Michael Gates's Blog, page 13

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scor...

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

He took a great fall.

Wandering Word Thoughts: Don't slonk!

Try not to salivate while you suaviate (i.e., when you kiss someone).

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You won't be able to maintain your froideur (coolness or reserve) if you eat too much sriracha (a pungent sauce of hot peppers pureed with sugar, salt, garlic, and vinegar, most often used as a condiment).

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Don't slonk (swallow greedily) if you don't want to jirble (spill [a liquid] by shaking or unsteady moving)!

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Try to wrap your head around this: The pope wears a "small gourd" (a zucchetto) on his bean.

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Depending on how the food tastes, degust (tasting carefully) may lead to disgust.

Wandering Word Thoughts: Don't Be "Pusillanimous"

Is your dog a groke? (A groke is someone who stares at you while you're eating.)

You don't have to be sick to feel frobly-mobly (i.e., not quite healthy OR sick).

So you claim you're too rugged to ever get the flu, bro? That might be an example of rodomontade (boasting).

Do you suppose a manfant could ever be elected president? (A manfant is a man who acts like an infant.)

Learn these words, and then you can bloviate (talk egotistically at excessive length) about it.

"Every pusillanimous [i.e., timid] creature that crawls on the earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain!" (Said the Wizard of Oz. They may have brains, but they don't have fancy vocabularies.)

My Word of the Year: Kakistocracy

The Word I'm Thinking Of's word of the year is "kakistrocracy" (TWITO, page 79): government by the worst, most unprincipled, or least qualified.

'Connubial Yin Yang' (microfiction)

"What do you call that color? It's awful," said Everett when Mandy showed him how she'd painted their bedroom.

"I call it 'Mocha,'" said Mandy. "That's what it says on the can, too."

"I call it 'Squishy Wormwood,'" said Everett.

"That's just artless persiflage," Mandy replied. "It's better than it was. Much better. Warmer. Before, it was...'Droopy Milkiness.' That's the name for it. It was all milky. And droopy."

"Oh, it was better than that," Everett insisted. "It was lighter. Not depressing. It was the logical color for a bedroom. It had a certain... a certain 'Funky Syllogism' to it. That's what I would call it: 'Funky Syllogism.'"

"Whatever," Mandy averred with unquestioning imperturbability as she rolled her eyes.

"Tell you what," Everett suggested. "Let's paint two walls Squishy Wormwood and the other two Funky Syllogism."

"A compromise? Mocha and Milky Droopiness?" Mandy said. "What will we call that combo?"

"Connubial Yin Yang," Everett said as they collapsed into bed.

[not to be continued]

Christmas Gift Idea

"A dictionary makes a great Christmas gift."
--Unknown (possibly Noah Webster)

Parabolic Avocation (microfiction)

Parabolic Avocation

"You're a soprano warbler," I see, said Edwin. "I mean... I hear."

"This again? That's just farcical perverseness", said Enid. "You know I'm alto."

"Nope, soprano," said Ed. "No needful capitulation from me."

"Pugnacious imbecility," Enid warbled.

"Wiggly grayness," Ed said.

"What?" said Enid.

"Test phrase. Try singing that phrase in your highest register."

"Wigglyyy graaaynesssss," Enid sang. "Oh this is barefaced imbecility," she said.

"No, soprano," Ed insisted. "You can do better than that."

"Now we're wandering into sterotypical happenstance," Enid said. "We've been all through this before."

"You could break a glass with that voice," said Ed, with circumscribed garrulousness.

Enid laughed. "I could try. My Baccarat crystal stemware? Would you drop this if I can't do it? Or fix it if I can?

"Cohesive epoxy, right here," said Ed, opening a drawer.

"Your obsession with always being right is a parabolic avocation," Enid sighed, raising the nearest glass.

It was the one Ed had already sabotaged with a hairline crack.

[not to be continued]

Wandering Word Thoughts: Is Your Dragon "Epouventable"?

Is your dragon "epouventable"(frightful)?

You could ask your "deipnosophist" (excellent dinner-table conversationist) to pass the "attic salt" (incisive wit).

My father had a "go-devil", but it wasn't a ghost (as this phrase sometimes means); it was a tool for splitting wood.

What's your opinion of "ultracrepidarians" (those who offer uninformed opinions)?


Epouventable?

Word of the Day: SYLVESTRAL

Word of the Day: sylvestral [SYL-vess-truhl] (adjective), TWITO, page 144. Pertaining to trees. "Xavier, lost in a thicket, was nevertheless awed by the sylvestral beauty of the canopy overhead."


Photo by me!

Much Ado About Nothing? Archaeologists Discover Mysterious Void Deep Within the Great Pyramid

A monolithic cenotaph of stone hides another enigmatic void. Even a 4,500-year old secret can't stay hidden from the prying sensors of cosmic rays ("muons") that can slice through five million tons of masonry like penetrating thoughts. What sleeps in the stale, absolute dark inside? A desiccated corpse dreaming away the centuries? If so, this isn't at all the afterlife that some pharaoh's wife or courtier expected. No supermen with the bodies of lions, no dog-headed deities pointing to an Elysium along the Nile. Just online fame, curious clickers, salivating for the glint of a golden sarcophagus, avoiding their horror vacui, resisting a vague kenophobia over a void that may, in fact, be a big and very old nothing.

Archaeologists Discover Mysterious Void Deep Within the Great Pyramid of Giza