GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

[laurie]

As Marge, a captious woman at the best of times, listened to Stanley's tale of the many vicissitudes he encountered during his sojourn, she felt her enmity for this slimeball grow deeper by the minute.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Tuesday August 23, 2005

tyro \TY-roh\, noun: A beginner in learning; a novice.

It's difficult to imagine a tyro publishing a book on medical procedures or economic theory.
--Philip Zaleski, "God Help the Spiritual Writer," New York Times, January 10, 1999

He was a sensitive, fine soul alert to the pleasures of being green, a tyro, an amateur, unwilling to close his mind before it had been tempted.
--Paul West, Sporting With Amaryllis

And, though we were mere tyros, beginners, utterly insignificant, he was invariably as kind and considerate and thoughtful, and as lavish in the gift of his time, as though he had nothing else to do.
--Leonard Warren, Joseph Leidy: The Last Man Who Knew Everything

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tyro is from Latin tiro, "a young soldier, a recruit," hence "a beginner, a learner."

[Darb]

Somewhere, there is a sentence with parley, parlay, purely, parsley, polly, pulley, Pauley, and parlor in it, but I haven't been able to figure out what it is, yet.

After a long day of hauling supplies up from the parlor's basement (with the aid of a pulley-powered dumb waiter), Pauley and Polly took a break, and went next door to the corner bistro for half-bottle of pastis and a couple of sandwichs consisting purely of parsley and aioli, on toasted white bread. After an ill-advised attempt to parlay their lunch tab into yet another game of flip-ya-for-it with the bistro's proprietor, they were forced instead to parley with a Parisian constable to avoid a trip to the local pokey ... and the constable was was a grizzled old veteran, rather than a fresh-faced tyro straight out of the academy.

Happy now ?

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Wednesday August 24, 2005

expatiate \ek-SPAY-shee-ayt\, intransitive verb: 1. To speak or write at length or in considerable detail. 2. To move about freely; to wander.

He had told her all he had been asked to tell--or all he meant to tell: at any rate he had been given abundant opportunity to expatiate upon a young man's darling subject--himself.
--Henry Blake Fuller, Bertram Cope's Year

At the midday meal on fair day, a large one (meat loaf, boiled potato, broccoli), Mrs. Lucas, married to the man with the earache, expatiates on the difficulties of caring for a parakeet her daughter has unloaded upon her and which, let out of its cage for an airing, has escaped through the door suddenly opened by Mr. Lucas.
--William H. Pritchard, Updike: America's Man of Letters

His relationship with his family was for many years an unhappy one, and he does not care to expatiate upon it.
--Barbara La Fontaine, "Triple Threat On, Off And Off-Off Broadway," New York Times, February 25, 1968


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Expatiate is from Latin expatiari, "to walk or go far and wide," from ex-, "out" + spatiari, "to walk about," from spatium, "space; an open space, a place for walking in."

[felonius]

<== For Brad, and the gods of aioli.

[hgladney]

Stanley was a tyro at expatiating in convincing style upon nugatory evidence when he should be parleying with Marge to dismiss the abundance of culpatory olfactory forensic exhibits steaming so forcefully from every pore. In short, the garlic from the aioli insisted on having its competitive voice heard over all the other biochemical negations of his wildly improbable and statistically unlikely amnesiac episode.

[clong]

After a long day of hauling supplies up from the parlor's basement (with the aid of a pulley-powered dumb waiter), Pauley and Polly took a break, and went next door to the corner bistro for half-bottle of pastis and a couple of sandwichs consisting purely of parsley and aioli, on toasted white bread. After an ill-advised attempt to parlay their lunch tab into yet another game of flip-ya-for-it with the bistro's proprietor, they were forced instead to parley with a Parisian constable to avoid a trip to the local pokey ... and the constable was was a grizzled old veteran, rather than a fresh-faced tyro straight out of the academy.

Happy now ?

I should have known better than to challenge the master, Brad.

[felonius]

Stanley was a tyro at expatiating in convincing style upon nugatory evidence when he should be parleying with Marge to dismiss the abundance of culpatory olfactory forensic exhibits steaming so forcefully from every pore. In short, the garlic from the aioli insisted on having its competitive voice heard over all the other biochemical negations of his wildly improbable and statistically unlikely amnesiac episode.

I think we have a tie.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Thursday August 25, 2005

peccadillo \peck-uh-DIL-oh\, noun: A slight offense; a petty fault.

No peccadillo is too trivial: we learn that the mogul once blew his top because his laundry came back starched ("'Fluff and fold!' he screamed").
--Eric P. Nash, "High Concept," New York Times, May 10, 1998

And besides, "what do they say? 'Don't judge lest you be judged.' Everybody has their peccadilloes."
-- "Tyson has a friend in his corner," Irish Times, October 21,1999

Child of a dominant mother, victim of a guilt-ridden conscience, [St. Augustine] wrote bewilderingly haunted 'Confessions,' in which infantile peccadilloes like stealing apples and adolescent fumblings with instinctive sexuality are bewailed with all the anguish of a frustrated perfectionist.
--Geoffrey Parker, "True Believers," New York Times, June 29, 1997

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peccadillo comes from Spanish pecadillo, "little sin," diminutive of pecado, "sin," from Latin peccatum, from peccare, "to make a mistake, to err, to sin." It is related to impeccable, "without flaw or fault."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brad and Heather:

[Darb]

GENRE: Animorphic Nursery Rhyme Soap Opera

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Peter Piper already placed the peck of pickled peppers in the pickled pepper hopper, dear;
How many times do I have to tell you what Peter Piper did ?

With the peck of pickled peppers previously and properly placed in pickled pepper hopper,
how many more persnickety peccadillos will Peter Piper’s pedantic poultrian parents parlaver ?

Tune in next week, gentle tongue-twisted readers, for the exciting conclusion of "As the epigram turns !"

[hgladney]

Not a paltry, puerile, or pedestrian screed, no indeed, Brad's got us palpitating for more powerfully punchy persimmon prose, and in fact I think he's got me pureed, prostrate, most pusillanimously and totally, utterly, treed.

moral: Don't count on seeing any more of that sort of thing, I think this is the first metered stuff I've written in twenty years!!

Peccadillo comes from Spanish pecadillo, "little sin," diminutive of pecado, "sin," from Latin peccatum, from peccare, "to make a mistake, to err, to sin." It is related to impeccable, "without flaw or fault."

I think there may be a relation there to the name for the wild pig, peccary, with the plural peccaries, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. A folk etymology (ie. a guess on my part) might suggest that it's a comment on damage they do.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Friday August 26, 2005

bagatelle \bag-uh-TEL\, noun: 1. A trifle; a thing of little or no importance. 2. A short, light musical or literary piece. 3. A game played with a cue and balls on an oblong table having cups or arches at one end.

Don't worry about that, a mere bagatelle, old boy!
--Eric Ellis, "Error Message," Time, February 10, 2000

You know how it often happens; these strifes and disputes frequently originate from a mere bagatelle.
--Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi

Excepting the regulars, the troops were raw as were likewise most of their officers; and this march of twenty-seven miles, which a year later would have been considered a bagatelle, was now a mighty undertaking.
--James Ford Rhodes, History of the Civil War

So if you eat at his restaurant every day -- off the menu, of course -- and slosh the grub down with a 1966 Chateau Margaux (£800-£1,000 a bottle in a restaurant), even a Ritz bill will seem a mere bagatelle.
--"Do you take cash?" The Guardian, December 23, 1999

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bagatelle derives from Italian bagattella, "a trifling matter; a bagatelle," perhaps ultimately from Latin baca, "a berry."

[wolfspirit]

Far from needing it, Billy-Jean and Brad found that sleep was a bagatelle, far beneath other, more interesting activities, such as eating food, and making the bed shake with *censored*.

Ok, I now step out of the way of the true literary pundits, both the professional, and the not-so-professional one.

[spiphany]

Sadly, Heather, "peccary" has no relation to the Latin for "to sin". My instincts suggested this was probably based a word of native origin (i.e. non-European), and my dictionary backs this up, although it doesn't list much more than "from Carib pakira, paquera".

However, I did come up with some interesting tidbits:

- Peccare ultimately derives from the Indo-European root ped-, "foot" + ka--the sense here being "to stumble", which acquired the metaphorical meaning of "to sin".

- There is an apocryphal story that after Charles Napier annexed the Indian province Sind, he sent a one-word telegram in Latin to his superiors in England: "Peccavi"--i.e. "I have Sind" (sinned)

(just in case anyone besides me finds these things interesting)

[Darb]

GENRE: Gay Soap Opera

James arrived at his boyfriend's apartment for brunch, sashayed into the tiny kitchen with an armload of groceries, and proceeded to unpack them.

"Oh poo !" squealed James, in the piercing falsetto tone that Frank adored. "I forgot to bring the bagettes and brie !" he continued, obviously awash in self-recrimination.

Frank strode into the room, and pondered for a moment. "Feh ... a mere bagatelle, my limp-wristed friend. We shall feast instead on quiche, and goat cheese ... and afterwards I shall tie you up and punish you most severely for your peccadilloes." he droned, in a gravely baritone.

James' expression brightened considerably at the mention of 'punishment', and 'peccers' in the same sentence ... then he glanced at his watch, saw it was almost time for his favorite cartoon (The Ambiguously Gay Duo), skipped excitedly into the living room, and flung himself onto the couch.

[hgladney]

Flaming Flaccid Wrists, Batman, was that a script from The Secret Life of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, or what??

[nzilla]

As an aside, I've always wondered about the phrase "limp-wristed". It kind seems to me like another one of those phrases people use as a stereotype without actually cognizing what the expression would really denote. I mean, when one think of a stereotypical gay man, let alone one in real life, does one ever actually imagine him as having limp wrists? When I try to imagine somebody with limp wrists I end up with a picture of the thing from the film Nosferatu, and I imagine on the Kinsey scale he's probably around a 0 (or maybe an O, O-negative, that is).

[hgladney]

I'm going to jump from the general to the specific on this one.
None of the gay guys I've known as friends and co-workers actually have limp wrists at all. Matter of fact, they've always been the go-to guys for getting heavy stuff moved or lifted onto tall shelves, etc. This was back in the day when *I* was lifting 80-90 pounds of plants and potting soil and nursery blah-blah regularly without ever taking the time to go get them to do it for me.
The two I still know best both had a very elegant way of holding cigarettes (when not actively smoking them) with a *very* slightly bent wrist, which means accidentally falling ash clears the cuffs of sleeves and jackets while maintaining the forearm in an upward slanted position that will pass in small spaces. It is more space-efficient than either holding the forearm low and propped out from the hip, the way many women do, or poking straight outward from the elbow, as many of the guys I know will do outside buildings at work. (As a slight side-comment, they were also extremely polite about tracking wind direction so they were not aiming at me, a nonsmoker, before they knew me well, so I didn't have to ask for that consideration.)
These guys also had enormous precision of movement, such as placing a difficult, fragile, fussy, or heavy item in an exact location perfectly the first time, no rearrangements needed. This was true both when delicacy was called for and when power was called for. One doesn't think of this as an unusual eye/hand trait until you see what a difference it can make in things like timely Christmas displays.
Granted, these are all friends of mine, in particular types of business, and one should not over-generalize.
I will say, however, that this lot also had a wicked line of exaggeratedly satiric large waving gestures, adopted quite deliberately from stereotypic models, punctuated with sarcastic remarks, in which the hand(s) gets flapped in somebody's direction to push them away, indicate disbelief, or wave them away in disgust. (They'd be the first to satirize the whole thing with silly gestures, of course, with fairly topical comments. Nothing so boring as "You go, girl," and "Get ooooff, you're lying to me!", but you get the idea.)
If the offensive phrase is rooted in any sort of direct observation at all, then perhaps it comes from that flapping mannerism, and possibly as well from the older style of smoking fastidiously, without accidentally staining one's cuffs. There's probably some gay historians out there who've done the research to say for sure what the etymiology of that old phrase might be, but I'm speculating that it might be as old as Oscar Wilde, or older.

[mccormack44]

As a straight who does know some out-of-the-closet homosexuals, I've never noticed gestures that are specific to the homosexual.

I've always thought that "limp-wristed" is applied to the sort of sweeping gesture that Cojo has used on the Today show. But Cojo is in entertainment and all of his style on those appearances are being used for deliberate entertainment value. I don't think they tell you much about his inner personality.

Heather just indicated the same thing when describing the gestures used by her two friends.

Those of us here in these discussions who are writers (I read and edit, but haven't the imagination or stamina to write) seem to be in the good habit of avoiding such clichéd non-observations. And I applaud them for it.

Sue

[hgladney]

Yes, I class the gestures I described as being in the same mode as the New Joisy gesture, "Talk to the hand!" used in shows like The Nanny, and so on.

[Darb]

This is the WORD OF THE DAY thread, not the soap box. This is a word game, not a thread for commentary on stereotypes.

Can we please get back on topic ?

[hgladney]

Oh dear me, yes, we are wandering far afield in our ferrago of inflammatory prose.
Would you rather shift our comments straight to the Soapbox--even for a mod as modish as Brad, probably nowhere near the mere bagatelle it might look to us awestruck observers so oblivious to the time and effort of the task--or on the obverse, would you prefer to just perambulate around the pretentious and potentially fallacious prattle of us preremptory pillocks who hijacked the thread with our most improperly provocative and peculiarly political peccadillos?

[felonius]

Wow. Betcha didn't expect all that when you wrote your soap opera post, eh Brad? You have to watch those stereotypes, mate - even in a light-hearted game thread. Mind you, nobody seemed to mind me stereotyping the American South a few pages back. Go figure.

One final word: Ian McKellan (Gandalf in LOTR) is gay, and I think all of us here can agree his wrists are definitely not limp. I mean, he kicked the Balrog's ass!

Don't even get me started on male figure skating or the catering industry! I also know some deep-voiced hairdressers and florists who nobody wants to mess with. Except they come from Texas so that means they're stupid. But the ones who have Asian parents are amazing at mathematics.

The last bit of discusssion's given me an idea for a possible new thread in the Soapbox: The Grand List of Classic and Modern Stereotypes, or something to that effect...could be illuminating...

/we now return to your regularly scheduled Word of the Day programming

[laurie]

Felonius:

[Ghost]

Back on topic:

Word of the Day for Monday August 29, 2005

unctuous \UNGK-choo-us\, adjective: 1. Of the nature or quality of an unguent or ointment; fatty; oily; greasy. 2. Having a smooth, greasy feel, as certain minerals. 3. Insincerely or excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech; marked by a false or smug earnestness or agreeableness.

A warmed, crusty French roll arrives split, lightly smeared with unctuous chopped liver.
--John Kessler, "Meals To Go: Break from the routine with Hong," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 22, 1998

She recalled being offended by the "phoniness" that stemmed from the contradiction between her mother's charming, even unctuous public manner and her anger in private.
--Daniel Horowitz, Betty Friedan And the Making of 'The Feminine Mystique'

He approached Sean wearing a smile so unctuous it seemed about to slide right off his face.
--Naeem Murr, The Boy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unctuous is from Medieval Latin unctuosus, from Latin unctus, "anointed, besmeared, greasy," past participle of unguere, "to anoint, to besmear."