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Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:51 am
by laurie
Now we know why our Master Kvetch is always getting his cheeks pinched by elderly ladies. :lol:

Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:13 am
by voralfred
Word of the Day for Wednesday November 28, 2007

incongruous
\in-KONG-groo-us\, adjective:
1. Lacking in harmony, compatibility, or appropriateness.
2. Inconsistent with reason, logic, or common sense.

I have since often observed, how incongruous and irrational the common Temper of Mankind is.
-- Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

She made nightdresses and petticoats in the old-fashioned mode and sold them to a shop in the market town -- one of those exclusive little shops with a single garment and something imaginatively incongruous -- a monkey's skull or an old boot -- arranged in the window.
-- Alice Thomas Ellis, Fairy Tale

They made an incongruous pair as they walked on: one was slight and dapper, some thirty-five years in age, with long, clipped mustaches, and dressed in the height of modern elegance, complete with pearl buttons and gold watch chain. The other, ambling a few paces behind, was a towering fellow with grizzled mutton-chop whiskers, whose ill-fitting frock coat barely contained a barrel chest.
-- Ben Macintyre, The Napoleon of Crime
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Incongruous comes from Latin incongruus, from in-, "not" + congruus, "agreeing, fit, suitable," from congruere, "to run together, to come together, to meet."

Word of the Day for Thursday November 29, 2007

hirsute
\HUR-soot; HIR-soot; hur-SOOT; hir-SOOT\, adjective:
Covered with hair; set with bristles; shaggy; hairy.

The Bear . . . makes the rounds of the clubs "disguised" in trench coat and broad-brimmed hat, hoping (successfully, it seems) to be mistaken for a rather hirsute human.
-- Richard M. Sudhalter, "The Bear Comes Home': Composing the Words That Might Capture Jazz", New York Times, August 29, 1999

First of all, your nose is nearly covered with your bloody moustache and your beard, Mr Gogarty replied. Mr Allen apologised for his "hirsute" appearance.
-- Paul Cullen, "No ambush sprung on returning Gogarty", Irish Times, March 23, 1999

He was incredibly hirsute: there was even a thick pelt of hair on the back of his hands.
-- Tama Janowitz, By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee
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Hirsute comes from Latin hirsutus, "covered with hair, rough, shaggy, prickly."

Word of the Day for Friday November 30, 2007

malapropos
\mal-ap-ruh-POH\, adjective:
1. Unseasonable; unsuitable; inappropriate.

adverb:
1. In an inappropriate or inopportune manner; unseasonably.

Such malapropos wise cracks are driven home with a relentlessly upbeat soundtrack which serenades scenes of human tragedy with bouncy, Disneyesque melodies.
-- Steve Rabey, "Noah's Ark' hits bottom: Miniseries suffers from lack of accuracy", Arlington Morning News, May 2, 1999

As an on-air radio pronouncer, I am quite familiar with the hazard of opening the mouth before the brain is in gear. It is very easy to fire-off a malapropos statement in the heat of trying to make a point and the result is some funny things are said, but perhaps not meant.
-- Gerry Forbes, "Foot-in-Mouth Afflictions", Calgary Sun, March 18, 2001

Malapropos comes from French mal à propos, "badly to the purpose."

Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:24 am
by voralfred
The usually deipnosophist ogre, recumbent in incongruous postprandial somnolence, was only uttering malapropos kvetching. Clearly, the hirsute foundling he had just devoured did not agree with his digestion and had a somniferous effect on him.

I could not resist posting the image these words conjured in my mind. :lol: But this was many words in just two posts, because I tried to catch up with a long backlog. After the backlog is done, and words are posted one by one, I won't take advantage of posting the WOTD to make a sentence before anyone has a chance ;)

Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:33 am
by voralfred
Word of the Day for Saturday December 1, 2007


cavalcade
\kav-uhl-KAYD; KAV-uhl-kayd\, noun:
1. A procession of riders or horse-drawn carriages.
2. Any procession.
3. A sequence; a series.

Behind him he sensed the progress of the cavalcade as one by one the carriages wheeled off the Dublin road.
-- Stella Tillyard, Citizen Lord: The Life of Edward Fitzgerald, Irish Revolutionary

Last week, Seoul pleaded for immediate financial assistance from the United States and Japan, following a cavalcade of bad economic news.
-- Steven Butler and Jack Egan, "No magic won for Korea", U.S. News, December 22, 1997
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Cavalcade derives from Old Italian cavalcata, from cavalcare, "to go on horseback," from Late Latin caballicare, from Latin caballus, "horse."


Word of the Day for Sunday December 2, 2007

vicissitude
\vih-SIS-ih-tood; -tyood\, noun:
1. Regular change or succession from one thing to another; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
2. Irregular change; revolution; mutation.
3. A change in condition or fortune; an instance of mutability in life or nature (especially successive alternation from one condition to another).

This man had, after many vicissitudes of fortune, sunk at last into abject and hopeless poverty.
-- Thomas Macaulay

Max had rescued his father's gold watch through every vicissitude, but as it didn't go I took it to a watchmaker.
-- Edith Anderson, Love in Exile:An American Writer's Memoir of Life in Divided Berlin

It has come about that this writer, who at the beginning might have appeared in unique occupation of a marginal and peripheral world, is instead writing from the center of a historical vicissitude, utterly contemporary.
-- Elizabeth Hardwic, "Meeting V. S. Naipaul"
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Vicissitude comes from Latin vicissitudo, from vicissim, in turn, probably from vices, changes.

Word of the Day for Monday December 3, 2007

soporific
\sop-uh-RIF-ik; soh-puh-\, adjective:
1. Causing sleep; tending to cause sleep.
2. Of, relating to, or characterized by sleepiness or lethargy.

noun:
1. A medicine, drug, plant, or other agent that has the quality of inducing sleep; a narcotic.

Hamilton's voice droned on, hypnotic, soporific, the gloom beyond the windows like the backdrop of a waking dream.
-- T. Coraghessan Boyle, Riven Rock

They were almost an hour behind in their daily schedule, and both women looked tired after a soporific afternoon of three executive meetings.
-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, News of a Kidnapping

Happily, these three lullaby books offer the sort of comforting bedtime soporific that has delivered generations of children, young and older, into deep, safe slumber.
-- Lisa Shea, New York Times, January 30, 1994
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Soporific is from French soporifique, from Latin sopor, "a heavy sleep" + -ficus, "-fic," from facere, "to make."



Looks like the two days I've volunteered for are mondayand tuesday! OK, so I'll do tomorrow's, but will someone else volunteer from then on till next monday?

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 7:07 am
by voralfred
Word of the Day for Tuesday December 4, 2007

profuse
\pruh-FYOOS; proh-\, adjective:
1. Pouring forth with fullness or exuberance; giving or given liberally and abundantly; extravagant.
2. Exhibiting great abundance; plentiful; copious; bountiful.

Lo and behold, when the time came to pay the check, it turned out that my pants had been torn by a nail strategically located under the table. Profuse apologies and "please don't pay for this dinner" followed.
-- George Lang, Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen

Thickets of brambles and vines grew in profuse, obscuring tangles between our house and the road.
-- Reeve Lindbergh, Under a Wing
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Profuse comes from Latin profusus, past participle of profundere, "to pour forth," from pro-, "forth" + fundere, "to pour."

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:53 am
by Darb
The circling seagulls were effusive in their cawing, as the ass-end of the garbage truck extruded a profuse amount of refuse atop the landfill. The driver of the truck was effusive with his profanity when several of the aforementioned seagulls pooped on his windshield.

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 12:59 pm
by Darb
The lone survivor, adrift on a raft in the south pacific, was feeling soporific. His overall chances of survival were so-so, and he was feeling very sorry for himself.

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 1:14 pm
by Darb
Although a skilled maker of hand-crafted wooden tables, as well as a respected author on the subject, Hank felt it'd be a bit of a stretch (and a dubious pun) to add "Deipnosophist" to his list of credentials.

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 2:02 am
by voralfred
Daddy, what is the difference between hypnotic, soporific and somniferous?
Spoiler: show
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn!!!!!
Such vicissitude to have a kid that keeps asking cavalcades of questions.

I bet you could not help yawning yourself while reading this!

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 10:41 am
by Darb
Hypnotic is a neologism for Hip-No-Tick, meaning that one is socially fashionable and free of bodily pests ... both of which are important when attempting to be a player in the swinger’s scene. You’re a little young for that, my boy, so I’ll pencil you in for the ol “birds and beesâ€

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 2:53 pm
by voralfred
Brad wrote:{kidding}
Are you, now? :shock:

/me kvetching
Such a pity! And I had just memorized, with delectation, your profuse cavalcade of what I believed to be nec plus ultra, though abtruse, polyglot rejoinders!
I should have been more circumspect! :cry:

So you again fell into a recidivism of malapropos incongruous flummery, you inamical egregious* recreant, you! :evil:

*or flagitious, if you prefer, you surrepticious arriviste termagant; but I thought that three adjectives is a bit too much!

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Word of the Day Friday November 9, 2007

polyglot
Word of the Day Friday May 25, 2007

polyglot

Less than six months apart :!: :!: :!: :?: :?: :?: :evil:


Also Thursday April 18, 2002,

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 4:32 pm
by Darb
Yes, I've noticed that those hirsute knuckle-draggers at http://www.dictionary.com tend to occasionally repeat some words at random, after 6 months or so. Very annoying.

Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 8:45 pm
by ODDBALL715
Word of the Day
Saturday December 8, 2007

mendicant \MEN-dih-kunt\, noun:
1. A beggar; especially, one who makes a business of begging.
2. A member of an order of friars forbidden to acquire landed property and required to be supported by alms.

adjective:
1. Practicing beggary; begging; living on alms; as, mendicant friars.

Money has ever posed problems. Not even love, said Gladstone, has made so many fools of men. Throughout time the most obvious but universal dilemma -- that there is never enough of it -- has confounded everyone, from mendicants to monarchs, and their ministers.
-- Janet Gleeson, Millionaire

She was well dressed, obviously not a mendicant.
-- William Safire, Scandalmonger

Mendicant derives from Latin mendicare, "to beg," from mendicus, "beggar."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for mendicant

Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 3:48 am
by moonwolf021
Word of the Day
Sunday December 9, 2007


rapprochement \rap-rosh-MAWN\, noun:
The establishment or state of cordial relations.

Mikhail Gorbachev and his team of self-described reformers were publicly heralding a new era of rapprochement with the West.
-- Ken Alibek with Stephen Handelman, Biohazard

The documentary record of initial White House-level efforts to initiate rapprochement with China . . . remains slim.
-- William Burr, The Kissinger Transcripts

But I have no desire for some kissy rapprochement.
-- Zoë Heller, Everything You Know

Rapprochement comes from the French, from rapprocher, "to bring nearer," from Middle French, from re- + approcher, "to approach," from Old French aprochier, from Late Latin appropire, from Latin ad- + propius, "nearer," comparative of prope, "near."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for rapprochement

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 5:07 pm
by voralfred
I've committed myself to mondays and tuesdays, definitely not to catch up with all the backlog each time as I did last week, but some words are just too good to miss:

Word of the Day for Wednesday December 5, 2007

tarradiddle
\tair-uh-DID-uhl\, noun:
1. A petty falsehood; a fib.
2. Pretentious nonsense.

Oh please! Even in the parallel universe, tarradiddle of this magnitude cannot go unchallenged.
-- "Taxation in the parallel universe", Sunday Business, June 11, 2000

Mr B did not tell a whopper. This was no fib, plumper, porker or tarradiddle. There was definitely no deceit, mendacity or fabrication.
-- "Looking back", Western Mail, May 11, 2002

Other amendments, such as a chef at the birthday party, a dancing bear in the hunting scene, and a brief solo for the usually pedestrian Catalabutte, seemed more capricious, and the synopsis suggested further changes had been planned but perhaps found impractical. Some tarradiddle with roses for death and rebirth also necessitated different flowers for the traditional Rose Adagio.
-- John Percival, "The other St Petersburg company", Independent, November 22, 2001
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Tarradiddle is of unknown origin.


Word of the Day for Monday December 10, 2007

perspicacity
\pur-spuh-KAS-uh-tee\, noun:
Clearness of understanding or insight; penetration, discernment.

His predictions over the years have mixed unusual aristocratic insight with devastating perspicacity.
-- "Why fine titles make exceedingly fine writers", Independent, November 3, 1996

Doubtless these thumbnail sketches, like everything else Stendhal wrote, were intended ultimately to relate to his own notion of himself as a creature of invincible perspicacity and sophistication.
-- Jonathan Keates, Stendhal
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Perspicacity comes from Latin perspicax, perspicac-, "sharp-sighted," from perspicere, "to look through," from per, "through" + specere, "to look."

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 10:17 pm
by Darb
I've already repeatedly wet-caned perspicuous well past the point of linguistic extirpation.

Sampling:

viewtopic.php?p=44129&highlight=perspicuous#44129

viewtopic.php?p=1800871&highlight=perspicuous#1800871

viewtopic.php?p=1806443&highlight=perspicuous#1806443

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:29 am
by voralfred
Word of the Day for Tuesday December 11, 2007 and Wednesday May 25, 2005

artifice
\AR-tuh-fis\, noun:
1. Cleverness or skill; ingenuity; inventiveness.
2. An ingenious or artful device or expedient.
3. An artful trick or stratagem.
4. Trickery; craftiness; insincere or deceptive behavior.

Built by design and artifice, it fell apart in confusion and chaos.
--John Gray, False Dawn

This theatricality is necessary to signal Prospero's farewell to magic, and indeed the play debates that very contrast between artifice and reality, illusion and truth.
--Amy Rosenthal, "An insubstantial pageant," New Statesman, February 3, 2003

The smoke had cleared enough for him to see bayonets flash in the distance, behind the wall, what looked like thousands of them, the wall itself appearing to rise out of the smoke as if produced by the artifice of some magician.
--Kathleen Cambor, In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden

The intuitive connection children feel with animals can be a tremendous source of joy. The unconditional love received from pets, and the lack of artifice in the relationship, contrast sharply with the much trickier dealings with members of their own species.
--Frans De Waal, The Ape and the Sushi Master

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Artifice comes from artificium, from artifex, artific-, "artificer, craftsman," from Latin ars, art-, "art" + facere, "to make." It is related to artificial.

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:56 am
by voralfred
Again, I only committed myself for mondays ans tuesdays, but some words are just too good to miss especially for an old lecherous voyeur

Word of the Day for Wednesday December 12, 2007

dishabille
\dis-uh-BEEL\, noun:
1. The state of being carelessly or partially dressed.
2. Casual or lounging attire.
3. An intentionally careless or casual manner.

People meant to be fully clothed lounge around in dishabille.
-- John Simon, "Tangled Up in Blue", New York Magazine, March 26, 2001

But, unlike the Black Knights, Princeton . . . was in varying states of dishabille -- some players in warmups, some in uniform, some halfway between.
-- Daily Princetonian, December 13, 2000

She was dressed, that is to say, in dishabille, wrapped in a long, warm dressing-gown.
-- Alexandre Dumas, Twenty Years After

She imagines the shocked faces of Josiah or her father or her mother were any of them to come around the corner and catch her in her dishabille.
-- Anita Shreve, Fortune's Rocks

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Dishabille comes from French déshabiller, "to undress," from dés-, "dis-" + habiller, "to clothe, to dress."



wordreference gives both spellings dishabille and deshabille but the latter seems to be the preferred spelling; that would make sense, since that is the french spelling, more precisely déshabillé; only Frenchmen really know how to appreciate this notion...


Word of the Day for Monday December 17, 2007

unfledged
\uhn-FLEJD\, adjective:
1. Lacking the feathers necessary for flight.
2. Not fully developed; immature.

It is most likely that this parrot was caught when very young, even possibly unfledged, and was totally nurtured by humans.
-- D'vora Ben Shaul, "A parrot in a man's world", Jerusalem Post, June 15, 1997

Some also charge the leaders with sheltering unfledged youth from the real world or, as one public education official quoted in the Washington Post put it, "prolonging a cocoon existence."
-- Helen Mondloch, "Homegrown Virtue on Campus", World and I, November 1, 2001

He is not naive, unfledged, but he is always in some way a "Johnny come lately."
-- Robert Creeley, "Austerities", Review of Contemporary Fiction, March 22, 1994

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Unfledged is from obsolete fledge, "capable of flying; feathered," from Middle English flegge, from Old English -flycge.

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:37 am
by KeE
although a bit unfledged still, the new fashion of dishabille pops eyes worldwide.
And blackens them as well...*




*reports have this mainly occurs in vicinity of a being called "wife", who seems rather flummoxed at both the eyepopping itself and the tarradiddle of explanations that follow.

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:51 am
by voralfred
Apparently, the being called "wife" has enough perspicacity to see through the artifice of said tarradiddle: the truth is that the eyepopping means that the corresponding being, named "husband", really is ready to beg, nay, act as an actual mendicant, in order to obtain a rapprochement with the déshabillé-wearing third party.

OK, OK, inserting the mendicant in the preceding sentence was a bit farfetched, but I did not want it to stay unused considering ODDBALL715 took the trouble to post it.

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 7:01 am
by voralfred
Word of the Day for Tuesday December 18, 2007

pari passu \PAIR-ee-PASS-oo; PAIR-ih-PASS-oo\, adverb:
At an equal pace or rate.

Expand the state and [its] destructive capacity necessarily expands too, pari passu.
-- Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World From the Twenties to the Eighties

Independent hedge funds can sell their holdings in a stock all at once, but if a hedge fund is part of a mutual fund company, it generally must sell pari passu . . . with the company's mutual funds that hold the same stock, constraining flexibility.
-- Geraldine Fabrikant, "Should You Bristle at These Hedges?", New York Times, November 8, 1998
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pari passu literally means "with equal step," from Latin pari, ablative of par, "equal" + passu, ablative of passus, "step."

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:16 am
by Ghost
Word of the Day Tuesday December 18, 2007

pari passu
\PAIR-ee-PASS-oo; PAIR-ih-PASS-oo\, adverb: At an equal pace or rate.

Expand the state and [its] destructive capacity necessarily expands too, pari passu.
-- Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World From the Twenties to the Eighties

Independent hedge funds can sell their holdings in a stock all at once, but if a hedge fund is part of a mutual fund company, it generally must sell pari passu . . . with the company's mutual funds that hold the same stock, constraining flexibility.
-- Geraldine Fabrikant, "Should You Bristle at These Hedges?", New York Times, November 8, 1998

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Pari passu literally means "with equal step," from Latin pari, ablative of par, "equal" + passu, ablative of passus, "step."

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:42 pm
by voralfred
voralfred wrote:Word of the Day for Tuesday December 18, 2007

pari passu \PAIR-ee-PASS-oo; PAIR-ih-PASS-oo\, adverb:
At an equal pace or rate.

Expand the state and [its] destructive capacity necessarily expands too, pari passu.
-- Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World From the Twenties to the Eighties

Independent hedge funds can sell their holdings in a stock all at once, but if a hedge fund is part of a mutual fund company, it generally must sell pari passu . . . with the company's mutual funds that hold the same stock, constraining flexibility.
-- Geraldine Fabrikant, "Should You Bristle at These Hedges?", New York Times, November 8, 1998
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pari passu literally means "with equal step," from Latin pari, ablative of par, "equal" + passu, ablative of passus, "step."

Ghost wrote:Word of the Day Tuesday December 18, 2007

pari passu
\PAIR-ee-PASS-oo; PAIR-ih-PASS-oo\, adverb: At an equal pace or rate.

Expand the state and [its] destructive capacity necessarily expands too, pari passu.
-- Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World From the Twenties to the Eighties

Independent hedge funds can sell their holdings in a stock all at once, but if a hedge fund is part of a mutual fund company, it generally must sell pari passu . . . with the company's mutual funds that hold the same stock, constraining flexibility.
-- Geraldine Fabrikant, "Should You Bristle at These Hedges?", New York Times, November 8, 1998

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Pari passu literally means "with equal step," from Latin pari, ablative of par, "equal" + passu, ablative of passus, "step."

:?

I'll be happy to keep the responsibility of mondays and tuesdays, if Ghost (or anyone else) takes the remainder of the week.

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:48 pm
by Darb
Me belatedly witnesses the late Ghost's johnnie-come-lately disabille of a post. ;)

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:02 pm
by Ghost
Word of the Day Wednesday December 19, 2007

discursive
\dis-KUR-siv\, adjective: 1. Passing from one topic to another; ranging over a wide field; digressive; rambling. 2. Utilizing, marked by, or based on analytical reasoning -- contrasted with intuitive.

The style is highly discursive, leap-frogging forwards and backwards across the decades, without ever sacrificing thrust or clarity.
-- Nicholas Blincoe, "Spirit that speaks", The Guardian, August 21, 1999

Rather than being a limiting influence, the time restrictions seem often to have compelled ensembles and soloists to condense and distill arrangements and to edit potentially discursive solo performances.
-- Richard M. Sudhalter, Lost Chords

He is in general a discursive politician: Start him talking and you cannot get him to stop.
-- Dan Balz, "President Endures Embarrassing Week", Washington Post, March 15, 1998

He is an intuitive being who can pierce to the heart of a matter without taking the circuitous route of deeper and more discursive minds.
-- "1962 Man of the Year: Pope John XXIII", Time, January 4, 1963

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Discursive comes from Latin discurrere, "to run in different directions, to run about, to run to and fro," from dis-, "apart, in different directions" + currere, "to run."