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.
With some care and occasional good grooming, the WTS offerings generated here could be turned into a new dictionary complementing the one(s) from which the original WOTD selections are taken.
On the other hand, perhaps we could develop a cookbook.
Still, it might just be best to simply go on brewing up confusion with well tuned and twisted references.
sapid\SAP-id\ , adjective: 1.Having taste or flavor, especially having a strong pleasant flavor. 2.Agreeable to the mind; to one's liking.
Chemistry can concentrate the sapid and odorous elements of the peach and the bitter almond into a transparent fluid
-- David William Cheever, "Tobacco", The Atlantic, August 1860
I've raved about the elegant and earthy lobster-and-truffle sausage, the sapid sea bass with coarse salt poached in lobster oil, and the indescribably complex and delectable ballottine of lamb stuffed with ground veal, sweet-breads and truffles.
-- James Villas, "Why Taillevent thrives", Town & Country, March 1, 1998
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sapid comes from Latin sapidus, "savory," from sapere, "to taste."
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
At last, a word with some tasty possibilities. Sapid, the word, richly flavorful, enhances the possibilities for avoiding insipid discourse.
First, we must consult with the spelling mistress. How is it fair that these two words escape the cudgel of consistency with their protean spelling? They are clearly antonyms which have grown from the same verbal roots.
At least we can be superciliously superior by blaming the spelling confusion on the roaming Romans. Their expanded empire wasn't permanent; their spelling, it seems, isn't any more constant.
The Online Etymology Dictionary provides the following:
insipid
1620, "without taste or perceptible flavor," from Fr. insipide, from L.L. inspidus "tasteless," from L. in- "not" + sapidus "tasty," from sapere "have a taste" (also "be wise"). Fig. meaning "uninteresting, dull" first recorded 1649, but it was also a secondary sense in M.L.
Clearly it would be wise to slurp at a sapid sentence or two to avoid being dull.
Perhaps some sapid and glabrously leggy Scandinavian foxes will stride through and we can skulk in a corner of the forum, gazing fervidly as they pass.
EPS., it is good to know your grandpa didn't mind being out of his mind (congratulations: good wordplay there) over grandma's furs which it is also good to know, were soft and attractive, unlike spiny furze.
In recognition of your user name, EPS, using the culinary context instigated by Hiram, I will avoid hanging anything lean out the train window in case some fervid foxes might chase the sapid morsel to their frustration. I wonder if a gravid rump (roast) might be safe to dangle under a full moon.
Algot Runeman wrote:In recognition of your user name, EPS, using the culinary context instigated by Hiram, I will avoid hanging anything lean out the train window in case some fervid foxes might chase the sapid morsel to their frustration. I wonder if a gravid rump (roast) might be safe to dangle under a full moon.
Beware the full moon. During that period, I will proteanly metamorphose into my basic Velociraptor shape and ravish all Scandinavian or otherwise female foxes, those pursuing the train or leaning out of the windows, to fervidly devour their sapid flesh at my gluttonous leisure.
Random question(s): Are troubled "splinter groups" of your location called "Floundering Flanders Flinders" and, further, are their activities just considered "flat out fishy"?
I ask these questions, of course, sole-fully, in my own "sunny" way, with flat affect and an Italian accent.
A me mi piace di parlare Italiano. (I like to [pretend that I] speak Italian.)
apocryphal \uh-POK-ruh-fuhl\ , adjective: 1.(Bible) Pertaining to the Apocrypha. 2.Not canonical. Hence: Of doubtful authority or authenticity; equivocal; fictitious; spurious; false.
Apocryphal or not, the anecdote contains at least a grain of truth.
-- Caroline Fraser, God's Perfect Child
In 1959 he told Walter Gutman that he first started writing when he was three years old, but that his sister threw away all his childhood writings one day when she cleaned out the attic. This sounds apocryphal as it is unlikely that he could read or write at that tender age, and if he could he would certainly have told us.
-- Barry Miles, Jack Kerouac King of the Beats
He always told romanticised apocryphal stories of his ancestry, sometimes a bastard grandfather, brought up on the parish, sometimes "a weaver, half poet and half madman."
-- Kathleen Jones, A Passionate Sisterhood
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Apocryphal ultimately derives from Greek apokruphos, "hidden (hence, spurious)," from apokruptein, "to hide away," from apo-, "away, from" + kruptein, "to hide."
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
My own maternal grandfather tried to be early, and though he sometimes succeeded, he, too, is now my late grandfather.
He gave my grandmother no fur coats that were featured in stories, whether they were apocryphal, or validated, time stamped and fact checked.
I regret that I never met my paternal grandfather. He resided in Sweden his entire life which lasted 103 years outlasting six wives in the process. He did make me a cherished wooden toy car, though. Unfortunately, both he and the car are now long gone as well.
Though the grandpa I remember most wasn't the husband of my furry grandma, I too remember all four grands with fondness.
And I inherited a magnificent original "His Master's Voice" grammophone cabinet.
aplomb\uh-PLOM\ , noun: 1.Assurance of manner or of action; self-possession; confidence; coolness.
Then, unexpectedly, she picked up a microphone and began to sing. She sang several songs, handling herself with the aplomb of a professional entertainer.
-- "Rediscovering Japanese Life at a Bike's Pace", New York Times, April 24, 1988
In the jostling hubbub of Tim Hammack's kitchen at the Bay Area Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter in an eddy of urban need, it is about taking life as it comes. It means embracing the unexpected arrival of 200 flats of donated organic strawberries, say, or 600 pounds of bologna with equal culinary aplomb.
-- Patricia Leigh Brown, "Finding Purpose in Serving the Needy, Not Just Haute Cuisine", New York Times, June 13, 2009
His initial broadcasting success was due at least as much to his considerable professional aplomb as it was to his father's broadcasting connections.
-- John A. Jackson, American Bandstand: Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock 'n' Roll Empire
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aplomb is from the French word meaning "perpendicularity, equilibrium, steadiness, assurance," from the Old French phrase a plomb, from a, "according to" (from Latin ad) + plomb, "lead weight" (from Latin plumbum, "lead").
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
Jennifer stared with aplomb at the window through which she could see the steadily darkening sky. The approaching thunder rumbled ominously. Flashes of lightning pierced the gloom revealing a what looked like a studied expression, displaying no anxiety. The near simultaneous flash-bang of a bolt hitting nearby didn't yield even a slight change in her expression.
The sad truth is, as a younger girl, she ate much of the lead paint from sills in her old Victorian era house. Most of her days now consisted of passive observation and limited reaction to her surroundings. No weighty thoughts consumed her regardless of the weight of lead in the chemistry of her blood. The damage was done.
sui generis\soo-eye-JEN-ur-us; soo-ee-\ , adjective: 1.Being the only example of its kind; constituting a class of its own; unique.
This man, in fact, was sui generis, a true original.
-- Ruth Lord, Henry F. du Pont and Winterthur
They're a special case, a category of their own, sui generis.
-- Eric Kraft, Leaving Small's Hotel
William Randolph Hearst did not speak often of his father. He preferred to think of himself as sui generis and self-created, which in many ways he was.
-- David Nasaw, The Chief
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sui generis is from Latin, literally meaning "of its own kind": sui, "of its own" + generis, genitive form of genus, "kind."
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
My great-great-grandma's maiden name was "Generis" and her middle name "Sui".
And my grandma sewed in all her fur coats a little label with her motto: "Je pense, donc je sui."
In one aspect, I believe I actually am sui generis, unique of name. In most other aspects I am generic, typical, ordinary, run of the mill, common as dirt, and yet, nobody says I'm normal.
1. A colleague of mine, also sporting a lush gray beard.
2. A Latin teacher and Dutch poet of my acquaintance.
This Latin teacher helped me translate the motto of my local dentists society to Latin:
"In Amicitia Radicata Operis Corona.", which also became the name our monthly newsletter, during my ten-year term as editor.
(The Crown on the Work is Rooted in Friendship.)
3. The late James Robertson Justice, aka Seamus Mòr na Feusag.
desultory\DES-uhl-tor-ee\ , adjective: 1. Jumping or passing from one thing or subject to another without order or rational connection; disconnected; aimless. 2. By the way; as a digression; not connected with the subject. 3. Coming disconnectedly or occurring haphazardly; random. 4. Disappointing in performance or progress.
The shadows on the perfect lawn were straight and angular; they were the shadows of an old man sitting in a deep wicker-chair near the low table on which the tea had been served, and of two younger men strolling to and fro, in desultory talk, in front of him.
-- Henry James Jr., "The Portrait of a Lady", The Atlantic Monthly, November 1880
In January 1905 Richard Watson Gilder approached the then-president of the Institute, the genteel poet and Wall Street broker Edmund Clarence Stedman, and urged him to hold a "formal discussion" on the question of women in both the Institute and the newly created Academy -- a formal discussion, he said, rather than the "desultory talk among members" that was all there had been so far.
-- Penelope Lively, The Five Thousand and One Nights
One way or the other, his once voluminous exchanges with Mrs. Swanson dwindled to almost nothing. For a year or two, they consisted of the odd, desultory postcard, then the store-bought Christmas greeting, and then, by 1976, they had stopped altogether.
-- Paul Auster, Timbuktu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Desultory comes from Latin desultorius, from desultor, "a leaper," from the past participle of desilire, "to leap down," from de-, "down from" + salire, "to leap."
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
Filling ones retirement days with often disconnected variety of activity is the antithesis of desultory behavior. My life's gainful employment over, I am reaping the benefits of a liberal arts education and a degree in science coupled with the skills developed while a middle school teacher of multiple disciplines. These may be aimless pursuits in the sense of finance, though not aimless in seeking enrichment; nor are they pointless, with the possible exception of these WOTD creative efforts.
Were it still possible, I would strive for acceptance to the club of Renaissance Men (with due recognition of the gender-free designation that entails). Since the Renaissance is long over, let it be "eclecticism" that defines me.
Ego, much?
Eggo, too many for sure!
I would let a granddaughter take the credit for these self-glorifying stories, but that trick seems to have been taken by another participant in the forum.
