What's Your Word for the Day? Showing 51-100 of 3,049

[Ken, Moderator]

Blue is good. Peaceful color. Good vibes.

[Eastofoz]

I use pencil when I mark papers--less aggressive for those who freak at the sight of a red pen and have all sorts of nasty things to say about evil teachers :)

My word for today is "anathema"--cool weird word. Always end up having to run to the dictionary to see what it means. "Ad hoc" is another one like that. I never remember what that means!

[Ken, Moderator]

East -- You're a teacher, too! Cool. You know Debbie teaches, of course (she's NE of Oz, I think). And Trina (in that state of confusion we call "Joisey"). Anyone else?

I never took Latin (because I didn't know where to take it), but I like to throw it around sometimes (with little regard for lampshades and other fragile items). Ad hoc is not in my arsenal of Latin, though. Yes, I'm pro bono. U2?

I like sotto voce -- in fact, I often remind my students to speak sotto voce. Maybe I'm using it incorrectly, but good enough. And I love to play around with ipso facto. I say, "Let's get this done ipso fasto, all right?" No one has a clue (including me), but anything goes with a Dead Language (ask the Deadheads... those that remain).

What about poignant and halcyon for a two-fer Saturday words for the day? Warm, fuzzy words. Weekend words. Nostalgic words.

Yeah. That's good.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Halcyon is definitely warm and possibly fuzzy, I agree. Poignant, to me, is slightly sad nostalgia with a sharp edge that verges on tearful. Viewing a previously unseen photo, 3 years after his death, of my father dancing with me at my wedding - that was poignant.
PS - Political correctness be damned...I use red pen because it is easier for the pupil to see amidst their numerous errors!!!!

[Eastofoz]

After seeing that there were a few teachers I decided to fess up ;)

"Halcyon" reminds me of floating and "Poignant" is a knife to the heart --great words!

I came across SLIPSHOD and HAPPENSTANCE that I liked this fine Sunday morning.

Debbie I like your red pen reasoning and I'd agree that it's easier to see even if it can be "traumatic" for some--hey don't mistakes and you won't see the red pen marks ;) I had a professor who used pencil on our papers and though it seemed to lack the seriousness of the red pen (lol) it didn't feel as harsh. Students of course can erase pencil and then they'll ask why you didn't count the point (!!). I had a director once who encouraged the teachers NOT to use red pen--she was without a doubt someone who was "traumatized" one too many times (!)

[Ruth]

Actually, since I was marking up Art History papers, I used a colorcoded system. Red for the Art History remarks, blue for this-isn't-an-English-class-but-I'm-doing-you-a-favor-here.

R

[Ken, Moderator]

I'm glad it's not Sunday morning here. We're losing an hour to Congress tonight. That's about all Congress is capable of accomplishing, really. Playing with clocks. And I'm no fan of messing with Time. Newsweek is another matter entirely.

So Debbie, I see, as a teacher, that you're well red. Heh heh. I do amuse myself (as Cat Stevens' song, "Another Saturday Night and I Ain't Got Nobody" plays on the Victrola).

Anyway, I do at times go red, but not too often. Still, "politically-correct" is a term seldom parked in front of my name. If it did, it'd be ticketed. ("Lovely Rita, Meter Maid" is next up.)

As we were talking about insomnia (an affliction striking males from Massachusetts, apparently) on one of the other L&G threads, how about some nice SLEEP words? I could use some tonight (sleep, not words), that's for sure. Tomorrow brings the dreaded 10-mile long run (best part: finishing).

soporific, as in the voice of many professors, the hum of the furnace, the sermons at church

somnolence (I think it's a sleeping ambulance)

somnambulism (I think it's a sleeping ambulance with 4-wheel drive)

And I think the Greek god of sleep was Hypnos (or maybe Morpheus, or perhaps Vern). These give us the words hypnotic, morphine, and vernacular, I believe.

Anyone else have some sleepy wordZzzzzzzzzz?

[mara]

soporific - the hiss of a shower, whoosh of bath water and "soap bubbles"

good one

Smarmy - love this word. 1. Only 2 syllables so doesn't sound (as) pretentious as other words and can thus be used in everyday conversation. 2. It's fun to say. 3. It takes the place of "brown nosing" which is gross, as is "anal retentive"

And I use red. They aren't upset because of the color of the pen. They're upset because they got a point taken away for a mistake. Confession: I actually used a crayon once. It was at the bottom of my purse and I had nothing else while I was getting the oil changed.

[[deleted user]]

not sleepy
but my word today is compatriots
those with whom i am sympatico

[Ken, Moderator]

The hiss of the shower. Sibilant. Producing the "s" sound (or "sh," maybe). It's a one-two soporific punch, that sound and the heat of the water. Showers are supposed to wake you up, but they make me a little sleepy.

Mara, are you a teacher too? Or are you just talking about red ink in general?

P.S. I think smarmy sounds too much like smut, so it sounds "dirty" to me, like the word prurient (which oddly sounds like "pure" but stands for "unpure" or "lascivious." Is unctuous dirty? Reminds me of Uriah Heep.

But now I'm kind of blathering from one synapses to another...

EDIT CROSS POST WITH MAUREEN:

Simpatico? Or Sympatico? I typed the y, too, but the Good Read spell check objected and demanded "i"...

[Ruth]

Simpatico. It's a Spanish word, and Spanish never uses y as a vowel.

R

[Ken, Moderator]

Mucho gracyas, Ruth!

[Ken, Moderator]

(kidding)

[[deleted user]]

really? i guess that's one i've heard but haven't seen
i'll never remember

how do you use goodreads spell check?

[Ken, Moderator]

how do you use goodreads spell check?

I don't. It uses me (kind of like a few girls I knew in college). When I type, a red line appears under a misspelled word. Then I check. Then I Slovak. Then I get Hungary.

(I'll stop. I'm just in a mood tonight.)

[[deleted user]]

i have to say it

i have no red line!

where's my red line?

do you have to pass muster to get a red line?

must muster?

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Of all the people who should get a red line (to match the red pen)....I don't either!! Anyway...if you have to use a spell checker you should not be part of the language/grammar group...how's that for throwing the cat among the pigeons!! (I am in a mood tonight too NE). Think I will go to lay my soporific brain to rest....read the Flopsy Bunnies by Beatrix Potter for where I first found that word (when I was 5).

[Ken, Moderator]

Wha--? Have I been voted off the island?

The word for this young windy day is ostracized, then. Shunned. Banished. And all because I have my browser set to check spelling (and here I thought it was a GR function... what a rube!).

Anyway, for everyone's speller envy (first identified by Sigmund Freud, along with cigar envy), I'll figure out how to make it work for YOUR browser, too. Just give me a few months...

[Ken, Moderator]

Wait. It was easy. On Firefox, I simply click TOOLS followed by OPTIONS followed by ADVANCED followed by BROWSING. Then I click the box that says, "Check my spelling as I type." Finally, click OK and voila! Le Spell Checque (red underline).

OK stands for "Old Kinderhook," or Martin Van Buren, 8th President of the United States from Kinderhook, NY. His supporters took to calling him by the above sobriquet (bonus word for the day), which was then shortened to OK.

Or so one theory goes...

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Vote you off the island? NEVER!!! It is your island NE! I prefer to 'cheque' my own spelling, because all spell'chequers' use American spellings which are WRONG!!!! (how are the pigeons)?!

[Grumpus]

Debbie:

You can change the language NE mentioned to any you like. They even have English-New Zealand for those so inclined. Or is it reclined for those south of the equator :-)

[Ken, Moderator]

See? What Grumpus said.

(And the pidgins are fine.)

[[deleted user]]

my system must be jungarian because i have tools, options, advanced, and browsing but alas no "check my spelling as i type" therefore no
Van Buren and no anima (or is it us?)
to help with my spelling

not to worry
it takes a bit more than a computer and a cat fight to deter an irish girl from maine

please feel free to correct my errors with red pens of flaming doom or flung pidgins while i see where my red line is hiding

[[deleted user]]

foil
as in "rats foiled again"

also like the use as a description
he was a perfect foil to her intentions

hmmm...like the second best

does anyone have a better sentence?

[Ken, Moderator]

Foil is used in literature, too, for a contrasting character to better show off the traits of a hero. It's like parking a beat-up Ford Taurus (foil) next to a brand new Porsche (hero). As if the Porsche didn't look great on its own, it looks all the better thanks to the foil.

e.g. Kostuilin is the foil to the hero Zhilin in Tolstoy's fun short story "A Prisoner in the Caucasus."

In that sense, we could all use a foil (maybe a hired foil?) to make us look good. Then, when your spouse gets on your case for whatever (again), you simply shrug and say, "Hey, it could be worse," while pointing at you know who -- Mr. Reynolds (OK, bad foil joke).

[Ruth]

So a foil is the second banana?

[[deleted user]]

how much would you have to pay a foil?
is there a foil employment agency?
used foils for rent?
a foil training academy?
perhaps i'm a foil?

eee gads let's hope not

[Ken, Moderator]

Worse than a second banana. If you're handsome, he's coyote ugly. If you're brave, he's cowardly. If you're brilliant, he's dumb as gravel. If you're hilarious, he's sullen. I mean, we're not talking "second place" here... we're talking real contrasts.

Foil agency? Hmn. I'm always looking for start-up business ideas to liberate me from all the papers, books, and flaming pens of doom...

(And you're not a foil, Maureen. You're much too savvy for that!)

[[deleted user]]

again
all credit to my grandmother and the harsh realities and stunning beauty of my home state
granite and sunsets
blizzards and blueberry barrens


darn you ne

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Is second banana the same as playing second fiddle??

[Ken, Moderator]

Don't fiddle with bananas. Stuff happens...

[Ken, Moderator]

And my word for this fine, sunny Tuesday is trenchant, as in keen, biting (a trenchant wit).

You know the sort -- the dry, caustic sense of humor person. Everyone has one in his or her life (and not necessarily wearing a trench coat, either).

[rivka]

Catching up on several days' posts . . .

I'm another red-pen-user. In fact, even thought it's been almost two years since I taught, I still have a stash of high-quality red pens. :D

And my reasoning was similar to Debbie's.


I will see your trenchant, and raise you mordant .

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

That was nearly risque NE....tut tut! It was a serious question too!! The people in our lives with the dry senses of HUMOUR (!) are totally necessary... they save us from taking ourselves too seriously.
And Rivka...I will see your mordant and raise you tinctumutation!!!

[rivka]

Gesundheit!

I fold.

[Ken, Moderator]

Bless you, Rivka.

And Debbie, yeah, about as risqué as I get -- banana humor. And no, a second banana plays too close to the first banana in the Orchestra of Life to be compared to a foil. And please. Sell the "u" in humor. There's quite a market for "u's" in this world (or "me's," from another point of view).

Tinctumutation is not in my beloved, dog-earred Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Are you pulling rank on me? I found mordant which reminds me of all the deadly mort words (it's "death" in French).

Hemingway (who I went to school with) used to use "mort" as a verb when writing his friends (e.g. "I morted 6 bottles of red last night"). Cute. For Hemingway, I mean.

Anyway, to riff on Rivka (hmn... should be the name of a TV series), how about morbid, as in Edgar Allan Poe's writings? And why do people insist on misspelling the little guy's middle name (as "Allen")? Not on their "A game," I guess.

[rivka]

m-w.com balked at tinctumutation, but OneLook.com directed me to the dictionary of obscure words. Turns out it means exactly what it sounds like!

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

I got it at Wordsmith .com:
tinctumutation (tinkt-myoo-TAY-shuhn) noun

Change of colour.
Appropriate I thought, given the meaning for mordant (A mordant is a substance used to set dyes on fabrics )
NE, I don't need to sell the u in humour....you guys already did that (sold out?!!)

[Ken, Moderator]

Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it? And it sounds like a cow's got loose about halfway through the pronunciation.

I'm in the moo-d (speaking of cows) for some Italian. How about that word mezzanine. I learned this at a young age because there was a mezzanine at the landmark department store in downtown Hartford, G. Fox, and my mother dragged us there twice a year: once in late August for school shopping and once in early December for Christmas shopping.

[Ruth]

Mezzo means half in Italian. And that works, it's half a floor.

R

[Prabha]

Debbie I like tinctumutation - it's a combination of tincture and mutation isn't it? In what context would we use this?

And NE, it rolls off my tongue just fine, with no hint of any cows... :)

[Prabha]

My word for the day is a word play - Palate Palette! A fancy local eatery has come up with this intriguing name. Have not checked out if the food is as intriguing as the name promises! But i learned a new word when I checked these two out - 'pallet' - which means a crude makeshift bed of some sort. So if this was a bed and breakfast joint they could have named it the Pallet and Palate Palette :)

[[deleted user]]

Are there any fans of Reader's Digest "Word Power" in the room? My husband and I eagerly await every new issue to see what that month's theme is. With pen in hand (so we can't go back and change our answers, of course!), we see how our word knowledge measures up. I think it is because we are avid readers we usually score pretty high. This month I ran across "taradiddle". Noun: 1. fib 2.pretentious nonsense. Being the election season here in the US, I found this especially funny. "The candidate's speech last night was complete and udder (in deference to said cow) taradiddle." I LOVE IT!

[Prabha]

I'm a great fan of "Word Power", but I get a different edition here in Malaysia. Taradiddle sounds great, I looked this up on Google, this site http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_... had some interesting information: A variation is 'tarradiddle'. "The etymology of taradiddle is uncertain, though some relate it to the verb diddle, which means "to cheat", or from the Old English didrian, meaning "to deceive". In 1796, taradiddle was put into a dictionary of colloquial speech, as a synonym for fib."

Lovely word to use when describing election-speak!

[Ruth]

I remember taking those Word Power quizzes when I was a kid.

Never go near the RD now.

R

[Ken, Moderator]

In fact, I didn't know theReader's Digest still published. I thought it had gone the way of the dodo and the Saturday Evening Post. This little periodical was a staple at my house when I was growing up and always seemed to find its way to the bathroom (the controversial reading room -- the world is split, you see, between those who find that perfectly acceptable and those who find that perfectly ludicrous.

Anyway, I used to only read "Laughter Makes the Best Medicine" (although it's odd to hear guffaws from behind a closed bathroom door) and the aforementioned "Word Power" quizzes.

Has anyone seen the site where you take a monster vocabulary quiz to earn free rice for the hungry? It's commonly e-mailed around, and I tried it one day (it really is challenging), but I've since lost the link...

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

....and I thought I was the only one who used to read only 'Laughter is the Best Medicine'...and in the loo too!!! I didn't bother with Word Power because they were too easy.

[[deleted user]]

boon is a good one
i do love archaic and arcane

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

One of my favourite words in the whole world is serendipity. Finding this site was definitely serendipitous!

[[deleted user]]

serendipity
serene and dipity
lovely and fun

good one debbie ;)