GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

[Darb]

After years of constant exposure, the stableboy became inured to being immured in manure.

[Algot Runeman]

In these times of intermittent employment, I applaud the youth's wise recognition of value in a stable job.

[CodeBlower]

Nor will I neigh-say his inclinations ..

[Darb]

A truly ass-inine observation, given his successful run on Broadway, in "Equus", a few years back.

In any event, while you boys are busy immuring yourselves in amateur puns, I'll keep my eyes peeled for Godot's Ghost. He promised to bring the next WOTD with him, but he's late as usual. The fact that he's dead is no excuse for being late.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Tuesday May 26, 2009

pejorative \pih-JOR-uh-tiv\, adjective: 1. Tending to make or become worse. 2. Tending to disparage or belittle.
noun: 1. A belittling or disparaging word or expression.

Citing the construction industry, car dealers, and politicians as the purveyors of "sprawl" (a pejorative term that does not even allow for the possibility of benefits associated with low-density development), Kunstler fails to consider the role of market forces.
-- Julia Hansen, "letter to the editor", The Atlantic, December 1996

While he said that he is not a "fanboy," mildly pejorative slang for an aggressively obsessive "Star Wars" fan, he did mention that the John Williams "Star Wars" theme was played at his wedding reception two years ago.
-- Michel Marriott, "On a Galaxy of Sites, 'Star Wars' Fever Rises", New York Times, May 6, 1999

Welfare state is now, even for the Labour party whose grand historic achievement it was, obscurely shameful. A pejorative for our times.
-- John Sutherland, "How the potent language of civic life was undermined", The Guardian, March 20, 2001

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Pejorative is derived from the past participle of Late Latin pejorare, "to make worse, to become worse," from Latin pejor, "worse."

[Darb]

Well well well, here I was dishing pejoratives about posthumous tardiness, and look who should appear and cross posts with me ! Serendipitous synchronicity can be a beautiful thing.

[Algot Runeman]

Far better to cross posts than to cross swords, Darbbrad.

I don't belittle; I be big.

Never is heard a disparaging word...snide, insincere, silly, well certainly, pejorative, not at all. Not in the least...at least not mostly.

[voralfred]

I'm so happy today, I am immune to any fatuous dissonances, or queroulous pejoratives. There is nothing that can be pernicious on such an auspicious day!

I'm also half-drunk on Champagne - there were just 3 of us, and once opened,you have to finish the bottle.....

[Darb]

Ok then, just one polite perjorative and I'll stop ...

You got half drunk on only 1/3 of a bottle of champagne ? You, Sirrah, for a Frenchman, are a lightweight. I'd have to consume at least Pi times that amount, and divide by two, in order to get even half pie-eyed*.

p.s. Congrats

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* pie-eyed (i.e., eyes dilated like pies) is american slang for drunk.

[voralfred]

Ok then, just one polite perjorative and I'll stop ...

Are you now immune, or maybe inured, to Laurie's ?



Well, I am a lightweight (65kg, less than 140 pounds) and alcohol has a very strong effect on me, indeed...

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Wednesday May 27, 2009

sagacious \suh-GAY-shus\, adjective: Having or showing keen discernment, sound judgment, and farsightedness.

Edward's uncle, a sagacious scholar equally at home with Celtic myth and Eastern wisdom, declines his nephew's request to tell the story of Hamlet (it would come too close to home).
-- John Gross, New York Times, December 3, 1984

Others worked up sagacious-sounding comments about the French author that would serve until they could read some of his books themselves, or until the current interest fades.
-- Maureen Dowd, "Nobel Panel's Pick Keeps Cognoscenti Guessing", New York Times, October 18, 1985

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Sagacious derives from Latin sagax, "keen; shrewd; clever."

[Algot Runeman]

Wishing to appear more cool and "with it", the botany professor put Salvia officinalis in the buttonhole of his lapel. His late-60's, flower power students weren't impressed by his attempt to apply their zeitgeist. They didn't realize he was attempting a reference to Simon and Garfunkel's popular "Parsley, Sage, Rosmary and Thyme". They had moved on from that album, anyway.

Well, don't I just sound sooo sagacious? NOT!

Spoiler: show

Salvia officinalis L. the scientific name of Sage.

[Darb]

I think a more effective approach might have been an evocation of salaciousness, rather than sagaciousness. Accordingly, I'd have picked something in the orchid family, which as any botanist worth their calcium chloride would know, have shapes suggestive of female genetalia. Suitably witty varieties might include say, epidendrum nocturnum (lady of the night orchid), or cypripedium (camel-toe orchid), or anguloa (crib of venus), oncidium splendidum (dancing girls orchid), or perhaps even caularthron diacrumd bilamellatum (little virgin orchid). I'm sorry, but salvia officinalis (common sage), although it smells appetizing when bruised, isn't particularly pretty to look upon. If I were a student and my professor had a bouquet garni stuffed in his lapel, I'd suspect he was already half-cooked**.

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** For voralfred's benefit: 'half-cooked' is another american slang expression for being half-drunk - and since sage is a cooking herb, it doubles as a culinary/botanical pun.

[voralfred]

(...) I'd have picked something in the orchid family, which as any botanist worth their calcium chloride would know, have shapes suggestive of female genetalia. (...)

I used to express querulouness about the daffy dissonance between this obviously true fact, and the name of this genus of plants, which evokes the male genitalia.
I found the answer, as usual, in WIkipedia: the name of the genus is not related to the figure of the flowers, but to that of subterranean tuberoids.
The association of this genus to genitalia of both sexes could account for the specific significance of cattleya in Proust's "Un amour de Swann"... but I cannot be more specific here, since, as Brassens sings,

Malheureusement, je ne peux
Pas {la} dire, et c'est regrettable
Ça nous aurait fait rire un peu

Unfortunately, I cannot
Tell it and that’s regrettable
That would have made us laugh a bit"

translation for the benefit of all non-french speakers

** For voralfred's benefit: 'half-cooked' is another american slang expression for being half-drunk - and since sage is a cooking herb, it doubles as a culinary/botanical pun.

Thanks

I totally missed the calcium chloride joke, there; what does this have to do with either sage, cooking, orchids, getting drunk, making cattleya...? Even the rather detailed wiki article did not give me a clue...

[Darb]

The reference to someone being worth their salt is sort of the opposite of good for nothing ... it probably hawks back several centuries to the days when laborers got paid in salt, and if they were poor performers, then they obviously were not worth the salt they were being paid. Substituting calcium chloride for the word salt was simply continuing the pretentiously sagacious culinary themed flavor of the surrounding post ... a flavor that would have been considerably weaker without salt.

[voralfred]

Do you mean that you, personally, actually use calcium chloride when you cook (according to Wikipedia, there are indeed some food-related uses of it, but mostly in some industrial context: pickles, some cheeses as brie and stilton, even brewing beer when the local water lacks calcium), or was it just a lapsus keybordae for sodium chloride, ordinary salt? I was trying to find a deep reason explaining why you mentioned specifically calcium.

[CodeBlower]

Unfortunately, I cannot
Tell it and that’s regrettable
That would have made us laugh a bit"

translation for the benefit of all non-french speakers

mare see bow coo

[Algot Runeman]

or was it just a lapsus keybordae

Well done, voralfred!

It's a slip, not of the lip;
But rather the digits.
For Brad was a pip, shot from the hip;
But Darb only fidgits.

And, for what it is worth, in any currency, the aforementioned professor was not sagacious enough to have understood his students' love of flowers' powers without an equal love of the botany he was charged with teaching. Indeed, many students who didn't recognize the sage's sage floral statement would have also missed the significance of orchids and none would have gone so far as to become florid over any pistils which might have been so boldly displayed.

As the pollen said, "That's my stamen and I'm stickin' to it!"
or as the more common statement goes:

Spoiler: show

"That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!"

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Thursday May 28, 2009

avoirdupois \av-uhr-duh-POIZ; AV-uhr-duh-poiz\, noun: 1. Avoirdupois weight, a system of weights based on a pound containing 16 ounces or 7,000 grains (453.59 grams). 2. Weight; heaviness; as, a person of much avoirdupois.

Claydon . . . was happy to admit that he has shed some avoirdupois.
-- Mel Webb, "Claydon's loss leads to net gain", Times (London), February 18, 2000

Yet until middle age and avoirdupois overtook her, Mary was no slouch.
-- John Updike, "How to Milk a Millionaire", New York Times, March 29, 1987

Tired of putting on and taking off the same five pounds? Don't delay, buy this book today -- and watch yourself shed both respectability and surplus avoirdupois!
-- David Galef, "J. Faust's Guide to Power' And Other Self-Help Classics", New York Times, December 18, 1994

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Avoirdupois is from Middle English avoir de pois, "goods sold by weight," from Old French aveir de peis, literally "goods of weight," from aveir, "property, goods" (from aveir, "to have," from Latin habere, "to have, to hold, to possess property") + de, "from" (from the Latin) + peis, "weight," from Latin pensum, "weight."

[Darb]

To sagaciously misquote the "Love Business" episode of The Little Rascals classic TV series:

Oh Miss Crabtree, there's some avoirdupois on my heart.

[voralfred]

As I already mentioned a few posts above, I don't have enough avoirdupoids to have a large tolerance to alcohol, so I (usually) sagaciously limit my intake.

mare see bow coo

And I thought the english phrase was

"Mercury buttercup!"

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Friday May 29, 2009

sybarite \SIB-uh-ryt\, noun: A person devoted to luxury and pleasure.

This worldly cleric, nicknamed "the sybarite of Saumane", friend of Voltaire and a social luminary in Paris and Avignon, lived a high old life within the medieval fortifications of his chateau in Provence.
-- "The dubious charms of Citizen Sade", Irish Times, April 17, 1999

Beneath the prudish disapproval that colored Upton Sinclair's assessment of California's wealthy sybarites was an amused astonishment at how hard they worked at having fun, at how deadly serious they were about pleasure.
-- Richard White, "What California taught America", The New Republic, December 1, 1997

And when the final blessing of a perfect French cook appeared to make our domestic picture complete, we became utter sybarites, frank worshippers of the splendors of the French cuisine.
-- Samuel Chamberlain, Clémentine in the Kitchen

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Sybarite is derived from Greek Sybarites, from Sybaris, an ancient Greek city noted for the luxurious, pleasure-seeking habits of many of its inhabitants.

[Darb]

Horror master Clive Barker obviously had the word Sybarite in mind when he created its opposite in the Cenobites of his Hellraiser series.

[Algot Runeman]

I cannot qualify as a sybarite. While pleasure is one of my daily goals, luxury is beyond my humble boundaries. Is there a possible classification for me as a semi-sybarite?

I am already satisfied to be semi-literate, half-baked, and quasi-intelligent.

I tried being a leader and sometimes am a fair follower, but won't be a semi-trailer, thank you very much!

Does the preceding classify as a Class A play on words?

Spoiler: show

In my state, a class A driver's license qualifies a person to drive a big rig.

[Darb]

I think Ghost died again.

Problem is, if we defibrillate him, he wont be able to lie anymore ... either down or convincingly.