Jump to content

What Word Did You Learn Today?


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 166
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

'Trending'

Think this must be Twitterspeak or something.

Noticed it on a very rare visit into a record shop yesterday evening (I managed 3 minutes!). Huge display under the heading 'What's Trending?' Presume it helps you make sure you are buying what everyone else is buying.

As annoying as 'Awesome'.

Edited by A Lark Ascending
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not really learned, as I don't know what it means: 'insagrievous'

It's in a tune title - ‘The girl with the insagrievous walk’.

Anyone know what it means?

MG

Seems like a portmanteau word. "Insa" meaning "lack of" or "not." Kind of a slangy way of saying her walk was not painful or sad to look at, that is, her walk was nice to watch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not really learned, as I don't know what it means: 'insagrievous'

It's in a tune title - ‘The girl with the insagrievous walk’.

Anyone know what it means?

MG

Seems like a portmanteau word. "Insa" meaning "lack of" or "not." Kind of a slangy way of saying her walk was not painful or sad to look at, that is, her walk was nice to watch.

Yeah, you could well be right. The tune itself may throw some light on this. It's by Edgar Hayes.

MG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apparently I was wrong, but I thought that "chyron" had to do with the optical trick used daily by TV weathermen, where they face a blue screen, and a second camera superimposes a map.

Nowadays, this is used on pro baseball telecasts. There appears to be a billboard behind the left-handed batter, when in fact it is a blue panel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm in the middle of Henry James' novel, The Princess Casamassima (perhaps not the best place to be). Last night I came across the word "lercaated."

I've never heard of the word, and the dictionary yields no clue.

The word appears in a sentence spoken by a French exile to the ostensible hero: "Remember my child, I am incapable of drawing aside any veil you may have preferred to drop over your lercaated personality."

I have two thoughts: 1) it's a printer's error for "lacerated" or 2) it is some sort of hybrid French-ism. Neither thought seems entirely satisfactory. I don't have alternate editions of the novel to check text (I'm using Penguin Modern Classic pb edition; it's in Chapter 21). Maybe someone else knows this word?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Alterity.

Use in sentence: To do some work is to go the way which leads into alterity.

Wikipedia says: It is a philosophical term meaning "otherness", strictly being in the sense of the other of two (Latin alter). In the phenomenological tradition it is usually understood as the entity in contrast to which an identity is constructed, and it implies the ability to distinguish between self and not-self, and consequently to assume the existence of an alternative viewpoint.

Which clarifies absolutely nothing!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

cissexism

A debate at Oxford on abortion was cancelled because of objections by feminists who accused some people of cissexism. Had to go look it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender

Have heard cisalpine.

Had to look up extirpate. Read it many times, but didn't know the meaning exactly.

Edited by BillF
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Came across this in a Nabokov novel:

SOUGH- a sigh or deep breath, make a moaning, whistling, or rushing sound (as in the sea or forest).

This is an Old English/Middle English word, probably known to our UK contingent, but I found it hard to place at first glance, although context was indicative. I suppose it is related to, or a variant, of SIGH, or vice versa.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

"Peripeteia /ˌpɛrəpɨˈtaɪ.ə/ (Greek: περιπέτεια) is a reversal of circumstances, or turning point. The term is primarily used with reference to works of literature. The English form of peripeteia is peripety."

This is the name of the 4th piece of Schoenberg's "Five Pieces for Orchestra", which I was just listening to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Bricolage: Construction or creation from a diverse range of available things.

Reading a biography and the sentence goes: "But Whitefield was not averse to a kind of spiritual bricolage in his reading habits."

I think it's French for what we call DIY. Do you say DIY in the States, too?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bricolage: Construction or creation from a diverse range of available things.

Reading a biography and the sentence goes: "But Whitefield was not averse to a kind of spiritual bricolage in his reading habits."

I think it's French for what we call DIY. Do you say DIY in the States, too?

We do use that acronym, not really in an education sense (at least, that's how it seems to me). I think we would use the word eclectic to describe DIY referring to education.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bricolage: Construction or creation from a diverse range of available things.

Reading a biography and the sentence goes: "But Whitefield was not averse to a kind of spiritual bricolage in his reading habits."

I think it's French for what we call DIY. Do you say DIY in the States, too?

We do use that acronym, not really in an education sense (at least, that's how it seems to me). I think we would use the word eclectic to describe DIY referring to education.

People use DIY here to refer to doing household jobs - such as painting, decorating or repairs - yourself, rather than call out - and pay - a specialist.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bricolage: Construction or creation from a diverse range of available things.

Reading a biography and the sentence goes: "But Whitefield was not averse to a kind of spiritual bricolage in his reading habits."

I think it's French for what we call DIY. Do you say DIY in the States, too?

We do use that acronym, not really in an education sense (at least, that's how it seems to me). I think we would use the word eclectic to describe DIY referring to education.

People use DIY here to refer to doing household jobs - such as painting, decorating or repairs - yourself, rather than call out - and pay - a specialist.

That's how we colonists use it as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...