Word of the Day

Taphophile:

Tombstone tourist (otherwise known as a "taphophile", "cemetery enthusiast", cemetery tourists or "grave hunter" or "graver") describes an individual who has a passion for and enjoyment of cemeteries.[1] This involves epitaphs, gravestone rubbing, photography, art, and history of (famous) deaths. The term has been most notably used by author and biographer Scott Stanton as the title of his 2003 book and his former website[2] on the lives and gravesites of famous musicians.

..via Wikipedia

WWFTD: Insanable

[fr. L. insanabilis < sano, to heal]
obs. that cannot be healed or remedied; incurable

"They think them.. so insanable, that they deserve
not to be admonished."
- Wm. Morice, Coena Quasi Koine (1657)

Semantics

Semantics (from Greek sēmantiká, neuter plural of sēmantikós) is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata.

Linguistic semantics is the study of meaning that is used by humans to express themselves through language. Other forms of semantics include the semantics of programming languages, formal logics, and semiotics.

The word "semantics" itself denotes a range of ideas, from the popular to the highly technical. It is often used in ordinary language to denote a problem of understanding that comes down to word selection or connotation. This problem of understanding has been the subject of many formal inquiries, over a long period of time, most notably in the field of formal semantics. In linguistics, it is the study of interpretation of signs or symbols as used by agents or communities within particular circumstances and contexts. Within this view, sounds, facial expressions, body language, and proxemics have semantic (meaningful) content, and each has several branches of study. In written language, such things as paragraph structure and punctuation have semantic content; in other forms of language, there is other semantic content.

I love words. I love that they have defined meanings, that they can be used in both a literal or figurative manner. I love that they are malleable, and can change over time to incorporate different ideas and meanings. Constantly in my life I am making up new bastardizations of words, or new meanings based on inside jokes; names, verbs, nouns, everything. I hold words very closely to me, as words are mostly thrown around without thought to effect or interpretation. It has been a day of words, a week of trying to standardize the way in which multiple people use and are affected by specific words and their meanings.

I've sat before in a large group and argued my point in what words mean many a time over a large span of years. Which ones are completely useless except to incite, which ones have more meaning for what they mean, and which are ignorant for the sake of the person using them. I have a hard time understanding when people misuse words, seeing the way the can easily control an emotion. Language is already an impossibly difficult thing to master in connotation and emphasis, and it is always going to fail to overcome a preset notion when a specific word is misused.

Every audience requires a different set of words. There are always going to be difficulties in trying to match up the user to the receptive listener, which in some ways, makes it a wonderfully fun challenge. Other times you want to run screaming from a room just to escape the emotion a word can create.

Today was a day of words, as was the week. A horribly difficult week of scraping up an impassible mountain full of words and ideas without a summit. May tomorrow be better.

Earth Muffin

Today at work, I was having a discussion with a few co-workers, and one stated to the other that he was environmentally conscious, but that he wasn't any tree-hugger. Bare in mind, this is the guy that has attempted multiple times to get our company to begin a recycling program, etc. The other co-worker laughed, and then they both looked at me. I said nothing and then was told that I was, of course, a tree-hugger. What's more I was an 'Earth Muffin'. At this point, the other co-worker and eye exchange a look and start laughing, as this doesn't sound like anything but a terribly inappropriate term. Perhaps we just have dirty minds. So, with safe search engaged, we had to Google the term, coming up with this from Urban Dictionary:

1. earth muffin
Environmentally conscience, socially aware, recycles when she can, prefers organic or natural products, and will drive out of the way to support mom and pop before large consumer corporations. She’s a modern hippy but also has a practical side. She’s cute, showers regularly, and encourages others to do the right thing without being judgmental or critical.
Store Checker: Would you prefer paper or plastic?
Earth Muffin: I brought my own reuseable duffle! It's made out of recycled materials, too.
granola hippychick vegan liberal hippy relaxed
by JennX Mar 27, 2008 share this
2. earth muffin
hippie/enviro/tree-hugger girls, especially the cute ones, and with a good connotation.
I'm gonna head down to the Green Festival and try to pick me up an earth muffin.

Needless to say, I haven't laughed this long in a while when I discovered this was a 'real' term. Better, I like the presumption of 'cute' in both definitions, and as was pointed out, I am totally not unjudgmental or uncritical about other people's choices. Personally, I don't see how badgering other people into recycling or eating less meat or banning bottled watter can be bad, but then, it seems totally redundant that I am judgmental. Totally.

My First Dictionary

My First Dictionary. So very many of these are incredibly wrong, and yet I can't stop laughing.

Semantics: Hobbies vs Pasttimes

Now, which one do you think you’ll remember in ten minutes?

The Fucking Word of the Day - it's easier to learn with sex, drugs, and fucking swearing.

Will love this once it gets more of a history. Cute concept.

Yup......

Word of the Day

Floccinaucinihilipilification
/ˌflɒksɨˌnɔːsɨˌnaɪ(h)ɪlɨˌpɪlɨfɪˈkeɪʃən/; variously floccipaucinihilipilification, with p for
n) is the estimation of something as worthless, or the habit of doing so.[1] Sometimes written with hyphens, it is frequently cited as one of the longest words in the English language. It has even spawned the back formations floccinaucical "inconsiderable, trifling" and floccinaucity "a matter of small consequence".[1]

WWFTD: Otiant

Otiant

[fr. L. otiari, to be at leisure] /OH she unt/
now rare idle; resting; unemployed (cf. otium)

"His existence would be otiant and superfluous."
- North American Review, Apr. 1845

"They who.. relegate the Supreme to the otiant ease
of Epicurus, cut the nerves of moral obligation."
- North American Review, May 1878

Fitting, knowing all the layoffs we are experiencing at work lately.

via.. WWFTD

Conditions

CURRENT CONDITION:

the worthless word for the day is: antejentacular

[fr. L. ante-, before + jentacul-um, breakfast]
archaic before breakfast
(compare postprandial)

"Not one poor visit in the antejentacular perambulations."
- Jeremy Bentham, correspondence (1843)

"You will learn that the holder for a handleless coffeecup
is called a zarf (if you didn't already know it); that the
antonym for postprandial (afterdinner) is antejentacular
(before breakfast), while the antonym of wealth may well
be illth..."
- Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times Aug 9, 1982


CONDITION IN 2 HOURS:

the worthless word for the day is: malnoia

[fr. mal- : ill, wrong + Gk nous, mind] /mal NOI ah/
a vague feeling of mental discomfort

"At last—the word we all wanted, to describe the
way we feel five minutes after waking up in the
morning when we realize that we are about to
recall yesterday's unresolved problems."
- Peter Bowler, The Superior Person's Second Book
of Weird and Wondrous Words (1992)

WWFTD

CO-WORKER [6:08 PM]:THE WORD OF THE DAY IS RIDONKULOUS
ME [6:08 PM]:
good word
CO-WORKER [6:08 PM]:
DERIVED FROM THE WORDS RIDICULOUS AND DONKEY

Luciferous Logolepsy

torpid
adj. - numb; sleepy; dull. torpidity, n. torpify, v. make torpid. torpor, n. torpid state; apathy. torporific, adj. torpifying.

WWFTD: Vinolency

The worthless word for the day is: vinolency

[L. vinolentia] obs. drunkenness

"This disease [apoplexy] being so frequent an attendant,
or a consequence of vinolency holds up a most awful
warning to the inebriate."
- Thomas Trotter, An Essay.. on Drunkenness (1813)

"[Ye] wassailers elide your costrels and degneate[sic]
yourselves of your vinolency..."
- Lorenzo Altisonant, Letters to 'Squire Pedant (1850)

costrel - an earthenware or leather bottle
denegate - to deny

..via WWFTD

WWFTD: Epicaricacy

Epicaricacy(!)

/ep'-i-kar-IK-i-see/?
taking pleasure in others' misfortune: schadenfreude

this word, as defined in Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of
Unusual... Words, has caused a lot of discussion
recently on a couple of forums that discuss these
sorts of things. where in the world did she find
this English word for a concept that isn't supposed
to have a word in English (schadenfreude being German
in origin)? this question has yet to be answered in
full, but I can quote you this from Nathan Bailey's
An Universal Etymological English Dictionary, which
is a very olde dictionary indeed (1721):

Epicharikaky - from the Greek words or roots for
"upon", "joy", and "evil": "A Joy at the Misfortunes
of others".

..via WWFTD

Morons vs Grammar Nazi

From an email today: "We are loosing business".

Seriously, this has to be one form of kryptonite for me. It makes me want to jab my pen into my temple and perform a self-lobotomy. Or manhandle a dictionary down the throat of every fool who misuses this word. Click the picture to see how I am not alone.

Also reminds me of the other old comic.

Facing the Facts

Psychoanalytical account of neurosis

As an illness, neurosis represents a variety of psychiatric conditions in which emotional distress or unconscious conflict is expressed through various physical, physiological, and mental disturbances, which may include physical symptoms (e.g., hysteria). The definitive symptom is anxieties. Neurotic tendencies are common and may manifest themselves as depression, acute or chronic anxiety, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, phobias, and even personality disorders, such as borderline personality disorder or obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. It has perhaps been most simply defined as a "poor ability to adapt to one's environment, an inability to change one's life patterns, and the inability to develop a richer, more complex, more satisfying personality." [1] Neurosis should not be mistaken for psychosis, which refers to more severe disorders.

The term connotes an actual disorder or disease, but under its general definition, neurosis is a normal human experience, part of the human condition. Most people are affected by neurosis in some form. A psychological problem develops when neuroses begin to interfere with, but not significantly impair, normal functioning, and thus cause the individual anxiety. Frequently, the coping mechanisms enlisted to help "ward off" the anxiety only exacerbate the situation, causing more distress. It has even been defined in terms of this coping strategy, as a "symbolic behavior in defense against excessive psychobiologic pain [which] is self-perpetuating because symbolic satisfactions cannot fulfill real needs."

So tonight I couldn't stop myself from cleaning things at work. It started with Rebecca's phone, was followed by Nick's and a spare, then cleaning my desk. Rubbing alcohol should be a mandatory product kept by each person working in an office. But I think i might have gone a bit overboard and a bit on the OCD side when I popped off all my keys from the keyboard and cleaned each one and under them. Sure I had work to do, but who can work in a place that is grungy and disgusting? (disgustimapated? I don't remember the other word)

Turns out, everyone but me can deal with this. When I worked at Starbucks, I was so obsessed with making things clean i used to get down on my hands and knees and clean the floor with a deck brush, drains were immaculate, bathrooms pristine, etc. The only thing that kept me from taking apart the pipes and cleaning the inside was I couldn't figure out how to keep the store open and still have water. Way back in the day, Brendan and I would have cleaning parties at the store, where we would gather a few people to come up after work and attack the place from ceiling to floor and clean everything we could. All without pay, just so as to suprise out boss when she came in the next day and saw everything shiny.

Yet somehow, in the place I spend most of my time, I can't seem to make myself finish laundry or clean the bathroom. I want to devote such care to it that unless I have about a good 5 hours, I can't bring myself to clean even just the top floor of the apartment.

And it is the contrast that really bothers me. Like tonight I know that if I hadn't been running areas and it was slow enough, I would have started to clean other people's phones and keyboards, anything that looked really gross. Not that they would notice, but it would make me feel better. The only thing stopping me was the necessity of keeping my job and the overwhelming desire to go home and drink,

Which, as always, wins out over all cleaning or other disorders. Yay alcoholism!

WWFTD: After-Dream

"I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the veil."

- Edgar A. Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)

Meanings

Nicole / Angelique

I knew this a long time ago. But after compared to Anna Nicole for a long time, any other implications, no matter the form, are better and need reminding.


Have also read it means followers of the anti-Christ. No wonder I'm so goddamn conflicted.

And What Now?

Bewray [fr. ME bewreien, fr. be- + wreyen: to
accuse, inform on, from OE wregan; ultimately
fr. Gothic wrohjan: to accuse] archaic
1) to make known : divulge, disclose; esp. to reveal (as a secret) to one's disadvantage often unintentionally
2) to reveal the true character of

Silence in love bewrays more woe
Than words, though ne'er so witty:
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.
- Sir Walter Raleigh, The Silent Lover