GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

So, you've spoored the origins of spoor. How zen is that?

Only if zen = zijspoor (Dutch for sidetrack) ...

[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.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

brannigan

\ BRAN-i-guhn \ Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)

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

Read the full entry

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.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

undercast

\ UHN-der-kast \ Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)

noun:
1.
Something viewed from above through another medium, as of clouds viewed from an airplane.
2.
Mining. A crossing of two passages, as airways, dug at the same level so that one descends to pass beneath the other without any opening into it.

Read the full entry

Quotes:
His skin was white, but the sweater brought out the undercast of pale, pale green so that his skin was either pearl white or a dreamlike green depending on how the light hit it.
-- Laurel K. Hamilton, A Kiss of Shadows

Crewmen later reported having seen explosions and fires through breaks in the undercast , but their fleeting observations were none too precise and the strike photos were too poor to be of much use.
-- Wesley Frank Craven, James Lea Cate, The Army Air Forces in World War II

Origin:
Undercast derives from meteorology and aeronautics jargon.

Irreverent example:
My grandma loved visiting theaters, concert halls, exhibitions and malls with multi-tiered balconies and such, where she could treat the people on the upper levels, viewing the undercast, to a lovely view of her cleavage.
---
The girl they cast for the role of French maid, was a very accomplished actress. But for that role, her competence was very much undercast. One can hope this won't throw an overcast on her professional career.
---
The Millau overpass presents travellers with an impressive panorama of the Tarn undercast.

[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.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

... 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.

ATI has its Hydravision software to enable its Radeon graphics cards to do just that. I could slide an image over a similar one and immediately see the smallest differences. I called an overlay on the undercast.
Unfortunately it works in Windows XP but not in Windows Vista.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

palladian

\ puh-LEY-dee-uhn \ Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)

adjective:
1.
Pertaining to wisdom, knowledge, or study.
2.
Of or pertaining to the goddess Athena.
3.
Pertaining to, introduced by, or in the architectural style of Andrea Palladio.

Read the full entry

Quotes:
Within the sanctuary the gold and ivory image of Athena, fashioned by Phidias, had given way to the pale face of Our Lady, Mother of the Holy Child, and the grandiloquent Latin of the mass rolled its volume through the hall that once had echoed to the sonorous Greek of the Palladian hymns.
-- Justin Huntly McCarthy, The dryad: a novel

Miss Barfoot was smiling at this Palladian attitude when a servant announced two ladies, Mrs. Smallbrook and Miss Haven.
-- George Gissing, Arlene Young, The odd women

Origin:
Palladian is a direct ancestor of the Greek Palládios , "of Athena," goddess of wisdom.

Irreverent example:
When my grandma wanted grandpa to refresh his palladian exploration of her anatomy, she would tickle him and whisper "Now be a paladin, dear, and give me a massageing palpation."
---
Palpatine's palladian palavers kept the entire audience somnolent in Coruscant's Palladium.
See the Wookieepedia for Palpatine and Coruscant.

[MidasKnight]

... 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.

ATI has its Hydravision software to enable its Radeon graphics cards to do just that. I could slide an image over a similar one and immediately see the smallest differences. I called an overlay on the undercast.
Unfortunately it works in Windows XP but not in Windows Vista.

Ewww, ATI? Have they learned how to write drivers yet?

[Algot Runeman]

Palladian: adjective:
1.
Pertaining to wisdom, knowledge, or study.
2.
Of or pertaining to the goddess Athena.
3.
Pertaining to, introduced by, or in the architectural style of Andrea Palladio.

Okay, If we want to describe Charlie as palladian we'll begin by eliminating the third definition. Charlie has absolutely no interest in architecture, though he does recognize that Frank Lloyd Wright was one, just the way he also knows Shakespeare wrote some plays (none of which he has read).

Moving on to the second, its again a wash. Charlie isn't into goddesses. He didn't read much Greek mythology as a student, either. He did read Superman comics as a kid.

We finally analyze definition one with Charlie in mind. The best we can say is that he is a wise guy (worst sense of the phrase), a know-it-all, and never did much homework. BUT, he does study the stock market scroll at the bottom of the CNN business channel.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

acedia

\ uh-SEE-dee-uh \ Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)

noun:
1.
Sloth.
2.
Laziness or indifference in religious matters.

Read the full entry

Quotes:
His tales give the impression of a man cursed with an incurable disenchantment with life, a malady about midway between acedia and ennui.
-- James Norman Hall, Under a thatched roof

Five thousand people yawning in their cars, intimidated by the cops and bored to acedia by the chant of the politicians.
-- Edward Abbey, The monkey wrench gang

Origin:
Acedia is a simple derivation from the Greek akēdeia , "indifference."

Irreverent example:
Is the low traffic lately a symptom of the yearly recurring summer acedia or aestivation? I hope not. I can't give in to it because my grandma's spirit keeps watching me like a hawk.
Though I'm not afraid of my grandma, I do fear Algot might suddenly decide to write a scathing pamphlet if I were to show any sign of summer acedia or even winter hibernation.

[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.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

philogyny

\ fi-LOJ-uh-nee \ Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)

noun:
1.
Love of or liking for women (opposite of misogyny.)

Read the full entry

Quotes:
We will, therefore, draw a curtain over this scene, from that philogyny which is in us, and proceed to matters which, instead of dishonouring the human species, will greatly raise and ennoble it.
-- Henry Fielding, The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great

To me, it is immaterial if misogyny or philogyny or whatever was in the writer's mind. It's the fact of censorship and, what is truly more infuriating, at the instigation of a cleric, that alarms me.
-- Giordiano Bruno, "Wrong move, Mr Rector, sir," Malta Independent, November 2009

Origin:
Philogyny combines two Greek roots: philo , "love," and gyn , "woman."

Irreverent example:
Some people thought my grandpa was a misogynist. They couldn't have been more wrong. It was just that grandpa kept his philogyny strictly focused on grandma.

Except for his eyes. Grandma sensibly allowed him to look at other women. She reasoned that it increased his appreciation of and his libido for herself, which was in fact was quite true. Moreover she was doubly thrilled when she discovered that she reciprocated these feelings with interest.

[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.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

impedimenta

\ im-ped-uh-MEN-tuh \ Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)

noun:
1.
Baggage or other things that retard one's progress.

Read the full entry

Quotes:
With the ladies, therefore, matters soon assumed vivid and definite shape; they became clearly and irrefutably materialized; they stood stripped of all doubt and other impedimenta .
-- Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

Amid all the usual impedimenta of a life, he came upon an unexpected treasure."When I was going through my father's chest of drawers, I found a little book that turned out to be a diary of my mother," Rodriguez told The Times.
-- Elizabeth Ogus, "Mi Diario,"The Montclair Times, July 2010.

Origin:
Impedimenta relates to the Latin impedire , literally "to shackle one's feet."

Irreverent example:
Very early on in his marriage grandpa reconciled himself with having to tote grandma's travel impedimenta. She always insisted on taking several fur garments along with her, all suspended in a large travelling trunk with lavish room to avoid packing of the fur and crinkling of her other clothes. She called it her mobile portmanteau, completely ignoring the fact that its size was a serious impediment to boarding trains and ships.

[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.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

occlude

\ uh-KLOOD \ Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)

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.

Read the full entry

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.

Spoiler: show

---
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.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

morganatic

\ mawr-guh-NAT-ik \ Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)

adjective:
1.
Of or pertaining to a form of marriage in which a person of high rank, as a member of the nobility, marries someone of lower station with the stipulation that neither the low-ranking spouse nor their children, if any, will have any claim to the titles or entailed property of the high-ranking partner.

Read the full dictionary entry

Quotes:
Plans for a morganatic marriage, for Mrs Simpson to become Duchess of Cornwall, came to nothing. It is a mark of how much has changed in the intervening three-quarters of a century that the British press maintained a loyal silence about the crisis until the last moment, though the King's affair with a married woman was common knowledge among the upper classes.
-- Adam Sisman, "The Last Dance: 1936 by Denys Blakeway: review," The Telegraph, June, 2010.

Your marriage is therefore no marriage at all, and the highest compliment we can pay your association is to call it morganatic .
-- Robertson Davies, Hunting Stuart: & The voice of the people : two plays

Origin:
Morganatic relates to the Latin morganaticam , "a gift given by bride or groom the day after marriage."

Irreverent example:
The rare times my grandma really wished to curse someone, she did it in a highly morganatic style, i.e. in the way she imagined Morgan Le Fay aka Morgana (who also loved furs) would have proceeded.
Whether it was effective or not didn't matter because my grandma, after having spoken the curse or thrown the spell, immediately dismissed the offending wretch from her attention with a morganatic flick of her down-turned left hand.

[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.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

fulgurate

\ FUHL-gyuh-reyt \ Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)

verb:
1.
To flash or dart like lightning.
2.
Medicine . To destroy (esp. an abnormal growth) by electricity.

Read the full dictionary entry

Quotes:Quotes:
Their eyes fulgurate strangely. They have the look of executioners, or the look of eunuchs.
-- Gustave Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint Anthony

She flashed a glance at him, prepared to fulgurate , but his clean-shaven, dreamy face wore an expression of mere weariness with which she could not quarrel.
-- Marmaduke William Pickthall, Enid: a novel

Origin:
The Latin fulgurare , "to flash or lighten," is the ancestor of fulgurate .

Irreverent example:
In the pigeon loft of his house, my grandpa used to raise racing pigeons. Young birds that he deemed not to develop the needed stamina, were destined for the casserole. To remove the last hair-like smallest feathers after plucking, he used a kind of fulgurator of his own invention. He also used it to fulgurate obnoxious flying insects.

One wintery day my grandma came home from shopping, entered the kitchen, snuggled up to his back and, with a typically feminine ploy, she slid her cold hands under his shirt to warm them on his bare skin. With the apparatus still in hand, he tried to wriggle around to face her, but she said, "If you touch my fur coat with that thing, I'll fulgurate YOU !"

The modern descendant of grandpa's fulgurator:

[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.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

zaftig

\ ZAHF-tik \ Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)

adjective:
1.
Full-bodied; well-proportioned.

Read the full dictionary entry

Quotes:
Rina's mom had been svelte, her dad had been fit and muscular, yet she'd managed to get the same zaftig genes as her mom's sister.
-- Susan Lyons, She's on Top

This chair is definitely an affable zaftig blobject, but very expensive compared to, and not very dissimilar from, the cheap $5 garden chairs made of polypropylene.
-- Christopher Bright, "The Haute Seat," Dwell, May 2007.

Origin:
Zaftig is a borrowing from Yiddish, zaftik , literally meaning "juicy."

Irreverent example:
It was of course the skill of grandma's couturier that allowed none of her fur coats to hide her zaftig figure.
---
Lois McMaster Bujold describes one of her characters as zaftig. Who is that?
---
Think of Hélène Fourment (she too liked furs) and the other zaftig women Peter Paul Rubens liked to paint.

[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?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

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

No. The character I mean was introduced in "Memory".