tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25579542187601616202024-03-14T15:30:45.633+11:00Words all Aroundparlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.comBlogger246125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-62305240740557785762022-10-13T21:09:00.001+11:002022-10-13T21:09:05.719+11:00the origin of the word grotesque Since the advent of the Corona virus and all the subsequent problems, I don't yet feel like travelling. However, one of the places I would one day like to see is the Domus Aurea of Nero in Rome.I was reminded of it today, when I received my regular text from Delanceyplace.com. This email consists of excerpts from books, and today's was from Haunted, by Leo Braudy. It was a discussion of&parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-18912260451168594602022-07-13T17:15:00.006+10:002022-07-13T17:18:56.495+10:00the benefits of research in a second language It has been a long time since I put anything new here. I'll just write a quick post to keep the blog alive. At the beginning of the long lockdowns here in Victoria, Australia, I, like many others, was looking for some intellectual stimulation to help me deal with the stress.It occurred to me to take up my study of German again, after many decades of not reading or speaking the languageparlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-63181875869529621202022-04-28T02:59:00.002+10:002022-04-28T03:00:42.540+10:00what a rigmarole! I was visiting a blog called Misadventures of Widowhood and wanted to comment. In one of those mysterious internetty-occurrences, I had to sign out of Blogger in order to make my comment and I wrote about the rigmarole involved. Well, I had thought I was going to use that term, but after trying rigamarole, rigmorale, rigmorole, I had to admit to myself that I didn't know how to spell parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-53645806060056974902022-01-01T15:54:00.002+11:002022-01-01T15:54:41.770+11:00a frantic start to 2022 I titled this post as if I'm frantically running around on the first day of 2022, but obviously I'm actually sitting at my computer doing nothing special. However, seeing it's a new year, I thought I'd like to resume writing posts - perhaps only occasionally. As my new puppy was racing past after pinching yet another sock from the dirty clothes basket, she seemed rather frenetic. parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-50417010516338798292021-03-27T22:03:00.002+11:002021-03-27T22:03:34.370+11:00 I noticed a sign locally saying 'Mercedes Benz' and wondered if there would be any connection in the 'Benz' part with the word 'benzine'. A quick search of The Online Etymology Dictionary came up with the word spelled as 'benzene', but as having been coined by the chemist Eilhardt Mitscherlich as 'Benzin'. He had obtained it from a distillation of benzoic acid. On Quora there's a parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-6105263121259047452020-01-12T21:39:00.000+11:002020-01-12T21:44:30.392+11:00Just a jiffyThis morning, on ABC Radio Melbourne, the presenter was having fun with 'useless facts'. I love useless information, because it's never actually useless.
They talked about the word jiffy. It turns out that this term has a couple of specific meanings, apart from its handiness in referring to an indeterminate short period of time. I looked around on the Net and found this link to its meaning in parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-31838621098329344672020-01-11T22:29:00.001+11:002020-01-11T22:33:12.821+11:00New Year, new postFirst post of 2020 - hopefully not the only one!
Many months ago, a bothersome sales rep managed to corral me into listening to his spiel about a body lotion, and the small sachet he gave me as a sample has been sitting on my chest of drawers, waiting for me to use it. (I'm not going to waste it, because I'm a fanatic about making use of all the world's resources, even a three-centimetre square parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-69113278903092748642019-06-18T22:39:00.000+10:002019-06-18T22:42:30.401+10:00Surprising origin of the word grotesqueSitting in the waiting room at my doctor's surgery, I read an article in an old edition of National Geographic and was surprised to learn the origin of the word grotesque.
The article was a revisiting of the life and achievements of the emperor Nero, a bad guy by anyone's measure, but apparently a man with an artistic vision that resulted in an amazing palace, one largely open for the common parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-84688614861244453592019-02-28T21:18:00.000+11:002019-02-28T21:23:07.644+11:00opposite of widdershinsA friend and I were sharing a nice pot of tea in a new teashop in Ivanhoe today and she made sure to turn the teapot a few times before pouring the first cup. We both agreed it's traditional to turn the pot widdershins.
In preparing this post, I had a quick look around the internet and came across a hilarious conversation on reddit about pot-turning. Here's one of the comments (obviously parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-84107440477645237702019-02-04T02:15:00.000+11:002019-02-04T02:23:06.728+11:00nurses nourish usRecently on FaceBook I came across an advertisement promoting respect for the profession of nursing. Hilarious, but with a serious message.
I was reminded of that advertisement when I came across the word nurstle on a site where you can get help in solving crossword puzzles. The meaning was given as: 'Nurstle, to nurse. See noursle.' Noursle was defined as 'To nurse; to rear; to bring up.'&parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-3479313440567373432018-12-26T20:52:00.000+11:002018-12-26T20:52:05.776+11:00Trying to think like a cryptic puzzlerHaving recently immersed myself in David Astle's book Rewording the Brain, I keep noticing the intricacies of words as I see or hear them.
Just for my own enjoyment I'm going to keep a list here of ideas that pop into my head. I'm intending to come back to this post and add to it.
So...
prancer - Topless dancer uses PR to become a famous hoofer.
emulate - copy a bird dead (Hmm... this one parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-3670424284447346792018-12-25T20:44:00.000+11:002018-12-25T20:44:03.346+11:00Cryptic crosswords as food for the brainA friend bought me a copy of David Astle's new book, Rewording the Brain and I'm loving it.
It's written in three sections. Part One discusses the value of puzzling for maintaining brain function. Part Two is an examination of the main types of clues we could expect in a cryptic puzzle. Part Three is a selection of puzzles with ascending levels of difficulty plus assistance in solving them.
parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-12911521506101804732018-04-12T15:56:00.000+10:002018-04-12T15:56:10.954+10:00incunabulaI've been reading The Diary of a Bookseller.
Yes, I do realise this is an awful photo of the book cover, but it's the best I was willing to do, given my poor photography skills.
It's a fun read, but also informative. I'll be careful next time I bother a bookseller by entering his or her shop to browse. (It's a bit like primary schools. They're great places to teach, but it's quite parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-33615150565097311802018-03-13T21:16:00.001+11:002018-12-25T20:51:34.845+11:00beseech and beseek
Yesterday's cryptic crossword clue was: Begged Hugo Best to
reform.
Okay, I could get that, especially with the help of Andy's Anagram Solver.
The answer was besought.
I don't believe I've ever before come across this verb in
the past tense. It occurred to me it sounded as if it should be the past tense
of beseek, as in the similar verb seek - sought - have sought.
There's no parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-40583762367544491482018-03-10T20:36:00.001+11:002018-03-10T20:44:55.956+11:00Walking the streets in fits and startsMy dog Penny and I set off briskly. After all, we hadn't had breakfast yet, but given the prediction of a hot day, we were trying to beat the heat. What was this? Oh yes, an interesting tree to sniff, and grass that might contain some recent pee-mails by local dogs.
We proceeded. And stopped again. Lamp-posts are always fascinating.
And so it went, around the streets.
This surely parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-1600564532018409422018-03-07T23:04:00.000+11:002018-03-07T23:07:12.793+11:00Deans as leaders of a group of tenI am reading a book by Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, A Spirituality for the 21st Century.
I find it interesting that a manual written many hundreds of years ago has so much to tell us about how to live a measured life. Joan Chittister's commentary explains how we can learn from Benedict's wisdom.
The idea is to read one section each day, but I've fallen behind and today arrived at parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-33195969939673068822017-08-21T21:23:00.001+10:002017-08-21T21:23:24.730+10:00The Persian LanguageI was in a shop today where two women were taking dressmaking measurements of a young girl's body and the one with the tape measure was calling the numbers to the woman who was writing them down. I was fascinated by the lovely sound of the words and tried to figure out what language group their speech might belong to. I couldn't hear anything that sounded like any numbers I know.
Of course, I parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-14040039052111644462017-05-15T19:48:00.000+10:002017-05-15T19:49:37.251+10:00when sadness is heavy upon our soulThe word sadiron landed in my inbox today as my daily mail from A Word a Day. The meaning of the word is
noun: a heavy flatiron pointed at both ends and having a detachable handle. And the etymology is 'From sad (obsolete senses of the word: heavy, solid) + iron Earliest documented use: 1759.
When I'm sad I do feel heavy, in every limb, so I can understand how this word came to have such aparlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-32114101593539909632017-05-11T20:58:00.000+10:002017-05-11T20:58:57.354+10:00imbricated roots I'm reading a book about plants and loving it. It lives up to the blurb inside the front cover:
From Ice Age cave art to cutting-edge research into how mimosas learn and remember, Mabey traces the history of our imaginative encounters with them [plants] - including his own.
How could I resist such an intriguing invitation to deepen my understanding of the myriad species that share this parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-36161116910928768842017-04-29T20:21:00.000+10:002017-04-29T20:23:15.068+10:00grocersI called in at a local fruit shop today to get some oranges for a favourite pumpkin soup recipe.
As I was squeezing the juice out of the oranges and zesting one of them, I thought about the fact that I call the proprietor of this type of shop a greengrocer, and I began to wonder what the connection is between a grocer and a greengrocer.
Once the soup was made, I looked at the Online Etymologyparlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-35735684628387835552017-04-23T19:22:00.000+10:002017-04-23T21:04:23.916+10:00Kind nature deserves our kindness in return
A friend said to me yesterday that she believes the most
important thing we can do in life is be kind. I was so taken with her remark
that I thought how wonderful it would be to sum up someone's life with the
epitaph 'She tried to be kind.'
And then, of course, I wondered about the origin of the word
kind.
The Online Etymology Dictionary says it is an adjective,
coming to us through parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-48122178158521845622017-04-05T19:41:00.000+10:002017-04-05T19:41:11.237+10:00Beautiful Universe, beautiful wordsA copy of Beautiful Universe appeared on our kitchen table recently, an old copy from 2010.
Leafing through it, I was captured by the glorious photos - but also enraptured by the gorgeous words. What's not to love about these?
anti-crepuscular
noctilucent
Leonids
moonbow
Sun pillar
Vulpecula
nebulosity
Thackeray's Globules
Albategnius
terminator line
Stephan's Quintet
pillars of creation
parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-35555139673242056492016-11-30T20:49:00.001+11:002016-11-30T20:59:13.204+11:00start and startleAs I was driving down the highway in the countryside recently, I had to stop for a pair of ducks taking their huge flock of babies across the road. (For some reason there are lots of baby ducks around this year.) After I moved on, I flashed my headlights at oncoming cars to warn them to take care and to be alert for something surprising on the road.
Continuing my journey, I wondered if anything parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-85371557292042909252016-09-26T20:03:00.001+10:002016-09-26T20:03:29.275+10:00Hengist and his horseOne of my all-time favourite books is '1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England', by W C Sellar.
It was indeed memorable for me, because more than a few of the dates and names stuck in my head and gave me a jolt of joy later in life when I studied history. Many a dry lecture was enlivened for me by a passing reference to Sellar's Important Dates and People.
My absolutely favourite parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2557954218760161620.post-60167521551115325862016-09-03T21:00:00.000+10:002016-09-03T21:00:37.972+10:00Alfie Dog stories win awardsI received an email from Alfie Dog publishers a few days ago. They are thrilled that all three of the stories they entered in the Write Well awards were selected as winners and will appear in an anthology soon, as an ebook or a print copy.
I didn't want to wait for the anthology, so I bought the three stories immediately and enjoyed them all. I can see why they were chosen.
I think it's parlancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11175843064324380048noreply@blogger.com0