Language & Grammar discussion

Another sequel. Another thread that operates properly in the post amazonian era of GR....

Vociferous

Ran across embowered today.
" He lived, embowered, behind hedges, in the fragrance of his bushes and flowers and his buzzing bees, bathed in the light of the Pacific, facing west".- Paul Theroux


em·bow·er

  [em-bou-er]  Show IPAverb (used with object), verb (used without object)to shelter in or as in a bower; cover or surround with foliage.Also, imbower.Origin: 1570–80; em-1  + bower1

The Swiss Family Robinson, vociferous as ever, was embowered in their tree fort extraordinaire, where no one (spare people named Disney) could find them.

Except the pyrites.

Rock on, Pirates!

Waiting for the stealers, myself.

I slept wrong last night. My word for today is wryneck.

This is a word? Is it more serious than pumpernickleneck?

Torticollis 

Definition

Torticollis (cervical dystonia or spasmodic torticollis) is a type of movement disorder in which the muscles controlling the neck cause sustained twisting or frequent jerking. Or sometimes called wryneck.

Ah, a nickname for a real word, kind of like the word wen, which is an old layman's term for a cyst containing the fatty substance of a sebaceous gland. All together now: Eew!

I see wens quite often , and it is not a wonderful world, especially when a comb rakes across one. Blood every where, eew! I need to wear gloves.

I've had two removed and they bleed like a sack o' pig blood....

Newengland wrote: "This is a word? Is it more serious than pumpernickleneck?"

Oh NE, what the challah you talking about ??

Schadenfreude, I like German loans and that came up in a youtube video I watched.

I was reading this tribute to Elmore Leonard in The New York Times and, in the first sentence, they hit me with a word I've never seen, heard of, or smelled -- louche.

Here's the write-up:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/boo...

So I looked it up on Merriam-Webster's site and got this:

louche (adj.) -- not reputable or decent. French -- literally, cross-eyed, squint-eyed, from Latin luscus blind in one eye

First Known Use: 1819

A relatively young word, then!

Newengland wrote: "I was reading this tribute to Elmore Leonard in The New York Times and, in the first sentence, they hit me with a word I've never seen, heard of, or smelled -- louche.

Here's the write-up:

http:/..."
I've run into it -- and just this summer: I'm reading some of the David Wishart Marcus Corbulo series -- the detective in ancient Rome who talks like Sam Spade or Philip Marlow In the book:Food for the Fishes|300647] our hero compares another character to a 'louche lizard'. As I remember, it was his stepdad.

Was overused around five years ago, sort of like ombudsman in the early 80s and trenchant 10 years later.

Really? I missed it completely. Then, I'm not always paying attention.

There are a lot of wonderful words borrowed from Yiddish.

Shlep, glitch, klutz,mensch, shlemiel, bupkes, chutzpah, kvetch, nosh, plots, shtick, tschotske

Shmata, which is what all my dresses look like! :-)

Portia wrote: "Shmata, which is what all my dresses look like! :-)"

Good one.

Does it mean merde?

Rags

Oh. Dust cloths and such.

Reading Mark Edmundson's essay on liberal arts educations and colleges in general led me to a new German word I've never seen used in English prose before:

"... university culture, like American culture writ large, is, to put it crudely, ever more devoted to consumption and entertainment, to the using and using up of goods and images. For someone growing up in America now, there are few available alternatives to the cool consumer worldview. My students didn't ask for that view, much less create it, but they bring a consumer weltanschauung to school, where it exerts a powerful, and largely unacknowledged, influence. If we want to understand current universities, with their multiple woes, we might try leaving the realms of expert debate and fine ideas and turning to the classrooms and campuses, where a new kind of weather is gathering.

weltanschauung (n.) - a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint

Squirrel is my word for the day. They chewed through the wire that brings me internet and cable TV. A taste for entertainment ?

Newengland wrote: "Reading Mark Edmundson's essay on liberal arts educations and colleges in general led me to a new German word I've never seen used in English prose before:

"... university culture, like American c..."

But aren't nouns borrowed from the German supposed to be capitalized? Nouns are capitalized in German. Ergo, Weltanschauung

Jane wrote: "Newengland wrote: "Reading Mark Edmundson's essay on liberal arts educations and colleges in general led me to a new German word I've never seen used in English prose before:

"... university cultu..."

It was not capitalized in the professor's essay, so maybe he's invoking the Noah Webster Doctrine and spelling things however the hell Americans want to spell things.

Sorry about the squirrels driving you nuts, Joanne.

fair enough.

I think it was Noah who started to whack out extra letters in British spellings... things like "honour" and "colour" and (gag) "programme."

Back in the very early 60s when I was in an American middle school, I was marked wrong for spelling the definition for level in a house "storey". So much for reading Dickens and Thackery. blink, blink

Yes, being an English major also wreaks havoc on an American's spelling....

Reading Orwell last night, I came across a word I haven't seen in a few...

persiflage (n.) -- frivolous bantering talk : light raillery


A few years ago, I took to using badinage, which is about the same thing. Railroad raillery....

I say "jokin'"

That's a Serbian tennis player, isn't it?

Aubergine - eggplant ( hee hee)

Salt, meet wound!

(And this is FRUIT? I marked it as veggie, as in "Death by Veggies.")

I didn't realize eggplant is a member of the nightshade family. I just bought some today to make a curry.

I only know that due to Paleo stuff I've read.

Why is it called eggplant?

I don't know why, but aubergine is the French word for eggplant. Sometimes that word is used here instead.

Joanne wrote: "Why is it called eggplant?"

Just a guess, but I'd say someone thought creatively it looks like an egg -- well, an egg kinda flattened... :)

Doesn't aubergine means a certain shade of purple in French, also?

Jane wrote:

Just a guess, but I'd say someone thought creatively it looks like an egg -- well, an egg kinda flattened... :)

And then there are small white eggplants



Doesn't aubergine means a certain shade..."

I thought the color was called after the eggplant rather than vv.

Nobody but nobody calls an eggplant an "aubergine" in these parts. That's a little too Louis Quatorze for us, thank you.

Newengland wrote: "Nobody but nobody calls an eggplant an "aubergine" in these parts. "

Nor here. But you do run across it in British English all the time.

Ruth wrote: "Jane wrote:

Just a guess, but I'd say someone thought creatively it looks like an egg -- well, an egg kinda flattened... :)

And then there are small white eggplants

The white ones do look more egg-y.



Doesn't aubergine means a..."

Aubergine is the color of eggplant skins. I've used Chinese eggplant which is a much lighter purple almost a lilac. It has a softer texture and is good in cooking.

Two that I constantly have to look up for differentiation purposes:

sensuous (adj.) -- implies gratification of the senses for the sake of aesthetic pleasures

sensual (adj.) -- tends to imply the gratification of the senses or the indulgence of the physical appetites as ends in themselves

I get those two confused, too.