December 01, 2005
skunkworks
The phrase 'skunkworks' usually applies to the shadowy labs area of a company, the incubator within from which energetic new projects emerge. Sometimes these projects are underfunded, or not funded at all; they have no official role within the corporation's Grand Strategic Plan. Or, perhaps, they are just mixing up the medicine: according to techtarget, the name comes from a bootlegger's setup in Al Capp's justly legendary newspaper comical strip, Li'l Abner, which I have been recently enjoying anew. "skunkworks" was popularised at Lockheed Martin: A skunkworks is a group of people who, in order to achieve unusual results, work on a project in a way that is outside the usual rules. A skunkworks is often a small team that assumes or is given responsibility for developing something in a short time with minimal management constraints. Typically, a skunkworks has a small number of members in order to reduce communications overhead. A skunkworks is sometimes used to spearhead a product design that thereafter will be developed according to the usual process. A skunkworks project may be secret.... Read more
November 25, 2005
compere
com·pere (k?m'pâr') Chiefly British. n. The master of ceremonies, as of a television entertainment program or a variety show. compere, a word I first noticed in the Tour Dates section of ol' Big Nose's web site. I just dusted off the two-record set of "the first 21 songs from the roots of urbane folk music", it makes me want to polish up the ol' dancing shoes and go find Maggie's grave. It was'n't until the difficult third album and the poignant (really!) love songs that Billy Bragg became more than a protest singer to my still-young ears. The politics and attitude enchanted me first and foremost, and, feeling justly disenfranchised from the machinations of the Reagan government, I soured on the establishment. I snuck two tape recorders and several cassettes into the pockets of my parka one wintry evening when he was playing a concert, again with Michelle Shocked! and dutifully bootlegged the proceedings. After I wore that recording to shreds, I found myself becoming dissatisfied with his politics when he started selling out stadia -- emphasis on the selling -- and although his albums still bore artwork, not HMV stickers, insisting that the weary consumer "pay no more than £5.99", he struck me as more commercial and less activist. Shades of Jimmy Thudpucker, but not Bob Dylan. He still wrote and sang great songs, and won some measure of redemption when he researched the unpublished Woody Guthrie material that eventually formed the two glorious two Mermaid Avenue albums.... Read more
November 20, 2005
shiv
shiv, a mellifluous word that never ceases to amuse me when it reaches my ear, means a razor; cited in 1915, variant of chive, thieves' cant word for "knife" (1673), and is of unknown origin. It may be from a Viking word, shiver: (n) A splinter, a small piece of wood. Shiver is the diminutive of shive (a thin slice). Ice skífa (a slice). Compare with Yorkshire dialect (to split, to pare - especially of leather) and the E slang shiv (a knife). And, of course, there's always the Don Cheadle take on it, from the same film as "You know, in a situation like this, there's a high potentiality for the common motherfucker to bitch out. "... Read more
November 08, 2005
de(s)cant
Transfixed by a rapid succession of bottles, glasses (O! beautiful stemware! How come I drink from a humble tumbler at home?), and, finally, a decanter passing over the counter at Hotel Biron, Aram wondered about the origin of that name. Is it related to canto, to sing? I suggested that the Latin root cant- came into english with the prefix de to form descant, and I was correct: descant: Middle English, from Anglo-Norman descaunt, from Medieval Latin discantus, a refrain : Latin dis-, dis- + Latin cantus, song, from past participle of canere, to sing. See kan- as for decant(er), the original question, I should have known (and Meiling would doubtless have remembered) that it comes from the greek noun kanthos, meaning 'eyelid'. The greek poets drew a visual simile between a wnie-jug's lip and the tear-duct-y bit of one's eye. Ah, for the sound of popping corks.... Read more
October 05, 2005
banjaxed
Thanks to the esteemed Mr O Connor, I was reminded of banjax, verb: banjaxes, banjaxed, banjaxing 1. To ruin, stymie or destroy. Etymology: 1930s: Anglo-Irish. But what else did you expect from swearing dot org? Google Print cites a half-dozen works for banjax, but three are dictionaries!... Read more
September 25, 2005
marmoreal
marmoreal, straight from the Latin marmoreus, an adjective from marmor, marble: "Resembling marble, as in smoothness, whiteness, or hardness". From the always-wonderful English pen of Sarah Caudwell.... Read more
September 14, 2005
In which we learn about the grocer's apostrophe
Mr Looney (of Looney-Field-Effect notoriety!) informs me that this is 'the grocer's apostrophe' and causes much merriment. It certainly gave me a chuckle as I went walking around Ballsbridge this morning. The Wikipedia, of course, has an article that describes the (green)grocer's apostrophe's phenomenon. It has been a while since I belly-ached about apostrophes and quotation marks.... Read more
September 01, 2005
In which I hear phrases around the office
The jargon sometimes irks me, but jargon goes with almost any job. orthogonal web-scraped definition straw man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Decision_making remediate http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=define:+remediate&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8... Read more
August 21, 2005
In which we pay homage to a colorful profanity
Yo: Russian City to Erect Monument Alphabet Letter Created: 10.08.2005 15:29 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:29 MSK MosNews Monument to the Russian alphabet letter, an e with an umlaut, pronounced as “yo” is planned to be erected in the Central Russian city of Ulyanovsk. This letter called “yo”, the only Russian character with an umlaut, was introduced in 1797 by the famous Russian historian and writer Nikolai Karamzin who was born not far from Ulyanovsk, then called Simbirsk. The monument will be made of red granite. Linguists to this day dispute the utility of the letter. It is replaced by the simple e in official documents. Controversy that has for years delayed permission to proceed with the monument centered mainly on the fact that to the Russian ear the “yo” sound is closely associated with a range of colorful profanities or other exclamations considered in poor taste by opponents, AFP noted.... Read more
July 31, 2005
In which we keep a stiff upper lip
Reading through a short piece by Thomas Vinciguerra (great name!) in the Week in Review, I remember what a great piece of resedarch the Oxford English Dictionary is, and how awesome a tool the online edition (command-line access!) is. Londoners have largely refused to be cowed by terrorists. Our phlegmatic cousins across the pond, admirers say, are "keeping a stiff upper lip." The expression is synonymous with resolution in the face of adversity. But where did it come from? The phrase sounds quintessentially British, and the British-born writer P. G. Wodehouse is often credited with popularizing it in his Jeeves and Wooster stories. But it is actually American; the Oxford English Dictionary traces it to an 1815 issue of The Massachusetts Spy: "I kept a stiff upper lip, and bought [a] license to sell my goods." In 1833, the American author John Neal offered this line in his novel "The Down-Easters": "What's the use o' boo-hooin? ... Keep a stiff upper lip; no bones broke." And in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," published in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe had a character say, "Good-by, Uncle Tom; keep a stiff upper lip." The upper lip tends to quiver under emotional pressure. There are, however, more colorful explanations for how its immobility came to signal self-control. According to one legend, when a sailor was sewn into his burial shroud at sea, a stitch would be passed through his upper lip. This was done not only to ensure that he was really dead, but also to trip up would-be deserters, who obviously needed stiff upper lips to avoid crying out in pain. Another story holds that in the Napoleonic era, European military officers shaped their mustaches with tar. Any soldier brave enough to sit still while his mustache was smeared with hot pitch and molded into shape obviously kept a stiff - you know. Whatever its origins, the phrase has begun to grate. "If I read one more story about Londoners' 'stiff upper lip' I'm going to scream," wrote Kevin Drum in the "Political Animal" blog of The Washington Monthly on July 8. One reader responded, "Personally I think the phrase 'stiff upper unibrow' needs to be added to the lexicon." Least Likely Ladder to the Presidency Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff is moving on up. The Senate approved a bill on Tuesday that would alter his place in the presidential line of succession from last (No. 18) to No. 8, after Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. You'd think that with his job description, Mr. Chertoff, right, would already be higher on the list, ahead of people like Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns (No. 9) and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings (No. 16). But the presidential chain of command has never been that logical. It has been fraught with anachronistic oddities since Congress passed the Presidential Succession Act of 1792. Back then, the Federalists controlled the White House, and they wanted to block their archrival, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, from possibly succeeding their second-in-command, Vice President John Adams. So under a compromise, the largely ceremonial post of president pro tempore of the Senate was made second in line, the speaker of the House third and secretary of state fourth. (The speaker and president pro tem were bumped altogether in 1886; when they were restored in 1947, their positions were switched.) This has made for some improbabilities. From 1995 to 2001, the president pro tem was Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Though well into his 90's, he was only three heartbeats away from the Oval Office. Moreover, the Presidential Succession Act of 1886 dictated that cabinet officers would succeed the president in the order in which their departments were created. That rule holds. Hence, the secretary of transportation (No. 14) comes before the secretary of energy (No. 15), but not because the former is better qualified. Last year, Senate Republicans introduced a bill that would again remove members of Congress from the line of succession. The rationale was that the presidency could go to someone from the opposition party with vastly different notions of how to run the country. This might well have happened during two months of the Watergate crisis in 1973. The Republican president, Richard Nixon, was under intense pressure to resign, but he had not yet replaced the vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, who already had resigned. So House Speaker Carl Albert, a Democrat, was next in line. Mr. Albert said that if Mr. Nixon resigned, he would serve only as acting president because he had no popular mandate. He pledged to step down as soon as Congress appointed a Republican vice president. There are other wrinkles. The Constitution requires that the president be born in the United States. Thus, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez (No. 10), who was born in Cuba, and Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao (No. 11), a native of Taiwan, would be ineligible. That is also why the second female secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice (No. 4), is also the first woman to be so close to the Oval Office. The first female secretary of state, Madeleine K. Albright, was born in Czechoslovakia. If you are confused, you are not alone. In 1981, when President Ronald Reagan was shot, Secretary of State Alexander Haig famously declared that he was "in control" at the White House. "Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, in that order," he told reporters. He was only off by two. Thomas Vinciguerra is an editor of The Week magazine. Correction: Aug. 3, 2005: An article on July 31 about on the presidential line of succession referred imprecisely to the citizenship requirement. The Constitution says only that the president must be "a natural-born citizen," not that the president must have been born in the United States. The provision is generally regarded as barring naturalized citizens, not those born elsewhere to American parents.... Read more
July 27, 2005
sedulous
Just after I describe his research as assiduous, I stumble across a synonym: through his writings.... Read more
July 26, 2005
murrain
Through reading Simon Winchester's assiduosly-researched books, I am picking up much new vocabulary: murrain, a weighted word which comes from a Hebrew word for plague, and has a modern denotation for a disease of cattle or other domesticated beasties.... Read more
July 11, 2005
In which I am not a knouter
One of my favourite stories is Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game (anthologised in a paperback my father read to us often; the collection also included "Miss Hinch", a creepy story indeed). The famous hunter Dr Zaroff mentions that his hench-man Ivan was a knouter for the tsar. Where does this word come from? Russian via French? French via Russian?... Read more
June 16, 2005
prove{n,d}
During a conversation I found myself vacillating between proven and proved. A cursory look through the dictionary proved them equivalent: (v) prove, turn out, turn up (be shown or be found to be) (v) prove, demonstrate, establish, show, shew (establish the validity of something, as by an example, explanation or experiment) (v) testify, bear witness, prove, evidence, show (provide evidence for) (v) prove (prove formally; demonstrate by a mathematical, formal proof) (v) test, prove, try, try out, examine, essay (put to the test, as for its quality, or give experimental use to) Ditto proven; so why did the particples cause me such confusion? I think I expect the weak version (proven) to accompany a verb of being (e.g., I was proven wrong), and the regular particple form (proved) to be the simple past tense, or the second verb in a compound with a helper such as had: I had proved the theorem.... Read more
June 13, 2005
In which I do not have an aptronym
From the always-engaging A-Word-A-Day email newsletter, I learned the word aptronymically, which indicates a name that describes the occupation or other significant attribute of the named. I suspect that my name, although descriptive ("safe", "salubrious") does not qualify, because I am typically full of vitriol, bile, and irritation (in fact, this evening I snapped at a human-rights worker who stopped at the stoop to solicit funds). Most online baby-name sites merely describe the origin of Salim as 'African' and with meaning 'peace', although the name has Semitic (Phoenician?) origins (cf. Heb. shalom, Ar. salaam) and appears in the Book of John and in place names ancient and modern (or at least less ancient).... Read more
June 09, 2005
I have Sind.
Puns get in my sind: peccavi (pe-KAH-vee) noun An admission of guilt or sin. [From Latin peccavi (I have sinned), from peccare (to err).] The story goes that in 1843, after annexing the Indian province of Sind, British General Sir Charles Napier sent home a one word telegram, "Peccavi" implying "I have Sind." Although apocryphal, it's still a great story.... Read more
June 01, 2005
In which my head is full of skriking kids
The word whinge evokes solid middle-Britain travails, and, that leads squarely to The Fall. Not only are they the quintessential loser (not in the Oasis sense, in the echt British sense) band, but they sing about whingeing (q.v., "Joker Hysterical Face", "It's a Curse!", and undoubtedly scads more), and the irascible singer, a certain Mark E. Smith of whom I am speaking, has a nasal voice that lends itself very well to complaining.... Read more
May 14, 2005
What is wrong with schmetterling?
In my quest for the delicious warm croissant with ham, gruyere, and butter -- mustn't forget the butter! -- I have discovered Kerry Gold, a magnificent and sweet Irish butter. The German expression alles ist in Butter ("Everything is in butter"): everything is in order. It is based on the fact that in the Middle ages, fragile articles were transported using butter as we use thermocol today. For this for example tableware was inserted into warm liquid butter. The butter solidified itself as it cooled down and so protected the fragile goods. At the destination, the butter was again liquefied and poured off. The English word "butterfly" has its origins in the medieval superstition that witches transform into butterflies in order to steal farmers' cream or butter.... Read more
May 12, 2005
Hobo ho
From A-Word-A-Day: today's word, the historically awesome bindlestiff. Reminds me of days tramping on boxcars, going 'round to the side door for a plate of warm stew, sitting down by the tracks and having a toothless cigarette. Oh yes.... Read more
May 03, 2005
salmagundi
While trawling a pirate web site I saw the word salmagundi used. I knew this first as a journal that my father read, and that introduced me to the academic study of kitsch. I turned to the ever-ready google for a definition of salmagundi and find that it is "a highly-seasoned pirate dish made from available meats or fish" or, generally, "meat-salad dish with hard boiled eggs, beets, anchovies and pickles", or, even more generally, an assortment.... Read more
April 26, 2005
doggerel
As the word doggerel appeared in the book I read on the morning bus and in an email message, I decided to search the internet for it, and was justifiably alarmed at the first result (I'm feeling lucky, indeed!). Usually I hear the word and immediately think of poetry by Ogden Nash.... Read more
April 19, 2005
Putting the classical edu. to work
This morning, one of my colleagues played the audio stream of the announcement from The Holy See. The College of Cardinals announced "habeamus Papam Benedictum XVI" and I heard and understood the Latin. Then the radio commentator burst in with an analysis in Italian, and I was lost (my knowledge of the vulgar tongue drops off after the 14th century). I was never a Latin nurd, though. I blame Virgil and his bees.... Read more
April 18, 2005
calipygian merriment
Everyone's favourite lexicographer, Erin McKean, propped up the internet as a source for analysing trends in vocabulary. As for the calipygian merrimentsic, well, that came from the recesses of Aram's mind.... Read more
April 11, 2005
H is for hapax legomenon
Amazon now produces a concordance for each book for which it has digitized content; it also has a short list of "statistically improbable phrases", which amount to hapax legomena. Amusingly, the wikipedia entry suggests that a googlewhack is the modern-day equivalent.... Read more
March 15, 2005
chicane
Through Driving in the Burgh, I discovered chicane: A series of tight turns, in opposite directions, in an otherwise straight stretch of road.... Read more
February 27, 2005
But of course!
crème, as in "crème fraîche", has an accent grave, not an acute, nor a circumflex (as I initially, stupidly thought). Which letter might have disappeared from crème? Nary a one.... Read more
February 17, 2005
Agglutinate this!
Matt Davis has an amusing summary of a meme that circulated several months ago, and its linguistic challenges. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.... Read more
January 31, 2005
lagniappe
This San Francisco Chronicle story on the 30th birthday of casual carpool uses a bit of creole vernacular, lagniappe, the origin of which I couldn't discern. According to this etymology , the word originates in Quechua (!!): n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi. A small gift presented by a storeowner to a customer with the customer's purchase. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called boot. See Regional Note at beignet. [Louisiana French, from American Spanish la ñapa, the gift : la, the (from Latin illa, feminine of ille, that, the) + ñapa (variant of yapa, gift, from Quechua, from yapay, to give more).] REGIONAL NOTE Lagniappe derives from New World Spanish la ñapa, “the gift,” and ultimately from Quechua yapay, “to give more.” The word came into the rich Creole dialect mixture of New Orleans and there acquired a French spelling. It is still used in the Gulf states, especially southern Louisiana, to denote a little bonus that a friendly shopkeeper might add to a purchase. By extension, it may mean “an extra or unexpected gift or benefit.” I would have written boon or perhaps convenience. But lagniappe is one of those rare words in American English that has a deeply regional flavour. The note for beignet reads: REGIONAL NOTE New Orleans, Louisiana, has been a rich contributor of French loan words and local expressions to American English. Many New Orleans words, such as beignet, café au lait, faubourg, lagniappe, and krewe, reflect the New World French cuisine and culture characterizing this region. Other words reflect distinctive physical characteristics of the city: banquette, a raised sidewalk, and camelback and shotgun, distinctive architectural styles found among New Orleans houses.... Read more
January 07, 2005
Kalevala and you
Cori Ellison started off his piece on the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra's Northern Lights Festival with this appetizing paragraph: You may not think you know a thing about the "Kalevala," but if you're acquainted with Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, the heavy-metal band Amorphis, or Don Rosa's Donald Duck cartoon books, you've got a running start.... Read more
January 06, 2005
This is the city of angels, and you don't have any wings
On the heels of Charlie LeDuff's story on the re-naming of baseball's Angels, the New York Times ran a pointed editorial: January 6, 2005 EDITORIAL City of Angels ometimes an idea comes along that is so stupid, all you can do is stand back, give it some room, and stare: THE LOS ANGELES ANGELS OF ANAHEIM That is the new official name of a major league baseball team in Southern California that (1) does not play in Los Angeles, (2) is not moving to Los Angeles and (3) has no plans to put "Los Angeles" on its uniforms. So what, exactly, is the team doing? It's trying to make more money. It wants to convince advertisers that its market extends far beyond Anaheim, a city in Orange County about 35 miles from Los Angeles, so it can charge them more. The team would just as soon drop "Anaheim" from its name altogether, but it can't. Its landlord is the City of Anaheim, which spent $20 million on stadium renovations as part of a deal in 1996 with the Walt Disney Company, which used to own the team. The contract includes this clause: "Tenant will change the name of the Team to include the name 'Anaheim' therein." Therein lies the problem. But the Angels are not letting it stop them. If it requires a bit of geographic Dadaism - changing their name but not moving, and adding not one but two bilingual redundancies - then so be it. They are sticking to their marketing strategy. Anaheim city officials are hurt. They say they will go to court to stop what they call a breach of good faith and fair dealing. The Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles are upset, too. So are many Orange County residents of Southern California. We're not sure what the New York Jets of East Rutherford or the Detroit Pistons of Auburn Hills think. We have to ask, though, what team name in Southern California isn't nuts? The names "Lakers" and "Dodgers" once made sense in Minnesota, land of lakes, and in Brooklyn, land of trolleys, but not in the land of Mickey and Goofy. Don't get us started on the Mighty Ducks.... Read more
January 01, 2005
This is the dawning of the year of the languages
The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages has hopefully designated this year The Year of Languages. From what I see, hear, and read, American's ain't not too good with our own language (cheap shot): we read less, read material of "lesser quality", and rely more on our single language to communicate rather than learn the languages of others.... Read more
December 30, 2004
She is certain she has never smoked tobacco.
Tongue-twisters in 105 different languages (including an example in Gujarati), although not all in the correct alphabet. Some are just silly. Bonus points: showing the correct character-set for each example; showing the region where the language is spoken; providing a phoenetic rendition of each. Despite being a .de site, this seems aimed at English-speakers.... Read more
December 28, 2004
London to a brick, the web reveals all
At the espresso machine, Peter told me that having my work schedule would make him downright ropeable. Imagine my surprise when, having taken a look-see on Google for the definition, I found nowt. Eventually, the web revealed that "ropeable" means "angry, irritable". He also pointed me to this site of Australian slang, which reminded me of Ben Schott's "perilously close to useful (sic)" Schott's Original Miscellany.... Read more
December 26, 2004
What's in a name?
My name, for example, is an alias for the "Millionaire Marxist" Carlos the Jackal; the place-name of John's watering-hole: "And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized"; and, of course, it comes from the honourable Semitic root for peace, health.... Read more
December 22, 2004
The sacred and the profane
Brad, in discussion of the famed Caltrain party car, mentioned the Profanisaurus. Endless amusement; rib-tickling fun; side-splitting euphemisms. And I got to watch Snatch, a superlatively profane movie. And while I'm on the movies tip, how about the latest Korean animated flick, "Doggy Poo", in which a dandelion sprout guides an existential turd through the thicket of life? (There's a colouring book for the young 'uns). I suppose this might join Léolo as an all-time classic movie about shit. "Gummo" doesn't count.... Read more
December 17, 2004
A few remarks on the mathematics of words
The Washington Post's Style Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners: 1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with. 2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly. 3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future. 4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid. 5. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period. 6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high. 7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it. 8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late. 9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness. 10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.) 11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like a serious bummer. 12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you. 13. Glibido: All talk and no action. 14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly. 15. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web. 16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out. 17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating. ........And the pick of the literature: 18. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole... Read more
December 13, 2004
Neither fear nor fur
Igor, my colleague from St Petersburg, illustrated a cultural difference between Americans and Russians today. If you're going out hunting, your friends will say to you: "Ni puka, ni pura": Neither fear nor fur. And you'll tell them: "K chortoo!", Go to the devil! "Russians underestimate, and then deliver more than they underestimate -- so they have a feeling of accomplishment. In America, you over-estimate, and are happy if you can deliver a part of what you promised." Our 'can-do' attitude leads us to commit, but can we deliver?... Read more
November 21, 2004
subfusc
subfusc: a. dusky drab; n. formal academic dress at Oxford University. I read the adjective in Dorothy Sayers' "Have His Carcase"; although I knew the second, nominative meaning (probably also from Sayers, perhaps "Gaudy Night", a novel replete with Oxonian trivia), the description of a cheap overcoat threw me.... Read more
(Jack's) Elixir Celebrates It's Resurrection
If anything, I'd expect "Authentic" to appear in quotation marks. The "new" paint job at The Elixir (neé Jack's Elixir), at the corner of 16th and Guerrero, lacks the boisterous appeal of the old.... Read more
October 10, 2004
The Secret Lives of Words
ANTIMACASSAR This cloth covered the backs of chairs from the nineteenth century on to protect them from greasy hair, unwashed or pomaded or both. The oil was Macassar, a proprietary brand made by Rowland and Son, supposedly from ingredients found in Makassar, part of the island Sulawesi, once Celebes, in Indonesia. Some folk still have antimacassars in their possession, but the need seems not to have survived World War One, not that men began using less oily hair creams, although there was a distinct shift in men's pomade from the brilliantines of yesteryear to less perfumed lotions such as Brylcreem, easily squeezed from a tube and stably perched on the palm. Brylcreem left the hair feeling tight and rigid, with no need of antimacassar behind the recliner's head. Another name for Makassar was Mangkasra, hardly commerically concise. From the Secret Lives of Words, a hit-or-miss endeavour by Paul West. I recollect that in Flight 714, the millionaire Laszlo Carreidas is kidnapped while flying his new aeroplane over Sulawesi; the last radio contact is with Macassar tower.... Read more
October 09, 2004
I'm a Marxist and I read.
Today I learned the word "rivalrous", which means "emulous", or "eager to surpass others". Resources that cannot be shared are rivalrous. I also picked up three long-time favourite classics of economics: The Marx-Engels Reader; de Tocqueville's Democracy in America; and Mr Adam Smith's "truck, barter, and trade" (the po-mo title of "On The Wealth of Nations"). Outside of a dog, a man's best friend is a book. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.... Read more
July 01, 2004
Mind your prefixes
In the sentence "After immigrating to New York in 1964, he worked as a clerk at the Indian Consulate ..." shouldn't the use of the accusative be required?... Read more
June 22, 2004
Cock-eyed and painless
How many ways are there to spell Viagra?... Read more
June 20, 2004
The place of salt
The place-name wich indicates a place where salt was made. The citation states that it is merely a variation of wick. Mark Kurlansky suggests this definition in his unsatisfying book Cod.... Read more
June 17, 2004
It works on two levels!
Cutting remarks from dullards. ... and speaking of which, how about them bicycle-mounted sidewalk-printing dot-matrix printers?... Read more
June 15, 2004
With forked tongues
Irregardless, speaking more than one language keeps your brain sharp.... Read more
May 30, 2004
Of verbal raspberries
ah, Latin: here I was, thinking that it's only good for reading a Greek lexicon, while a humble Carmelite toils in obscurity to preserve the lingua franca of ancient courtesans and cheats: Father Foster prizes simplicity. His office is as spare as his work clothes, which he buys while visiting relatives in the United States. It contains a table, a few books and a bonsai tree. A bottle of vermouth, which he occasionally sips while working. Across the hall is his manual typewriter. He dislikes computers, though he did provide Latin text for the screen of a Vatican Bank teller machine"... Read more
May 29, 2004
Bedbugs and
BALLYHOO A free show given outside a sideshow to attract a crowd (a 'tip') of potential patrons. Word came into being at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The fakirs, gun spinners and dancing girls from the Middle East that were working at the Streets of Cairo pavilion spoke no English, only Arabic. The interpreters used the expression "Dehalla Hoon" to call performers outside to the show fronts. The Western ears of the pavilion manager, W. O. Taylor, mistook it as 'ballyhoo' and used it when the interpreters were away for lunch. The phrase was picked up by the other showmen working at the fair and was spread throughout the outdoor show business industry. A-propos of the 1893 Exposition, a few months ago I devoured Erik Larson's wonderfully-written Devil in the White City, the story of a greedy and cruel 'doctor' in the heady days of Chicago's Columbian Exposition. I later lived for two years facing the Midway Plaisance, part of the beautiful areas of Chicago constructed for the Expo.... Read more
May 14, 2004
La vomitera
Un altre conte fantàstic sense cap relació amb la realitat real... Aquesta setmana un virus m'ha destorbat la digestió, m'ha... (comentaris: 2) [Sarcophilus.blog]... Read more
m4d sk1llz but l33t to the game
I blame Aram for getting l33t speak into my craw. Then again, I also have him (or the most eligible bachelor in Chicago) to blame^W credit with the introduction of Röyksopp into my video and audio life. This photograph is kind of hippie bling, I suppose:... Read more
May 13, 2004
For the what now?
yesterday I got the word nonce in my noggin. Does nonce have a notion of ephemeral tucked into it? What of the gentle decay of the moment? The decay of machinery?... Read more
May 11, 2004
An empty space, or a missing part?
lacunary appeared as a predicate adjective at work today, but I didn't realise that the term applies more commonly to mathematical problems than to linguistic.... Read more
May 08, 2004
test
This is a test This is a test This is a test This is a test This is a test... Read more
March 03, 2004
Stop that talking.
Reading Ben Brantley's Theater Review in today's paper, I learned a new word. ... this oddball speculation has been given amusing flesh in the Second Stage Theater's production of Charles L. Mee's "Wintertime," the logorrheic romp of a sex farce that opened last night.... Read more
March 01, 2004
She had nut-painted arms.
The suggestive power of media: all the talking, the opinion columns, the cinema marquees have embedded a certain word in my mind, and with that word a certain shade of its meaning. And that's why I have "The Passion of Lovers" by bauhaus in my mind. Thank goodness for the ipod, which has soothed this desire.... Read more
February 27, 2004
The Oakland School Board needs this.
Somewhere between laconic street slang and overinformed academic prattle comes Word.... Read more
February 22, 2004
To fathom Hell or soar angelic
Some cranks wrote that "by the rules for combining Greek roots, the word should have been psychodelic. They also said that even in the late 70's, psychedelic had mostly been replaced by hallucinogenic". All due to Humphry Osmond, who introduced Aldous Huxley to L.S.D., and who died this past week after a lifetime devoted to research into medicinal uses of hallucinogens.... Read more
February 03, 2004
The true object of my visit is:
Over a workplace espresso yesterday, John recommended Bulgakov's... Read more
November 02, 2003
Only the king has a jester.
Aram asked me where "majesty" comes from. I quipped to cover that I didn't know: OE. magestee, F. majest['e], L. majestas, fr. an old compar. of magnus great. I do know that one addreses royalty in the ablative. And that Poe wrote the best story about a deformed midget jester getting revenge on a tyrant. The Visual Thesaurus describes spatial relationships amongst synonyms.... Read more
October 18, 2003
The most popular finger?
Thanks to memepool, I saw this classical rendition of Sir Mix-A-Lot's classic ditty. Our heroine used to boogie down the newsprint to the sounds of the mixmaster. I don't think she would approve of the official web site, though: it loads all at once, taking half a minute over a residential cable link. Of course, without some background in dactylic hexameter and other forms of Greek metre, this wouldn't be as enjoyable. The New York Times reports on a legal precedent in Texas: Is it legal to give someone the middle finger? Yes, says the Texas Court of Appeals, Third District, which ruled for a man who had appealed his conviction for making the gesture to a couple in a car. The court majority, in its opinion, decided that flipping "the bird" did not rise to the level of "disorderly conduct" unless it can be shown "to incite an immediate breach of the peace." "That the gesture may be thrust upon unsuspecting or sensitive viewers falls short of the type of conduct in a public place that would incite those present to violence," Judge Jan P. Patterson wrote for the majority." Which do you think is the most popular finger?... Read more
October 17, 2003
Wolfgang, you cheap bastard.
The lead paragraph of a music review appearing in today's Chronicle disparages Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: "We think of Mozart as the prototypical musical wunderkind, but compared with Felix Mendelssohn, little Wolfgang was a piker. " This irritates me. It's the lead in an above-the-fold front-page article of a major metropolitan newspaper, and more than 10% of the words (non-grammatically necessary) are misused. Specifically, piker, which is an American slang term meaning "a risk-taker, gambler; a stingy person". The synonyms are uniformly negative. Merriam-Webster goes so far as to suggest TIGHTWAD as the first synonym and linked definition. I wrote a letter to the editor (and author). I'm well on my way to roaming the city with a MUNI transfer in hand, plastic bag full of books under my arm. FOLLOW-UP: received email from the author, to wit: I quote from Webster's 11th Collegiate: one who does things in a small way "Slacker" would've served my purpose too, I suppose. But the locution I used is a common and venerable one in drawing a comparison unfavorable to a particular party (in this case Mozart): Compared to X, Y is/was a piker. Thanks for reading my words so closely, though.... Read more
