A home for our "Off-Topic" Chats. Like to play games? Tell jokes? Shoot the breeze about nothing at all ? Here is the place where you can hang out with the IBDoF Peanut Gallery and have some fun.
I believe the 'peanut gallery' is a theatrical reference dating to shakespearean times ... a reference to proverbial 'cheap seats' where less well to do and more illiterate and attention-span challenged people sat (i.e., the hoi polloi). Such people tended to be loud, boisterous, easily amused, and often passed the time eating peanuts and tossing same at each other and the performers on the stage.
In order to cowtow to the limited grasp and attention span of the peanut gallery, shakepeare frequently 'seeded' his plays with short little humor skits and colorful personalities that helped keep their attention (and flung debris) at bay while he told his larger and more complex tales for the benefit of those in the audience with greater intellectual oompf.
OK peanut gallery members where/how did quaff originate?
The first place I ever saw it was in a computer game called .. hmm .. I don't remember what it was called.
The "graphics" were ASCII characters and you wandered around the dungeon, fighting monsters you encountered.
"Q" was for drinking health potions and the screen would report, "You quaff the Potion of ___" when you chose that action for a beverage.
Dunno if that's the actual origin but that's the first place I'd ever seen it. It had to have been before the 1991 quote in the New York Times, I'm sure.
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The game is called "Rogue".
"Budge up, yeh great lump." -- Hagrid, HP:SS
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The gelding is what the gelding is, unlike people who change in response to their perceptions of events that may benefit or threaten their power. -- Lorn, Chapter LXXXII, Magi'i of Cyador
Darb wrote:
I believe the 'peanut gallery' is a theatrical reference dating to shakespearean times ... a reference to proverbial 'cheap seats' where less well to do and more illiterate and attention-span challenged people sat (i.e., the hoi polloi). Such people tended to be loud, boisterous, easily amused, and often passed the time eating peanuts and tossing same at each other and the performers on the stage.
I'm sure such people already existed in shakespearean times.. but peanuts were certainly not a cheap commodity at that time. I don't think the hoi polloi would toss such exotic and expensive delicacies.The Online Etimology Dicitonary saysthis expression dates from 1888.
The Roving Punster's Legions of Terror were quaffing their Martinis in the pun-out gallery, easily out-punning all the hoi polloi who happened to innocently stand by.
Human is as human does....Animals don't weep, Nine
Darb wrote:The Evil Overlord scowled with disapproval at his latest progeny (his 47th). The boy had demonstrated an appaling tendancy to giggle happily with minimal provocation, pet the slavering guard dogs, and to speak politely to his father's slaves and legions of terror. It was obvious that the young tyro would never grow up to be a proper tyrant.
Resigned, the Evil Overlord pressed the button that opened the trap door to the goulash pits. Predictably, the young lad giggled with delight as he fell to his doom.
"Wheeeee !"
BTW, Young Tyro the 48th made his debut in the Appendix earlier. He appears most promising.
coruscate \KOR-uh-skayt\, verb: 1. To give off or reflect bright beams or flashes of light; to sparkle. 2. To exhibit brilliant, sparkling technique or style.
They pulled up at the farthest end of a loop path that looked out over the great basin of the Rio Grande under brilliant, coruscating stars.
-- Bill Roorbach, "Big Bend", The Atlantic, March 2001
Beneath you lie two miles of ocean -- a bottomlessness, for all practical purposes, an infinity of blue. . . . A thousand coruscating shafts of sunlight probe it, illuminating nothing.
-- Kenneth Brower, "The Destruction of Dolphins", The Atlantic, July 1989
What coruscating flights of language in his prose, what waterfalls of self-displaying energy!
-- Joyce Carol Oates, review of A Theft, by Saul Bellow, New York Times, March 5, 1989
Whether we know or like it or not, those of us who turn our hands to this task are scribbling in a line of succession which, however uncertainly and intermittently, reaches back to the young Macaulay, who first made his public reputation as a coruscating writer in the 1820s.
-- David Cannadine, "On Reviewing and Being Reviewed", History Today, March 1, 1999
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Coruscate comes from Latin coruscatus, past participle of coruscare, "to move quickly, to tremble, to flutter, to twinkle or flash." The noun form is coruscation. Also from coruscare is the adjective coruscant, "glittering in flashes; flashing."
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you,
S Adams
I already did coruscate back in 2004, in The Battle of Metathesis 359. Ah, those were the good old day, back when I was leading the imperial illiterate alliance's pogrom against the literate rebel alliance ... 359 was the turning point in The War on Said.
Anyway, somebody wake me when a WOTD we haven't done yet comes along.
Darb has been around since...well, a long time and can honestly say, "Been there. Done that."
Some of us are recent participants, new to WOTD, not so jaded, and wish to bespangle ourselves with at least rhinestones that we may try to coruscate, albeit dimly, in the reflected light of the gods of the forum.
Lord Vader, Coruscant coruscated as planned upon detonation.
Darb wrote:Anyway, somebody wake me when a WOTD we haven't done yet comes along.
Who says we can't have our own WOTD entry -- in addition to the "standard" one?
"Budge up, yeh great lump." -- Hagrid, HP:SS
-=-
The gelding is what the gelding is, unlike people who change in response to their perceptions of events that may benefit or threaten their power. -- Lorn, Chapter LXXXII, Magi'i of Cyador
While being taken away by the police on charges of second degree capricide, kidnapping, felony, corruption of a minor, and abuse of a classic, the three suspects started to chant in chorus.
Joining their chorus, Kate chanted with them:
"All that's gold does not coruscate..."
Human is as human does....Animals don't weep, Nine
bombinate \BOM-buh-nayt\, intransitive verb: To buzz; to hum; to drone.
He is often drunk. His head hurts. Snatches of conversation, remembered precepts, prefigured cries of terror bombinate about his skull.
-- Elspeth Barker, "Nobs and the rabble, all in the same boat", Independent, September 22, 1996
Sometimes the computer bombinates way into the night, stops for a bit of rest, then resumes its hum at the early hours of the morning.
-- Cheryl Glenn and Robert J. Connors, New St. Martins Guide to Teaching Writing
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bombinate is from Late Latin bombinatus, past participle of bombinare, alteration of Latin bombilare, from bombus, "a boom."
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you,
S Adams
Darb wrote:/me points bat at the right outfield's upper deck, then calmly waits for a pitch to destroy.
Alternate-Universe Word of the Day Monday May 11, 2009
hue1 /hyu or, often, yu/, noun
1. a gradation or variety of a color; tint: pale hues.
2. the property of light by which the color of an object is classified as red, blue, green, or yellow in reference to the spectrum.
3. color: all the hues of the rainbow.
4. form or appearance.
5. complexion.
Origin:
bef. 900; ME hewe, OE hiw form, appearance, color; c. ON hy¯ bird's down, Sw hy skin, complexion, Goth hiwi form, appearance; akin to OE har gray (see hoar )
hue2 /hyu/, noun
- outcry, as of pursuers; clamor.
hue3 /hyu or, often, yu/, verb
1. take on color or become colored; "In highlights it hued to a dull silver-grey"
2. suffuse with color [syn: imbue]
"Budge up, yeh great lump." -- Hagrid, HP:SS
-=-
The gelding is what the gelding is, unlike people who change in response to their perceptions of events that may benefit or threaten their power. -- Lorn, Chapter LXXXII, Magi'i of Cyador
After hewing down one bad pitch after another, the roving punster finally smashed a game-winning homer into the upper deck. Shortly thereafter, at the post-game press conference, the yammering mass of sports reporters raised a hue and cry when the punster skipped out on his scheduled interview, and peeled off in twin-turbo corvette of silver hue.
odium \OH-dee-uhm\, noun: 1. Intense hatred or dislike; loathing; abhorrence. 2. The state or fact of being intensely hated as the result of some despicable action. 3. Disgrace or discredit attaching to something hated or repugnant.
At the back of the Tyn Church, we were told about the young Jesuit whose harshness earned him the odium of his congregation.
-- Will Cohu, "High spirits and gloomy spectres", Sunday Telegraph, May 16, 1999
The point here is that, for all its efforts at avoiding offence, new Labour has still managed to attract the odium of the paper that regards itself as the voice of Middle England.
-- Will Mr. Brown hang for a sheep or a lamb?, New Statesman, December 2, 2002
But this brought forth nothing but odium on his head, so much so that he had to backtrack soon afterwards.
-- Andrew Stephen, "A nation left unprotected", New Statesman, November 5, 2001
Moralists warn against the spurious sorrow that afflicts the first-person plural of so many collective apologies: We erred, says the penitent, though he clearly intends to shift blame and odium to his fellows.
-- "The Week", National Review, April 19, 2004
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Odium comes from the Latin odium, "hatred," from odisse, "to hate."
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you,
S Adams
After pausing briefly to run up onto the sidewalk (in order to run down several flower-toting followers of Rev. Moon), The Roving Punster resumed his odious reverie about the nature of his odium towards the mass media.
After some additional wallowing in his foul fugue, he finally put a name to one of its principal sources ... JOSEPH TARTAKOVSKY.
"That feckless fop needs to be put down in the worst way" he concluded aloud, "... and not just verbally".
Side discussion: I've always pictured the roving punster as being something of a spiritual cousin of Etrigan, the rhymer demon.
Last edited by Darb on Tue May 12, 2009 9:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
1. A governor of a province in ancient Persia.
2. A ruler.
3. A subordinate bureaucrat or official: "The satraps of Capitol Hill will not sit idly by" (David Nyhan).
"Budge up, yeh great lump." -- Hagrid, HP:SS
-=-
The gelding is what the gelding is, unlike people who change in response to their perceptions of events that may benefit or threaten their power. -- Lorn, Chapter LXXXII, Magi'i of Cyador
The elevator disgorged The Roving Punster onto the 23rd floor with a distasteful mechanical groan. The punster was in a foul mood, and didn't bother concealing his true form, and as a result, he literally oozed down the hallway, trailing a mental miasma that sent asthmatics fumbling for their inhalers.
Following the signs to the office of the NY Times Op-Ed satrap, the punster demon paused briefly at the desk of the punaphobe's secretary, whose face had suddenly etoliated to an ashed hue.
abnegate \AB-nih-gayt\, transitive verb: 1. To refuse or deny oneself; to reject; to renounce. 2. To give up (rights, claims, etc.); to surrender; to relinquish.
An exaggerated veneration for an exceptional individual will allow worshippers "to abnegate responsibility, looking to the great man for salvation or for fulfilment" that we should work out for ourselves.
-- Christina Hardyment, "The intoxicating allure of great men" review of Heroes: Saviors Traitors and Supermen by Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Independent, October 19, 2004
Adrift and divided, lacking intelligent leadership from the White House, the members of Congress have chosen to abnegate their constitutional responsibility in the hope that the blunt, crude mechanism of Gramm-Rudman will compensate for the failure of political will.
-- Evan Thomas, "Look Ma! No hands!'", Time, December 23, 1985
Feed no more blossoms
to the wind, abnegate the constellations,
negate the sea and what is left
of your world? What is left then?
-- Alessandra Lynch, "Excommunication", American Poetry Review, July/August 2003
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abnegate is a back-formation from abnegation, from Late Latin abnegatio, abnegation-, from Latin abnegare, "to refuse; to refute," from ab-, "away" + negare, "to deny."
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you,
S Adams
"Mr. Tartakovsky. I am here on behalf of Thalia, Calliope and Erato, three of the nine Muses. They were NOT amused with your slanderous article denouncing the pun-ish arts, and I am here to administer the punishment they've decreed for you."
"Based on the authority they've vested in me, I hereby declare that you have forever abnegated your right to pun. Furthermore, to periodically remind you of your folly, and your sentence, your shall henceforth experience severe physical and mental pain whenever someone puns in your immediate presence. Word of your torment will quickly spread among your friends, family, and enemies alike, all of whom will derive great pleasure in your suffering ... all of whom will believe it is merely an act, rather than real."
And with that, the Punster slithered out the window, oozed down the side of the building, and was gone. Tartakovsky sat in his leather wingback chair in a sweat of blind terror, knowing that a lifetime of suffering was soon to begin at any moment.
