Word I learned today . . . > Likes and Comments

Rarebit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_ra...

chialism

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Chia...
...refers to 'millennialist' thinking; belief in a better world to come

found in the biography of Rosa Luxemburg I'm reading. First book in perhaps a year which is treating me to odd/obscure words (a true mental pleasure I crave)

oh that's a great word Felicks

zeugma=noun. a figure of speech in which a word is used to modify or govern two or more words although appropriate to only one of them or making a different sense with each, as in the sentence Mr. Pickwick took his hat and his leave (Charles Dickens). [Sixteenth Century, via Latin from Greek: a yoking, from zeugnunai to yoke]

What about grandiloquent?

Is it related?

anyway here's my latest

'fillip'
noun

an added part or feature that makes something more interesting or exciting; a stimulus; embellishment; or wrinkle (and some relationship to a 'snapping of one's fingers')

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio...

Feliks wrote: "anyway here's my latest

'fillip'
noun

an added part or feature that makes something more interesting or exciting; a stimulus; embellishment; or wrinkle (and some relationship to a 'snapping of on..."

Cool!

I'm a fan of the band Muse, whose debut album Showbiz features a track called Fillip, which I thought was a name, not a verb. This makes more sense!

it's pretty common over here in UK, interesting it doesn't seem to have travelled quite so widely to the US

I know misogyny, et cetera, but I also came upon:

misology = a hatred of reasoning or reasoned argument

which is something many people seem to suffer from...

Martyn wrote: "I know misogyny, et cetera, but I also came upon:

misology = a hatred of reasoning or reasoned argument

which is something many people seem to suffer from..."

ha ha

best verb I've found in recent years (one which helps immensely in any kind of debate)

'reify'..'reifying'...'reification', etc

This is when someone takes an abstract idea and insists that it is material and concrete; confusing something they personally experience with its more plastic/external, 'parent' concept. You can stop any argument in its tracks by questioning whether someone is 'unconsciously reifying'

Tammie Norrie is a term from the Shetland Isles meaning:

1. a clown
2. a stupid, bashful man
3. a puffin

I liked that!


Tammie Norrie o' the Bass,
Canna kiss a pretty lass.

I didn't see that in 'Presentation of Self in Everyday Life'..you know, the seminal study of Shetland Islanders...h'mmm, where'd you come across it?

spotted a few new ones on my ride into work this morning

'lacuna' (I'm pretty sure I know what this means, refers to a 'center' or 'hub' of something)

'humus' --an organic mulch comprised of leaf-litter; very helpful in making new plants grow. A context to use it in might be something like this, "from this humus emerged her specific idea on distributed blah blah blah"

'anodyne' --something 'not likely to upset anyone'. (Anodynes were the medieval term for aspirins and other medicinal balms)

hence posthumous

Feliks wrote: "'lacuna' (I'm pretty sure I know what this means, refers to a 'center' or 'hub' of something)"

No, lacuna means missing or gap or silence, depending on what it refers to.

ulp

must be some similar-sounding word I'm confusing it with

Feliks wrote: "'anodyne' --something 'not likely to upset anyone'. (Anodynes were the medieval term for aspirins and other medicinal balms)"

Anodyne was an analgesic medicine that soothed or relaxed. The meaning you quote is the literary definition of anodyne, meaning 'bland' or 'agreeable'. So for medicine it's a good quality, for literature it's a distinctly bad quality.

that's common of many words that shift their meaning over centuries to the polar opposite

Martyn wrote: "for literature it's a distinctly bad quality. ..."

So it's only in that one sense--when used to refer to someone's sleep-inducing prose--that it's a negative. Okay.

Feliks wrote: "I didn't see that in 'Presentation of Self in Everyday Life'..you know, the seminal study of Shetland Islanders...h'mmm, where'd you come across it?"

To be honest, Feliks, I was watching a programme on TV about bird watching in the Shetland Isles while visiting my mum. We didn't want Wimbledon highlights or the World Cup and she likes the actress Alison Steadman so that is where it came from. I loved it and checked up the spelling. There is more here:

http://www.scotslanguage.com/word/Sep...

Martyn wrote: "Feliks wrote: "'anodyne' --something 'not likely to upset anyone'. (Anodynes were the medieval term for aspirins and other medicinal balms)"

Anodyne was an analgesic medicine that soothed or relax..."

Yes, Martyn, anodyne is generally taken to mean weak or insipid in the literary context.

This is gossip I hadn't heard

:)

Feliks wrote: "This is gossip I hadn't heard

:)"

;) What would be the point of gossip you had heard.

That would be material I would then 'natter over' with you

Feliks wrote: "Martyn wrote: "for literature it's a distinctly bad quality. ..."

So it's only in that one sense--when used to refer to someone's sleep-inducing prose--that it's a negative. Okay."

Yep. As a medicine it's something you actually want to take... The name is Greek, from 'without pain'.

I guess literature should be painful, so anodyne renders it bland and soporific.

Avarice was one of the 7 deadly sins

Henry wrote: "Monomaniac - used in a sentence about a man, who, out of money issues, sits in a room repeating a single word over and over."

Isn't monomania having a singular obsession, like the fixation of anorexia nervosa patients on becoming/staying thin? Or the obsession of Captain Ahab for hunting only Moby Dick to the exclusion of all other whales?

Baron Sang-Froid wrote: "Henry wrote: "Monomaniac - used in a sentence about a man, who, out of money issues, sits in a room repeating a single word over and over."

Isn't monomania having a singular obsession, like the fi..."

that's my understanding of it.

I like the word cacoethes which is not quite the same thing, less fixation, more an irresistible mania

Henry wrote: "It was cool seeing those three words on the same page - not that the words are new or even spectacular - because the words are not commonly used nowadays."

Oh, absolutely.

I used to try to incorporate new words I found into my regular speech, and my younger brother hated that because he wouldn't understand a word I was saying, so he would run to my mother and say, "Mom, mom, Martyn is speaking in book words again!"

aha....my goof above..now I know where I erred

'locus' vs 'lacuna'

d'oh

syndicalism
"...a revolutionary doctrine by which workers seize control of the economy and the government by direct means (as a general strike); a system of economic organization in which industries are owned and managed by the workers; a theory of government based on functional rather than territorial representation"

psephologist
"...from 'psephology', the scientific study of political elections"

procrustean
"...arbitrary often ruthless disregard of individual differences or special circumstances"
(seen this one before but never bothered to look it up as it is very rarely used..turns out it is a very apt descriptor for yours truly!!)

you must have known what syndicalism meant before today Feliks?

I probably did but forgot it. Have only recently gotten back into hardcore political literature. Of course, I usually see the word in books written in my own language, Fijian.

I learned today where Feliks is from

cool runnings man cool runnings

Feliks wrote: "cool runnings man cool runnings"

;-)

3 out of 4 of those apply to me too

yep, I need urban clutter constricting my oxygen to the brain to write

'prosify' is new to me, thanks

very familiar with the others; particularly love 'adroit' it is one of those perfectly succinct words

another one is 'poignant'

Henry wrote: "I got a few today, which I did not know before:

adroit - skillful and quick with movement or thinking

paladin - A paragon of chivalry; a heroic champion.
2. A strong supporter or defender of a cause."

I'm flummoxed.

Your stature just crumbled before my eyes... *grin*

obviously you were not a Dungeons & Dragons player in your youth or you would have encountered Paladins before

Marc wrote: "obviously you were not a Dungeons & Dragons player in your youth or you would have encountered Paladins before"

That's what I was thinkin'.

I want to be veracious about how I used to read voraciously about paladins who would exclaim vociferously their ferocious conquests.

Yay.

If they were true paragons they wouldn't be trumpeting their triumphs

if you go around these days telling people you have experience with D&D you will get some very leery looks

Feliks wrote: "if you go around these days telling people you have experience with D&D you will get some very leery looks"

True. But at least you're likely not going to be labeled a devil worshiper like you would be in the 1980s.

2/3

good stuff

Henry wrote: "Feliks wrote: "2/3

good stuff"

:)

Still Balzac, as the source."

or his translator presumably, unless you are reading it in the original French?