The Internet Book Database of Fiction

Rear Admiral Perogi and his general staff stared at the tactical map spead out before them on the situation board of the aegis class frigate, the USS IBDoF.

"Gentlemen, we have 2 choices on how best to intercept the enemy fleet - we can either take the deep-water western straight between these islands here (pointing at the map), or we can take the northeastern straight between these islands here (pointing once again again)."

"So, opinions please ... do we take distrait, or dattrait ?"



/me wafts away the fumes from the noxious puns ...

Captain Cook turned to his left and whispered to Commander Bake, “Da admiral strategizes like de has da head full of potatoes and cheese.â€

Word of the Day for Wednesday January 5, 2005

vituperation \vy-too-puh-RAY-shuhn, -tyoo-\, noun: 1. The act or an instance of speaking abusively to or about. 2. Sustained and severely abusive language.

It was a bitter attack on those who had sneered at his father, an astonishingly poised performance for a twenty-six-year-old, and an early demonstration of Bron's gift for vituperation.
--Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "Bron and His 'Affec. Papa,'" The Atlantic, May 2001

Everybody was very nice except the Liberal women -- who have a repertoire of vituperation that I cannot believe to be equalled anywhere.
--Bonnie Kime Scott (Editor), Selected Letters of Rebecca West

Ratifying Wylie's vituperations against the homemaker, feminists have scorned the domestic role and exhorted other women to join them in forsaking it as unworthy of their talents.
--F. Carolyn Graglia, Domestic Tranquility

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Vituperation comes from Latin vituperatio, from the past participle of vituperare, "to blame," from vitium, "a fault" + parare, "to prepare." The verb form is vituperate; the related adjective is vituperative. One who vituperates is a vituperator.


/what did you say, shame on you

"This part of the novel is traditionally structured and plotted," Stan said, "but there'll be some five dollar words dropped in what the author hopes is a subtle manner to demonstrate his fierce-yet-honourably-modulated cleverness, as well."

"What the f*ck are you blathering about?" Jeff asked vituperatively.

Word of the Day for Thursday January 6, 2005

lubricious \loo-BRISH-us\, adjective: 1. Lustful; lewd. 2. Stimulating or appealing to sexual desire or imagination. 3. Having a slippery or smooth quality.

The heroine, through some form of ESP, can hear, and be offended by, the lubricious speculations going on inside the heads of the men she meets.
--Philip French, "More about What Women Want," The Observer, February 4, 2001

And even if the public ate up every lubricious detail about their leaders, that same public grew offended that the news media would actually pander to their baser impulses.
--Jeff Greenfield, "Film at 11," New York Times, November 7, 1999

. . . urged women to give up their vanities, their cosmetics, and their high-heeled shoes, and to pile them on . . . bonfires next to lubricious works of art.
--Anthony Grafton, "The Varieties of Millennial Experience," The New Republic, November 1999

Here was a place where a kind of benign . . . anarchy seemed to rule, a lubricious, frictionless chaos into which one could simply disappear.
--Eugene Robinson, "On the Beach at Ipanema," Washington Post, August 1, 1999

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Lubricious derives from Latin lubricus, "slippery, smooth."

the volleyball could be, umm, interesting.

Word of the Day for Friday January 7, 2005

oblation \uh-BLAY-shuhn; oh-\, noun:
1. The act of offering something, such as worship or thanks, especially to a deity.
2. (Usually capitalized) The act of offering the bread and wine of the Eucharist.
3. Something offered in a religious rite or as a charitable gift.

There is another kind of spiritual courage as well, quieter and less celebrated, but just as remarkable: that of making each day, in its most conventional aspects -- cooking, eating, breathing -- an oblation to the absolute.
--Philip Zaleski, "A Buddhist From Dublin," New York Times, July 24, 1994

These aren't flowers randomly snatched from the garden; these are florist's flowers, purchased as an offering, an oblation.
--Carol Shields, Dressing Up for the Carnival

And that day we also celebrate the memory of his goodness in sending a star to guide the three wise men from the east to Bethlehem, that they might there worship, and present him with their oblation of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
--Izaak Walton, The lives of John Donne and George Herbert

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Oblation derives from Latin oblatio, from oblatus, past participle of offerre, "to carry to, to bring to, to offer," from ob-, "to" + ferre, "to bring."

To Ghost, for giving us the opportunity to improve our vocabulary through his WOTD: An OBLATION:




/me would send flowers, but me don't know Ghostie's address.

Not to be confused with ablution, particulary the kind performed after voiding one's bowels in the washroom.

Not to offend anyone's faith or anything...

felonius wrote:Not to be confused with ablution, particulary the kind performed after voiding one's bowels in the washroom.

Not to offend anyone's faith or anything...

You didn't offend my faith, Felon. I truly believed you would test my "spelling error radar", and you have. Twice. In one day. Deliberately.

Please note the "l" next to the "y" in "deliberately". You seem to have misplaced it in "particularly" above.

FELONIUS:

But thanks for the laugh, Felon.

I just wanted to see if you're as good as everybody says you are, m'lady. Thought it might just have been some efficient PR masking some sort of...sort of...of... pseudo-Mistress poser, but boy, was I ever knocked completely gerstunckenflunkt under your lightning strike from atop the High Citadel Of Celestial Spellers.

No more doubt. It's all gone.

Does that mean I can sleep again?

felonius wrote:I just wanted to see if you're as good as everybody says you are, m'lady. Thought it might just have been some efficient PR masking some sort of...sort of...of... pseudo-Mistress poser, but boy, was I ever knocked completely gerstunckenflunkt under your lightning strike from atop the High Citadel Of Celestial Spellers.

No more doubt. It's all gone.

Are the welts and bruises satisfying enough?

Or are you going for the pearl handled whip?

Word of the Day for Monday January 10, 2005

cosmopolite \koz-MOP-uh-lyt\, noun: 1. One who is at home in every place; a citizen of the world; a cosmopolitan person. 2. (Ecology) An organism found in most parts of the world.

At first, Audubon made comparatively little impression in America, but he was an immediate success in Britain, where he presented himself alternately as a rustic backwoodsman and a sophisticated cosmopolite.
--Alan Fern, "A Great Original's Great Originals," New York Times, December 12, 1993

He was a big-city sophisticate and moved easily in international film circles but, like his exact contemporary, the Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima (also a globetrotting cosmopolite), Pasolini rejected the glossy consumer culture that had made him famous in favor of the standards of an earlier, more rigid and more traditional society.
--Edmund White, "Movies and Poems," New York Times, June 27, 1982

Behind the professional caution is a figure of storied warmth and charm, an American-educated cosmopolite as comfortable in the Midwest as in the Middle East.
--Paula Span , "Man of Many Worlds," Washington Post, February 28, 1998

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Cosmopolite comes from Greek kosmopolites, from kosmos, "world" + polites, "citizen," from polis, "city."

... are you going for the pearl handled whip?

For the 2nd time, it's IVORY, not pearl !

Only a pimp in a $2 ... oh NM

Very cosmopolite of you...

Word of the Day for Tuesday January 11, 2005

quagmire \KWAG-myr; KWOG-\, noun: 1. Soft, wet, miry land that shakes or yields under the feet. 2. A difficult or precarious position or situation; a predicament.

. . . drenching rains that reduced all the roads to quagmires.
--"The Career of a Soldier," New York Times, July 24, 1885

Slowly, inevitably, over the course of several months, Don Jaime's pupil draws him into a quagmire of plot and counterplot.
--Walter Satterthwait, "Crossing Swords," New York Times, June 6, 1999

While the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he was awarded in 1957, should have signaled the pinnacle of Camus's career, it came at a time when he was struggling in the deepening quagmire of the Algerian war.
--Isabelle de Courtivron, "Rebel Without a Cause," New York Times, December 14, 1997

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Quagmire is from quag, a dialectical variant of quake (from Old English cwacian) + mire, from Old Norse myrr, "a swamp."

/metathetic mode enabled

Did you say quagmire or fagchoir ?

"Quagmire" is one of those words that's just plain fun to say. It's that 'g' following the initial 'q' sound to start - then just as the 'g' is clicking at the back of your throat your lips come together to make the 'm' right on top of it.

Go ahead and try. Hours of fun and enjoyment. Especially if the power goes out sometime at home and you're pressed for some filler.

Strange way of entertaining yourself during power outages, Felon.

I suppose that's better than some other ways (which I won't mention here), though.





/me did NOT just write that - me fingers were possessed by evil-minded alien for 40 seconds

I think Laurie's dark and twisted side has been coming out a bit lately.

I like it.

laurie wrote: /me did NOT just write that - me fingers were possessed by evil-minded alien for 40 seconds

Methinks she is drinking something to keep warm, yesterday a spelling error and today this .

laurie wrote:Strange way of entertaining yourself during power outages, Felon.

I suppose that's better than some other ways (which I won't mention here), though.

IF she isn’t going to mention "other ways" here, do you think she is going to mention them in that “velvet placeâ€

Ghost wrote:Methinks she is drinking something to keep warm, yesterday a spelling error and today this .

WHAT spelling error????

If you mean my use of "maths" rather than "math", I did it because that's what the Brits use - and the "maths student" in question is Kvetch, our resident British subject.

As for the rest of the comments:

FELON: I like it, too.

/me involuntarily pictures Laurie doing a commercial for "Irish Spring" bar soap.

/me winces at the ensuing mental flood of advertising jingles, ala "Demolition Man"