugely popular and influenced a whole generation of Australians.
My contributions reveal two things: I don't actually follow sports; and, Aussie Rules is such an intrinsic part of Australian life that its presence can be felt everywhere, even in "the yarts".
This ballet, created for the Australian Ballet by Graeme Murphy in 1980 (with the late Kelvin Coe as its star) begins with young men playing Aussie Rules on stage. (The music is the third movement of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, by the way – fantastic stuff!) Murphy had the male dancers of the company actually learn and train in the sport with one of the leading AFL coaches so they could be sufficiently convincing. Some of the pictures loading above are from Beyond Twelve.
Early play by David Williamson, which takes as its setting and theme the inner workings (and turmoil) of a VFL (now Australian Rules football) club. Has acquired classic status in Australian theatre.
"…from water carts made by a company established by John Furphy: J. Furphy & Sons of Shepparton, Victoria. Many Furphy water carts were used to take water to Australian Army personnel during World War I. The carts, with "J. Furphy & Sons" written on their tanks, became popular as gathering places where soldiers could exchange gossip, rumours and fanciful tales."
As in: "Madam Kafoops" (Australian, gently derogatory)
Usage: "Who do you think you are? Madam Kafoops?"
Might be said to a child who is expecting mum to wait on her hand and foot or who is being obnoxious and oozing "entitlement". I don't think I've ever heard it used of or to an adult, hence my qualification "gently".
Mulesing might be bad, but flystrike is a hundred times worse. The name is somewhat misleading: when I first encountered the term as a child, I imagined bothersome flies buzzing around a sheep's butt. But flystrike is when those flies lay eggs and those eggs hatch and maggots begin to invade and eat away at the sheep's necrotic nether regions. Truly disgusting, gives prolonged pain, and is ultimately fatal. So one can't blame farmers for trying something, although a kinder method than mulesing would be infinitely preferable and I'd support the measures to have the technique replaced.
On the other hand, it's also been argued that the breeding programs that have encouraged the wrinkliness in the Merino breed (more skin surface = more wool) has led to an increased risk of flystrike that other breeds don't face. And perhaps breeding for less wrinkliness needs to be a part of the long-term solution. With some breeds you can get by with crutching, which involves shaving wool from the vulnerable area under the tail, but not removing skin or making incisions.
Finally, the pictures that are currently loading above are puzzling: mulesing is banned on sheep over one year old and normally lambs are mulesed a few weeks after birth. The pictures show much older sheep and therefore a much more extensive operation.
Lolly bananas, as I call them, are usually about 5cm long, banana shaped (of course), and an opaque light yellow. They sometimes have a slightly powdery surface as if they've been lightly dusted with cornflour. They are what I'd call a fondant candy, with a texture that ranges from slightly chewy to crisp and crunchy, depending on the degree of freshness. (Some fans insist on them being fresh, others will eat only stale ones.) The flavour has nothing with bananas to do, but comes from an ester that every chemistry teacher gets you to make in high school (isopentyl acetate maybe?).
I rather like them, but do feel quite sick if allowed to consume a whole bag of the things.
I looked and looked when I was living in the States and never once found them, although I did once try something that was orange coloured and not banana shaped but which otherwise had the exact same texture and flavour. Can't remember what they were called.
You don't have to work around fundraising types for very long to become familiar with the phrase "Make the logo bigger". These creatives take the mickey out of the concept beautifully. In addition to the song, there is a cream that you can get, which, when rubbed on the inadequate logo, will make it bigger.
Now. Can I point everyone in the direction of the Berlin Philharmonic's latest online game: Cello Hero? (It's actually called Cello Challenge, but we know what they really mean.) It's here.
@arcadia: Happy to clarify. I wasn't suggesting that spent dairy stock are not slaughtered for meat (although it's pretty poor quality meat and won't make it into your supermarket as steaks – more likely used for pet food and cheap hamburger patties). I was just pointing that it's probably not the case that "Most of the meat eaten in this nation is that of spent dairy cows…"
In Australia the dairy population is just under 2 million animals and these animals live some years before being considered "spent"; the beef population is over 20 million animals in order to keep up with domestic and export demand.
The population stats and the nature of the two industries lead me to conclude that most of the meat eaten in Australia (and likely North America too) is coming from cattle raised for beef production.
A quick search of stats suggests that only around 15-17% of "cheap" meat categories is sourced from dairy herds. It also seems that the concern surrounding this is as much to do with hormone levels in dairy herds (and therefore what we are putting into our bodies) as it is to do with the cruelty of eating an animal that is no longer considered productive as a dairy cow.
I can speak only from local experience, but as a former student of agriculture in Australia I can say that there is a discrete beef industry here that is quite separate from the dairy industry. For a start, the breeds that yield the right physiognomy for one are not well-suited for the other. (Square-framed "meaty" Herefords and Angus, for example, versus the high-milk Friesians and high-butterfat Jerseys.) Most of the meat eaten here would come from specialist beef producers, not spent dairy stock. My suspicion is that this would be the same in other countries.
(This is not an argument for or against the raising of cattle for meat or for milk, just an observation about what happens in the industry and what it is that meat eaters are most likely eating.)
I never could stand lambs fry, although I was fond of ox tongue. But the very worst – and still the bane of my life owing to its ubiquity – is the humble tomato. Will not, cannot, eat an uncooked tomato.
Wikipedia cites it as a mondegreen sung by the main character in the Australian mockumentary Kenny (2006). Kenny also has such fascinating sayings as: "This is the busiest time of year, this is a crazy time, it just goes bonkers. It's as silly as a bum full of smarties".
A leaping dance, typically done by men. Apparently, though, Queen Elizabeth I would dance one every morning in her nightgown as a form of exercise. (She also, as a model for her people, took a bath every six months whether she needed it or not.)
I'm just old enough to have learned the un-PC original version of the Australian anthem. And to have sung God Save the Queen as well as the national anthem. (God Save the Queen was phased out when I was infants school, I think).
By the way, if not sung at dirge-like pace, the tune for God Save the Queen (My country ’tis of thee) reveals its origins as a sprightly Elizabethan galliard.
Goes with guesstimate and other fun constructions that have more truth in them than the real word. (Try making your way from one side of a function room to the other… "exsqueeze me" is pretty much what you have to do.) That said, "guesstimate" seems to have acquired real word status, with dictionary definitions and everything. So not quite the same thing. Perhaps it's only a matter of time for exsqueeze.
Mark Twain in his Samuel Clemens hat had something to say on this subject, being an advocate for sha'n't and possibly ai'n't (or something similar, it was a long time ago that I read it).
As a road sign: I first encountered this in the States and I was used to the Australian equivalent, Give Way. "Yield" seemed terribly mediæval to my ears.
But you are reading, or you wouldn't have your eye on these words. Well, as you've disobeyed the above instruction and have read this far, you may as well know that the only "catch" in all this is that you're not going to get anywhere. You're reading about nothing. Nothing is going to be said, and you're silly to go on reading. So why go on?
Well, why go on? Why persist in continuing to read when you've been warned that it's getting you nowhere? Stop. Now.
Do you call this stopping, letting your eyes sneak down to see what this next paragraph contains? You can rest assured that it contains nothing of greater importance than the paragraphs above. Utter drivel, save for that one eminently sensible note: Stop reading.
You're not starting another paragraph? You're incorrigible. Look, this whole piece, from that line above to the bottom of the page, is about nothing. Can't you understand that? Nothing.
See if you can't understand it better this way: Yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer. Does that make sense? Well, it makes as much sense as everything else you're going to read till you finish this page.
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back. It's pointless, continuing to tell you of the folly of going on if you won't stop. Sheer gibberish will serve just as well. Ukly muckly. Abra kadabra. Eeny meeny miny mo.
Well, this is the last paragraph, and you must have realised by now that there will be nothing in it worth reading. Are you a man or a mouse? You've got nothing to lose by breaking off right here and now. Nothing to lose and everything to gain. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Yet here you are right at the finish, having got yourself precisely nowhere.
This was above all my favourite moment in the Cole's Funny Picture Book No.3 (page 74). A real period piece; simply had to share it.
I mean, I had always wondered about the ostriches – they're not native to Australia after all – but I simply concluded that emus wouldn't have scanned so well.
Oh, and I think nowadays we're meant to sing "Australians all…"
Other composers who were or were possibly synæsthesic: Olivier Messiaen, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Mr Flight-of-the-Bumble-Bee), Alexander Scriabin (who included a "colour organ" in one of his pieces), György Ligeti, Jean Sibelius
Edwardian trend: "The general impression given was of an enormous one piece bosom, referred to as a monobosom. Because the bust was largely unsupported, ladies began to wear various styles of bust bodices and added other extra padding, even handkerchiefs, to increase the frontage which hung low over the waist."
That's true, had forgotten. Then there's the conclusion of Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites: less spectacular but creepier, with those thuds from the guillotine at intervals. Ugh.
Incidentally, Dialogues… is one of the few operas that begins in one language (French) and ends in another (Latin).
(Letting the truth get in the way of a good story…)
This line comes from a popular apocryphal anecdote, first aired by Franz Xaver Niemetschek (among other things the first person to write a full biography of Mozart) in 1798:
JOSEPH II: Too beautiful for our ears, dear Mozart, and monstrous many notes!
MOZART: Exactly as many as are necessary, Your Majesty.
In brief, while this fits the posthumous myth of M as free artist on the outside of the Viennese establishment, ruled only by innate genius, it's historically implausible. It doesn’t fit Mozart’s anxiousness to please the Viennese, or with the musical concessions and cuts that he made or sanctioned in the opera.
But the anecdote thrived on "the inability of many of the initial listeners to grasp the music’s psychological involvement in nearly everything that matters in the drama." The ‘true subject’ of the conversation – if in fact it occurred in any form – might well have been M’s accompaniments, which were perceived as "overwrought, distracting and difficult to absorb".
(Source: Thomas Bauman in the Cambridge Opera Handbook for The Abduction from the Seraglio)
It is one of the most musical films ever made. Stunning. And poignant. Some say the film is better than the play. I love both but for very different reasons. The play conveys more of the spirit of artifice of Classical (as in 18th-century) music and the character of its dramatic devices. The film (shot in Prague I believe) is beautifully made and wonderfully acted and the soundtrack is stunning.
As a study of envy and despair in the face of seemingly undeserving God-given genius it's unparalleled. Of course, Peter Shaffer owed a great deal to Pushkin's Mozart and Salieri written in 1831, and that's worth seeking out too. Although Salieri really did go through a brief illness towards the end of his life during which he claimed to have murdered Mozart, he later denied this and no one had believed him at the time anyway. But it was Pushkin's "little tragedy" that really stimulated the legend of Salieri killing Mozart through jealousy.
"And when you feel the dreadful bite your failures – and hear the taunting of unachievable, uncaring God – I will whisper my name to you: 'Salieri: Patron Saint of Mediocrities!' And in the depth of your downcastness you can pray to me. And I will forgive you. Vi saluto."
and the final line: "Mediocrities everywhere – now and to come – I absolve you all. Amen!"
Which of you isn't more at home with his hairdresser than Hercules? Or Horatius? Or your stupid Danaius, come to that! Or mine - mine! - Idomeneo, King of Crete! All those anguished antiques! They're all bores! Bores, bores, bores! Jumps on to a chair… All serious operas written this century are boring!
Mozart wants to set his opera The Marriage of Figaro in a boudoir:
"Because I want to do a piece about real people, Baron! And I want to set it in a real place! A boudoir! – because that to me is the most exciting place on earth! Underclothes on the floor! Sheets still warm from a woman's body! Even a pisspot brimming under the bed!"
SALIERI: I have been listening to the cats in the courtyard. They are all singing Rossini. It is obvious that cats have declined as badly as composers. Domenico Scarlatti owned one which would actually stroll across the keyboard and pick out passable subjects for fugue. But that was a Spanish cat of the Enlightenment. It appreciated counterpoint. Nowadays all cats appreciate are High Cs. Like the rest of the public.
Joannes Chrysostumus – Mozart's saint's name at baptism. His birthday, 27 January, was also the feast day of St. John Chrysostom. This means that his birthday and saint's day (or "name day") coincided.
In Austria at this time one's name day was by far the more important, especially since many weren't entirely sure what their exact birthday was, but everybody had a saint's name.
"It seemed to me I had heard a voice of God – and that it issued from a creature whose own voice I had also heard – and it was the voice of an obscene child!"
Shaffer's moment of genius, capturing in words the effect of the magical opening of the Adagio from the Gran Partita (K.361).
"It started simple enough: just a pulse in the lowest registers - bassoons and basset horns - like a rusty squeezebox. It would have been comic except for the slowness, which gave it instead a sort of serenity. And then suddenly, high above it, sounded a single note on the oboe. We hear it It hung there unwavering – piercing me through – till breath could hold it no longer, and a clarinet withdrew it out of me, and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight it had me trembling. The light flickered in the room. My eyes clouded! The squeezebox groaned louder, and over it the higher instruments wailed and warbled, throwing lines of sound around me…"
The honour of first word on my Amadeus list goes to my favourite characters: the "Venticelli" (little winds), part gossips, part chorus - seen only in the play, since they are a very "stagey" creation.
Mumager has the nice added connotation of rummager – how many times do you see the mother rummaging around in the bottom of capacious bag with one hand while trying to keep kiddie in line with the other?
Idiom: "eke out a living", frequently misused to mean making a pretty poor living overall doing something that's badly paid, when in fact it refers to the making up of deficiencies. Merriam-Webster's example: "He eked out his income by getting a second job."
"Come and see" – the equivalent of a fascinator for the ankles. Involved attaching emeralds to the back seam of one's shoes. (I've also heard of it in relation to stockings, in which case the emeralds are sewn to the back seam near the ankle.) Very fashionable in 18th-century France.
My guess is it comes from channel surfing. Is this dumb for the same instinctive reasons (the terminology, that is, the act isn't under discussion)? Or is it only net surfing that is bothersome?
The Merry Widow (operetta) was so wildly popular that the name was given to a whole bunch of things. In addition to the undies and the chapeau, there were Merry Widow chocolates, shoes and cigars – all unauthorised apparently. There was even a Merry Widow cocktail: 1 1/2 oz. each of Gin & Sweet Vermouth, with a dash each of Pernod & Bitters, served strained over ice and garnished with a lemon twist.
Merchandise clearly isn't a new concept in the performing arts.
The pom-pom is not deemed essential, although it greatly adds character.
My theory is that the pom-pom is more common in slightly less cold countries, but in countries where some kind of hooded jacket is required as well the pom-pom becomes much less common. My favourite beanie with its luxurious pom-pom became impossible to wear in an Ohio winter, for example. Ironically, I'd bought it in Canada.
Now that was one scary story. Not so much because of the trauma of being trapped in a lift/elevator but the extent to which it changed the guy's life through the unwise decisions he made afterwards.
Interesting. I must confess I took wikipedia as my democratic guide to preferred spelling on that one, but it seems others have been there before us, e.g. "Duncan" who reports:
So when I was preparing my previous post on an anti-Catholic sculpture, I encountered the eternal spelling conflict…
So I fire up the spell checker called Google. I Google mitre and get about 767,000 hits. I Google miter and get about 415,000 hits. I Google "bishop's mitre" and get about 1,560 hits. I Google "bishop's miter" and get about 741 hits.
The American Heritage dictionary (which I use for my modern dictionary) has the usual weasel words about mitre "Chiefly British -- Variant of miter." But then its entomology entry says:
Middle English mitre, from Old French, from Medieval Latin, from Latin mitra, headdress of the Jewish high priest, from Greek.]
This suggests that mitre is closer to the word origin.
The online Catholic Encyclopedia prefers mitre. The OED likes mitre as well. So I guess it's mitre for me.
You won't believe this: two nights ago a friend was playing me an old LP recording of this speech! (Not Emmet, of course, but the Irish actor Michael MacLiammoir.) It was amazing – such rhetorical craft. The delivery was pretty exquisite too. (The speech is about 15 minutes in the recording.)
Ok, I'm taking a liberty here, the actual website for this "temple of enthusiasm" is www.deus.com.au. But the sign that I pass on Parramatta Road cleverly runs the words together.
I wish that were the case for some of my neighbouring departments. In one area in particular we have had an extended case of people coming only to leave again in two months. Not helpful.
Sydney has an inner-city suburb called Glebe. In Hobart there's an area of the city (not sure if it's strictly a suburb) that's still known as The Glebe. Presumably both were actual parish glebes at some point.
Name not my nemesis! That particular tennis player was the bane of my existence from kindergarten until third class.
I had quite forgotten about her nickname, which seems to have been completely taken over by the city, with such elegant coinings as the "Sydney to the Gong" charity bike ride.
Australian independent news site: "Crikey aims to bring its readers the inside word on what's really going on…".
It's quite an interesting site, but mainly I'm fond of the word – it makes the perfect polite exclamation and I believe I am responsible for a tiny band of adherents now using it in NE Ohio!
Oh, I agree! I loathe the use of this word to indicate a single pair of pants. I see it in fashion journalism and retail: jacket $200, blouse $100, pant $150. But don't we all put our "pants" on in the morning, not our "pant"? (Pace dress and skirt wearers.)
I'm also reminded that there are other similar constructions in English, where the portion of the original word chosen for creation of a new word is the "wrong" bit for the intended meaning. Why can I not think of any examples? If I could I would be able to make a list.
Thank you mollusque! In my line of work where we get more than a few European names, it's really helpful to be able to label these special letters and symbols. (As in, "Don't forget to put the bolle in Håkan Hardenberger and the hacek in Dvořák.") Those two had been bothering me.
Comments by frindley
Show previous 200 comments...
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
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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
frindley commented on the word in the library
English Novel taken from a Signed First Edition…Russian & Moroccan leather bindings, worn cloth and a hint of wood polish
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the list i-hate-perfume
My favourite is In the Library: "English Novel taken from a Signed First Edition…Russian & Moroccan leather bindings, worn cloth and a hint of wood polish." I'm almost tempted…
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the list words-i-assumed-i-had-not-been-misspelling-until-greeted-somewhere-by-the-fact-of-my-wrongness
exhuberant!
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word broadloid
A broadsheet newspaper that has succumbed to tabloid standards of journalism and integrity. Given The Plain Dealer's recent treatment of Cleveland music critic Donald Rosenberg, I'd be inclined to propose it as the latest candidate for broadloid status.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word tabloid
Yields broadloid.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word focalologist
Judy Ryan is waiting to be defined in the Macquarie Dictionary. Ms Ryan is a focalologist, or tie collector, and the Tie Society of Australia has applied to have the word put in the dictionary. Focale is Latin for neck cloth, cravat and scarf.
(The Glebe (Sydney), 25 Sept 2008, p.7)
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word focale
Also Latin for scarf. See focalologist.
September 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word features
I second bilby, chained_bear and Prolagus.
September 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word cupmudgeon
Someone who disapproves of cupcakes or who believes cupcakes are overrated.
Courtesy the Dictionary Evangelist. I was very surprised not to find it already listed here.
September 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word toroidal
A key feature of the acoustic design of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall is the suspension of large acrylic(?) toroidal reflectors above the stage.
One conductor is known to have referred to these as the "toilet seats".
September 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word leotards
Definitely singular. I wore a leotard to ballet class for 12 years (not the same leotard). If I ever wore leotards, plural, it was because it was extra cold or one the leotards was kind of see-through.
September 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word audacity
Perhaps not a good choice for a politician, but a good choice for a leader.
September 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word abstract writer
True
September 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word engrosser
Not just any calligrapher or illuminator, I'd guess, but one who is particularly absorbed in the work.
September 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word artist, suspect
970.361-018 ARTIST, SUSPECT (government ser.)
Selects set of facial features from inventory, and arranges features to form composite image of persons suspected of criminal activities based on descriptions obtained from victims and witnesses to crimes: Assembles and arranges outlines of features, such as head contours, noses, eyes, lips, chins, and hair lines and styles, to form composite image, according to information provided by witness or victim. Operates photocopy or similar machine to reproduce composite image. Draws moles, scars, and other identifying marks, using pens, pencils, and other artist's work aids, to retouch copy. Alters copy of composite image until witness or victim is satisfied that composite is best possible representation of suspect. Classifies and codes components of image, using established system, to help identify suspect. Searches, or helps witness or victim to search, police photograph records, using classification and coding system, to determine if existing photograph of suspect is available.
GOE: 01.06.01 STRENGTH: L GED: R4 M3 L3 SVP: 6 DLU: 86
(Actually, I thought all artists were a bit suspect…)
September 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word desire path
See also desire paths.
September 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word pirate
September 19: International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Avast, me Wordies! Don't be a lubber, bamboozle the bilge rats on Friday! Talk like a pirate.
Pirate lexicon sources:
norrell's list
jennarenn's list
MissLucinda's list
and
jamieb's open list
Not to neglect:
roseandivy's list
and its kindred spirit from
inkhorn
September 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word braggadocio
This is one of those wonderful words that sounds Italian but is really English.
The New Shorter Oxford gives the etymology as brag or braggart combined with the Italian augmenting suffix "-occio". First(?) used by Spenser as a proper name in Færie Queene (1590).
It also makes the perfect name for this font.
Now consider flautist…
September 16, 2008
frindley commented on the list punky-s-words
Perhaps braggadocio?
September 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word cubby house
The usual Aussie term for a backyard playhouse. They can be quite elaborate affairs.
September 15, 2008
frindley commented on the word feel free to call me on xxxx if you have any questions
Annoying when it appears on the end of an email from a colleague who is sitting barely 25 metres away!
September 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word wine cask
Australians invented these. No, not wooden wine barrels, but the nifty plastic "wineskin" in a box fitted with a tap. Useful for those occasions where you want a lot of wine and no one's especially concerned about the quality.
September 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word esky
An Aussie cooler box. Invented by Malley's and now made by Nylex, but, as with the bandaid, the name has been adopted for coolers generally.
There is a wiki page and Questacon includes it in a discussion of those other great Australian inventions: wine casks, stay-sharp knives, vegemite and lamingtons.
September 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word eskie
Oh yes, the ubiquitous Aussie cooler box. Although I believe the correct spelling is Esky. The real thing was invented by Malley's and is now made by Nylex, but, as with the bandaid, the name has been adopted for coolers generally.
There is a wiki page and Questacon includes it in a discussion of those other great Australian inventions: wine casks, stay-sharp knives, vegemite and lamingtons.
September 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word tod
In German: dead.
September 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word sweeney tod
But apt, since in the end tod is what Sweeney is.
September 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word pop
Soft drink forever! And down with the carbonated beverage!
September 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word mellon collie
Life is but a
(Life is butter)
Melancholy flower
(Melon, cauliflower)
Life is but a melan-
(Life is buttermelon)
choly flour
(Cauliflower)
Sing to the tune of Frère Jacques, which you can find in music notation, should you need it, here.
September 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word lulu
colloquial noun: a remarkable or excellent person or thing (19th-century origins?):
"The doomed beauty Grace Kelly was also in Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, which was a much lesser film, mainly because Hitch couldn't really open up its stage-play format beyond a certain point. But the score by Dimitri Tiomkin, a refugee from Russia, was a lulu."
Clive James in "Classics of the Cinema"
September 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word deadlines, deadlines, and more deadlines
Oh I could do with one of those walls sometimes. (Or so it can seem; I'm actually not the slightest bit suicidal by temperament!)
September 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word deadlines, deadlines, and more deadlines
@c_b: So that's what I've been doing wrong?!
@rolig: too apt, too frightening
Whoosh, there goes another!
September 10, 2008
frindley commented on the list slice-of-life-wisconsin-in-photographs
Great list.
September 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word git
How about wrodie?
(Rhymes with roadie, another community – not clique! – that would be very surprised to hear what he has to say about the -ie suffix.)
An aside: I can't believe that no one has listed roadie before!
September 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word git
A little of the original par about wordie.org was captured over on pontificate:
"I think they might reconsider it given the fun and knowledge gained by the the logophiles and verbivores visiting sites like this one."
And more, if not all, of the famous par 5 can be read in Bilby's long comment below.
September 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word pontificate
"I think they might reconsider it given the fun and knowledge gained by the the logophiles and verbivores visiting sites like this one."
A nice example of pontification from everybody's (everybodie's? no…) favourite pompous old git. Notice the delightful way in which the writer assumes his readership to be, oh I don't know, about 50 years younger than he is, and the beautifully old-fashioned "for fun and profit" tone.
September 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word git
Bravo Bilby et al!
September 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word pumpkin hour
Midnight, of course. Now where did I leave my slipper?
September 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word insomnia
Not sure. My knowledge of tectonic plate movements is a bit hazy. Perhaps we only move westwards at night, and maybe this is why I often get my best work done after pumpkin hour.
September 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word dobber
Australian slang. One who dobs someone in by reporting their misdemeanour(s) to an authority – an especially heinous act if it gets one's friends into trouble. ("No one likes a dobber.") Think: to grass, to squeal, to finger.
September 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word whiddler
A kind of dobber in other words.
September 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word insomnia
Grr. Still awake. Ah well, will traipse off to bed with Anna Karenina – there's nothing like a Russian novel chock-full of patronymics for the full soporific effect.
September 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word git
Particularly effective in the phrase "pompous old git". Today's wordie link on twitter brought it to mind immediately! Par 5 just takes the cake. Give me the playful "superficiality" of wordies any day.
September 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word psychotropic effects of marmalade
These effects may perhaps be observed over on marmalade.
September 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word marmalade
The psychotropic effects of marmalade aside, has anyone else ever come across the following story regarding the evolution of the word marmalade:
Mary Queen of Scots had frequent headaches, for which the only relief was a special citrus conserve. When she was ill she would call for it. Having lived in exile in France she had French ladies in waiting, and so these sweet girls would flutter about the palace calling to each other: Maria malade! Maria malade! Which soon become Mar'malade…
September 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word polenta
I always find myself preferring semolina.
September 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word sanguine
This, with sepia, is a key colour in classical drawing.
September 7, 2008
frindley commented on the word sepia
I always link it in my mind with sanguine, this being the other earth tone that it used in classical drawing.
September 7, 2008
frindley commented on the word petard
Underwear! Me too!
September 6, 2008
frindley commented on the user caffeinatedcows
Try to find the recording by Frans Brüggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century (on Glossa, a Spanish label, GCD921101). They're a period instrument orchestra (a lot of modern orchestras will substitute tuba for the ophicleide and it's not quite the same; also Brüggen's recording is really good!).
For nothing but solo ophicleide try: "Back From Oblivion" on the Australian label Melba (301111, available in the States and elsewhere, try arkivmusic.com). The player is Nick Byrne, a Sydney boy.
September 5, 2008
frindley commented on the list poetrie-the-book-of-my-enemy-has-been-remaindered
I love Clive James.
September 4, 2008
frindley commented on the list musical-terms
Here's one for you that Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe likes to use in his ensemble pieces: fuori di passo.
It translates "out of step", and he uses it, for example, in a piece called Mangrove where he wants the members of the cello section to play ever-so-slightly out of time with each other. Great effect. Actually extremely difficult for well-trained musicians to pull off!
September 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word con legno
Professional orchestral violinists often keep a second (cheap) bow to use when a composer calls for extended passages of col legno, because it's very bad for the bow! (And some of the good bows are made from beautiful, and now rare/endangered, species of wood.)
September 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word babycake
Name for a miniature cupcake, about 35mm diameter. Very cute and very sweet.
September 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word didgeridoo
Didjeridu seems to be the favoured spelling for many indigenous performers.
The truly amazing William Barton is one such. (NB. He'll be touring in Italy with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in September – worth catching if you're in that neck of the woods.)
Otherwise the more "anglo" spelling is the one for this page didgeridoo. Then there are variants, which tend to combine aspects of these two. (And yes, for languages that aren't traditionally written, and in a culture where there are a great many language groups, the matter of spelling is indeed moot.)
Incidentally, the true art of didjeridu playing lies not in the "blubbery sounds", as uselessness delightfully puts it, but in the circular breathing that is necessary to sustain a performance of more than a few seconds. I can't really do circular breathing (tried when I was a serious flutist) but I guess this isn't an issue, since I'm a girl.
September 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word australia gday
Me too. Confess I didn't get it until I saw what list it was in!
September 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word ophicleide
Unkindly known in Victorian times as the chromatic bullock. Mendelssohn requires one in his overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream. It does Bottom's braying beautifully.
September 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word opas
Orchestra Planning and Administration System. A whiz-bang, super-duper, truly amazing database for planning concerts, managing artists, musicians, library records, etc. etc. Even better, in my mind, than Tessitura – or at least I'm more fond of it. Alternatively, perhaps it's just German for "grandfathers".
September 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word cack
I've come across plethora's usage, also "I cacked myself", where the "laughing" part is understood.
There is also "cack-handed", which can mean left-handed, but mostly I hear it in the sense of clumsy or inept. Apparently it's British, but it certainly has some currency in Australia.
September 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word pizza ad
No, not an ad for pizzas. This is a large ad for a tabloid page in which the space is divided into four quadrants, each used to promote a different event under the banner of a single presenter.
September 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word tessitura
Or, a whiz-bang, super-duper database, developed by the New York Metropolitan Opera House to manage ticketing, customer relations and philanthropic giving.
September 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word so tired i couldn't knock the skin off a custard
Oh that's very good. I used to love eating the skin off the custard. I would fight my sisters for it. Being the youngest I always seemed to get my way – and the custard skin.
September 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word glister
All that glisters is not gold.
September 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word boyg
The great troll in Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Do little boys become trolls when you add a "g"?
September 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word piango
There you go – what happens when I attempt to play piano not having practised for a long time.
September 1, 2008
frindley commented on the word benelux
Seems only fair, perhaps.
August 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word benelux
Useful catchall term for referring to the low countries.
August 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word carillonneur
This wouldn't surprise me. I used to play a set of variations, Engels Nachtegaeltje, by Jacob van Eyck. He was a Dutch recorder virtuoso, of noble birth but blind hence his musical profession. Famous for his work as a carillonneur but also paid an additional six silver pieces a year to play his flute (i.e. recorder) in the cemetery when people were strolling there. Or something like that. Anyhow, he was born at the end of the 16th century and died in 1657. He worked in Utrecht, though, not Bruges, but the bell-ringing tradition is strong in the Benelux region so a continuous post of four hundred years doesn't really surprise me.
August 31, 2008
frindley commented on the word rumoured
Another verb usage (not requiring "to be"), especially useful when aiming for mock pretentiousness:
"I've heard it rumoured that…"
I'd be all for reviving the imperative "rumour it abroad" as a nice alternative to "spread the word".
August 30, 2008
frindley commented on the word goofy
Also an adverb, as in "to mouse goofy", which is where a right-handed person mouses with her left hand (but not necessarily switching the buttons, so a left-click is still a left-click).
August 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word spiral staircase
You are perfectly equipped to be a marauder then!
August 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word fencing
I'll check it out. Alas, I don't have a television and the Olympic coverage here was not conducive to the gatecrashing of friends' homes for the purpose of watching an arcane sport. Sigh.
I will investigate The Duellists.
August 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word cat lady action figure
Indeed, and here she is.
August 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word fencing
The frindley took up fencing when she was, well, too old. (All the best fencers begin at the age of six or so, like ballet I guess.)
And why? Mainly because she was suffering, in the professional environment, from a particularly obnoxious and petty boss. And so it seemed like the right time to pursue a long-held dream while enjoying general catharsis. She was also somewhat inspired by the Australian conductor, Simone Young, also a fencer, who once talked about how conducting and fencing both involve waving a stick, but with conducting you are trying to communicate intent, whereas with fencing you are trying to conceal intent. Very interesting thought. She had probably seen The Fencing Master on television as well, and had spent her childhood reading books like the Scarlet Pimpernel and other period romances. Oh, and the oft-quoted analogy of fencing being like chess speeded up probably had an influence too.
A postscript. Given her story, the frindley was especially amused by this site, which offers "fencing" as a corporate team-building exercise. (A "modern, collaborative experience" is their way of describing it.) Sounds dodgy to me.
August 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word spiral staircase
Descending, reesetee, descending. The ascending pillagers are meant to be hampered by the clockwise orientation, while you, the worthy householder, are permitted to descend with sword a-flashing and a-slashing.
c_b: consider it moved, with more shocking revelations from the frindley past…
August 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word ballestra
Frindley respectfully offers balestra as a preferred spelling. (This Italian word, with the one-l, means "crossbow" and there just can't not be a connection there.)
August 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word balestra
Well Nike have called their fencing shoe the "Ballestra", but as far as I can tell, all the reputable fencing websites spell it with the single "l". Indeed, one fencing forum discussing the Nike shoe correct the spelling and refer to it as the "Balestra".
But the clincher seems to reside in my Italian dictionary, where a "balestra" is defined as a crossbow, which really is an extremely apt way of thinking about this particular move.
Finally, though, in the process of pursuing spelling, I found this little video demonstrating a bal(l)estra. The commentary is kind of annoying (simplistic) and the demonstration not very inspiring, but it more or less conveys the idea.
August 28, 2008
frindley commented on the list castles-and-keeps
Well bad, bad Wordies do all the good, good Wordies a wonderful service when they take the trouble to bring such beauties as these into the Wordie world. So thank you!
August 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word cloth ears
An especially devastating thing to say of a musician.
August 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word fart machine
That would be a whoopie cushion, surely?
August 27, 2008
frindley commented on the list squopping-your-wink-a-glossary-of-tiddlywinks
omg - teh awesome list, as they say.
And I say this because I've just come home from a "Meet the Music" orchestral concert (attended for the most part, but not exclusively, by large numbers of high school student groups), in which Arabella Steinbacher played Korngold's Violin Concerto and from my eavesdropping this seems to have been the general consensus regarding the performance.
August 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word balestra
A fencing move, sometimes known as a "jump lunge".
Basic instructions can be found on eHow. These amusingly begin with: "Things You'll Need: Fencing gear".
August 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word spiral staircase
It's interesting that to this day nearly all spiral staircases are still built to ascend in a clockwise manner, thus allowing modern men and women to keep their sword arms free.
I find this appealing even though my prowess in fencing is strictly limited to the balestra, a move of which I'm especially fond.
August 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word vest
When is a vest a vest and when is it a singlet?
August 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word waistcoat
Then there's the matter of what's a waistcoat and what's a vest.
August 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word one
For CatKisses' list, lyrics that cover a good many possibilities for entering a room:
She walks into a room and you know
She's uncommonly rare, very unique,
Peripatetic, poetic and chic.
She walks into a room and you know
From her maddening poise, effortless whirl,
She's the special girl strolling,
Can't help all of her qualities extolling
Loaded with charisma is ma jauntily sauntering, ambling shambler,
One,
And you know you must shuffle along, join the parade,
She's the quintessence of making the grade.
This is whatcha call trav'ling
Oh strut your stuff!
Can't get enough!
Ohh! Sigh! give her your attention
Do I really have to mention
She's the one!
("One" from the musical A Chorus Line)
August 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word features
It seems to me that commenting on profiles is the only reliable way of carrying on a specific conversation via Wordie, and that's because you receive a notification when someone comments on your profile, whereas you don't if they use word or list comments to "talk" to you. But it does mean that you only ever see one side of a conversation on any given profile. If a Wall-to-Wall type feature could be achieved without clutter or spoiling Wordie's simplicity then I'd be all for that.
But perhaps it's better as is. Conversations on profiles aren't terribly convenient to sustain and so we focus our attention on the things that really matter on this site!
August 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word pussify
When the French first landed on Australian soil they attempted (in a kind of early "ethnomusicology") to notate the songs and "war cries" of the Aborigines, including the famous cooee. I've seen the results, beautifully presented in music copperplate, with the words written in a sort of French phonology, e.g. "couille" for cooee. The Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe tells a funny story about perfecting his pronunciation for a presentation about all this to a French audience. The nice librarian at the embassy who was helping him failed to mention that "couilles" in fact means balls.
August 26, 2008
frindley commented on the list well-known-places-youve-never-heard-of
Aotearoa (New Zealand).
August 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word lavabo
They retained the melodic motifs – you hear these in some of the connecting orchestral music – but the song itself isn't heard.
August 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word features
Since mobile wordie has recently received a plug, I have a feature suggestion for that.
At present in the mobile version we can add words to existing lists and we can follow the recent comments. But it's virtually not possible to add comments to new words (a huge minus for me, since I rarely add a word without wanting to say something about it right then and there). It's also virtually not possible to contribute to conversations via the mobile version.
I say "virtually not possible" because I did discover one day when my train was delayed that it is possible to go through a circuitous process that effectively brings up the regular version of the site onto my mobile screen, at which point I can do all the normal things, albeit in a pretty clumsy interface. Basically it involves clicking on a username (e.g. from a comment header), which takes you to that profile in the non-mobile version. From there you have access to searching and other functions. But it's pretty clunky. Indeed it's probably a bug - but please don't fix it before adding these features…
1. ability to search for words
2. ability to comment on words
August 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word evensnog
You might think this is a simple misspelling of evensong, but it isn't. You see, there are all sorts of things that choristers can get up to.
August 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word ratbag
A troublemaker. According to Richard Tognetti, artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, ratbaggery is absolutely essential to the health of the performing arts. I'm inclined to agree. There should be more ratbaggery and more larrikins.
August 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word lavabo
I've always known this word in connection with barbering, since I first heard it in a performance of Sweeney Todd:
"His needs were few, his room was bare.
A lavabo and a fancy chair.
A mug of suds and a leather strop,
An apron, a towel, a pail and a mop.
For neatness he deserved a nod,
Did Sweeney Todd,
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street."
Incidentally, you won't hear this song in the recent Tim Burton movie version because he and Sondheim decided to cut the prologue chorus for various dramatic and cinematic reasons. I respect the decision, but I was still bitterly disappointed, because it is an amazing number, complete with melodic quotations of the dies irae chant.
August 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word botch
"To leave no rubs nor botches in the work…"
Shakespeare's Macbeth to the murderers re the matter of Banquo's murder.
According to the Cambridge UP edition this is the OED's earliest citation for "botch".
The Royal Shakespeare Co. used to sell a rubber (eraser) with this quote printed on it. Cute.
I love this word.
August 24, 2008
frindley commented on the word anonymour
My secret lover.
Of course, my love life has nothing whatsoever to do with the hastiness of my typing.
August 24, 2008
frindley commented on the word cloy
Ooh, that's good. In every way.
August 24, 2008
frindley commented on the word spit shine a turd
One of my colleagues has a follow-up to the quip:
"You can't polish a turd."
He always adds:
"The harder you polish, the more the shit gets on the walls."
August 24, 2008
frindley commented on the word sodden
After the rain…
August 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word heaviside layer
Just when you thought the poet was being original, it turns out this is another, legit, term for the ionosphere.
August 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word llogos
This suggestion calls for a poem a la Ogden Nash:
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.
August 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word ratio
@Logos-wanting-to-change-name: since also associated with the concept of "reason"
August 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word rain
It just so happens there was some fantastic rain happening in Sydney on Friday…
August 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word bubble wrap
Just click the
August 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word synchronized money spending
Also known as the synchronized schopfling event.
August 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word manse
I've only ever encountered manse used in the very specialised sense of a clergyman's residence, never as a variant for mansion. In many instances (but not all) a manse is a relatively modest affair, while a mansion is, of course, meant to be imposing.
That said, there is, in a particularly beautiful Federation suburb of Sydney, a manse that almost makes a girl want to (a) join the Uniting Church and (b) study for the ministry. Handsome, of a goodly size, characterful, lovely garden and not in the slightest bit pretentious.
August 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word fanny packs
aka bum bag. In Australia, one of the places where they are known as bum bags, it is not only a faux pas to wear one, but it is an even bigger faux pas to call it a fanny pack, since fanny is slang for female genitals.
August 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word somewhere over the rainbow
Q. Where do you go to weigh a pie?
August 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word hello, you've reached my immobile phone…
Useful for the outgoing voicemail message on a landline. Doesn't work so well in countries where mobiles are called cell phones.
August 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word irish underground airways
A favourite of my dad's
August 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word mostly mozart
"Mostly Mozart" is a trademark and wordmark of the Lincoln Center in New York. And you thought anyone could just use that name…
August 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word tailgating event
In my neck of the woods, where tailgate parties are unknown, tailgating refers exclusively to a very rude and inconsiderate, not to mention dangerous, driving technique (actually "technique" is too generous a term), in which someone drives too close to the car in front, often in an attempt to intimidate. An expression of road rage in many instances.
August 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word den of iniquity
My father used to answer: Irish Underground Airways. That is, until my mother threatened to hit him if he said it one more time…
August 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word poncho
Brilliant. For this I would be willing to break my cardinal fashion rule: if you are old enough to have worn it the first time ’round, give it a miss the second time ’round.
August 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word vorspiel
Or perhaps, if one wanted to be both perversely and erroneously literal, "foreplay"
August 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word muggle
Also a slang term for marijuana (either singular or plural), as I discovered today while reading about Louis Armstrong.
August 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word insomnia
Oh no, it's happening to me!
August 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word pternectomy
Which of course is something that actually happens in certain versions of Cinderella: the stepmother hacks off one of her daughters' heels in a vain attempt to make her fit the slipper. What's Greek for "ow"?
August 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word whisper
See lisp for a neat trick for making a whithper truly dithcreet. (Courtesy C.S. Lewis)
August 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word lisp
Years ago I learned something very useful from C.S.Lewis. (The Last Battle in the Narnia series, I think.)
In the book one character whispers to another while on a night-time reconnaissance: "Get down, thee better."
Lewis then explains that she says this not because she has a lisp but because she knows that the sibilants are the noisiest part of any whisper and the sound most likely to give you away if you're trying to go undetected.
And ever since I have always made a point of lithping when whithpering. Or at least avoiding words with sibilants in them.
August 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word egrote
Can this be tested? Do you think John would turn off the time-and-name stamps for 48 hours…
Not that I want to dispute your claim. A distinct style is something to be nurtured and cherished.
August 8, 2008
frindley commented on the list bookends
Granted life (Stanley Sadie's Mozart: The Early Years)
August 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word egrote
Well we'll have to do something about that. After all, it's the kind of word that's probably even more useful in the 21st century than it would have been in the 18th. So if enough people start using it, and using it in print, it's only a matter of time… (as Andrew Clements makes evident in his delightful children's book Frindle).
August 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word pendantic disorder
A condition in which one is unable to type the word "pedantic" at a first attempt. In severe cases can spread to other words, so that, for example, "composition" comes out (perhaps appropriately) as "compostion".
August 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word haz-chem
Short for "hazardous chemicals", but it has always seemed to me that it could be a rather satisfying word in its own right: "hazchem". Has a vaguely Slavic or Yiddish flavour.
August 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word algoraphobia
Oh, very good!
August 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word proofread
And how exactly does one go about taking a firefighter exam?
August 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word pear shaped
My knowledge and use of the phrase is all-Australian and I've never watched The Bill.
August 7, 2008
frindley commented on the word sublime
Oh yes, I needed to read this just now. I really did. Now I can proofread with a smile on my face!
August 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word flagship
"Your flagship orchestra." Eeeerrrrrgh!
(Actually, "Your orchestra" is bad enough.)
August 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word proofread
I should be doing this. I really should. But I don't want to look at the season brochure one more time. Sigh. Off I go. See if I can find any lingering flagships or sublime beauties or…
August 3, 2008
frindley commented on the list my-library
The first shelf of my library happens to be my "practical arts" shelf: The Australian Manual of Calligraphy; Edward Johnston's Writing & Illuminating & Lettering (Johnston belonged to the same crowd as William Morris and Eric Gill, and was responsible for the revival of hand lettering in the early 20th century); Your Penmanship, and Good Handwriting and How to Acquire It (two period pieces that my father bought in the 1950s - both quite beautiful and full of sensible advice); Jaxtheimer's How to Paint and Draw (another oldie, originally published in German in 1961). I find when it comes to "how to" books for the visual arts, anything published before I was born is almost always superior to the current crop of beautiful but insubstantial volumes. For a start, they assume the reader is serious and not out for instant gratification.
August 3, 2008
frindley commented on the user Prolagus
She lives! (Or rather, the 2009 season brochure is nearly put to bed, the worst part of the year's schedule is just about over, a fortnight's holiday has brought refreshment, the niblings' birthday presents have all been found, and frindley roams again.)
August 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word lamington
I made small ones once when I was living in the States and feeling homesick. They were 1.5" cubes and I put cointreau in the chocolate icing, so you could say they were on the sophisticated side. It was extremely difficult to find dessicated coconut in the local supermarkets, however. Could only find the flaked coconut, which is too coarse. Spent a good half an hour with a mezzaluna knife cutting the flakes into crumbs. At which point you understand why I only did it once and thereafter stuck to making pavlova.
August 2, 2008
frindley commented on the list my-library
How funny. I learnt about Library Thing via Wordie!
It's great. Especially for those series of reference books where I was forever finding myself at book sales unable to remember which volumes I owned and which ones were familiar simply ’cause I'd borrowed them from libraries. With Library Thing on my mobile phone – no more inadvertent duplication!
August 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word pentatonic buying
I made a note of five things I needed, now where is it?
July 27, 2008
frindley commented on the list don-t-panic-you-can-buy-your-way-out
Reminds me of Die Schopfling.
July 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word static buying
Actually, I meant for this to be stationeric buying, but this looks interesting too.
July 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word crumpet
So why, for the first time in months, do I buy a packet of crumpets today?
My favourite thing is to put a thin slice of unsalted butter on a hot crumpet and let it melt. Mmm.
Vegemite etc. is too salty and vaguely nutritious to give true crumpet pleasure.
But butter, honey and cinnamon is a nice combination for the sweet tooth.
There are, of course, the various slang uses of this word:
old crumpet - something akin to "old fart" or "mate", I confess to never having heard this in real life usage.
a bit of crumpet - a sexually desirable woman
July 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word ottodg
Nutmeg in predictive text speak
June 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word naplet
A little nap. A short sleep taken by the desperate following some kind of all-night vigil, usually watching over a deceased deadline.
June 26, 2008
frindley commented on the list so-busy-i-don-t-have-time-to-scratch-myself
It's 7am. I haven't slept yet. Must go take naplet.
June 26, 2008
frindley commented on the list so-busy-i-don-t-have-time-to-scratch-myself
But where are the destructions for the tiramisu? I've never made one.
June 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word armenian nutmeg cake
from the kitchen of an Anglo-Irish Australian, no Armenian within coo-ee...
A moist, spicy cake with a biscuit base (that’s “biscuit�? in Australian lingo, i.e. crisp and crumbly). Looks humble and unassuming. Look again, and it looks…gone.
To begin, remove one 4 oz stick of butter from the fridge and cut into 1/2 inch cubes (unless it’s a stinking hot day, in which case it’s perhaps best to live with cold butter, and why are you baking anyway?).
Grease and line an 8-inch springform cake tin.
Set oven to moderate (350° F).
INGREDIENTS
2 cups dark brown sugar (no lumps)
2 cups self-raising flour
4 oz butter, cubed
1 tspn bicarb soda
1 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tspn nutmeg
a few walnuts (or pecans), chopped
METHOD
Mix sugar, flour and butter together until texture is crumbly (like breadcrumbs). Resist temptation to use a machine for this as the results tend to be too homogenous, even sloppy – better to massage the butter cubes through the dry ingredients using your fingers. (Very therapeutic too.)
Press half the crumb mix into the base of the lined springform pan. Ensure that the layer is even, and not thicker at the sides.
Dissolve bicarb soda in milk. Add egg, nutmeg and nuts to remaining crumb mix with milk and soda solution. Pour over crumb mix layer in tin.
Bake in a moderate oven (350° F) for 60 minutes. Allow to stand 15 minutes before turning out.
NOTES
Shelf-life – It is a rarely known fact that this cake will go stale very quickly. However, for the single cook with serious will-power, the cake can be made to last four to five days if wrapped tightly in waxed or parchment paper and kept in an airtight container.
Spices – The unknowing always seem to think this cake has ginger in it (perhaps because of the textures involved and the overall spicy/brown sugar taste). It can be fun to add cinnamon and/or ginger to the nutmeg. But it would also be a convincing ginger-less ginger cake for emergencies!
June 26, 2008
frindley commented on the list so-busy-i-don-t-have-time-to-scratch-myself
Actually the armenian nutmeg cake is very very good. Is it appropriate Wordie etiquette to post recipes?
June 26, 2008
frindley commented on the list so-busy-i-don-t-have-time-to-scratch-myself
Do you mean to say. You're. Pillaging. My List??!
June 26, 2008
frindley commented on the list so-busy-i-don-t-have-time-to-scratch-myself
Argh. Bring me some Armenian nutmeg cake before I faint.
June 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word sugartongs
According to Sherlock Holmes this is singular, as in:
"Excellent Watson! You will see there a sugartongs..."
June 22, 2008
frindley commented on the list bookmarks
She lives!
June 22, 2008
frindley commented on the list bookmarks
This is excellent. And it is especially useful since (alas!) the front page only indicates how many times a word is listed rather than how many comments it has attracted. And it is the latter which is the true sign of an interesting conversation.
June 22, 2008
frindley commented on the user Prolagus
It exists
June 22, 2008
frindley commented on the word maiden over-worked
Originally a sweet tooth fairy entry, but it seems apt here as well.
June 22, 2008
frindley commented on the user Prolagus
Well, thank you for the nice thought. The past month or so I've been doing the work of two people (quite literally) and it has caused me to neglect all my favourite past times. Perhaps I'll create an empty list: something like "I'm too busy to scratch myself, let alone think of cool words to list."
June 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word tone-deaf
Very few people are genuinely tone deaf. Very few.
But there are a lot of people who've been told – usually as a child by some thoughtless and ignorant adult – that they are tone deaf. These are the kids who are told to mouth the words in choir and are generally discouraged from singing or otherwise participating in music making, and who are then deprived of great enjoyment often for the rest of their lives. What makes me really furious is when the adult in question has been a "music teacher".
May 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word maiden over-worked
The maiden part may be stretching things somewhat, but otherwise this is an apt description of me at present. (A maiden over is a cricket term, by the way.)
May 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word bingle
I just love the way the very sound of this word plays down in laconic Aussie fashion the seriousness of what it's describing. I've always associated it with an older generation - it's a word my parents, aunts and grandparents would have used but not my contemporaries. I think, however, it may be about to enjoy a comeback: saw today that a budget car insurance company has adopted it as a name: www.bingle.com.au. How endearing!
May 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word homonym
My favourite epitaph:
A Dyer by name and a dyer by trade,
Of a dire disease he a die-er was made.
But mark you well, what seems very quaint,
A die-er was he of a liver complaint.
May 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word lion's share
The Lion went once a-hunting along with the Fox, the Jackal, and the Wolf. They hunted and they hunted 'til at last they surprised a Stag, and soon took its life. Then came the question how the spoil should be divided. "Quarter me this Stag," roared the Lion; so the other animals skinned it and cut it into four parts. Then the Lion took his stand in front of the carcass and pronounced judgement: The first quarter is for me in my capacity as King of Beasts; the second is mine as arbiter; another share comes to me for my part in the chase; and as for the fourth quarter, well, as for that, I should like to see which of you will dare to lay a paw upon it."
"Humph," grumbled the Fox as he walked away with his tail between his legs; but he spoke in a low growl. "You may share the labours of the great, but you will not share the spoil."
Here
May 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word lion's share
The Lion and the Fox
A FOX entered into partnership with a Lion on the pretense of becoming his servant. Each undertook his proper duty in accordance with his own nature and powers. The Fox discovered and pointed out the prey; the Lion sprang on it and seized it. The Fox soon became jealous of the Lion carrying off the Lion’s share, and said that he would no longer find out the prey, but would capture it on his own account. The next day he attempted to snatch a lamb from the fold, but he himself fell prey to the huntsmen and hounds.
(Translated by George Fyler Townsend. Rendered into HTML on Wed Jun 10 17:25:21 1998, by Steve Thomas for The University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection.)
And from the same source:
The Wild Ass and the Lion
A WILD ASS and a Lion entered into an alliance so that they might capture the beasts of the forest with greater ease. The Lion agreed to assist the Wild Ass with his strength, while the Wild Ass gave the Lion the benefit of his greater speed. When they had taken as many beasts as their necessities required, the Lion undertook to distribute the prey, and for this purpose divided it into three shares. “I will take the first share,�? he said, “because I am King: and the second share, as a partner with you in the chase: and the third share (believe me) will be a source of great evil to you, unless you willingly resign it to me, and set off as fast as you can.�?
Might makes right.
May 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word leucomelanous
Disney's Snow White!
Not to mention a host of other beauties such as Elizabeth Taylor in her prime and Vivien Leigh.
May 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word trippingly
Fairies:
Tripping hither, tripping thither,
Nobody knows why or whither;
We must dance and we must sing
Round about our fairy ring!
From Iolanthe or The Peer and the Peri
by Gilbert and Sullivan
May 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word agenbite
Joseph Bottum has found a new function for this word. An extract:
"Let's coin a term for this kind of poetic, extralogical accuracy. Let's call it agenbite. That's a word Michael of Northgate cobbled up for his 1340 Remorse of Conscience — or Agenbite of Inwit, as he actually titled the book. English would later settle on the French-born word "remorse" to carry the sense of the Latin re-mordere, "to bite again." But Michael didn't know that at the time, and so he simply translated the word's parts: again-bite or (in the muddle of early English spelling) agenbite.
"Anyway, these words that sound true need some kind of name. And since they do bite back on themselves, like a snake swallowing its tail, Michael's term will do as well as any other. Ethereal is an agenbite, isn't it? All ethereal and airy. Rapier, swashbuckler, erstwhile, obfuscate, spume — agenbites, every one. Reverberation reverberates, and jingle jingles. A friend insists that machination is a word that tells you all about its Machiavellian self, and surely sporadic is a clean agenbite, with something patchy and intermittent in the taste as you say it."
May 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word bubble wrap
Another online game for the wordie-inclined.
Click on Verbosity once you're there. You're matched with an anonymous online partner and take turns guessing secret words, chosen by the game, based on clues provided by the other partner.
May 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word pippety-poppety-poptimist
Interesting. When I was a kid my drama teacher got us to do breathing exercises that involved saying "pippety peppety poppety" x number of times on a single breath.
May 12, 2008
frindley commented on the word resistentialism
Now this is a word I need!
May 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word naked
I don't believe so. If you read him carefully, and the full context makes it clearer, he's effectively saying that being dressed is our natural state, and that it takes a verb (i.e. an action) to render us undressed and therefore naked. So I doubt he would have had much sympathy for "naturists", whom I understand consider nudity to be the natural state.
May 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word blacktop
Asphalt is used in Australia, but not so much in connection with roads or highways - it's a surface I strongly associate with school playgrounds.
Tarmac, at least for this Aussie, is exclusively an aviation/airport term, referring to the runway, as in "we hit the tarmac at about 9.30". Oh, I can see, over on tarmac, that resetee has identified tarmac=runway as a British usage dating from 1919.
May 11, 2008
frindley commented on the word hoof and hook
Think of it more like judging a wedding cake according to its icing, decoration and overall structure; then slicing it in order to judge the quality and taste of the actual fruitcake that's inside all that marzipan and fondant.
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word nibling
Before my niece was born, when I had only nephews, I considered myself an uncle.
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word chairlift
Crikey!
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word chocka
Short for chocka-block. Means "very full".
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word blacktop
Me neither. I'd probably call the material bitumen. Not sure if there's a one-word equivalent for the verb form, perhaps tar?
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the list the-show
Hey bilby, what's the Aussie term for "petting zoo" - is it a "Friendship Farm" or some such thing where you can go ooh and ah over the piglets and lambs and so on?
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word district exhibits
Stunning fruit and vegetable displays.
Pictures here and here.
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word wood chopping
Perhaps this should be woodchopping. Not sure.
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word hoof and hook
A livestock competition in which the animal, usually a steer, is judged twice: once in the parade ground (on the hoof) and again, as a carcass, after slaughtering (on the hook).
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word sherbet
Another view from the Antipodes. Sherbet always refers to the effervescent, usually lemon-flavoured, powdered confectionary (e.g. lemon sherbets, which enclose the sherbet in hard candy, mmm). A sorbet would be called a sorbet.
Pronunciation here is 'ʃɜb�?t (SHERbuht) i.e. with the unstressed schwa vowel in the second syllable, so the bets are off.
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word nake
nake v.t. Long obs. exc. Sc. ME. Back-form. f. naked adj. Make naked (lit. & fig.)
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word naked
The word naked was originally a past participle; the naked man was the man who had undergone a process of naking, that is, of stripping or peeling (you used the verb of nuts and fruit). Time out of mind the naked man has seemed to our ancestors not the natural but the abnormal man; not the man who has abstained from dressing but the man who has been for some reason undressed.
CS Lewis, The Four Loves
May 10, 2008
frindley commented on the word and-or
Which is perhaps why it's better that the multi-tasking musician (say, the violinist directing from the concertmaster's chair) be referred to as "violin-director" rather than "violin/director".
May 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word transitive vampire
Essential reading for the Wordie-inclined vampire:
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed
by Karen Elizabeth Gordon.
Search Inside here
I particularly like this example:
"She wrapped herself up in an enigma, there was no other way to keep warm."
May 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word vampire
See transitive vampire.
May 9, 2008
frindley commented on the word sook
Just in case you were mislead by the usage example on fossick, sook isn't always used harshly. It can also be used kindly and can even serve as a term of endearment, as in these examples taken from a list of NZ and Australian words:
sook: kindly description of someone who is being silly, or behaving like a softy or scaredy cat. As in:- "you're being a sook"... "just a big sook" and so on... More often than not the phrase is used as a term of endearment.
To this can be added the idea of teariness or being prone to crying, hence "sooky baby".
May 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word fossick
Almost exclusively Australian word of Cornish origin. I am told that sook - as in "Grow up, stop crying and don't be such a bloody sook" (or "sooky baby") is also of Cornish origin.
May 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word nibling
Now this one's interesting, because I made it up too. And it was some years ago now, my niblings are aged between 10 and 15. Then someone else I know made up the exact same word, quite independently of me; and now jruberto, and it appears dontcry. And even a quick fossick on the interwebs suggests that we are not alone. Not in the slightest.
Wiktionary cites examples dating back to 1989. Urban Dictionary gives it some cred. And the really cute thing: in 2004 a group of English schoolchildren lobbied to have the word admitted to the OED. (Shades of Andrew Clements's Frindle in that story.)
But that's a digression; my main point is that I don't think I've come across a word that is so consistently and independently invented by so many people. That says to me that there is a deeply compelling logic in the construction as well as a deeply compelling need for the word.
So why isn't it in the OED??
May 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word nature strip
See a world of possibilities in the discussion for sidewalk.
May 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word sidewalk
I'm with bilby: the nature strip lies between the footpath and the road.
May 8, 2008
frindley commented on the word spouse
Plural: spice, of course.
As in "Professors and their spice are invited to the Garden Party…"
May 7, 2008
frindley commented on the word faute de frappe
Actually no: French pianos (the Pleyels and Érards) as well as the early Viennese pianos had comparatively light actions, whereas the English Broadwoods were the heavy ones. But nowadays it's one-size-fits-all and every concert pianist wants a Steinway. (Not that these don't vary, but the differences in action are much more subtle than they were in the 18/19th centuries.) It's to do with the touring life: pianists don't have time to get to know a new piano action for every gig*, so the makers have made consistency and conformity a virtue.
*Krystian Zimerman's solution is to carry his own Steinway action around with him – just the keyboard and hammer mechanism, that is.
But back to the point: I think it's interesting that frappé in ballet suggests a sharp and precise striking action (e.g. of the foot against the floor in a battement frappé), but not necessarily a heavy action.
May 5, 2008
frindley commented on the word cor anglais
See also English horn.
May 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word english horn
See flying lemurs. (Well, why not?)
May 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word flying lemurs
Reminds me of the english horn: neither English nor a horn.
Of course, it was wrong-headed to attempt to translate the original name (cor anglais) in the first place, since that's an example of Franglais, most likely meaning angled "horn".
May 4, 2008
frindley commented on the list predictive-text-speak
Hee hee! Predictable maybe, but very funny.
It's a shame, though, that predictive text dictionaries couldn't be a bit more extensive. Although if they were I wouldn't encounter such amusing non-words as captaingog and volatus…
May 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word quandarer
predictive text speak for standards
May 4, 2008
frindley commented on the word faggot
Also another name for bassoon. German spelling "Fagott" and Italian "fagotto". From the French "fagot", meaning a bundle of sticks.
May 3, 2008
frindley commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet
In my experience a good many tend to be names, e.g. N for Nellie.
And the use can often be selective, with not all letters given a phonetic helper, just the ones that need it most: F and S can often be confused, so they'll be identified in phone calls, similarly D and T, N and M and so on. But L, for example, is often left alone. Ditto E.
May 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word tontine
"…a macabre form of investment, popular in Europe and America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which the amount you got back depended on how many of your fellow-investors you outlived."
Michael Kinsley in The New Yorker
May 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word irrational exuberance
Term coined by Alan Greenspan in a lecture on the importance of price stability and the Federal Reserve System for the American Enterprise Institute on 5 Dec 1996.
"How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions, as they have in Japan over the past decade? And how do we factor that into monetary policy?"
May 2, 2008
frindley commented on the word pique
(Digressing back to Laiane's comment…)
When used in reference to fabric it's usually pronounced pee-kay, and in fact the NSOED's preferred spelling for this sense is piqué. (But "pique" is allowed as an alternative.)
April 29, 2008
frindley commented on the word labio-dental voiced fricative
My real name has one of these. It makes me so happy!
April 29, 2008
frindley commented on the word vulgate
c_b seems to be very fond of the labio-dental voiced fricative. Couldn't agree more. Mmmmmmm.
Sorry, that should be Vvvvvvvvv.
April 29, 2008
frindley commented on the word ΒΑ�?Α�?Α
Ah, I think I see – this is related to my question on features about including square brackets as square brackets (instead of as a way of creating word links). Should I say sneaky or nifty?
Which means that one probably shouldn't need to use Cyrillic or other special characters at all, just the character entity numbers for the standard Latin alphabet…
For example? ALL CAPS
April 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word ΒΑ�?Α�?Α
I'm feeling faint…
Just don't do this to TOMATO anyone.
April 28, 2008
frindley commented on the word pantyhose
Then there's always hosiery – I've never liked that word.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word snooze or booze
The eternal problem with Friday nights.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word puddenbrooks
Buddenbrooks (Thomas Mann)
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word puddenbrooks
And rather apt as a summary of the original.
(Disclaimer: I haven't finished reading it yet.)
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the list autantonyms
I have come across three additional terms used in connection with this phenomenon:
contranym
antagonym
enantiodromic
and also
antanaclasis – rhetorical device that can make use of autoantonyms, although these two don't:
"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." (Benjamin Franklin)
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." (Groucho Marx)
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word stimthought
Where does telling jokes to yourself fall in the gamut?
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word mahler
"I'll drink to that. And one for Mahler!"
–Here's to the Ladies Who Lunch (Stephen Sondheim)
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word features
Bewdiful!
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word geekette
Because there are times when you need an old-fashioned feminine ending!
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word features
That's what I've been doing too, and they certainly do the trick. But the geekette at heart is curious as to whether there is a neat technical solution.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word roc à bail, bey bis
Roc à bail, bey bis;
On détruit tape.
Où N. de Windt blouse
Décret d l'huile roque.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word rabais dab dab
Rabais dab dab
Trille, ménine, taupe.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word salut, mon grandi
Salut, mon grandi,
Borgne, non mandé.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word tuie-nickel
Tuie-nickel, tuie-nickel, lit tel se tare.
Ah! Ouaille ou âne d'ère ouate, Io art…
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word georgie port-régie
Georgie Port-régie, peu digne en paille,
Qui se dégeule sans mais. Dame craille.
Où haine de bouées ce qu'aime a tout pilé:
Georgie Port-régie règne. Ohé!
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word tu marques et tu marques et
Tu marques et tu marques et
Tu bâilles, effet typique.
Heaume et gaine! Heaume et gaine!
Gigoté chic!
(This can be translated or interpreted after a fashion, but it's much more effective simply to read it aloud until the following emerges:
To market, to market
To buy a fat pig.
Home again! home again!
Jiggedy jig!)
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the list coucy-castle-ms
My apologies. Too obscure. The MS predates the first recorded English nursery rhymes in the 17th century. De Kay therefore posits the following theory: Protestant Picard émigrés in London (prior to the Edict of Nantes in 1598) would surely have congregated in taverns, and...recited or even sung their native rames…Locals hearing the verses as French-accented English, might well have…learned them by heart and…made them their own. And as the French rhymes became a part of English oral tradition, they would have been forgotten in France, the usual fate of such ephemera.
Will post further clue under tu marques et tu marques et.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word features
Help please: If, in a comment, I want to put square brackets around a word or phrase – not to link to a word or phrase entry, but simply to use the brackets as punctuation, e.g. editorial aside, or because it's in the original source for a citation – how do I do that?
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word help
Oh yes, that happens to me too!! Annoying as all get-out, as you say.
I did once discover – perhaps in Word, or may it was at system level – a way to map Help to a different key. If I can find it again I will post the solution here.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word fille…faille…faux…femme…
Fille…faille…faux…femme…
Aïe! Semelle de blaude évanouie ne glisse manne.
Bé y à l'ail-vore, bée y d'aide.
A la graille ne dis ce beaune tout Mecque, maille brette.
The editor believes the opening line and a bit refers to the speaker's pain caused by his womenfolk's preoccupation with clothes. But one can't be sure on this point.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the list coucy-castle-ms
It helps to read these lines aloud in the sonorous, measured classic style of the Comédie Française (or failing that, one's best attempt at a strong French accent), at which point they assume an overpowering air of nostalgia. In this respect the manuscript has similarities with the somewhat older Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the list coucy-castle-ms
Also inspired by the recent activity around mondegreens.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word mondegreen
More mondegreens here.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the list coucy-castle-ms
Inspired by Asativum's comments on pied-à-terre.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word pellitory
I know this is plant name noun, but I do think it's yearning, deep down in its little weedy heart, to adopt a useful function in the world as an adjective.
I'm proposing "fiery and furious", based in part on the etymology and in part on feelings a particular variety of pellitory (the Parietaria judaica aka asthma weed) arouses in me.
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word discretion
Personally I go for the hammer blows.*
*Sixth Symphony
April 27, 2008
frindley commented on the word generation
Serious question: How do you measure a "generation"?
April 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word argonauts
From the 1930s until the 1960s, the Australian Broadcasting Commission broadcast a daily children's show "The Argonauts". It was also a radio club: each member had a number and was allocated to a ship in Jason's fleet (the membership records are now lost). It was hugely popular and influenced a whole generation of Australians.
April 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word the handmaid's biographer's moustache
with apologies to Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt and Kingsley Amis.
April 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word syrinx
See panpipes.
April 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word panpipes
See syrinx.
April 26, 2008
frindley commented on the word sprig of rosemary
Rosemary for remembrance – an old old symbol.
Ophelia:
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts.
April 25, 2008
frindley commented on the list aussie-rules
My contributions reveal two things: I don't actually follow sports; and, Aussie Rules is such an intrinsic part of Australian life that its presence can be felt everywhere, even in "the yarts".
April 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word beyond twelve
This ballet, created for the Australian Ballet by Graeme Murphy in 1980 (with the late Kelvin Coe as its star) begins with young men playing Aussie Rules on stage. (The music is the third movement of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, by the way – fantastic stuff!) Murphy had the male dancers of the company actually learn and train in the sport with one of the leading AFL coaches so they could be sufficiently convincing. Some of the pictures loading above are from Beyond Twelve.
April 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word the club
Early play by David Williamson, which takes as its setting and theme the inner workings (and turmoil) of a VFL (now Australian Rules football) club. Has acquired classic status in Australian theatre.
April 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word aerial ping-pong
Jocular name for Australian Rules football, inspired by the impressive leaping that goes on in this game.
April 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word furphy
Commonly accepted derivation (courtesy wikipedia):
"…from water carts made by a company established by John Furphy: J. Furphy & Sons of Shepparton, Victoria. Many Furphy water carts were used to take water to Australian Army personnel during World War I. The carts, with "J. Furphy & Sons" written on their tanks, became popular as gathering places where soldiers could exchange gossip, rumours and fanciful tales."
April 25, 2008
frindley commented on the word kafoops
Not dissimilar to "Lord…" or "Lady Muck"
April 24, 2008
frindley commented on the word kafoops
As in: "Madam Kafoops" (Australian, gently derogatory)
Usage: "Who do you think you are? Madam Kafoops?"
Might be said to a child who is expecting mum to wait on her hand and foot or who is being obnoxious and oozing "entitlement". I don't think I've ever heard it used of or to an adult, hence my qualification "gently".
April 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word smell-o-vision
But is it as good as sex on a bearskin rug?
April 23, 2008
frindley commented on the list mis-sung-a-litany-of-mondegreens
More mondegreens than you can shake a proverbial stick at. All wrapped up in a heart-warming hymn tune.
April 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word chained bear banana banshee
Yes! That's it, c_b, circus peanuts were what I tried.
Love that auntie imagery, bilby – it captures that peculiar scent perfectly.
April 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word mulesing
Mulesing might be bad, but flystrike is a hundred times worse. The name is somewhat misleading: when I first encountered the term as a child, I imagined bothersome flies buzzing around a sheep's butt. But flystrike is when those flies lay eggs and those eggs hatch and maggots begin to invade and eat away at the sheep's necrotic nether regions. Truly disgusting, gives prolonged pain, and is ultimately fatal. So one can't blame farmers for trying something, although a kinder method than mulesing would be infinitely preferable and I'd support the measures to have the technique replaced.
On the other hand, it's also been argued that the breeding programs that have encouraged the wrinkliness in the Merino breed (more skin surface = more wool) has led to an increased risk of flystrike that other breeds don't face. And perhaps breeding for less wrinkliness needs to be a part of the long-term solution. With some breeds you can get by with crutching, which involves shaving wool from the vulnerable area under the tail, but not removing skin or making incisions.
Finally, the pictures that are currently loading above are puzzling: mulesing is banned on sheep over one year old and normally lambs are mulesed a few weeks after birth. The pictures show much older sheep and therefore a much more extensive operation.
April 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word chained bear banana banshee
Lolly bananas, as I call them, are usually about 5cm long, banana shaped (of course), and an opaque light yellow. They sometimes have a slightly powdery surface as if they've been lightly dusted with cornflour. They are what I'd call a fondant candy, with a texture that ranges from slightly chewy to crisp and crunchy, depending on the degree of freshness. (Some fans insist on them being fresh, others will eat only stale ones.) The flavour has nothing with bananas to do, but comes from an ester that every chemistry teacher gets you to make in high school (isopentyl acetate maybe?).
I rather like them, but do feel quite sick if allowed to consume a whole bag of the things.
I looked and looked when I was living in the States and never once found them, although I did once try something that was orange coloured and not banana shaped but which otherwise had the exact same texture and flavour. Can't remember what they were called.
April 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word divorcée
The Gay Divorcee!
April 23, 2008
frindley commented on the word arthur or martha at the picture show
This reminds me of a former colleague, now retired. On Monday he would declare: "It's all too much."
By Friday he was saying: "I can't take it anymore!"
April 22, 2008
frindley commented on the word twitter and blistered
Such a useful emotion.
April 22, 2008
frindley commented on the word pipening rods
Hmm. Why is this making me feel all twitter and blistered?
;-)
April 22, 2008
frindley commented on the word bubble wrap
Then there is the mildly addictive word-motivated Human Brain Cloud mentioned in Errata some time back.
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word bubble wrap
And this one is simply bizarre. Fleeting amusement from Stupid Forum. (If you're accused of spamming, try again.)
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word bubble wrap
Here's one for the artistically inclined. Just start dripping in the manner of Jackson Pollock; clicking the mouse changes colour.
Shame you don't work at an art museum Pro… you could almost justify this one!
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word bubble wrap
I second the bubble wrap tag idea.
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word logo
You don't have to work around fundraising types for very long to become familiar with the phrase "Make the logo bigger". These creatives take the mickey out of the concept beautifully. In addition to the song, there is a cream that you can get, which, when rubbed on the inadequate logo, will make it bigger.
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word bubble wrap
Here's another candidate. Watch the little "throw metre" on the left to improve accuracy.
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word sago
Oh, I love sago pudding. It was one of my favourites as a child, second only to hasty pudding.
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word bubble wrap
Oh yes!!! Perfect.
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word flautist
So what exactly is it that you do to floors?
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word vegetarian
Now. Can I point everyone in the direction of the Berlin Philharmonic's latest online game: Cello Hero? (It's actually called Cello Challenge, but we know what they really mean.) It's here.
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word vegetarian
@arcadia: Happy to clarify. I wasn't suggesting that spent dairy stock are not slaughtered for meat (although it's pretty poor quality meat and won't make it into your supermarket as steaks – more likely used for pet food and cheap hamburger patties). I was just pointing that it's probably not the case that "Most of the meat eaten in this nation is that of spent dairy cows…"
In Australia the dairy population is just under 2 million animals and these animals live some years before being considered "spent"; the beef population is over 20 million animals in order to keep up with domestic and export demand.
The population stats and the nature of the two industries lead me to conclude that most of the meat eaten in Australia (and likely North America too) is coming from cattle raised for beef production.
A quick search of stats suggests that only around 15-17% of "cheap" meat categories is sourced from dairy herds. It also seems that the concern surrounding this is as much to do with hormone levels in dairy herds (and therefore what we are putting into our bodies) as it is to do with the cruelty of eating an animal that is no longer considered productive as a dairy cow.
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word vegetarian
Point taken, Ptero, and a good one.
One of things I love best about Wordie is its pure whimsy.
April 21, 2008
frindley commented on the word vegetarian
I can speak only from local experience, but as a former student of agriculture in Australia I can say that there is a discrete beef industry here that is quite separate from the dairy industry. For a start, the breeds that yield the right physiognomy for one are not well-suited for the other. (Square-framed "meaty" Herefords and Angus, for example, versus the high-milk Friesians and high-butterfat Jerseys.) Most of the meat eaten here would come from specialist beef producers, not spent dairy stock. My suspicion is that this would be the same in other countries.
(This is not an argument for or against the raising of cattle for meat or for milk, just an observation about what happens in the industry and what it is that meat eaters are most likely eating.)
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the list on-tha-s
On the nose…
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word 10!
10! (that is, 10 × 9 × 8 × 7 × 6 × 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1) equals 3,628,800.
That's also precisely the number of seconds in 6 weeks.
More numerical amusements to be found at the temporarily resting Futility Closet, an idler's miscellany of compendious amusements.
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word 175
175 = 1(to the power of 1) + 7(to the power of 2) + 5(to the power of 3)
(Sorry, don't know how to set superscripts.)
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word eleventeen
And then there is Bilbo Baggins's Eleventy-first birthday. (Which, when combined with Frodo's 33rd, coming-of-age, made one gross.)
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word moxie
Wikipedia describes the product Moxie as a recreational soft drink. Does anyone know how that differs from an ordinary soft drink?
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word past tense
Stuart Little: You seem tense!
Snowbell: Tense? Oh, I'm - I'm way, way past tense
(from the screenplay for the 1999 film of Stuart Little)
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word terrific
"But, Charlotte," said Wilbur, "I'm not terrific."
"That doesn't make a particle of difference," replied Charlotte. "Not a particle. People believe almost anything they see in print."
–Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word salutations
Charlotte: Salutations.
Wilbur: Salu-what?
Charlotte: Salutations.
Wilbur: What are they? And where are you?
Charlotte: Salutations is my fancy way of saying hello.
(from the screenplay of the 1973 film of Charlotte's Web)
Charlotte is most definitely a Wordie.
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word baa ram ewe
Baa-ram-ewe, baa-ram-ewe.
To your breed, your fleece, your clan be true.
Sheep be true.
Baa-ram-ewe.
–Babe (Dick King-Smith)
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word koala
Koala fingerprints (yes, they have them) are virtually indistinguishable from human fingerprints. Scroll down on this site for a mug shot.
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word trouble
The Chinese ideogram for "trouble" shows two women living under one roof.
(Disclaimer: I don't know Chinese, can anyone verify this?)
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word not my rifle
"You're my lover, not my rival."
–Karma Chameleon (Culture Club)
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word warn my friend
"If I had to do the same again
I would, my friend, Fernando."
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word old lambs fry
I never could stand lambs fry, although I was fond of ox tongue. But the very worst – and still the bane of my life owing to its ubiquity – is the humble tomato. Will not, cannot, eat an uncooked tomato.
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word disque audionumérique
The Académie prefers this to "le CD". But "cédérom" is, apparently, ok for CD-ROM.
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word old lambs fry
…and auld lang syne.
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word might could
True. I stand corrected. Interesting date that would be. For a morning person.
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word ostriches
Re: ringing Joyce
Wikipedia cites it as a mondegreen sung by the main character in the Australian mockumentary Kenny (2006). Kenny also has such fascinating sayings as: "This is the busiest time of year, this is a crazy time, it just goes bonkers. It's as silly as a bum full of smarties".
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word vote
I vote technomom for having the most comprehensive "also on" list in all Wordie!
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word galliard
A leaping dance, typically done by men. Apparently, though, Queen Elizabeth I would dance one every morning in her nightgown as a form of exercise. (She also, as a model for her people, took a bath every six months whether she needed it or not.)
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word ostriches
I'm just old enough to have learned the un-PC original version of the Australian anthem. And to have sung God Save the Queen as well as the national anthem. (God Save the Queen was phased out when I was infants school, I think).
By the way, if not sung at dirge-like pace, the tune for God Save the Queen (My country ’tis of thee) reveals its origins as a sprightly Elizabethan galliard.
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word exsqueeze me
Goes with guesstimate and other fun constructions that have more truth in them than the real word. (Try making your way from one side of a function room to the other… "exsqueeze me" is pretty much what you have to do.) That said, "guesstimate" seems to have acquired real word status, with dictionary definitions and everything. So not quite the same thing. Perhaps it's only a matter of time for exsqueeze.
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word yield
Aussies merge – have never seen squeeze. Glad you didn't have an accident!
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word might could
Be careful in Germany: "half seven" will mean 6.30pm, not half past seven, making for missed dates. There's a delicious logic in that, I know.
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the list at-least-two-apostrophes-or-your-money-back
Mark Twain in his Samuel Clemens hat had something to say on this subject, being an advocate for sha'n't and possibly ai'n't (or something similar, it was a long time ago that I read it).
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word yous
A not uncommon usage in Australia , equivalent of y'all. One friend of mine enjoys writing it "ewes".
April 20, 2008
frindley commented on the word kunnossapitotyö
Finland: Road Repairs
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word leaves on road
Picture
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word less speed less dust
Picture
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word caution dusty when dry
Picture
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word gravel road
"Careful driving techniques are advised."
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word when flashing give way to peds
This is real.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word gate and grid
Warns of a cattle grid.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the list road-signs
I wonder how many of these will turn out to have lives as rock bands and/or albums? E.g. Men at Work and Slippery When Wet
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word give way
As a road sign: see Yield.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word yield
As a road sign: I first encountered this in the States and I was used to the Australian equivalent, Give Way. "Yield" seemed terribly mediæval to my ears.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word cool spot for his toes
Something Paddington Bear would look for immediately upon waking. This is something I have never been able to understand, not even in summer.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word oh, four tuna
I wish I could find that Indian version of Michael Jackson's Thriller, with "subtitles".
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the list amadeus-from-the-sublime-to-the-scatalogical
But you must admit that he does bear an uncanny resemblance to the (admittedly controversial) Edlinger portrait of Mozart (1790).
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word do not read below this line
---------------------------------------
But you are reading, or you wouldn't have your eye on these words. Well, as you've disobeyed the above instruction and have read this far, you may as well know that the only "catch" in all this is that you're not going to get anywhere. You're reading about nothing. Nothing is going to be said, and you're silly to go on reading. So why go on?
Well, why go on? Why persist in continuing to read when you've been warned that it's getting you nowhere? Stop. Now.
Do you call this stopping, letting your eyes sneak down to see what this next paragraph contains? You can rest assured that it contains nothing of greater importance than the paragraphs above. Utter drivel, save for that one eminently sensible note: Stop reading.
You're not starting another paragraph? You're incorrigible. Look, this whole piece, from that line above to the bottom of the page, is about nothing. Can't you understand that? Nothing.
See if you can't understand it better this way: Yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer. Does that make sense? Well, it makes as much sense as everything else you're going to read till you finish this page.
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back. It's pointless, continuing to tell you of the folly of going on if you won't stop. Sheer gibberish will serve just as well. Ukly muckly. Abra kadabra. Eeny meeny miny mo.
Well, this is the last paragraph, and you must have realised by now that there will be nothing in it worth reading. Are you a man or a mouse? You've got nothing to lose by breaking off right here and now. Nothing to lose and everything to gain. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Yet here you are right at the finish, having got yourself precisely nowhere.
This was above all my favourite moment in the Cole's Funny Picture Book No.3 (page 74). A real period piece; simply had to share it.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word ostriches
And apparently there's another variant:
"Australians all let us call Joyce
For she is young and free…"
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word oh, four tuna
The video says it all. The big tune from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana as you've never heard it before.
(You may need to refresh your screen after loading if the synchronisation is out.)
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word haffely gaffely
The wild, strange battle cry: Haffely, Gaffely, Gaffely, Gonward.
("Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward," from "The Charge of the Light Brigade")
More Sylvia Wright
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word good mrs murphy
Another mondegreen from Sylvia Wright:
Surely Good Mrs Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life.
("Surely goodness and mercy…" from Psalm 23)
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word lady mondegreen
Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl Amurray, sic
And laid him on the green.
This became the source for the term mondegreen as coined by Sylvia Wright.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word ostriches
I mean, I had always wondered about the ostriches – they're not native to Australia after all – but I simply concluded that emus wouldn't have scanned so well.
Oh, and I think nowadays we're meant to sing "Australians all…"
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word shepherds' socks
While shepherds washed their socks by night
All seated on the ground,
A bar of sunlight soap came down
And suds spread all around.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word under armed
There is a chorus in Handel's oratorio Samson.
The text is: "With thunder armed, great God, arise."
But since the opening words are repeated a few times, it can come out sounding like:
"With under armed, with under armed…"
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word ostriches
As in "Australian sons and ostriches"
The Australian anthem actually begins:
"Australian sons let us rejoice."
But I didn't realise this until sixth class.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word squillow, tit squillow, tit squillow
You have reminded me…
See under armed.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word synaesthesia
Other composers who were or were possibly synæsthesic: Olivier Messiaen, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Mr Flight-of-the-Bumble-Bee), Alexander Scriabin (who included a "colour organ" in one of his pieces), György Ligeti, Jean Sibelius
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word domestic peach and other stories
Tales from Balzac's retirement to the family orchard.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word a loom of one's own
In this paean to domesticity Virginia Woolf admits she was mistaken.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word soutien-gorge
’Cause the French wouldn't just call it a brassière, I guess.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word monobosom
Edwardian trend: "The general impression given was of an enormous one piece bosom, referred to as a monobosom. Because the bust was largely unsupported, ladies began to wear various styles of bust bodices and added other extra padding, even handkerchiefs, to increase the frontage which hung low over the waist."
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word lovely
"Love-ly,
All I am is lovely.
Lovely is the one thing I can do.
Winsome,
What I am is winsome,
Radiant as in some
Dream come true.
Oh, isn't it a shame?
I can neither sew
Nor cook
Nor read or write my name.
But I'm happy
Merely being lovely,
For it's one thing I can give to you."
lyric from Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word invocation
That's true, had forgotten. Then there's the conclusion of Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites: less spectacular but creepier, with those thuds from the guillotine at intervals. Ugh.
Incidentally, Dialogues… is one of the few operas that begins in one language (French) and ends in another (Latin).
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word invocation
Does Bernstein's Candide have an invocation? I know it has an auto-da-fé, as in that great number:
"What a day, what a day, for an auto-da-fé!"
I can't think of any other operas. Unless you're talking of an act of faith of the non-flammable variety!
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word too many notes
(Letting the truth get in the way of a good story…)
This line comes from a popular apocryphal anecdote, first aired by Franz Xaver Niemetschek (among other things the first person to write a full biography of Mozart) in 1798:
JOSEPH II: Too beautiful for our ears, dear Mozart, and monstrous many notes!
MOZART: Exactly as many as are necessary, Your Majesty.
In brief, while this fits the posthumous myth of M as free artist on the outside of the Viennese establishment, ruled only by innate genius, it's historically implausible. It doesn’t fit Mozart’s anxiousness to please the Viennese, or with the musical concessions and cuts that he made or sanctioned in the opera.
But the anecdote thrived on "the inability of many of the initial listeners to grasp the music’s psychological involvement in nearly everything that matters in the drama." The ‘true subject’ of the conversation – if in fact it occurred in any form – might well have been M’s accompaniments, which were perceived as "overwrought, distracting and difficult to absorb".
(Source: Thomas Bauman in the Cambridge Opera Handbook for The Abduction from the Seraglio)
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word anguished antiques
See hairdresser vs Hercules.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the list amadeus-from-the-sublime-to-the-scatalogical
It is one of the most musical films ever made. Stunning. And poignant. Some say the film is better than the play. I love both but for very different reasons. The play conveys more of the spirit of artifice of Classical (as in 18th-century) music and the character of its dramatic devices. The film (shot in Prague I believe) is beautifully made and wonderfully acted and the soundtrack is stunning.
As a study of envy and despair in the face of seemingly undeserving God-given genius it's unparalleled. Of course, Peter Shaffer owed a great deal to Pushkin's Mozart and Salieri written in 1831, and that's worth seeking out too. Although Salieri really did go through a brief illness towards the end of his life during which he claimed to have murdered Mozart, he later denied this and no one had believed him at the time anyway. But it was Pushkin's "little tragedy" that really stimulated the legend of Salieri killing Mozart through jealousy.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word patron saint of mediocrities
"And when you feel the dreadful bite your failures – and hear the taunting of unachievable, uncaring God – I will whisper my name to you: 'Salieri: Patron Saint of Mediocrities!' And in the depth of your downcastness you can pray to me. And I will forgive you. Vi saluto."
and the final line: "Mediocrities everywhere – now and to come – I absolve you all. Amen!"
–Salieri (Amadeus, Peter Shaffer)
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word count walsegg
Commissioned Mozart's Requiem in order to pass it off as his own composition.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word morbid harmonies
"And never a good bang at the end of songs so you know when to clap!"
–Venticello 2 (Amadeus, Peter Shaffer)
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word waxworks
"Italians are fond of waxworks, Majesty. – Our religion is largely based upon them."
–Salieri (Amadeus, Peter Shaffer)
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word hairdresser vs hercules
Which of you isn't more at home with his hairdresser than Hercules? Or Horatius? Or your stupid Danaius, come to that! Or mine - mine! - Idomeneo, King of Crete! All those anguished antiques! They're all bores! Bores, bores, bores! Jumps on to a chair… All serious operas written this century are boring!
–Mozart (Amadeus, Peter Shaffer)
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word boudoir
Mozart wants to set his opera The Marriage of Figaro in a boudoir:
"Because I want to do a piece about real people, Baron! And I want to set it in a real place! A boudoir! – because that to me is the most exciting place on earth! Underclothes on the floor! Sheets still warm from a woman's body! Even a pisspot brimming under the bed!"
(Amadeus, Peter Shaffer)
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word coins of tenderness
See La Generosa.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word cat of the enlightenment
I love the opening to Act II of Amadeus:
SALIERI: I have been listening to the cats in the courtyard. They are all singing Rossini. It is obvious that cats have declined as badly as composers. Domenico Scarlatti owned one which would actually stroll across the keyboard and pick out passable subjects for fugue. But that was a Spanish cat of the Enlightenment. It appreciated counterpoint. Nowadays all cats appreciate are High Cs. Like the rest of the public.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word la generosa
Salieri has only one pick-up line. This is it.
It goes with coins of tenderness.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word capezzoli di venere
Nipples of Venus. Roman chestnuts in brandied sugar.
Constanze thinks they're "delish!".
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word sorbetto
Salieri likes aniseed; Constanze prefers tangerine.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word shit marble
"Gluck's talked all his life about modernizing opera, but creates people so lofty they sound as though they shit marble."
–Mozart (Amadeus, Peter Shaffer)
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word too many notes
Well. Supposedly Emperor Joseph said this to Mozart following the premiere of Abduction from the Seraglio. Will come back and comment further.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word cattivo
Catty, snarky?
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word fêtes and fireworks
Favourite expression of Emperor Joseph II of Austria (at least according to Peter Shaffer).
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word amadeus
"Loved by God" (Latin). See also theophilus and amadè.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word theophilus
"Loved by God" – the Greek form of the Latin "Amadeus"
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word chrysostomus
Joannes Chrysostumus – Mozart's saint's name at baptism. His birthday, 27 January, was also the feast day of St. John Chrysostom. This means that his birthday and saint's day (or "name day") coincided.
In Austria at this time one's name day was by far the more important, especially since many weren't entirely sure what their exact birthday was, but everybody had a saint's name.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word amadè
Mozart used this as his middle name, rather than Amadeus.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word voice of god
"It seemed to me I had heard a voice of God – and that it issued from a creature whose own voice I had also heard – and it was the voice of an obscene child!"
– Salieri (Amadeus, Peter Shaffer)
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word rusty squeezebox
Shaffer's moment of genius, capturing in words the effect of the magical opening of the Adagio from the Gran Partita (K.361).
"It started simple enough: just a pulse in the lowest registers - bassoons and basset horns - like a rusty squeezebox. It would have been comic except for the slowness, which gave it instead a sort of serenity. And then suddenly, high above it, sounded a single note on the oboe. We hear it It hung there unwavering – piercing me through – till breath could hold it no longer, and a clarinet withdrew it out of me, and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight it had me trembling. The light flickered in the room. My eyes clouded! The squeezebox groaned louder, and over it the higher instruments wailed and warbled, throwing lines of sound around me…"
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word crema al mascarpone
Cream cheese mixed with granulated sugar and suffused with rum.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word lord fugue
aka Baron van Swieten – librarian and very fond of old-fashioned (baroque) music
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word snow dumplings
…with pistachio sauce.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word invocation
All serious operas need one of these.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word ghosts of the future
Forget the fourth wall - that's us!
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word perdonami
Perdonami, Mozart! Il tuo assassino ti chiede perdono!
(Pardon your assassin!)
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word venticelli
The honour of first word on my Amadeus list goes to my favourite characters: the "Venticelli" (little winds), part gossips, part chorus - seen only in the play, since they are a very "stagey" creation.
April 19, 2008
frindley commented on the word volatus
umlauts in predictive text speak
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word momager
Mumager has the nice added connotation of rummager – how many times do you see the mother rummaging around in the bottom of capacious bag with one hand while trying to keep kiddie in line with the other?
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word obdurate
"And if you remain callous and obdurate, I
Shall perish as he did, and you will know why,
Though I probably shall not exclaim as I die,
'Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!'"
– from "On a tree by a river a little tom-tit"
(Sung by Ko-Ko in The Mikado)
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word eke
Can't argue with that. (Don't change one word of your poem, yarb, I'm just stuck in the olden days before male salmon!)
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the list hats-off
There's the bearskin worn by the Grenadier guards at Buckingham Palace.
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word tawft
(There's a word for that?) Has potential to be a Wordie exclamation (with interrobang), as in "Tawft?!"
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word eke out
See eke.
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word eke
Idiom: "eke out a living", frequently misused to mean making a pretty poor living overall doing something that's badly paid, when in fact it refers to the making up of deficiencies. Merriam-Webster's example: "He eked out his income by getting a second job."
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the list it-has-a-name
Exergue: a space on a coin, usually on the reverse below the central part of the design; frequently the location where the date is shown.
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word venez-y voir
Some German artists have adopted the phrase to refer to all things rococo here.
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word venez-y voir
"Come and see" – the equivalent of a fascinator for the ankles. Involved attaching emeralds to the back seam of one's shoes. (I've also heard of it in relation to stockings, in which case the emeralds are sewn to the back seam near the ankle.) Very fashionable in 18th-century France.
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word surf the web
My guess is it comes from channel surfing. Is this dumb for the same instinctive reasons (the terminology, that is, the act isn't under discussion)? Or is it only net surfing that is bothersome?
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word merry widow
The Merry Widow (operetta) was so wildly popular that the name was given to a whole bunch of things. In addition to the undies and the chapeau, there were Merry Widow chocolates, shoes and cigars – all unauthorised apparently. There was even a Merry Widow cocktail: 1 1/2 oz. each of Gin & Sweet Vermouth, with a dash each of Pernod & Bitters, served strained over ice and garnished with a lemon twist.
Merchandise clearly isn't a new concept in the performing arts.
April 18, 2008
frindley commented on the word tuque
The pom-pom is not deemed essential, although it greatly adds character.
My theory is that the pom-pom is more common in slightly less cold countries, but in countries where some kind of hooded jacket is required as well the pom-pom becomes much less common. My favourite beanie with its luxurious pom-pom became impossible to wear in an Ohio winter, for example. Ironically, I'd bought it in Canada.
April 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word tuque
No no no! This is a beanie!
;-)
April 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word miter
Does it become a mitre when it's on a bishop's head?
April 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word elevatoring
Now that was one scary story. Not so much because of the trauma of being trapped in a lift/elevator but the extent to which it changed the guy's life through the unwise decisions he made afterwards.
April 17, 2008
frindley commented on the list hats-off
Interesting. I must confess I took wikipedia as my democratic guide to preferred spelling on that one, but it seems others have been there before us, e.g. "Duncan" who reports:
So when I was preparing my previous post on an anti-Catholic sculpture, I encountered the eternal spelling conflict…
So I fire up the spell checker called Google. I Google mitre and get about 767,000 hits. I Google miter and get about 415,000 hits. I Google "bishop's mitre" and get about 1,560 hits. I Google "bishop's miter" and get about 741 hits.
The American Heritage dictionary (which I use for my modern dictionary) has the usual weasel words about mitre "Chiefly British -- Variant of miter." But then its entomology entry says:
Middle English mitre, from Old French, from Medieval Latin, from Latin mitra, headdress of the Jewish high priest, from Greek.]
This suggests that mitre is closer to the word origin.
The online Catholic Encyclopedia prefers mitre. The OED likes mitre as well. So I guess it's mitre for me.
end of extended quotation
April 17, 2008
frindley commented on the list hats-off
Great list! How about a bishop's mitre?
April 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word tudor bonnet
Ah…this is the one thing that would really motivate me to complete a doctorate (in a Commonwealth country anyway).
Much more appealing, and flattering, than a trencher or mortar-board, which succeeds only in leaving a nasty indentation on one's forehead.
April 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word winkee
And there is always the humble singlet. Bonds of course.
April 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word emmet's speech from the dock
You won't believe this: two nights ago a friend was playing me an old LP recording of this speech! (Not Emmet, of course, but the Irish actor Michael MacLiammoir.) It was amazing – such rhetorical craft. The delivery was pretty exquisite too. (The speech is about 15 minutes in the recording.)
April 17, 2008
frindley commented on the word deusexmachina
Ok, I'm taking a liberty here, the actual website for this "temple of enthusiasm" is www.deus.com.au. But the sign that I pass on Parramatta Road cleverly runs the words together.
God in the Machine? or just plain Sex Machine?
Fans might well say both.
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word www_penisland_com
I love the fact that they're plagued by imposters:
"Don't be fooled by those imposters at www.penisland.org, or www.pen-island.net, we're www.penisland.net the real deal!"
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word winkee
Interesting observation about the euphemistic names, chained_bear!
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word pantyhose
I alternate on a seasonal basis: tights are thick and usually opaque – winter wear. Stockings/pantyhose are sheer – summer wear.
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the list university-of-sydney
You need the great hall, the half-finished cloisters and the jacaranda tree!
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word people come here to die
I wish that were the case for some of my neighbouring departments. In one area in particular we have had an extended case of people coming only to leave again in two months. Not helpful.
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word glebe
Sydney has an inner-city suburb called Glebe. In Hobart there's an area of the city (not sure if it's strictly a suburb) that's still known as The Glebe. Presumably both were actual parish glebes at some point.
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word wollongong
Name not my nemesis! That particular tennis player was the bane of my existence from kindergarten until third class.
I had quite forgotten about her nickname, which seems to have been completely taken over by the city, with such elegant coinings as the "Sydney to the Gong" charity bike ride.
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word wagga wagga
I think bilby's reduplikasi list got me thinking along these lines.
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word wollongong
Pronounced: woollen-gong
Can also be referred to as "the gong"
Lovely place, on the coast south of Sydney. Good university.
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word wee waa
Since I'm on a "wouble-u" place-names kick.
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word woy woy
Coastal suburb north of Sydney. Note: unlike Wagga Wagga, which can be called "Wagga", one never shortens Woy Woy to "Woy".
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word wagga wagga
Australian rural city, frequently referred to simply as "Wagga"; cf. Woy Woy.
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word winkee
The cleavage gapes, the entrepreneurial spirit rises, the mind boggles as only a mind can.
This had me giggling for several minutes. Please note that it makes men more productive in the workplace but does not cure the common cold.
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word www_crikey_com_au
By popular Ohio-an demand there is now a Facebook group for users of the word crikey!
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word crikey
See also www_crikey_com_au
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word www_crikey_com_au
Australian independent news site: "Crikey aims to bring its readers the inside word on what's really going on…".
It's quite an interesting site, but mainly I'm fond of the word – it makes the perfect polite exclamation and I believe I am responsible for a tiny band of adherents now using it in NE Ohio!
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word pantyhose
I know it's wrong, but I'm inclined to call them stockings and be done with it!
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word pant
Oh, I agree! I loathe the use of this word to indicate a single pair of pants. I see it in fashion journalism and retail: jacket $200, blouse $100, pant $150. But don't we all put our "pants" on in the morning, not our "pant"? (Pace dress and skirt wearers.)
April 16, 2008
frindley commented on the word googleganger
I'm also reminded that there are other similar constructions in English, where the portion of the original word chosen for creation of a new word is the "wrong" bit for the intended meaning. Why can I not think of any examples? If I could I would be able to make a list.
April 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word googleganger
Although it be all wrong, I do like the alliterative potential of googleganger when translated "google goer".
April 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word i could care less
Like the blog devoted to literally that alguien linked to? Or a single blog post?
April 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word tit-bag
A variant on tit-sling, which I vaguely recall hearing as the punch-line for a joke, years ago.
April 13, 2008
frindley commented on the list eggcorns
How about: old timers' disease
April 13, 2008
frindley commented on the list a-little-carrot-over-the-a
Hmm. Dredges memory. Something to do with spines at one point. The context suggested skeletons, so I thought perhaps not a bookbinder.
April 13, 2008
frindley commented on the list a-little-carrot-over-the-a
Thank you mollusque! In my line of work where we get more than a few European names, it's really helpful to be able to label these special letters and symbols. (As in, "Don't forget to put the bolle in Håkan Hardenberger and the hacek in Dvořák.") Those two had been bothering me.
April 13, 2008
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