What Word Did You Learn Today?

[Neal Pomea]

baseball hat

All my life it's been a baseball cap, not a baseball hat, but I am assured rudely on Reddit and elsewhere that a cap is a kind of hat (I knew that) and I am given a link to the Wikipedia article on hats.

Has a generation lost the meaning of the word cap?

[Tim McG]

What Word Did You Learn Today?

Teabonics

To wit:

Edited 2 Apr 2010 by GoodSpeak

[BeBop]

What Word Did You Learn Today?

I could tell you, but my mom would probably wash my mouth out with soap again.

[Rosco]

I learned a sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

The English language is a strange and wonderful thing sometimes.

[medjuck]

peculate. (I thought they'd left off the initial "s". ) Nope, it's in the dictionary.

[GA Russell]

peasant

I thought that it referred to rural poverty but it does not.

[kinuta]

anzan - safe delivery of a baby

[kinuta]

tozen no mukui o ukeru - get your comeuppance.

[Spontooneous]

Astrobleme. It was on a highway sign in Oklahoma.

[Rooster_Ties]

Pettifog

Saw it in quote by John Stewart in this story. What a cool word; I hope to remember it when I have a chance to use it.

[BillF]

Lot of comment in the British media this week about "innit" being included in a new edition of a dictionary.

Used particularly in London at the end of questions, it's a contraction of "isn't it" and sounds OK in "It's big, innit?", but more surprising in "I'm going there tomorrow, innit?"

[Neal Pomea]

"Informationist," to replace the word "librarian."

I don't get this fetish for everything i. iPod. iPhone. iMac. iPad. The library graduate school at the University of Maryland even changed its name a few years ago to the iSchool.

[aparxa]

Alice-blue.

Thank you F. Scott Fitzgerald

[aparxa]

Slumber Party

Thank you Pixar Studios

[JSngry]

Alice-blue.

Thank you F. Scott Fitzgerald

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-86NkXX46kc

[BERIGAN]

Thanks, but I would rather look at Mitzi!

Is Milfalicious in the dictionary yet???

Edited 22 May 2011 by BERIGAN

[porcy62]

Cold Turkey, one week without cigarettes now.

Think I'll get another beer.

[Christiern]

I thought I was going to start a thread 'What Word Did You Forget Today?, but I realize it would be very very short.

Not necessarily. I, for example, forgot what I forgot.

[BruceH]

Pettifog

Saw it in quote by John Stewart in this story. What a cool word; I hope to remember it when I have a chance to use it.

I've only heard it used up til now as "pettifogging details"---it is a cool word, has a Dickensian ring to my ear.

[BillF]

Pettifog

Saw it in quote by John Stewart in this story. What a cool word; I hope to remember it when I have a chance to use it.

I've only heard it used up til now as "pettifogging details"---it is a cool word, has a Dickensian ring to my ear.

Yes, I'm sure it's Dickensian - IIRC original meaning was raising trivial objections so as to slow down opponent's case in court and, judging by Bleak House where a law case lasts over 20 years, those lawyers must have been pretty good at it! Again IIRC, a similar word is chicanery. Chicanes are used in motor racing and on urban streets to slow the pace of traffic. Said they were going to build some in the next street, but no chance of that now in the face of massive public spending cuts.

Edited 23 May 2011 by BillF

[aparxa]

Vigilante.

Thank you Michael Caine

[aparxa]

Corsage.

Thank you College Humor

[JSngry]

eupeptic

[Late]

I'm guessing there are some board members here, like myself, who are fascinated by etymology, or word histories. Just yesterday, I reread (I had actually read it before, but had forgotten) the word history to "cappuccino." There's a Jackie McLean connection! OK, I'm going to type out what my dictionary states about cappuccino's word history:

"The history of the word cappuccino exemplifies how words can develop new senses because of resemblances that the original coiners of the terms might not have dreamed possible. The Capuchin order of friars, established after 1525, played an important role in bringing Catholicism back to Reformation Europe. Its Italian name came from the long pointed cowl, or cappuccino, "hood," that was worn as part of the order's habit. The French version of cappuccino was capuchin (now capucin), from which came English Capuchin. The name of this pious order was later used as the name (first recorded in English in 1785) for a type of monkey with a tuft of black cowl-like hair. In Italian, cappuccino went on to develop another sense, "espresso coffee mixed or topped with steamed milk or cream," so called because the color of the coffee resembled the color of the habit of a Capuchin friar. The first use of cappuccino in Enligh is recorded in 1948."

Whew!

[paul secor]

Came across "praxis" - 1. a: exercise or practice of an art, science, or skill b: customary practive or conduct 2 practical application of a theory - in a book I'm reading. Prior to this, I only knew praxis as a Greek record label that released recordings by Cecil and the AEC.