GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

[Algot Runeman]

Terry limited his prognostications to the condition of lawns. His landscape business thrived because he anticipated the impact of rain, sun, bug infestations and sundry events which could impact the growth of grasses and weeds. His customers consistently had the best looking properties on their streets, and Terry had a waiting list of several dozen prospective customers.

Why didn't he hire some assistants?

Terry couldn't explain what he did. It came as a gift from some source he couldn't identify. He worked six days a week from dawn to dusk, saving Sundays for equipment maintenance. Fortunately, Terry wasn't clever enough to realize his rut. Just as lucky, he loved his work.

[voralfred]

I had correctly prognosticated that one would have more trouble finding the exact character that LMB describes explicitly as zaftig than finding women that fit the description. Mia Maz's addiction to chocolate strongly suggests her form would fulfill Aral's crave in women who can survive a minor famine, but I said the character was a very minor one. Though Mia Maz is not a "main" character, she is a "supporting" one, not a "minor" one. Look for a very very minor character, just a shadow crossing the background for a few paragraphs, all hidden in yards of silk.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

... Look for a very very minor character, just a shadow crossing the background for a few paragraphs, all hidden in yards of silk.

I don't immediately recall her name, but, if I remember correctly, at one of the Imperial Palace dances there was this young budding Vor flower making eyes and flashing cleavage at Ivan. But that idiot did not respond to her enticing hints, to the chagrin of both onlooking mothers.
Later she married a young Vorish sprout and she takes sweet revenge by aiming a huff at Ivan.

Oh yes, wasn't it Cassie Vorgorov or Vorsomething?

[voralfred]

No, she is not called "zaftig" to my knowledge. And Alys complains somewhere that Vor flowers are rather thin, and that Gregor fell for LAisa precisely because she was more zaftig than all the previous putative fiancees she introduced to him.
Keep unwrapping silk!

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Keep unwrapping silk!

You bet.
My favorite pastime when I was younger.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

spatchcock

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

verb:
1.
To insert or interpolate, esp. in a forced or incongruous manner.
noun:
1.
A fowl that has been dressed and split open for grilling.
verb:
1.
To prepare and roast (a fowl) in this manner.

Read the full dictionary entry

Quotes:
Government business managers tend naturally to spatchcock what may appear to them as esoteric bills into business after 10 pm at night.
-- Tam Dalyell, "Westminster Scene," New Scientist, July 1971.

Though not paid for a rewrite and reluctant to do one, he nevertheless began to spatchcock a script from the various drafts.
-- Paul Seydor, Peckinpah: The Western Films - A Reconsideration

Origin:
Spatchcock is possibly an alteration of spitchcock , "an eel that is split, cut into pieces, and broiled or fried."

Irreverent example:
My mom: "Your grandma tought grandpa how to spatchcock in the kitchen."
Me (at age 16): [lewd comment] (censored out)
My mom: "No, no, no, no, no! It doesn't mean *that*. I'm talking about preparing plucked pigeons before grilling. Now you go wash your foul mouth, you hear!"
---
I tried to find a picture of a cock wearing spats but the closest I found was Rooster Cogburn wearing a patch, though he sure looks like he wants to spitchcock somebody wide open.

[Algot Runeman]

In an attempt to integrate humor into every post, one is forced to spatchcock some stupid, vapid comment into mediocre prose because nothing creative comes to mind.

[Q.E.D.]

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

tarry

\ TAR-ee \ , Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)
verb;
1.
To remain or stay, as in a place; sojourn.
2.
To delay or be tardy in acting, starting, coming, etc. (*)
3.
To wait.

Read the full dictionary entry

Quotes:
"It would be well," he added, "to let this man go in again, as usual, and for him to tarry in the lodges, giving notice to the gentle ones of our approach, until we call him out, by signal, to consult. You know the cry of a crow, friend, from the whistle of the whippoorwill?"
-- James Fenimore Cooper, The last of the Mohicans: a narrative of 1757

Wilson allows his tour groups to tarry at the site, soaking up the strange feelings there and taking plenty of pictures in front of the wooden sign that still reads "Building 84."
-- "RoswellTours.com offers tours of UFO haunts," Melodika.net, July 2010

Origin:
Tarry 's ancestor is the Middle English taryen , "a delay."

My note:
(*) Shouldn't this explanation #2 include "to dally"?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Irreverent example:

When my grandma's couturier received a batch of a new kind of furs, he took care not to tarry about informing her. Once, in the beginning of her clientship, he was lax about it and my grandma all but tarried to verbally tar and feather him.

P.S.
From now on I'll post my irreverent examples in a separate post. That way my post count will increase a bit faster.
I assume there are no objections?

[voralfred]

(....)

P.S.
From now on I'll post my irreverent examples in a separate post. That way my post count will increase a bit faster.
I assume there are no objections?

I have no objections to your increasing your post count.

I won't tarry , however, to vehemenly protest your cruel and unusual treatment of poor innocent squirrels (even through the use of Photoshop). No casuistry will help you! This blithely barbaric behaviour fully justifies your being tarred and furred (by which I mean, rolled in squirrel hair until you are furrry all over - why shuld people always be feathered rather than furred?) and then pursued by a horde of trappers mistaking you for a behemoth-sized squirrel and wanting your pelt for their hats.

[Algot Runeman]

I'll add 2 cents, but won't rush. I'm typing slowly. It is more fun to dilly-dally and meander through the effort joyful process of composing these WotD posts. If we tarry, it isn't scary lest the vampire craze engulf us.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

.... vehemenly protest your cruel and unusual treatment of poor innocent squirrels ... blithely barbaric behaviour ... wanting your pelt for their hats.

The suffragettes got even more than they wished for.

Now we have to contend with furragettes.

Where and when will it end? <SIGH>

[voralfred]

Surely your Grandma founded the furragette movement, didn't she?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

minim

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

noun;
1.
the least quantity of anything.
2.
the smallest unit of liquid measure, 1/60 of a fluid dram, roughly equivalent to one drop.
3.
Music. A note, formerly the shortest in use, but now equivalent in time value to one half of a semibreve; half note.
4.
Something very small or insignificant.

Read the full dictionary entry

Quotes:
No doubt there are abject specimens of the visionary, as there is a minim mammal which you might imprison in the finger of your glove.
-- George Eliot, Daniel Deronda

He examined the sprocket areas of the film searching for a speck of data, a minim of missing imagery.
-- Don DeLillo, Underworld

Origin:
Minim originates in music, from the same Latin root as minimum.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Irreverent example:

I vaguely remember a SF or F story describing a society practicing slave trade. Their unit of currency was the minim. A slave would trade for 1,000 to 4,000 minims, depending on age, beauty, strenght, education, etc.

Had my grandma been for sale, my grandpa would gladly have paid up to his last minim, immediately set her free and then married with her.

Except that in his favorite daydream he heroically stole her from the slave pen (her parents' house) and eloped with her to the cozy pavilion tent, strewn about with lots of furry cushions, in the garden of his house around the corner. Actually they just crawled through the hedge separating their parents' gardens.

[Algot Runeman]

Minim post, almost.

[voralfred]

In fact Minim's is actually the name of a restaurant that opened a few years ago just next door to the 120 years old Maxim's, a world reknowned institution. Much cheaper that its neighbor, the newcomer used the same gold writing on a red background and the very same, very characteristic font, to attract customers. Isn't it a brilliant idea?

Spoiler: show

In fact, it is indeed a brilliant idea by Maxim's owner to open a cheaper restaurant to attract customers who cannot normally afford the 200 euros minimum you'd have to pay for a dinner, to serve them a very decent meal for 70 euros maximum... and if they are convinced by the quality, some might even invest a high but not really that excessive sum to eat, even if only just once, in a place that has a really legendary history.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

cheechako

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

noun;
1.
A tenderfoot; greenhorn; newcomer.

Read the full dictionary entry

Quotes:
He is a genial liar, this Yukoner, and for the ordinary lies of life he needs make no effort; they roll from his lips as regularly and as smoothly as do compliments from the lips of a sour dough man in conversation with a cheechako girl.
-- James Augustus Hall, Starving on a bed of gold: or, The world's longest fast

As a cheechako to Hawaii I wasn't sure what to expect, but right from the beginning the crafters made me feel right at home.
-- Tanna Peters, "Craft encounters wherever you go," Capital City Weekly, July 2010

Origin:
Cheechako is a Chinook word which has come to mean a newcomer in a variety of settings, especially Alaska and Hawaii.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Irreverent example:

The callus and corns on my feet say I'm no tenderfoot.
But why do I feel I'm still a cheechako, regardless my age and 15 months membership?
Cheech!

[Algot Runeman]

Charles, the Chinook cheechako, cheerfully chewed the chocolate cherries. He wasn't aware that there might be pits.
Chomping chipped enamel on his chicklet chewers.

Chiefly, Charles chastised himself all the way to the office of the dentist he chose.

Crisscross checks and cracks challenged the dentist who ultimately offered cheap china choppers to Charles who chuckled and concurred, choosing to contain costs.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

yeuk

\ YOOK \ Hear it pronounced here.
(the word is repeated each time you hover the pointer over the word in pink)
noun;
1.
An itching sensation.
verb:
1.
To itch.

Read the full dictionary entry

Quotes:
"Gives me the yeuk to watch you, laddie!"
-- Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber

It was somewhere between a slow-spreading numbness and a yeuk . The doctor was already back in view with the stringy roots that would provide relief.
-- Judith Barsemian, In some forgotten realm

Origin:
Yeuk survives mostly in Scotland and Northern England.

Note by EPS: Jeuk is the commonly used word in Dutch, which suggests a Celtic origin to me. The more so because Antwerpian dialect pronounces jeuk just like its English counterpart and it itches just as much.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Irreverent example:

In Flemish parlance, a person with heightened libido is said to have "een jeuk in de broek", a yeuk in the pants.
If Master Yoda spoke Dutch, he would say:
"Waar jeuk er is, krabben je moet."
"Where yeuk there is, scratch you must."

Use Ellen's voice to hear her pronounce the Dutch sentence "Je moet krabben waar het jeukt." (You must scratch where it yeuks) (Ellen has a Belgian Dutch accent).

Though it might also be a case of the crabs. Part of the cure for this affliction is a Brasilian wax, which unfortunately makes it itch worse, at first. Ick, just thinking about it gives me the yeuk.

A Japanese okusan relieves her pet octopus' maddeningly yeuking tentacles in this "Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" inspired TV commercial for anti-yeuk remedy.

Click on the image to view the video and

A more expressive visual representation of yeuk is

[voralfred]

Personally, I find the octopus commercial rather yucky.
The second picture, on the other hand, I find quite yummy. OK, OK, so I am lecherous, too...

I understand that in the pronunciation site, Ellen has a Belgian Dutch (Flemish) accent, but not that of Antwerp? Her "eu" sounds like the French "eu", not the english "oo".

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

The second picture [...] I find quite yummy. OK, OK, so I am lecherous, too...

Yes, and yes.

I understand that in the pronunciation site, Ellen has a Belgian Dutch (Flemish) accent, but not that of Antwerp?

Yes, and yes.

Her "eu" sounds like the French "eu", not the english "oo".

Yes, and yes.

(To avoid any Boolean ambiguity, all my yesses positively confirm your either positive or negative statements. IOW, they're all true, none are false.)

P.S. My Garmin GPS Navigator has the same Dutch voices and even the same names in its software as those on the pronunciation site.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

mojo

\ MOH-joh \ Hear it pronounced here.
noun;
1.
Personal magnetism; charm.
2.
The art or practice of casting magic spells; magic; voodoo.
3.
An object, as an amulet or charm, that is believed to carry a magic spell.
4.
Good luck or favor concerning an event or individual.

Read the full dictionary entry

Quotes:
"Where's my beautiful fiancé?" Alex asked. "In here bragging about how she worked her mojo on you."
-- Shonda Cheekes, Another Man's Wife: A Novel

Another reason this job should be entered into with great caution is that Simon Cowell is taking his not insignificant mojo elsewhere.
-- Linda Holmes, "Dear Donald Trump And Other Theoretical Successors To Simon Cowell," Monkey See blog, NPR, July 2010.

Origin:
Mojo comes from moco , "witchcraft," a word in the Gullah dialect. The Gullah are African-Americans who now live in parts of South Carolina and Florida and preserved a greater amount of their African heritage. They speak a creole that uniquely incorporates a great deal of African grammar and loanwords.