Grown-Up (Part Deux)

Here's the next bit...hopefully you aren't finding this (my penchant for wordsmithing) tedious?

Goodness.

Did you know that, although it is impossible to count the number of words in the English language, there are - at a conservative minimum - over 250,000 distinct entries?

interrobang: ahh okay so this one actually isn't in the OED...but Oxford isn't right absolutely all of the time (hmph) and occasionally we leet individuals just have to take defining the world into our own hands.  This is an interrobang.  Note: not to be confused with an irony mark.
 
limerence: there once was a man from Nantucket...hm?  Oh sorry...this one means 'the state of being romantically infatuated or obsessed with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one's feelings but not primarily for a sexual relationship.'  Leaving college means leaving words like 'crush' behind, apparently.
 
mallemaroking: if I can once use this word in context in my lifetime, I will be able to die happy.  It refers to the boisterous and drunken carousing of sailors aboard whaling ships near Greenland (or other extreme northern waters).  Take that, aglet.
 
obstreperous: clamorous, boisterous, vociferous.  Noisy and difficult to control.  I like the feel of this one in my mouth.

petrichor: oh, this is the word you never knew you always needed; it is the term which describes the pleasant smell of fresh rain after warm weather.
 
pogonotrophy: hint 1 - the one thing that Sidney Crosby fails at...hint 2 - it's a Greek word.  Yes, pogonotrophy is the cultivation or growing of a beard.  (It's playoff season, baby!)
 
qualtagh: the first person one meets after leaving home.  Traditionally, the first person one meets after leaving home on a special occasion (Christmas, New Years), but any sort of occasion works these days.  Also, I believe this just might be the first word with Celtic roots on my list!
 
runcible: If you know Edward Leary, you will be familiar with runcible spoons.  Somehow, my five-year-old brain thought runcible had something to do with those pointy grapefruit utensils, but the truth is rather stranger.  These days, 'runcible' is most commonly used in connection with 'spoon', which is in fact a specialized utensil...you guessed it, a spork.  However, Mr Leary most likely coined this useful word by altering 'rouncival', which means anything from a type of pea (the veggie, yes), to a type of wart, to a heavy fall, to a type of alliterative verse, to a woman of large build and boisterous or loose manners.  A dangerous sort of word.
 
schadenfreude: Oh, the Germans.  If anyone could have more words than us English-speakers, it's them, with their lovely habit of compounding.  Anyway, we English-speakers have borrowed schadenfreude - as I am sure you know - in order to describe the malicious enjoyment of the misfortune of others. 

spanghew: transcribing directly from the dictionary...to throw or jerk violently; to cause (a toad or frog) to fly into the air.  You read that right, we've got a special word for amphibian-tossing.  Hooray!
 
syzygy: this one's got mathematical, biological, astronomical, theological, and poetic definitions, which makes things a little confusing.  I had a professor tell me though that it essentially connotes a union in which the sum exceeds the parts.  Which I like.  Plus, three y's!
 
tmesis: at last, a word to describe words!  Sadly, in English we don't do this so much...add infixes, I mean.  In fact, the only two instances of tmesis I can think of at the moment are abso-bloody-lutely and in-f***ing-credible. 
 
tyromancy: not a typo!  You are going to love this one, though - divination by means of cheese.  I know, but it's not a joke...it's in the dictionary!  Sadly, it's now a bit obsolete...we must bring it back.  Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn and fondue-pot bubble? 

ultracrepidarian: everyone knows one.  Here we have the official term for a know-nothing know-it-all.  Throw this word at them next time and see how they react, I dare you.

zugunruhe: I'm ending on this one because, well, it's the only word I've got that starts with the letter z, but also because of context...it means, quite succinctly, migratory restlessness.  At the end of my university career, with nowhere particular to go, it's what I'm feeling.  Back to Pittsburgh tomorrow!

Grown-up Words

Moving on, moving up, moving out...here is a somewhat lengthy list of words to savor (or to use in your next game of Scrabble).  No, they aren't all in my everyday vocabulary.  They are all legitimate, though; I verified them all in the OED (although not all of the definitions are Oxonian).

You can have the first half today, and some more tomorrow.

aglet: I know, I know.  It's just a warm-up.  But isn't it strange that we have words for such specific things as the ends of shoelaces?  And did you know that an aglet technically ought to be made of metal?  And! did you know there's a verb aglet, 'to put a tag on a point'...what does that even mean?

amaranthine: of or pertaining to mythological flowers that never fade; also, this color.

ameliorate: I think I like this one because it sounds like my name.  Sure, call me vain...it means to make, become, or grow better; to improve.
 
aplomb: confidence, self-possession.  Oh, you knew it already?  But did you know it's related to plumbers?  Yes, plumbers and plumb-lines (apparently steadfast little articles that invariably know the perpendicular) have lead - that is, Pb - in common, and some semantic extension does the rest.  Whatever, next word!
 
callipygian: of, pertaining to, or having well-shaped or finely developed buttocks.  Sometimes the OED just says it best.
 
cleave: I've already been over this one earlier in the year, but I'm just maintaining my position here that I like how it can mean either to cling together or to be forced apart.
 
cripes: it seems this one is a 'vulgar perversion of Christ'...but I do love all of these antiquated profanities... zounds (God's wounds), egad (a/by God), gadzooks (God's ??? no one has any clue), jeepers (Jesus), etc.
 
dandiprat: basically what you'd think - a little urchin boy, a contemptible fellow...or a dwarf, or a small coin - yeah, so it's what you'd think.  basically.

defenestrate: to throw out of a window.  You probably know this one, too, but it's a classic and I don't think we should exclude it just for the sake of familiarity.  For some reason, this word reminds me of babies, bathwater, and Falstaff.  I'm not sure why.
 
erinaceous: like a hedgehog.  Enough said.
 
exsibilation: hissing a person off of a stage, which is different from one person on a stage hissing to another...as Medea would have to Jason - "esosa se esosa hos issasi hosoi"...either way, good solid onomatopoeic alliteration. 
 
facetious: me.  No, really...so in the original French, this one means witty and pleasant.  These days, it's got slightly more of a negative spin - there's a feeling of flippancy that hasn't been there in the past.  The evolution of language, eh?

gamine: another one of those French-turned-English words, so much so that it's got two forms - gamin for boys and gamine for girls.  The two forms, strangely, have slightly separate meanings...gamine connotes an 'attractively pert', slim, mischevious, and generally elfin girl or young woman; a gamin isn't so much a Puck but rather an Oliver Twist.

ginglyform: hinge-shaped!  Isn't that fabulous?

Some Random Inspiration

It's not October...and there's no battle...

But since when did a little Shakespeare (via Mr K. Brannaugh) not help?



These wounds I had on Crispin's Day!

Idle Dogs

…He somehow could only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working. (from The Wind in the Willows)

Is it true?  I'm so close to finding out!

Interlude

Things are about to be a bit hairy around here...brace yourselves for single-line entries and lots of YouTube gems.

Snap Crackle Pop

Okay so everyone probably already knows this one, but I am still getting some ugly looks, and there are a lot of rumors circulating, so let's just put it to bed once and for all.

[drumroll please...] What's behind a cracking joint?

Why yes, now you ask, I have been feeling the teensiest bit stressed, and my fingers and neck sometimes crackle under the pressure.  And while it may sound ooky and unpleasant, there's no evidence that it's (a) giving me arthritis, (b) swelling/ enlarging, or (c) gradually immobilizing my joints.  Hurrah!

There are several possible causes for what exactly is making that unseemly noise, which I shall now lay out for you.  The primary postulate is that the snapping sound is the sound of gasses being released from between joints.  I don't particularly want gassy joints, so I'm all for this theory.  Apparently there are fluid-filled cavities in the spaces between bones, and when these are stretched, squished, or contorted, air is rapidly released with a pop.  Like my mom cracking her chewing gum. This is the most accepted explanation, but a couple others are noted - and for the sake of completeness, I'll note them as well.  Firstly, scar tissue or ligaments scraped quickly across protruding bones might make a raspy snapping noise (argh bad!)...something like a rubber band being snapped, I'd imagine.  Or, ligaments stretching quickly might make a noise (as you can imagine); so, too, would actually breaking the connective bits between bones.

I'm not sure about these other explanations, though.  While I'm sure they would be noisy, they would also most likely be painful, and I'm not experiencing any pain at all.  In fact, twisting around in my chair between physics problems has quite a "palliative effect"...so I'm going to treat joint cracking as the equivalent of an ossean antiflatulent.

B Flat

You guys can have some fun with this whilst I study like mad for these last two finals...

Peace out!