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atlatl, atlatls (plural) -ancient dart-throwing weapons

Read more... )
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How did...
"The Quick Brown Fox jumps Over The Lazy Dog"
become the typical sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet and not
"Sphinx Of Black Quartz, Judge My Vow"
which is way cooler.
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These Old Words Sound Seriously Naughty
https://www.dictionary.com/e/s/love-old-words-dreamhole-dickpots-meant-tiny-window-footwarmers/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=SUNDAY%20Quotes%20Audience%20Email%202019%202020-06-14&utm_term=Quote%20Emails%20%28primary%29
Don't get your knickers in a twist—these old words don't mean what you think, even if they do sound a bit raunchy. Read on for some brazen, harmless fun!

Whether you’re a professional linguist, casual word-lover, or raging grammarphobe, one thing’s for sure: people get a buzz off of learning old words, especially if the words sound funny.

In honor of … well, everyone, here’s a list of ludicrous words from the past that sound raunchily specific. We love the humorous friction between the harmless definitions of these antique words, like dickpot and fuksheet, and the brazen bawdiness we associate them with now.
Read more... )
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Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Dr. Steven Pryzmus of TCU will be presenting on the topic of translanguaging
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People used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor"
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot......they "didn't have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.

Here are some facts about the 1500s:Read more... )

Words

Sep. 5th, 2019 10:25 am
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Petrichor - “A pleasant, distinctive smell frequently accompanying the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather in certain regions.” (Oxford English Dictionary)
Cromulent -uncertain, possibly "acceptable," or "fine"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/internets-favorite-words/cromulent
Embiggen - Notes and Queries from 1884, meaning "to make great."
Idiocracy - government by idiots
Vellichor - the strange wistfulness of used bookstores
Paraprosdokian - a figure of speech in which the end of the sentence is surprising, or causes the reader to reinterpret the first part.
Interrobang - ‽ (?!)
Triskaidekaphobia - fear of the number 13
Schadenfreude = a synonym, epicaricacy - malicious enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others
Callipygian - having shapely buttocks
Antidisestablishmentarianism - ”Properly, opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England”


ooooooh The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, by John Koenig
https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/#_=_
It hurts my eyes.
books
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This comment has gone right past our general Southern response of "Bless his heart" to our very specific Eastern NC response of "My lord, honey." No one wants to be the recipient of a "My lord, honey."
facepalm
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Blame the weather that resulted in a where's the rain map and on that map was a small town named Wizard Wells.
In Wizard Wells is a place called Whispering Waters Retreat Center.

So from their site:

Greetings and Welcome to Whispering Waters of Wizard Wells.
Whispering Waters is a Holistic Retreat Center.

Amusedly the retreat is operated by the Leeches, Kevin and Gail.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Whispering-Waters-Retreat-Center-At-Wizard-Wells/157978600940845
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PERCONTATION POINT

Haggard Hawks


@HaggardHawks 8/1/2018

In the late 1500s, the English printer Henry Denham proposed using a reverse question mark, ⸮, called a PERCONTATION POINT to indicate that a question was rhetorical and so didn’t require an answer.

So a rhetorical question mark.
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https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-own-opposites

Many people—native-speakers and learners alike—decry English as being illogical, and they point to pairs like flammable and inflammable as examples. But there are other words that are just as frustrating: Janus words.


JanusPhoto: The British Library

A 'Janus word' is a word that is its own opposite—like 'fast', which can refer both to moving very quickly and to staying put.

Frequently described as "words that are their own opposites," Janus words are also known as contronyms, antagonyms, or auto-antonyms. These are words that have developed contradictory meanings. Cleave is often cited as the go-to contronym: it can refer to splitting something apart and uniting two things. But it's not the only one out there, and there is usually some sort of logic behind most auto-antonyms.

Many auto-antonyms developed their contradictory meanings through a process of semantic broadening; that is, a word that has a more specific meaning gains a broader and more general meaning later on in its life. Peruse is a good example of this. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/peruse-usage

The inverse also happens: a word that begins life with a broad meaning gains a number of more specific meanings that develop in parallel to each other, but in a way that results in two contradictory and later meanings. Sanction is one such word. When it entered English, it referred to an oath. Over time, it came to refer to something that would compel someone or something to moral behavior (as an oath might); later, it gained the two contradictory senses that refer to approval and economic disapproval—both of which might compel a person or a country to behave better.

The same thing happened with oversight. It originally referred to watchful care or supervision, but through an extension of meaning, people also began to use it to refer to the thing that watchful care or supervision gets rid of: errors of omission. As with sanction, both meanings are still in use today, leading to plenty of jokes about what exactly "Congressional oversight" is describing.

Sometimes, a contronym develops because we conflate two homographs which are not actually related. This is the case with cleave, which is actually two separate verbs: one which means "to split" (from the Old English verb cleōfan, which means "to split"), and one which means "to adhere firmly or loyally" (from the Old English verb clifian, which means "to adhere"). The same goes for clip, whose contronymous meanings are actually from two discrete verbs that mean "to attach something" and "to cut off."

Occasionally, we can't be sure why exactly a word develops auto-antonymous meanings. Take fast, which can refer both to moving very quickly ("a car moving really fast") and to staying put ("he was held fast by the ropes"). The "firmly fixed" meaning is the earliest meaning we have for the adverb fast. It later developed other meanings, including "close"—and this meaning, which has now fallen out of use, somehow inspired English speakers to use fast to refer to speed. Fast has been its own antonym since the 13th century, which goes to show that Janus words have been with us—and will continue to be with us—for a long time.
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Saw a blurb for a book
Sam Spade meets Blade Runner in the new lesfic series, The Cassie Tam Files! When PI Cassie Tam is hired to investigate the death of a Virtual Reality junkie, she thinks it’ll be easy money. But the more she digs, the more things don’t seem to add up, and soon, she finds herself knee deep in a murder investigation. And that’s just the start of her problems …

Because my mind is 'different' I read Reality and Realty as the same word.... Well it used to be the same spelling back in the 1500s.
Word Origin and History for realty
n.
1660s, "real estate," from earlier meaning (1540s) "real possession," earlier "reality" (mid-15c.), from real (adj.) + -ty (2). Cf. reality.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper


Soooooo.... how was real estate done in the 1500s for the regular non-noble population?
I found this:

http://www.globalfinancialdata.com/gfdblog/?p=3994
Read more... )
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http://www.dictionary.com/e/s/name-that-body-part/?param=wotd-email&click=4frirb&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Live%20WOTD%20Recurring%202017-11-22&utm_term=wordoftheday#the-human-temple

Glabella the tract of land between the eyebrows.

Rasceta are the little crinkly wrinkles or creases at the wrists (with hands palm-up).
- most people have 3, starting at the base of the palm. The first is an indication of health, the second prosperity, and the third influence in the community. A few have a 4th rascette line, meaning that you'll live beyond 100.

Philtrum is the groove that runs from the nose to the top of the upper lip. In Latin philtrum means “love charm.”

Gnathion- a witch is characterized by a long pointy nose and an often equally pointy gnathion.It's the lowest point of the midpoint of the lower jaw, also known as the upside-down peak of the chinny-chin-chin.

Axilla = armpit.

Canthus (pl. canthi)the outer point at which the upper and lower lids meet. Also the inner corner.

Purlicue- Make an "L" shape with your thumb and forefinger and the space between is the purlicue.

Tragus the bouncy, resistant cartilage that protrudes just outside the ear hole.

Hallux is the most weight-bearing toe of the foot, the big toe.

Lunula thw crescent-shaped milky arc at the base of the fingernail.

Frenum the stringy thing,membrane under the tongue. It restricts the tongue’s movement so it’s not flopping down the gullet.

Anatomical snuffbox the triangular-shaped depression at the base the thumb (with fingers fully extended) forming a perfect dimple or hollow for users to put snuff for sniffing.

Dimples of venus twin depressions sometimes visible on the small of the back or above the base of the spine.
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Excerpt from "A Wizard's Dozen: Stories of the Fantastic" edited by Michael Stearns

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51uuylmvGlL._SX340_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

wizard's dozen
1. any magical number from eleven to fifteen
2. the charmed numeral that gives a wizard's spell its power
3. the number of teachers at a wizards' school



What is a wizard?

A wizard is a mage, a wonder maker, a person who injects a jolt of the marvelous into the everyday. There are wizards everywhere, though these days they've traded in their magic shops and their spellbooks for libraries and storybooks. Today's wizards wield paintbrushes or pens or typewriters or computers instead of wands.

...Mage --- image --- imagination.
That is enough for any wizard.



..... Or is it?
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Normally, on my long-distance walks, anoesis descends within a few miles: the mental tape loop of infuriating resentments, or inane pop lyrics, or nonce phrases gives way to the greeny-beige noise of the outdoors.
-- Will Self, Psychogeography, 2007

Noun: a state of mind consisting of pure sensation or emotion without cognitive content.

I do this A LOT.... or maybe I'm just tired.
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Feculent - Relating to feces, specifically something smelling like feces or sharing common traits with feces.

Feculence - Full of foul or impure matter; fecal.

Diplo- Double

What a fun way, descriptive and avoiding censorship, of current Presidential political speech.

*laughing* but better than I thought because my first thought was that diplo had to do with something done with the tongue, lingus, which was prurient.

Aaaaaaand now in the middle of the show that carried this word ALL of my cable channels are no longer working.
If I were paranoid....

word definition - on a mug
One side has the word, one side has the definition. Microwave and dishwasher safe. Lotsa space for your liquids.

*laughing* My coffee is better than that.
Just in case I want to buy this.... https://urbandictionary.store/products/mug?defid=529344

Thalassa

Apr. 18th, 2017 11:09 am
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Thalassa

Thalassa (mythology) ("sea"), a primordial Greek sea goddess
Thalassa (moon), a moon of the planet Neptune

And one person told me that she'd been told that Thalassa was the sound of the sea in Greek.

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