What's Your Word for the Day? Showing 151-200 of 3,049

[[deleted user]]

Kwik-- to the wikipedia! We must solve this debate! No, no help there-- my resource has failed me :(

[Ken, Moderator]

Anyone remember Quicksdraw McDraw, the horse sheriff (a Saturday a.m. cartoon)? His sidekick, a mouse named Bobbalouie, called him "Kweeeeks-draw" (in a suitable Spanish accent).

The word for the night (here, anyway) is quidnunc.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Can't bear quidnuncs!!! Responsible for a lot of heartache unless they keep their mouths shut!!!!
(Yeah....OK!!! I did have to look it up first)!!!!

[[deleted user]]

haha me too debbie and you were the quickdraw on that one
what i want to know is where did you dig that old chestnut up...from?

typing faster than i can edit

i really like this thread

[[deleted user]]

mess of fish

[Symbol]

Apparently the term school of fish was coined from a typo/misspelling. It was originally supposed to be shoal of fish. Someone typoed and didn't catch the mistake. The erroneous name caught on and no one's been able to purge it since!

At least, that's the story I heard.

[Symbol]

I used to have a whole book on collective nouns at one point. It was mostly just lists of nouns and what they applied to but, it was quite hefty! I was surprised. Anything that you could conceivably gather into or observe as a group... They had a word for it. (Including several humorous ones. I seem to recall reading about a quantum of physicists and a sequitur or logicians.)

I think that that must be where I read about the school vs. shoal of fish. Every few pages it would have some additional information, facts, an anecdote... something.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

You know that a group of nouns is ' a collective of nouns' of course!! I couldn't find one for teachers, but someone has coined 'a pomposity of professors'!!

[Ken, Moderator]

Here is a wicked good list:

http://www.ojohaven.com/collectives/

[Inky]

One of my favorite, favorite books is a copy of Lipton's An Exaltation of Larks. I found it at a used bookstore and fell in love with the content and the illustrations.

My word of the day is math-related (see jargon thread):

Coefficient - the constant multiplicative factor of a certain object.

I just posted that to see if I'm the only language and grammar lover who flinches when math talk comes up.

[Ruth]

Speaking of Math

Surd
is an absurd
word.

[Ken, Moderator]

Inky and Ruth -- I, too, find math surd. In fact, as a student long, long ago in a grammar school far, far away, I used to suffer exponentially as I tried to figure the hypotenuse of the perpendicular pie divided by the square root of its acutely-cubed rhombus.

Therefore, to change the subject, I'll introduce TWO words from the Middle Ages (ah, those halcyon days of yore when I was a lad):

Quadrivium and trivium (and no, they're not trivial or even quadrial).

[Misty]

Hello! Long time lurker, first time poster. The German phrases lured me in! I tried to google this word (and it really shouldn't be a word that sticks in my head), but I couldn't find it...probably the spelling. It sounds like ark-shnoodle. I won't even post the definition, but when I heard it in an undergraduate study of the English language class as a word that should have stayed in our language, I agreed! You see, I used to have this long-haired cat...

Please help! I still use that word.

- Misty

[Ken, Moderator]

Hi Misty,

I see you teach 9th grade. That makes you one better than me (but hey, maybe I'll get a promotion some day).

Truth be told, I don't even remember throwing around any German in this thread, but my memory is as suspect as Lee Harvey Oswald.

Ark-shnoodle? No clue, Frau (or Fraulein). Let me call on my German experts.

Ahem. German experts! Oh, Ger-r-r-r-man experts! Sprechen zie now or forever hold der peace...

[Ruth]

Hi Misty, fancy meeting you here.

R

[Mary]

Yikes! Math?!?!?!? Not my favorite, or even close to being such. Even as a fourth grader I realized it was mephistophelian(ean) and otiose for someone like me.I couldn't wait for the English books to be ordered from our desks, and the art teacher to walk through the door!

[Symbol]

Inky - Coefficient's a fine word, it is!

I don't have a problem with math in general. I've always loved maths and sciences. We got along famously until I ran into Calculus.

Now Calculus and I have not been on speaking terms for the last little while and I can't help being a little miffed at Newton. (He was doing so well in the realm of physics! Why'd he have to go and bring forth this abominable branch of math?!)

I'd still take math over art any day though!

[Beth A]

I like to combine my mathematical mind with my art brain, anyone besides me like Math Rock???

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks (my fave),
Dinosaur Jr.or J. Mascis?

~Beth

[Ken, Moderator]

Unfamiliar with Math Rock, sorry to say. Ditto S.M., Jicks, Dino, Jr., and J. Mascis. What a mouthful.

Here's a word for the day I like to use a lot. It's as French as Jerry Lewis:

de rigueur, meaning "prescribed or required by fashion, etiquette, or custom; proper."

For example, in my neighborhood, shopping at Whole Foods and hiring Chem Lawn to dump chemicals on your lawn is de rigueur.

(That sentence is meant to be ironic, as Whole Foods features organic, pesticide-free foods, and Chem Lawn features pesticides and herbicides that your dog and kids shouldn't walk on for a few days. Ah, America. At times, Land of the Logic-Free.)

[Ken, Moderator]

Much nicer neighborhood, I see. Trade ya.

variegated

This was a favorite of my grandmother's. She used it to describe the multi-colored afghans she knitted and she waved all her fingers when she said the word. I can still see her, too. Sigh.

[Symbol]

Extemporaneous! Ha!

I love that word!

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

....and my mum uses variegated when describing plants with two-toned leaves.

[Prabha]

Deb that's what i have always used 'variegated' to describe - comes up a lot in biology.

[Amy]

My new favorite is a word I swore wasn't one at all until I looked it up: historicity. I heard a church leader say it a few times and I thought he was coining his own word until I looked it up. I love that leader and now I love the word and the way it sounds. Could say it all day: historicity.

[Ken, Moderator]

Historicity? I live near one (Boston).

[[deleted user]]

my word for yesterday was insolent
not a brain teaser
nothing special
i just like the way it rolls off the tongue

and for the fun of it
i trotted it out and used it in perfect context on my grandson, grandaughter, and finally when my daughter wasn't looking
on her
i got the pursey faced scowl on cue from each one
because there was no denying they all were in an insolent line

i love chastising them with words
it's one of the best perks of motherhood :)

[David]

tritavia

Your grandmother's grandmother's grandmother.

quatrayle

The father of your grandfather's grandfather; equivalently, the son of your tritavus.

materteral

The female equivalent of avuncular.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Latin?? Or Uranian???

[David]

Debbie: should I understand your question as asking whether or not the words are legitimate or whether I pulled them out of my a**? Entirely legitimate, I guarantee, all of Latin origin.

For anyone planning to write a Bleak House kind of inheritance novel, an invaluable research tool would be the stirps romana , which shows up as a pdf document near the top of a google search on that topic. It contains a plethora of similar terms, most of which have made it into English by way of the legal system.

warning: a potentially huge timesuck, if you're a word nerd.

[Symbol]

Lackadaisical is my word for the day. It came up during a family board-gaming session with my parents this evening. :)

[Sharon]

Lackadaisical is a delightful word, but don't you shudder (or maybe giggle) when someone pronounces it "laxadaisical"? My boss says it that way when he's trying to make a firm point about our attitude toward work, and we end up seeing it as a comic moment instead of a reprimand. I hope he never sees this, because we love him in spite of his Archie Bunkerism.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

You live and learn....in New Zealand everyone uses 'lacksadaisical' and after googling it, it seems to have very widespread global usage. You are right of course...the only dictionary it turns up in online is one for confusions. I will of course continue to say lacksadaisical (sniggers from others notwithstanding) because I don't want to be thought of as ignorant by the Antipodean majority and have to explain myself ad nauseum!
love
Edith!

[Ruth]

My garden was lackadaisical until I planted some the other day.

R

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

I wish my garden was lackaweedical.

[Ken, Moderator]

Are gardens germane to this discussion? (Like I ever am... germane, I mean).

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Depends on whether or not their plants are germinating!!

[Ken, Moderator]

And on whether the gardeners are German...

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Teehee

[Ruth]

Or whether you've planted germaniums./

R

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Ruth....you are priceless!

[Ken, Moderator]

Today's word is eponym, a noun for a personal name from which a common or proper noun has evolved. The adjective form (and title of an REM album of long ago) is eponymous.

Oh, there are tons of eponyms, and I suppose you've "made it" in life if something ultimately enters the lexicon in your honor. To name a few:

Stetson (a hat named for John Stetson, a hatter)

Constantinople (a city named for Constantine, a Roman emperor who couldn't stand still)

Gerrymander (the act of redrawing political maps for one's own advantage, named for Elbridge Gerry, a U.S. politician).

Have any favorite eponyms of your own?

[Ken, Moderator]

Ford
John Deere
Ferris Wheel

[Ken, Moderator]

Bowie knife.
Cadbury chocolate.

[Jeannette]

My daughter just asked how to pronounce "succinct", and I thought: Oo, a Word of the Day. Say it out loud three times fast. Succinct succinct succinct.

[Ken, Moderator]

It's a teacher word, Jeannette! We're always telling everyone to be succinct (while we go on and on...).

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

My daughter used to say (at age 9) "Don't you use your teacher voice on me!"

[Ruth]

Diatomaceous. Anyone know the whys of that word?

R

[Dottie]

Mugwump? You called? That was what my dad used to call me sometimes. He was a deep mine coal miner if that helps explain things.

[Dottie]

And kids talk? How about "appaloopy"? That's absolutely from a not quite two year old.

[Ruth]

You got it, Donna.

R