GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

[Darb]

Up yours !

{and I mean that in the kind and beneficent way described on the prior page}

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Monday February 12, 2007

vivify \VIV-uh-fy\, transitive verb: 1. To endue with life; to make alive; to animate. 2. To make more lively or intense.

Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts?
-- Annie Dillard, "Write Till You Drop", New York Times, May 28, 1989

Stories not only provide context for statistical statements but canillustrate and vivify them as well.
-- John Allen Paulos, Once Upon a Number

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Vivify comes from French vivifier, from Late Latin vivificare, from Latin vivus, alive.

[voralfred]

If your idée fixe is to vivify your existence, move to some bucolic surroundings, and follow the diety suggested by the South Beach Plan (they will send you a conspectus of their suggestions for a modest fee). Then you won't need to dissimulate your overweight, chocolate-addicted body anymore and you'll be more genial to your fellow creatures, which is what your deity expects of you.

[Darb]

Humpty Dumpty stuck the pavement and eggsploded, like a miniature negglear warhead ... sending scrambled eggs and shrapshell flying in all directions.

And then a miracle occured ... high in the sky, The Great Chicken waved it's mighty wing, and the deceased punster's death was suddenly eggspunged - Humpty was REVIVIFIED !

Humpty stood wobbling happily on the street corner, like a newly-laid man. The penniless steetwalkers wandering nearby were speechless.

"I'M SAVED !!!" he crowed eggstatically.

It was at that moment that the construction derek on the 47th floor gave way, fell, and re-eggstirpiated him.

Re-awakening again in Hell, Humpty knew he was cooked, and that the Gods were laughing at him ... and that his eternity of divine punishment (for his career of bad puns) had finally begun in ernest.

edited by tollbaby to ...er... highlight a few of Brad's *other* typos (extirpiated notwithstanding)

[voralfred]

re-eggstirpiated him.

[Darb]

Deliberate theme-driven misspelling of extirpiation ... the 'ex' sounds a bit like 'eggs', which I gave a quick stir before I ate them.

See what I mean about the Ron Jeremy reference earlier ? You can take these puns and pun-metaphors pretty deep, if you know where to inser ... oh, NM.

[voralfred]

Deliberate theme-driven misspelling of extirpiation ... the 'ex' sounds a bit like 'eggs'.

Sorry to have scrambled your linquistic sensibilities.

p.s. Scored a triple pun with expunged ... eggs+pun{ged} and eggs+sponged.

I got the pun "eggs -> ex" (I liked you "negglear eggsplosion")

But I could not find "extirpiation" in several online dictionary, even with the "X".

Edit: did you mean "eggstirpation"? But eggstirpated from what?

[Darb]

Whoops. Try "Extirpation". I slightly flubbed the spelling.

[laurie]

So what's new...

[voralfred]

We keep editing our mails faster than the other can post!

Egg-stir-pate from what? Or did anyone scramble Humpy Dumpty innards on top of his skull?

[Darb]

He was raised from the dead (i.e., re-assembled after exploding on impact) and then he was re-annihilated by a falling crane. Extirpated (eggstirpated), annihilated, obliterated (omletterated) ... fill in whatever word makes you happy.

[voralfred]

See what I mean about the Ron Jeremy reference earlier ? You can take these puns and pun-metaphors pretty deep, if you know where to inser ... oh, NM.

I did not, no. In fact I just looked for Ron Jeremy in Wikipedia, and still don't see the connection with Humpty Dumpty. I don't get the NM at the end of this post either.

A lot of cultural references that I lack...

[Darb]

As Wong Lo Conspectus alluded to earlier, Ron Jeremy is an ex-porn star with a rather long endowment, which (presumably) can go pretty deep ... just like we were delving deeply into pun analysis just now.

[voralfred]

... pun analysis just now.

Did you know that in french, calculus is analyse?

[Darb]

Oh yes. In fact, Dr. Sigmoid Fraud also had a degree in mathematics, and wrote several papers on the topic. Unfortunately for him, he was a victim of an alien abduction involving some sort of unpleasant analysis. The aliens were trying to communicate via calculus, but something got botched in translation. He wrote a book about the experience, and subsequently lost his license to practice psychological proctology. Needless to say, it didn't work out well in the end.

Puns: sigmund freud vs sigmoid fraud, analyse vs calculus, proctology & 'in the end', etc.

[voralfred]

Puns: sigmund freud vs sigmoid fraud, analyse vs calculus, proctology & 'in the end', etc.

"sigmoid" is a double-entendre in itself!

(it is both the graph of an analytical function and the location of a different, bodily, function)

[CodeBlower]

Humpty stood wobbling happily on the street corner, like a newly-laid man.

Envy the egg.

[felonius]

My goodness. I derive endless amounts of enjoyment from this thread.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Archive Tuesday February 13, 2007

slaver \SLAV-uhr; SLAY-vuhr\, intransitive verb: 1. To slobber; to drool.
noun: 1. Saliva drooling from the mouth.

The tiger was slavering. It was thirsty. Or maybe hungry.
-- Eliseo Alberto, Caracol Beach

Two ancient, lopsided wooden signs declared NO TRESPASSERS! and BEWARE OF GUARD DOGS! The latter featured a slavering Doberman frothing at the mouth.
-- Meera Syal, Anita and Me

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Slaver is probably of Scandinavian origin, perhaps ultimately from Old Norse slafra.



Word of the Day Wednesday February 14, 2007

beau ideal \boh-ay-DEEL\, noun; plural beau ideals: A perfect or an idealized type or model.

Their commentaries inspired generations of schoolboys to pen compositions in praise of the Spartan lad who flinched not as the fox gnawed his vitals, and shaped the American beau ideal of the "strong silent type."
-- Florence King, "Oh, Sparta!", National Review, September 12, 1994

To the populace, of course, Hindenburg remains the national hero and beau ideal; nay, almost the national Messiah.
-- H.L. Mencken, "Ludendorff", The Atlantic, June 1917

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Beau ideal is from the French beau idéal, "ideal beauty."

[tollbaby]

you know, I've never heard that term in my entire life. Do French Canadians and "the" French still even speak the same language at all?

[felonius]

"Were you happy with dinner last night, my dear?" asked Jonathan, perplexed by his wife's stony silence. "All our guests seemed quite satisfied."

Jasmine's voice was cold. "Gulping martinis like a barfly, slathering over the entrées and attempting to grope the young servers' behind whenever she came near does not constitute a beau ideal of hosting, Jonathan."

[voralfred]

Beau ideal is from the French beau idéal, "ideal beauty."

"beau" is an adjective (beautiful) not a noun (beauty=beauté)

I never saw "beau idéal" used as a phrase, with the precise meaning you are giving in english.
But joining two adjectives is a perfectly normal grammatical form; depending on the context, they could both qualify the same noun, but that would be a little bit akward (more or less meaning "ideally beautiful"). More probably it would be understood with the first adjective taken as a substantive: "beau" as "a handsome man", and "ideal" an adjective qualifying "beau".

Now "ideal" could be a noun instead of an adjective, but then the meaning would be an "ideal", an abstraction, like "universal peace", "end of violence", whatever, not a person. Then if you think this ideal is beautiful, you could use the adjective "beau" to qualify it. But french grammar, in that case (because "ideal" starts with a vowel) would force you to write
"bel ideal" = beautiful ideal (as abstraction)
so "beau ideal" can only mean "ideal beautiful person", or, just possibly, "ideal and beautiful" qualifying a person.
But, definitely, it is not a "ready-made" phrase, in modern french at least.

[tollbaby]

it occured to me afterwards that it was the "beau" before a vowel that was bothering me about that particular expression. Man, I need some caffeine or a nap or *something*.

(and I've asked around to a few more scholarly francos here at work, and nobody's ever heard of this expression... maybe it's particular to a certain area or profession?)

[voralfred]

Anyway, Ghost gives "beau ideal" as a phrase in english, not in french.
This is certainly not the only case of a phrase made of french words, that is used in english but never in french.
Take double entendre
"entendre" is normally "to hear", though there are certainly cases in modern french where it has kept the old meaning of "comprendre", "to understand"
"J'entends bien, j'entends bien"="I understand very well what you mean"
(and not: "I hear you perfectly")
But we say "jeu de mot" (pun) or "double sens" (double meaning) but never, never would a frenchman say "double entendre" in french. It just does not mean anything.
There are scores of other examples but it is rather late here (11:30pm GMT+1) and they don't pop to my mind.

[tollbaby]

But we say "jeu de mot" (pun) or "double sens" (double meaning) but never, never would a frenchman say "double entendre" in french. It just does not mean anything.

Actually, that's patently false. "double entendre" in French means exactly the same as in English. It's something that can be understood two ways (not necessarily sexually). It's commonly used, even in Europe (I do have friends who live in France and Belgium).