Michael Gates's Blog, page 52

Photo of the Week (by me)

Mother Mary comes to me. (And I'm not even Catholic.) Click for a closer view. You know you want to.

Words in the News: intubate

At a press conference about the recent mass stabbing at a Pennsylvania high school, the doctor mentioned intubation and the word intubate [IN-too-bait]. It means to insert a tube into someone. (Don't try this at home.) A synonym is "cannulate" or "cannulise". A cannula [CAN-yoo-la] is a flexible tube.

Words in the News (Flight 370): chirp

CNN (aka the "Mystery of Flight 370" network) says the missing plane's black box is pinging but also "chirping". It's not just for the birds. "Chirp" is a technical term for a signal.

Words in the News: Flight 370

CNN (aka as the "Mystery of Flight 370" network) says the missing plane's black box is "chirping". It's not just for the birds. "Chirp" is a technical term for a signal.

Link Mania: Muddy Yiddish Sorrows

When "melancholy" just isn't enough.

English words of Yiddish origin
Admit it. You're a word...maven.

Why It’s Called an ‘Equinox’ and Other Delightful Spring Words You Should Know
Ready for "prime time"? How about "mud time"?

Word of the Day: infrangible

What's "the word I'm thinking of"? Today, it's...

infrangible [in-FRAN-ji-bul] (adjective)

Unbreakable; not violated

"Hearts will never be practical until they can be made infrangible," said the Wizard. The Tin Man was riveted, but could only say, "Huh?"

~~~

TWITO, page 72!

Photo of the Week (by me)

Let's not be negative, now....

Brain Dump

A little girl -- let's call her Alice -- dreams of a mixture of kingdoms, both real and waxen. But poisoning the dream is a false sense of clarity without a subject or activity. She remains suspended between willful imagination and unconscious capacity, conjuring a slumberland of shifting montage. As a sleepwalker, she struggles to keep her head from rolling off her shoulders.

Her drowse deepens, enabling her to see the unseeable as she becomes more and more lost within her fusion of archetypes and phantasms. The dream is one-way, spiraling faster and faster through contradiction after contradiction, until confusion approaches totality and all movement stops. All length is distended. Small, colorful moths hover like elements of a Calder mobile around her head. Alice struggles to recall the single word that would shatter this mirror. Could it be... applesauce?

Word of the Day: whilom

What's "the word I'm thinking of"? Today, it's....

whilom [WY-lum] (adjective)

Former

"Natalia was astonished to see Bernardo, her whilom inamorato, perambulating down the street--the last person she wanted to see. She quickly hid behind a convenient pot of shrubbery."

~~~

TWITO, page 161!

Random Sequence

It was Wednesday, almost seven o'clock, still rush hour, and the honking taxis and endless flow of faces -- all different, all equally vacant -- was starting to annoy him. It was also hot, and the faint, summer-in-Manhattan smell of rotting garbage made him feel woozy. He was standing outside a fancy Upper West Side seafood restaurant called The Deep, feeling conspicuous in his soggy button-down shirt. As usual, he'd misjudged the transit time and arrived early....
--from "The Burden" (by me), originally published in ululation.com