Tag Archives: words
Bagism
Which led to this: And for the younger members in the audience: Bagism was created by John Lennon and Yoko Ono as part of their extensive peace campaign in the late 1960s. The intent of bagism was to satirize prejudice and stereotyping. Bagism involved wearing a bag over one’s entire body. According to John …
Romantic Friendship
From the article “What Is Romantic Friendship?” by By Sukaina Hirji and Meena Krishnamurthy, in The New Statesman: What, then, were (Iris) Murdoch and (Philippa) Foot to each other? Close friends? Lovers? Murdoch herself grappled with this question. She wrote to Foot, “Sometimes I feel I have to invent a language to talk to you …
Moose
I thought the plural of “moose” would be “mooses” or possibly “meece,” but it isn’t; it’s just “moose.” (source) Huh. And that reminded me of this: Full lyrics HERE.
Baader–Meinhof Phenomenon
From Wikipedia: Frequency illusion, also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or frequency bias, is a cognitive bias in which, after noticing something for the first time, there is a tendency to notice it more often, leading someone to believe that it has a high frequency (a form of selection bias). It occurs when increased …
Portmanteau
Portmanteaus are cool: A portmanteau or portmanteau word (from “portmanteau (luggage)”) is a blend of words in which parts of multiple words are combined into a new word, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, or motel, from motor and hotel. In linguistics, a portmanteau is a single morph that is analyzed as …
One Word
“I wish I could say everything in one word. I hate all the things that can happen between the beginning of a sentence and the end.” ~Leonard Cohen
Figment
“Figment” is defined as “a fabrication, fantasy, invention; something fictitious.” That’s what I expected, but I realized I had never heard the word without the expository “of imagination.” That made me think that perhaps it meant something different. It turns out the phrase is just redundant. On a slightly related tangent: one of my favorite …
Shenanigans!
I looked up the etymology of “shenanigans,” expecting it to be an Irish word, but it turns out that nobody really knows where it came from. It first appeared in print in San Francisco around 1855. I also learned that “shenaniganery” is a word, and I’m looking for an excuse to use it. 🙂
Word O’ The Day
Solivagant (noun): one who wanders alone
Word O’ The Day: “Apricity”
From Wiktionary: apricity (Noun) (obsolete) The warmth of the Sun in winter. From the Latin aprīcitās, noun of quality from aprīcus (“warmed by the sun”).
Words
This was written by Jill Thomas Doyle: An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars. A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly. A bar was walked into by the passive voice. …
Bamboozle
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a …
2
The two best slang words to come out of the 60s were “drag” and “groovy.” We should use those words more.
Desire
“Boredom: the desire for desires.” ~Leo Tolstoy
Describe
“So much of this world appears according to the words we use to describe it.” ~Nicole Addison
Un
Cat and Girl is on the web at (naturally) CatAndGirl.com.
3
Masculine: “Brother from Another Mother” Feminine: “Sister from Another Mister” Neutral: “Sib from Another Crib.”
Time
“A mistake constantly made by those who should know better is to judge people of the past by our standards rather than their own. The only way men and women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time.” ~from Education of a Wandering Man: A Memoir by Louis L’Amour ©1989 Paul Laurence …
“Why are all these idiots mad?”
“I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, ‘Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC.’” ~Jerry Seinfeld (source) There are a few things wrong with that statement. First, second-hand bigotry is the worst. “I don’t know any of these people, but I hear they’re just awful,” is not something a …
Benignant
benignant (adj) /bəˈnɪɡnənt/ (now rare) Kind; gracious; favorable. One fun thing about reading old books is learning cool words that have fallen into disuse. I like “benignant.” I’m going to use it.
Abbie's Tree House 