GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

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[Algot Runeman]

It'spoor sportsmanship to be dropping complaints when you step in it while following it. After all, your intent is probably to shoot the poor beast. You should be thanking the beast for leaving you evidence to follow.

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\ BRAN-i-guhn \


noun:
1.
A carouse.
2.
A squabble; a brawl.

Quotes:
Polonius certainly spoke a mouthful of truth to Laertes when he advised him, in effect, "Don't start a Brannigan . But if somebody else does, give 'em hell!
-- Ty Cobb and Al Stump, My life in baseball: the true record

Emerson says in his essay on compensation that those who would enjoy the wolfish Satisfaction of shovelling it in each Morning must forego the simple Delights of acquiring a Brannigan the Night before.
-- George Ade, Hand-made fables

Origin:
A brannigan is a case of a word acquiring general meaning after already existing as a family name.

Irreverent example:
Had my grandma been alive back in 1975, doubtlessly she would have regretted not being able to record The Duke's brawls and brannigans on tape.
As it happens I recently recorded Brannigan from TCM on hard disk. My grands can watch with me from wherever they reside now.

[Algot Runeman]

Bob Butcher ran down the narrow alley to the parking lot to where his Ford pickup was parked. The carpenter's union usually accepted good workers, but Bob implied that a man named Smith had no right to be a member because his name didn't fit the profession. Bob, of course, was joking and didn't consider his own name's connotation.

Unfortunately, it was Friday and the workday had been over for a while. The whole framing crew were into their second hour of drinking. The natural result at such moments is that Smith's friends, none of them actually named Carpenter, decided Butcher needed to be cut down to size, as it were.

Bob was out the bar's door and his swift exit prevented a brannigan (though not one of the carpenters or others in the bar was even from the Emerald Isle).

The close friends of Sid Smith: Jeff Archer, Ed Wainwright, Stu Plumber, Rod Miller and Tim Shepherd each bought another round, laughing. Monday morning, they wouldn't remember Bob had even been there. Besides, they knew he was just kidding around. They all acknowledged that they were glad not to be saddled with a name like the infamous ones; Ima Pigg, Shanda Leer, or John Crapper.

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[Algot Runeman]

My new laptop is nice. I've enjoyed getting to know it. I even went so far as to try the new desktop of KDE 4.5.0 which just came out this week. One of the nice features is that while moving an application window around, the window becomes semi-transparent and I can look down through it at the background below. It is sort of like the undercast of computing.

Thanks to those who have counseled me on computer work through the years. From their training it stuck that I should do regular data backups. Good fortune shines in this story because I'd done a backup just a couple of days before the "death" of my old laptop and lost only a small amount of email which I'd pulled from my service just before the hard drive stopped running.

The future is neither cloudy nor even overcast. I'm flying high, above the ground obscuring, aqueous condensate.

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[MidasKnight]

[Algot Runeman]

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[Algot Runeman]

In spite of the relative decline in attendance at church, Americans don't exhibit acedia when confronted with religious extremism. The crusades are officially in our past, but the enmity between religious "groups" continues whether or not they attend their buildings of worship. The mainly mindless attitude of "us" vs. "them" continues, lumping the ordinary folks of the other group with the extremists even though we all should recognize ourselves in the faces of those commonplace others.

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[Algot Runeman]

Philogyny was one of Benny's best features. Through all the years he worked as a handyman, a majority of his contacts with the owners of cottages on the lake were with the families' women. They were variously strong and the weak, the good parents and the bad, the matriarchs and the the ingenues. With their men away at work in the Big Apple, the women had to organize just about everything, and Benny was glad to be of help. He never treated them as if they couldn't deal with a problem, and always recommended a good solution to whatever came up. It was no surprise that he was at the top of the recommendation list when somebody built a new place or took over an old one. Husbands were also happy with the arrangement because Benny was the consummate gentleman while being equally a "man's man." Everybody liked and admired him.

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[Algot Runeman]

Beset by his short, bothered past, eighteen year old Bubba decided to go north for the summer to visit his aunt in Connecticut. Poor grades, failed attempts to be an athlete, girls, oh my, the girls, all impedimenta to his goals of being a big success. Actually the police in the Atlanta suburb told his mother he'd probably spend the summer in jail, if they could find him. Bubba recognized that there were things that held him back, but they were outside forces, bad luck. He didn't see any deficiencies within.

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\ uh-KLOOD \


verb:
1.
To shut in, out, or off.
2.
Physical Chemistry. (Of certain metals and other solids) to incorporate (gases and other foreign substances), as by absorption or adsorption.
3.
Dentistry. To shut or close, with the cusps of the opposing teeth of the upper and lower jaws fitting together.

Quotes:
Were you afraid that this person would eclipse you, would occlude your very being, that your life would become the baby and nothing else, and that - and this is the most important thing - you wouldn't mind?
-- Joanna Smith Rakoff, A fortunate age: a novel

Unwin closed his dreaming eyes, but he could not occlude the vision of the man thrashing where he sat.
-- Jedediah Berry, The Manual of Detection

Origin:
Occlude owes its popular usage to the dental term occlusion , "the fitting together of the teeth of the lower jaw with the corresponding teeth of the upper jaw when the jaws are closed."

Irreverent example:
My grandma and grandpa complemented each other like well occluding teeth.
---
During a lunar total eclipse the sun's orb, as seen from the moon, is fully occluded by the earth. When the sun starts to reappear, a stunning sight is revealed to the moon people. ---
Instead of a canorous clarion call to announce the parade's start, the trumpeter produced a ridiculous squeak. And a rude cuss. Some prankster had occluded the trumpet's mouthpiece with a large wad of chewing gum.
Though the band had several other cornets available to sound the call, the parade started a full fifteen minutes late. It took that long for the infectious giggles and sotto voce jibes to die down and the band to recover their usual aplomb and dignity.

[Algot Runeman]

Bubba's aunt Clara was excited to have her nephew around for the summer. She didn't know about his trouble, just his acknowledged high spirits. Her older sister wasn't proud of Bubba's accomplishments, and hadn't involved Clara in the details, preferring Clara remain in the dark. Bubba's mom and his aunt hadn't been close since Clara moved to the Big City, first marrying a rich old guy and then inheriting his money, his houses, his connections. Bubba's mom didn't actually think ill of sister Clara, but had some hopes that Clara's luck might actually rub off on Bubba.

Clara, for her part, was happy to think that she'd have a handsome young man around because she'd broken her leg during spring skiing on Tuckerman's Ravine up in New Hampshire with her rowdy pals. It was healing slowly, and she felt absolutely occluded, a near shut-in, but she'd at least gotten out to the lake cottage. Sitting in her apartment high above Central Park was too much when she couldn't do more than hobble down the gravel paths. At the lake, she could sit in the sun, float around in the sailboat, and Bubba could bring some life to the cottage, gathering friends to the cottage for cookouts and parties. Clara was confident that her cane wouldn't impede her ability to have fun.

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[Algot Runeman]

Morgan lives in Natick. He's been married twice. He lost big in the first divorce. His second time around, he prenupped, lawyered up, and passed no papers up. Of course, he didn't realize that his new wife was vastly richer than he. No objections from her. Morganatic maneuvers mangled Morgan's access to the toys in the attic.

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[Algot Runeman]

Her eyes flashed and her face beamed with the widest genuine smile he'd ever seen. She walked, swayed almost, along the carpet leading to the theater entrance. Her starlet status was established, but advance notices about the movie clearly predicted her rise to become a real star.

From every angle, photographers called to her, seeking a brief, but marvelously effervescent glance. They all hoped that their photo, captured with actinic brilliance, would make their name and fortune. None of them had the shots he did, though. His were not for her adoring public, just for him. Even she didn't know he had them, and if she ever found out, her glance would become a glare, fulgurate, burning straight through him. He'd also have a terminal visit from her brothers, Vince and Carlo. Zap, he'd be dead meat and his too personal photos incinerated.

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[Algot Runeman]

Cindy Walton, Cici's daughter is approaching her sweet sixteenth, but like many of modern, healthy American youth, she isn't coltish; she's eminently zaftig, a juicy morsel in every way.

re: LMB's zaftig character. I'll categorically state it isn't Miles. Could it be his mother, or maybe the early bodyguard/crewmember whose name I currently cannot remember?

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