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Post by marysgurl on Dec 31, 2005 1:45:41 GMT -5
I haven't been on all day & passing by, thought I'de sit down & take a look....must've been all that love & support finding its way to my heart....thanks, friend.
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Post by gams on Dec 31, 2005 1:53:25 GMT -5
Hugs to you, Marysgurl.
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Post by marysgurl on Dec 31, 2005 2:02:56 GMT -5
Topic: Present vs. gift
We shall leave it to others to decide whether the following question, presented by a friend, should properly be considered a question of etiquette or usage: "Is present the preferred choice of noun when a gift is being presented in person?" That is, is a gift-giving person's presence necessary during the presentation in order for the word present to be properly used? And, as a corollary concern, does gift hold a particular position of usefulness as a noun when such an exchange is made without one or more people present?
Needless to say, we can't look the gift of such a holiday-appropriate question in the mouth—nor do we want to mix metaphors too strongly—but there isn't too much to say on this matter besides: don't think twice about which word to use when.
The noun gift dates back to the 12th century. Its earliest sense named "a notable capacity, talent, or endowment." The noun present appeared a century later with the meaning "something presented; gift." The only grumbling about gift that we've come across concerns its use as a transitive verb, for instance, "He gifted us with his presence." But since that usage has been established for more than five centuries, we won't be too quick to criticize it.
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Post by marysgurl on Jan 2, 2006 7:23:49 GMT -5
Topic: Crimson
Back on this date in 1492, Spanish forces—comprising the troops of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile—captured Granada. Their military success marked the end of seven centuries of Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula. As you would expect, the Moorish influence in that region was immense. (The word Moor, by the way, referring to those Arab and Berber conquerors, comes from the Latin term for an inhabitant of Mauretania, the ancient coastal country of Northern Africa.)
But that influence did not develop into a particularly large body of terms whose pathway into English followed a direct Arabic to Spanish to English course. The most colorful one we found was crimson.
Crimson entered English during the 15th century from an Old Spanish version of the Arabic word for kermes. What are kermes? They are the dried female bodies of a round scale insect about the size of a pea that are found on the dwarf evergreen kermes oak of the Mediterranean region. These kermes constitute a very old—perhaps the oldest—dyestuff known to produce a red color.
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Post by gams on Jan 4, 2006 9:18:23 GMT -5
January
"This month derived its name from the ancient Italian god, Janus - Januarius being the Latin name. How old the worship of the god many have been cannot be determined, but it undoubtedly dated back prior to the foundation of Rome. Janus was the tutelary deity of doors and gateways - janua is Latin for "door." He was therefore always represented as having two faces, so that, it was explained, he might guard both entrance and exit.
It is sometimes thought that January, being the first month of the year, was so named because Janus was also the god of beginnings. That is not so, however. In the oldest of Roman calendars the year had only ten months, thus accounting for the names of the last four months in our present calendar - September (seventh), October (eighth), November (ninth), December (tenth). Some seven hundred years B.C., the calendar was readjusted and two months were added to the year. The names given to them were Januarius and Februarius; they were, respectively, the eleventh and twelfth months, and they were so named because the first contained a feast day in honor of Janus, and the second included the Roman festival of purification, (februum). March contined to be the first month of the year until long after the Christain Era had begun and March 25th, because that date coincided with the vernal equinox, (the beginning of spring), in the Julian candendar, was the day upon which the civil year began.
It was not until the adoption of the Gregorian calendar that January was acccepted in all countries as the first month of the year and that January 1st was generally observed as New Year's Day. This calendar was prescribed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, to correct errors in the Julian calendar, but it was not adopted in England and its colonies until 1752."
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Post by marysgurl on Jan 4, 2006 9:29:31 GMT -5
Cool!
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Post by marysgurl on Jan 5, 2006 9:40:36 GMT -5
Topic: Oxymorons and retronyms
When we were asked if the term flourless chocolate cake were an oxymoron, our immediate reaction was no, but yummy lima beans is. Now that that's out of the way, we'll attempt a more serious response to our listener's query. Oxymoron names a combination of contradictory or incongruous words. We suspect our questioner was thrown off by the pairing of flourless and cake. So if a cake doesn't contain flour is it still considered a cake?
Sure. According to the Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, cake describes (among other things) "a sweet baked food made from a dough or thick batter usually containing flour and sugar and often shortening, eggs, and a raising agent, as baking powder."
It's easy to see why someone might be confused; after all, the usual chocolate cake does contain flour. In this instance, use of the term flourless simply distinguishes a particular chocolate cake.
Although we wouldn't put flourless chocolate cake into the category we're about to talk about, the question about the term does call to mind the term retronym. Retronym refers to a noun plus a modifier which specifies the original meaning of the noun. Analog clock, hard copy, and landline phone are all retronyms.
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Post by marysgurl on Jan 6, 2006 9:52:25 GMT -5
Topic: Beatify, canonize, and martyr
Today we mark the 1412 birth of Joan of Arc, La Pucelle d'Orleans, or the Maid of Orleans. Burned at the stake at 19, Joan was beatified in 1909 and canonized 11 years after that, almost five centuries after she was martyred. Etymologically, to beatify is to "make happy." That verb has ancestors in the Latin beatus, meaning "happy" plus facere, "to do" or "make." When beatify first appeared in English early in the 16th century, it meant "to make supremely happy." Within a hundred years, Church officials had begun using beatify in the sense "to declare to have attained the blessedness of heaven and authorize the title 'Blessed' and limited public religious honor."
After a person is beatified, he or she is eligible to be canonized, declared an officially recognized saint. That term dates back to the 14th century. It has an ancestor in the Late Latin canon, naming a "catalog of saints," and in the older Latin canon, which simply means "standard."
Martyr is centuries older than both beatify and canonize. As long as English has been a language, to martyr has meant "to put to death for adhering to a belief, faith, or profession." And where does martyr come from? From the Greek word for "witness."
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Post by gams on Jan 6, 2006 10:47:01 GMT -5
Cool beans, Marysgurl. I love oxymorons; they are oddly fun to me. The word 'oxymoron' is derived from that old cliche - "Dumb as an ox" - a moronic ox, or a couple of them yoked together - oxenmorons. HA! That is a yoke. I just made that up - a funny joke outta my head, of which, "funny joke from me" is an example of a oxymoron in itself.
Retronyms; I've never heard the word, and it's not in my Webster's. Cool again, though, and I will probably be applying it to everything I see the next couple of days. Coffee cup, dish washer, desk clutter, dust bunnies, vacuum cleaner, house work...sh!t, I can see where this is leading. I'm thinking I don't like retronyms as much as oxymorons.
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Post by marysgurl on Jan 6, 2006 10:56:14 GMT -5
These are some of my favs: same difference, constant variable, Hell's Angels, still wind, bitter suite....um, sweet....hehe....almost limitless, & let's not forget one of my favs....jumbo shrimp! Or: military intelligence, honest politician, & what you always find at your local Wally World---customer service!
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Post by gams on Jan 6, 2006 11:04:56 GMT -5
BOLL!
Hey, gotta run cuz those retronyms are glaring me in the face. Talk at you later; enjoy your day.
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Post by gams on Jan 10, 2006 1:00:01 GMT -5
Hey, Marysgurl. Today was “Word Nerd Day”. I am not a word nerd; I love words but use the same ones over and over again. I just like the idea of having hundreds of choices to describe something as being “good” or “bad”.
For example: the word “juxtaposition”. I looked up its meaning the first time I came across it not so long ago, and have seen it written a number of times since, and though I like to be on top….of things, it’s juxtaposition. I can be on the bottom too…of the barrel; like that pun.
I cleaned off my desk this past weekend and found handfuls of tiny scraps of paper with words on them. Some of the words had definitions attached; most were just a single word, most of which I have no idea why I decided I needed to keep on a tiny scrap of paper thrown on my desk.
Among them were:
Riposte. No definition written next to it, but it means a retaliatory verbal sally; retort or a retaliatory maneuver or measure. Why I needed to know this I haven’t a clue.
Impious. It means lacking in reverence or proper respect. Again, no clue why it’s on a scrap of paper.
Catholicity. This one I remember. I saw it in a book and was confused as to the context in which it appeared. Two definitions for the word: the character of being in conformity with a Catholic Church, or a liberality of sentiments and views. Conflicting definitions, I thought, and probably why I wrote it down.
Baroque. I remember why I kept this too. I just like the word.
Equivoque. This one I actually used once. It means an equivocal expression; a play upon words, a pun or double meaning.
Malodorous. I think I was going to use this in a “House of Whoosher” post, but probably misplaced the scrap before I stuck in it the post.
Campestral. Saw the word, looked up the definition, which means open fields, or country, and probably the same as above; I thought it’d fit in nicely in a Zena Scrolls post, but never got around to using it.
Next, a trio. These I had the definitions written next to the words, the words pertaining to words themselves. Huh?
Logogriph – a sort of riddle in which it is required to discover a chosen word from various combinations of letters.
Logomachy – contention in or about words; a war of words. A game of word making.
Logorrhea – excessive and often incoherent talkativeness.
Which this whole post is: one big logorrhea. But at least now I can throw all those scraps of paper in the trash, having used the words written on them at least once. (rolls eyes)
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Post by marysgurl on Jan 10, 2006 10:06:37 GMT -5
Pfft! I wouldn't have done so well had you posted this in quiz-form. Had I been required to write the definitions out, I would've only scored 60%....double pfft!! I would like to think multiple "guess" answers would've at least brought me up to 80, or perhaps even a 100!! Damn! I guess that's why you scribbled them down....
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Post by gams on Jan 11, 2006 2:33:11 GMT -5
Yeah, sometimes I just run across a word I like, but don't see or hear often, and write it down meaning to use it at least occasionally, but most times it's because I need to look up its defininition. This happens especially when there will be a foreign phrase thrown in a piece of writing. My Webster's is cool because it has a foreign word index in the back, and of course there is the Internet to look to for those definitions. Before I had either of these though, those foreign phrases used to bug the hell outta me.
And this week's work origin originates in the lingerie drawer. It is Intimate Apparel Week.
Intimate Apparel a nice term, I think, and a better one, than "unmentionables", which was once the preferred terminology. Here is the history behind the word "unmentionables".
"Prudery is always with us, only the subjects about which we are prudish vary. Often it is difficult - even impossible - for a later generation to understand the reason for some particular prudery of its ancestors.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, for example, it became impolite to mention the words trousers or breeches. Since it was obviously necessary to refer at times to these ubiquitous garments, various euphemistic terms were coined for the purpose...such as inexpressibles, inexplicables, ineffables, or unmentionables. Later, when trousers regained its standing in polite society, it became imprudent to talk about undergarments, especially women's undergarments, and these became unmentionables.
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Post by marysgurl on Jan 11, 2006 11:30:57 GMT -5
Hmm...interesting. Altho, I'm not liking the sound of the word "prudery"...just doesn't roll right. So I'm thinking, can "prudence" act as a synonym for this word that leaves the yucky taste in my mouth? I might slip it past a less discerning counterpart here at the "adverbially challenged" thread, but probably not past the author of the above post as it is used in reference to the subject--"intimate apparel".
I bow in humble prudery, gammers.
Now, what's your favorite ineffables made out of....cotton or silk? hehe!
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Post by marysgurl on Jan 13, 2006 8:43:04 GMT -5
The Word of the Day for January 13 is:
bombinate • \BAHM-buh-nayt\ • verb : buzz, drone
Example sentence: Mr. Carter bombinated on, seemingly oblivious to the frequency of yawning and watch-checking in the audience.
Did you know? "Bombinate" sounds like it should be the province of bombastic blowhards who bound up and bombard you with droning blather at parties—and it is. The word derives from the Greek "bombos," a term that probably originated as an imitation of a deep, hollow sound (the kind we would likely refer to as "booming" nowadays). Latin speakers rendered the original Greek form as "bombus," and that root gave forth a veritable din of raucous English offspring, including not only "bombinate," but also "bomb," "bombard," "bombilate" (which means the same thing as "bombinate"), and "bound" ("to leap"). However, the Latin "bombus" is not a direct ancestor of "bombastic," which traces to "bombyx," a Greek name for the silkworm.
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Post by gams on Jan 13, 2006 9:01:29 GMT -5
I don't like the word prudery much either, Marysgurl. Prunery, I think, would be a more descriptive word; it fits in my image of gray-haired, shriveled old ladies who prudishly crinkle their stuck-up-in-the-air noses at the younger generation.
Cotton or silk for my ineffables? What about leather? That would be Intimidate Apparel though, and the images it conjures are better left unmentioned.
Actually, I'm a lace inexpressible kind of gal. Yes, yes; underneath the faded jeans and t-shirts there lies a total frou-frou waiting to be exposed. By the right person. Hubs. Smile.
And now I will quit bombinatiously rattling on about nothing. Oooo, I love it!!! I shall have to commit this one to memory.
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Post by marysgurl on Jan 18, 2006 8:59:55 GMT -5
Topic: Twee
Arthur Alexander Milne was born on this date in 1882. The British author is credited with many light comedies, plays, and a successful detective novel, but A.A. Milne's chief literary legacy remains his tales of Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh, and the rest of the gang. Although generations have adored Milne, not every contemporary critic was taken by his work. Dorothy Parker, writing in The New Yorker as "Constant Reader," reviewed The House at Pooh Corner by noting that on page five, "Tonstant Weader Fwowed Up."
Had the word been coined then, Dorothy Parker might have labeled A.A. Milne twee; that is, "affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint." Twee—which is still a chiefly British term—originates in a baby talk version of the adjective sweet.
And what about Pooh? Milne's lovable bear is not the source of the poo suffix used as a derogatory diminutive (as in cutesy-poo), nor of the interjection pooh used to express contempt or disapproval. The sources of both the three- and the four-letter pooh's remains unknown, although lexicographers do know the pooh-pooh pooh predates Winnie.
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Post by marysgurl on Jan 25, 2006 8:13:49 GMT -5
Topic: W. Somerset Maugham and Virginia Woolf
Two British writers of note—born eight years apart—share a birthday today: W. Somerset Maugham was born on this date in 1874, and Virginia Woolf in 1882. We'll celebrate their birthdays by taking a page from past programs and presenting a few of their lines. Your job is to decide which writer belongs with which quotation. We begin with some words about men and women. Was it the male Maugham or the woman Woolf who wrote, "A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her, but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account"? That observation came from Maugham, while it was Woolf who wondered, "Why are women so much more interesting to men than men are to women?"
Now let's turn to freedom. Was it Woolf or Maugham who cautioned: "To enjoy freedom, we have to control ourselves"? Those words came from Woolf. Maugham mused: "There are two good things in life: freedom of thought and freedom of action."
Finally, was it Maugham or Woolf who wrote, "It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent"? Those words came from Somerset Maugham; Virginia Woolf was looking for a room of her own.
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Post by gams on Jan 25, 2006 23:06:43 GMT -5
Hope you don't mind if I post the last one at the other site, Marysgurl.
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