Tag Archives: English

New Words Learned

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Over the Christmas holidays I dug out my dictionary and learned a few new words. The first was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day a couple of weeks ago. The second is the word I’d have used.

Coruscate

1 : to give off or reflect light in bright beams or flashes : sparkle
2 : to be brilliant or showy in technique or style

Scintillate

1 : to emit sparks : spark
2 : to emit quick flashes; sparkle (stars scintillate in the sky)
3. to throw off, as a spark or as sparkling flashes (scintillate witticisms)

Here’s tale I wrote to use my new word:

Lacey stood by the entry to the restaurant and smiled as her new friend walked through the door.

“Hope you haven’t been waiting long?”

“No, just got here.” Lacey turned as the hostess came toward them. “We’re ready to be seated now.”

She and the other single working girl had seen each other different times at this downtown café, each one dining alone. One day when the two of them arrived at the same time, Lacey asked the other girl if she’d like to share a table. It was a savvy move on her part; the two hit it off well.

She learned that the young woman’s name was Sarina and she worked at an office building down the block from Lacey. They were almost the same age, both came from small towns to find a job in the city. Each of them enjoyed reading historical mysteries, so were soon comparing notes about their favourite authors and suggestion books for the other. When they parted they agreed to meet every Monday for lunch; today was their third time.

They followed their hostess and she seated them at table right next to a large group. Their orders were quickly taken and they had a scintillating conversation about office politics as they waited for their food.

At first the clank of cutlery and murmurs of conversation were all they heard from the next table, but after those dinners were done and their plates were cleared away, they started making witty remarks that made Lacey and Sarina grin. They caught on that it was one fellow’s thirtieth birthday and he proved himself good at repartee as the various remarks were fired at him.

His friends were teasing him about “soon needing a cane, having dentures fitted, buying a toupee” and such. When he noticed Lacey and Sarina chuckling over one comment, he winked at them and told everyone his eyesight hadn’t dimmed yet. He could still appreciate beauty when he saw it.

Someone suggested they’d seen the one beauty before. A few details were exchanged and Lacey was excited to learn that this group of people worked for an insurance company three floors above her office and one of the women rode the same bus to work.

A few minutes later two waiters came with dessert plates and a third followed, carrying a huge piece of cake with a sparkler coruscating on the top. At a signal everyone began to sing “Happy Birthday.” Lacey and Sarina joined in, happy to enjoy a moment of camaraderie with the unknown group.

Before they left, Lacey invited her fellow bus rider to join them for lunch next Monday. Sarina seconded the offer after she noticed a paperback poking out of the other woman’s purse. Another historical mysteries reader.

Wars, Words and Testy Judges

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Back in the mists of ancient history a Norman army from France crossed the English Channel and battled the Anglo kings at Hastings.

Back then the Brits lacked a BBC and a Winston Churchill to rally the troops with:
“We’ll fight them at sea and we’ll fight them on land; we’ll fight them in the fields and we’ll fight them in the ditches…etc. We will never surrender.” In those days of poor communications one doubts there was any kind of significant country-wide clarion call of “Rally the troops!”

Consequently the Normans took control of England. Lacking a successful counter attack and rout by the inhabitants, they claimed everything, grabbed all the castles, fortresses and whatever other good stuff they spied— as invaders are wont to do. They settled down to enjoy the spoils and make the Anglo-Saxons work for them.

They brought with them many weapons of war — and their language. There began at this point a steady trickle of French into the Saxonized English of the day:
“Non, non, stupide anglaise chef! Quelle offence! Such ignorance. This is NOT a spitted cow. This is a roti de BOEUF. And this is NOT pig. Non, non, this is PORC. We do not have zee PIG to feed us at our table!”

The phlegmatic cook, having sprung from an old English “Farmer in the dell” lineage, hadn’t adopted the Saxon swine yet — which was just as well. She didn’t do so well with roti de boeuf, either, and slurred it to roast beef. She was pleased, though, to be elevated from cook to chef. (Wouldn’t you be?)

Fast forward almost a millennium, to where a Yank calling himself Fandango gives us the word prompt: PENDING.

Thus today we’re prompt-writing about this word, originally forced onto the French by the Roman conquerors of Gaul, then delivered via the sword and the trickle to the Brits. As Norman rule was suspendu over Britain, this word slowly wormed its way into the emerging English language. By now it’s established itself in oodles of English subdivisions — much like Norman DNA in general. And from there it’s crossed the Atlantic.

Definitions given by my Collins Canadian Dictionary, First Edition:

Pending:
– while waiting for
– not yet decided or settled
– imminent

Impending:
something (esp something bad) about to happen

Suspend:
– hang (something) from a high place
– cause something to remain floating or hanging
– cause to stop temporarily
– to remove (someone) temporarily from a job or position, usually as a punishment

Depend:
– to put trust in; rely on
– to be influenced or determined (by)
– to rely (on) for income

Expend:
– to spend or use up (something)

Real Life Uses:

Judge Smith was motoring sedately along the highway, expending serious thought on the impending decision over custody of the Watkins’ dog. Considering the vicious ongoing battle for ownership, she’d suspended all visiting rights pending a dog psychologist’s report on the dog’s behaviour in the presence of its master and its mistress.

Little did Judge Smith know that Sam Slatter had expended a lot of energy intoxicating himself on a suspension of fermented barley and hops, and was heading toward a STOP sign to her left.

The county had suspended a flashing red light above the intersection to doubly warn motorists that they MUST, MUST come to a complete stop at the white line. How well Sam perceived this sign and/or light was dependent on how clear his vision was. And it wasn’t. Sad to say, his befuddled brain’s reaction time was as impaired as the rest of him.

The impending arrival of Sam’s vehicle was not noticed by the judge, distracted as her thoughts were. She only caught a glimpse of the oncoming vehicle on her left periphery and the question flashed through her mind, “Will it stop?”

Sam made a brave attempt to brake when the Judge’s vehicle swept in front of him, but the momentum of his vehicle couldn’t be checked. There was a dull crunch as he clipped the tail lights and rear fender of the Judge’s car.

Several days later Sam’s fog had mercilessly left him to his fate. Worse, he could see clearly now that the person whose car he had damaged was sitting in the judgement seat above him. What could he say? What could he do but sniffle as his license was suspended indefinitely, pending a police report on his past behaviour behind the wheel.

The Watkins’ case came up next. Worse luck for them, Judge Smith was in no mood to be patient. The dog was awarded to the husband’s aged uncle and all visiting rights were denied.

Word-lovers’ Camaraderie

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A word-lovers’ fiesta that forgottenman started in Judy Dykstra-Brown‘s post, Cellar Door, has led to me writing this poem as my repartee. While I’m normally one who prefers simple words, I get into the spirit of weighty-words now and then. Now this collocation can be my response to the Word of the Day prompt: CAMARADERIE.

NOTE: I’ve given definitions at the end, so you won’t have to look up these heavy-weights like I did. 🙂

Ode to Periphrasis

The persiflage of my propinquity
Thanksgiving afternoon
led to my iniquity
of falling asleep to the croon
of Uncle Freddie’s monologue,
his riparian success
at anadromous angling—
and somehow in the mess

I muttered words inchoate
that enthralled my kith and kin
disrupting Fred’s rodomontade
in the middle of his spin.
Then all ears were attentive
to what I might reveal
of dissolute behaviour
in my half-conscious spiel.

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Dictionary:
camaraderie – a spirit of friendly good-fellowship
repartee – a quick and witty reply
collocation – the act or result of arranging or placing together.
Specifically: arrangement or conjoining of linguistic elements (such as words)

periphrasis – use of a longer phrasing in place of a possible shorter form
persiflage – frivolous bantering talk
monologue – a long speech monopolizing conversation
riparian – relating to the bank of a natural watercourse, river, lake, or tidewater
anadromous – ascending rivers from the sea for breeding –like salmon that go upriver to spawn
inchoate – imperfectly or partly formed, incoherent
rhodomontade – a bragging speech
dissolute – lacking restraint, especially in things thought of as vices

Ten More Days in Review

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Or: Life in the “I-Can’t-Keep-Up” Lane

Skipping the “time flies” lament, I’ve been occupied with several projects lately: turning the office upside-down — dear Hubby did most of that — emptying and refilling bookcases, and cooking at the Villa.

Last week I did Monday dinner, Tues & Thurs supper, Wed, Sat & Sun all day. Just one of those “seasons.” I only have three more single meals and one full day during the rest of the month. But when I am working so much, the place tends to occupy me even when I’m not there officially. One morning I did some grocery shopping for the place, plus I like to spend time helping the folks to put together jigsaw puzzles. When I go to the city I hunt for more puzzles for us to work on, mainly at Value Village. 🙂

As I said, Bob shifted some furniture around in our office. This started last weekend when we had hot water heater woes. Our hot water tank being in a cubbyhole inconveniently right beside where my desk sat. Desk must be moved. Then we decided to empty the one office bookcase and put it in the living room. Which meant removing the quite small bookcase I’d just put in the living room, and then moving the six-foot one four inches over, so the office one would fit in the newly-made space.

By the time this was done we had books piled all over. While rearranging the office, Bob decided to move his file cupboard (actually another bookcase) to where the office bookcase had once stood, then move his 2-drawer filing cabinet to that newly-vacated spot. The new small bookcase went where the filing cabinet was and my desk was given a quarter turn. On Friday, my day off, I decided to clear out some shelves in yet another narrow bookcase/cupboard because we have more books than places to put them.

During all this and between shifts at the Seniors’ Home, I managed to squeeze in six loads of laundry plus misc. housekeeping & food prep tasks. I also attended Sewing Circle Tuesday morning. Totally fell behind with blogging — and sometimes wondered if I should just take a long break. I decided to “light one candle” this morning and see how far I get.

Nanowrimo started Nov 1st at 12:01 am, but I’m giving it a miss this year. An e-mail acquaintance wants to see his book in print; I was brought into this project by a friend who asked me to edit it. I did that last year, but the book is stalled and I’ve been asked to see that it gets into print via Amazon Kindle Direct, like I did mine. I now have the manuscript, author bio and illustrations, so need to get working on this.

I’ve submitted two of my “Winnie and Raylene on Vacation” stories to the Critique Circle and they’ve been well liked, for the most part. Now I need to polish a few more, write a few more, and post them on CC. I’m finding it interesting, through critique comments, how some words call to mind certain pictures for readers.

For example, in one story I’ve posted, a couple of teens have stolen a car and, chased by police, crashed into a garage beside a residence. Police were at the crash site directing traffic. One writer couldn’t figure how it was crash site because crashes happen on roads. Another critique writer couldn’t get it that a high speed chase would ever go through a residential area. High speed chases only happened on busy city thoroughfares. I wrote “garage” and some people are asking, “Like a service station? What’s a service station doing in a residential area?” So I’m learning to be more precise. 🙂

One question really made me laugh. I’d written that the weather was abnormal in FL and “The odd snowflake was falling when Winnie and Raylene got off the plane in Tallahassee.” A critiquer from Hawaii asked, “What was odd about the snowflake?”

I explained that “the odd —“ is a colloquialism. (Only in Canada?) For us, odd means unusual, but it also means infrequent. “There was no crowd; only the odd person showed up at the Grand Opening.” Or, “She took the odd afternoon off to visit her mom at the nursing home.”

Is this an odd (i.e. strange) usage where you live?

More than the odd snowflake is falling today. We definitely have winter with a powerful wind from the north plastering us with fine snow. Our cats have ventured outside the odd time this morning, but only for a few minutes. They come in dusted with snow and are generally NOT happy.

Well, this is enough rambling for one post. Have a good week, everyone.

A Skunk, by any other name…

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The Word of the Day Challenge yesterday was IMPRESSIONABLE — and I missed it. I had a nice response figured out, too, but we took a trip to Moose Jaw to visit relatives and I didn’t have time to post it. Oh, well…my thoughts will keep for another day.

A fog blanketed the land yesterday morning when we started out, rather unusual considering how dry it’s been, but after an hour or so we were able to leave it behind us and enjoyed lovely warm sunshine for the rest of our trip. We had lunch with my sister, then stopped at the Public Library, and later visited with Bob’s cousin and wife. A good day!

The Word of the Day prompt this morning is: MEPHISTOPHALIAN

A huge word I will never have much use for, especially seeing it’s fictitious. Nevertheless, a bit of education never hurts, so I looked it up in Merriam-Webster online. Their definition:
Mephistophelian:
– of, or pertaining to, Mephistopheles
– wicked; fiendish
Mephistopheles:
– a chief devil in the Faust legend from the 1500s
Faust:
– a magician of German legend who enters into a compact with the devil
Faustian:
– of, relating to, resembling, or suggesting Faust
– especially: made or done for present gain without regard for future cost or consequences

Though I’ve never heard the word before, I’m too familiar with the concept. I’m sure every human being has been guilty at one time or another of doing something for present gain regardless of future consequences. For example, so-called little white lies get you off the hook at the moment, but you’re in for it when the person finds out the truth.

When you look up a word with Merriam-Webster, they kindly give you a list of several other words listed before and after the one you’ve looked up. Curious, I clicked on two of those other words, and discovered:

MEPHITIC:
– having a foul odor
MEPHITINE:
– of, or relating to…
Skunk.2nd

Bingo! Now here are words I can throw into a conversation from time to time, because we have seen indications of mephitine activity around our property.

If I get a whiff of skunk, now I can say, “There’s a mephitic odor lingering about our yard this morning.”
Or, “There’s evidence of mephitine harrassment in the night. Some predator got a deterrent drench.”
Or maybe, “Judging from the mephitine vapour wafting over the road, Monsieur Moufette has met his Waterloo.”
(Mind you, “met his Waterloo” has likely been branded as a cliché, along with “bit the dust.” I think “He’s toast” is still acceptable.)
But if I did make such high-brow statements, most of my friends would ask for a translation. So I might as well say that someone hit a skunk on the road last night.

Perhaps a person could put up a sign?
WARNING:
To all who wander around in the twilight bent on mischief. There is a risk of annoying one of the crepuscular creatures that pass through this yard. If you do, you may well receive a severe mephitine drenching.
(Squeezing in the RAGTAG daily prompt for today: DRENCH)

That ought to make tricksters think twice.
Skunk

 

Getting a Handle on Hairy

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Ragtag Daily Prompt word today: HIRSUTE

Some years back I thought that pursuit and hirsute were related. (And spelled the same.) Pursuit was what the chaser did and hursuit was what the chasee did. Hurried and harried, they fled from pursuit.

For example: a mouse or rabbit, in hirsute, dashed away from a fox or cat in pursuit.

In the case of male and female, the chased might wish to remain chaste, with the pursuer being the wooer. His pursuit was about pressing his suit (figuratively speaking) and she was all a-flurry in her hurry to outdistance his advances. (Pardon all my puns! I have this weakness. 😉 )

As you’ve likely discovered yourself, all good ignorance comes to an end at some point. I came across the word one day where my definition didn’t make any sense so I finally looked up the word, and learned that I’d been pursuing the wrong meaning. Not quite, though: the mouse and rabbit were hirsute (hairy) — but so were the fox and cat.

Knowing the word’s real meaning now, I can see that sheep are the perfect example of hirsute. And Pixabay provides me with this perfect illustration:

Hairy Sheep

Sheep are one of the few animals from which man can fashion his own apparel without killing the supply. By caring for and then shearing the sheep, carding, spinning, and weaving the wool into fabric, we’ve developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the docile creatures.

Philip Keller, in his book A Shepherd Looks at PSALM 23, talks about a problem unique to sheep, one that a shepherd must be ever on guard against: a sheep being cast down. A sheep with a heavy fleece, especially a ewe made even heavier with the lamb or twin lambs she’s carrying, may lay down and, trying to arise later, lose her balance. Then the animal can’t right itself. Old English shepherds called this “a cast down sheep” or “a cast sheep.”

The sheep will lie there terrified, feet flailing in the air as it frantically tries to right itself, until the shepherd comes to its rescue. Or until a predator finds it. Or until the gasses in its stomach build up and suffocate the sheep. Bad enough to lose a sheep, but losing an ewe means losing the lamb(s) she’s carrying and the income they’d bring.

No, a cast sheep is never a good scenario — except to a passing wolf. And we don’t want to go there.

Sheep were designed to be with man; in so many ways they need a shepherd. And man has used the hirsute quality of sheep to keep himself alive on frigid nights. A neat working relationship.

Sheep + lamb

And with sheep for sure there’s no pursuit in hirsute. They come when the shepherd calls.