GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

[Algot Runeman]

mansplain

Pronunciation: /manˈspleɪn/
verb
[with object] informal
(Of a man) explain (something) to someone, typically a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing: I’m listening to a guy mansplain economics to his wife Apparently you can’t sell a second-hand car for as much as a new one. So glad he mansplained that to me (as noun mansplaining) your response is classic mansplaining

Origin
Early 21st century: blend of man and explain.



-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Bill routinely mansplained with no regard to gender. He was so certain of his opinion, he considered it simple fact. His best friends were bobbleheads.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

mansplain

One day, with grandpa in the top vigour of his life, my grandma insisted that he visit a sperm donation clinic. She was convinced that his genes deserved to be distributed widely to the benefit of the general population.

On his return from the donation clinic, grandpa admitted to some disappointment. When the female receptionist had somewhat graphically mansplained the procedure, he had not expected to have to do the effort all alone by himself.

Nevertheless grandpa managed to deposit a very generous donation.

To this day, I'm still wondering if I might have some kind of siblings somewhere, be they bobbleheads or whatever ...

Spoiler: show

[voralfred]

Unless you recognize this character as a possible sibling (wouldn't that be a sibling of your father- or mother ?- or a cousin, rather ?) from his apparently excellent set of teeth, you'll have to mansplain to me why you suppose he is a recipient of your Grandpa's donation. Or do you mean, the above character is a bobblehead being simultaneously mansplained and filmed by your sibling, uncle/aunt or cousin? I have trouble following the kinesics of the situation.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

... Or do you mean, the above character is a bobblehead being simultaneously mansplained and filmed by your sibling, uncle/aunt or cousin?
...

Nah!
Nothing to do with grandpa.
That's just a patron of the sperm bank on the verge of a donating his sample.

[Algot Runeman]

cassingle

Pronunciation: /kaˈsɪŋɡ(ə)l/
noun
An audio cassette with a single piece of popular music on each side.

Origin
1970s: blend of cassette and single.



-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Gone, not actually missed, the cassingle format for music distribution would be hard for most people to even play in 2015. Few still own a cassette player. And, are you actually still buying CD albums? Is your favorite tune only available to you "from the cloud"?

[http://www.obsoletemedia.org/cassette-single/]

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

cassingle

I'd say that the meaning of cassingle is much more self-evident than elpiple or eightingle.

[Algot Runeman]

Fortean

Pronunciation: /ˈfôrdēən/
adjective
Of, relating to, or denoting paranormal phenomena.

Origin
1970s: from the name of Charles H. Fort (1874–1932), American student of paranormal phenomena.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

When John was fourteen, he build a fort from old barn lumber. He planned to use it a lot, but a rash of Fortean events scared him and his friends and the fort was left to be occupied only by ghosts and a family of raccoons.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Fortean
... a rash of Fortean events scared him and his friends and the fort was left to be occupied only by ghosts and a family of raccoons.

I think that not even forty fortean events would have kept my grandma from wearing her raccoon fur moon boots, at every opportunity in the ski resort. Also at home in winter to go shovel snow from the driveway.

Of course grandpa had to hunt and bag the critters first, because grandma's fur couturier was not so keen on buying and working with raccoon fur.

Spoiler: show

P.S. There. Another jibe at BB.

[Algot Runeman]

midinette

Pronunciation: /ˌmɪdɪˈnɛt/
/midinɛt/
noun
A seamstress or assistant in a Parisian fashion house.

Origin
French, from midi 'midday' + dînette 'light dinner' (because only a short break was taken at lunchtime).



-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Normally at midnight, all the Paris midinettes were sound asleep. Tonight, though, they were gathered for the annual bas-couture party, dressed in gowns artfully crafted by combining the cuttings deemed waste by their employers after the creation of fashion at their jobs.

[Algot Runeman]

Gleichschaltung

Pronunciation: /ˈɡlʌɪxˌʃaltʊŋ/
/ˈɡlaɪçˌʃaltʊŋ/
noun
[mass noun]
The standardization of political, economic, and social institutions as carried out in authoritarian states.

Origin
German, from gleich 'same' + schalten 'force or bring into line'.



-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Work hard. Toe the line. Adhere to policy. Be effective. Follow orders. Be the same, Gleichshaltung. (There is no need for "don'ts" in this system.)

[This word, from ODO, might be used in English as spoken in Europe, but I do not think I've encountered it here in the US. Will I begin using it? I doubt it.]

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Gleichschaltung

My grandma, or grandpa, would never have agreed to her gleichschaltung to the other females of her era. Though they were very happy to have survived WW I and II unscathed.

Spoiler: show

[voralfred]

On the other hand, I understand that your Grandma advocated a Gleichhaltung concerning animals having a nice pelt : they should all be transformed into beautiful furs to put on, put off, or to open (but only to your Grandpa) !

Also as a dentist, aren't you concerned by the Gleichhaltung of your patients' teeth? I wore dental braces for years for that purpose...

[Algot Runeman]

calligram

Pronunciation: /ˈkalɪɡram/
noun
A word or piece of text in which the design and layout of the letters creates a visual image related to the meaning of the words themselves: an anonymous artist has transformed Dione’s image into a calligram

Origin
1930s: blend of calligraphy and -gram1.



-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Calvin created a calligram
Of a clover, what a sham rock.
It looked like a cinder block instead.

[Algot Runeman]

hippotherapy

Pronunciation: /ˌhɪpə(ʊ)ˈθɛrəpi/
noun
[mass noun]
The use of horse riding as a therapeutic or rehabilitative treatment, especially as a means of improving coordination, balance, and strength: during hippotherapy a person with cerebral palsy can benefit from trying to maintain balance in response to a horse’s motion

Origin
1980s: from Greek hippos 'horse' + therapy.


Ranchseeker

==-===-===-===-===-===-===-===-===-===-===-===-===-===-===-==

It took many hours of hypnotherapy to let Danny deal with his hippotherapy after he'd fallen off six straight times.

[voralfred]

For kids who are hyperactive, one can also consider hypotherapy.

Well, it's funnier in French than in English, since the "y" of "hypo-" is pronounced just like the "i" of hippo....

[Algot Runeman]

I would bet a whole bunch of things are funnier if said in French!

C'est très drôle. [Did I get all those Äççêñts right?]

[voralfred]

I would bet a whole bunch of things are funnier if said in French!

C'est très drôle. [Did I get all those Äççêñts right?]

You did get the äĉçêñþš right in "très" and "drôle", yes.

Well, there are also a lot of puns which are funnier in english because they just don't go through the transalion.
But sometimes the french translation can add a joke which is absent in the english original.

I'm a big ban fan of "The Big Bang Theory". In season 1, episode 13, at the very end Penny quizzes Leonard and Sheldon, who are unable to answer her popular culture quiz. The last question is

Penny: Tweety Bird tawt he taw a what?
Sheldon: [thinks for a second] Romulan?

at which point Penny gives up and to please the boys concedes

Penny: Yes.... he tawt he taw a Romulan.

which is not so very funny in english : "Romulan" does not at all sound like "Puddy Tat"

In french, however, it is much better. Tweety Bird *always* says instead of "I tawt I taw a Puddy Tat"
"J'ai cru voir un (g)ros minet" = "I thought I saw a big kitty"
with a lisp that makes him, (among other idiosyncrasies) drop the "g" sound at the beginning of "gros"
Now in french words are often pronounced without much of a pause between them so Tweety Bird says "(g)ros minet" as a single word "romeenay" which has at least the same first syllable and first consonant of the second syllable as "Romulan".
Do you think that among all possible absurd answers Sheldon could have given from Star Trek (or, for that matter, Star Wars, or any Superhero comics) the authors chose "Romulan" to get the best possible joke in french translation ?

[Algot Runeman]

explicate

Pronunciation: /ˈɛksplɪkeɪt/
verb
[with object]
1 Analyse and develop (an idea or principle) in detail: an attempt to explicate the relationship between crime and economic forces
1.1 Analyse (a literary work) in order to reveal its meaning: these essays seek to explicate and contextualize Kristeva’s writings

Origin
Mid 16th century: from Latin explicat- 'unfolded', from the verb explicare, from ex- 'out' + plicare 'to fold'



-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Generally, the IBDoF Reading Group avoids explicating the books we read. We are not trying to relive the high school literature class. Instead, we try to figure out what we liked (or didn't) and why we liked it (or didn't). We also might wind up reading some books we would otherwise have missed.

[For what it is worth, it is easier to explicate a travel map than to plicate it again.]

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

explicate

No doubt Garmin or TomTom would simply love to explicate to you that their travel maps don't need plicating at all. Because their built-in computer takes care of it, they are independently self-plicating.

Spoiler: show

[Algot Runeman]

That image of the car needing someone to extricate has an added twist.

The on-image caption says it is from the Netherlands, suggesting the explication that the driver probably mistook the green grass for snow and tried to drive along an imagined, ice-covered canal. Maybe the driver even thought he was wearing ice skates!

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

The on-image caption says it is from the Netherlands, suggesting the explication that the driver probably mistook the green grass for snow and tried to drive along an imagined, ice-covered canal. Maybe the driver even thought he was wearing ice skates!

I can't replicate the exact terms I used when I searched Google's Images.
But the idea was to find a picture showing the result of "wrong GPS directions".

In hindsight I should have joined some explication to the image.

[Algot Runeman]

sardonic

Pronunciation: /sɑːˈdɒnɪk/
adjective
Grimly mocking or cynical: Starkey attempted a sardonic smile

Origin
Mid 17th century: from French sardonique, earlier sardonien, via Latin from Greek sardonios 'of Sardinia', alteration of sardanios, used by Homer to describe bitter or scornful laughter.



-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-

Sam sampled the sardines from Sardinia and sneered. His famous sardonic smile followed. Secretly he thought the little fish, dripping oil, were very tasty, but he could not let the eager crowd see anything but his expected superior persona.

[Algot Runeman]

aquavit

Pronunciation: /ˌakwəˈviːt/
(also akvavit)

noun
[mass noun]
An alcoholic spirit made from potatoes or other starchy plants.

Origin
Late 19th century: from Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish akvavit (see aqua vitae).



-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Drink up. Skoal! Aquavit for me. Any sort of swill for you.

[Algot Runeman]

overgrow

Pronunciation: /əʊvəˈɡrəʊ/
verb (past overgrew; past participle overgrown)
[with object]
Grow or spread over (something) so as to choke or stifle it: the mussels overgrow and smother whatever is underneath

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The whole point of ground cover is to overgrow an area, especially to stabilize soil.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

overgrow...
Grow or spread over (something) so as to choke or stifle it: the mussels overgrow and smother whatever is underneath

Everywhere else does appear overgrown!