Word of the Day

[D. Allan]

Apophenia, noun (Pronuciation? my guess = ah-po-FEE-nee-a)

Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness".

- snipped from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

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[color:#993300] Apophenia is the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness of unrelated phenomena. ... (Brugger).

Soon after his son committed suicide, Episcopalian Bishop James A. Pike (1913-1969) began seeing meaningful messages in such things as a stopped clock, the angle of an open safety pin, and the angle formed by two postcards lying on the floor. He thought they were conveying the time his son had shot himself (Christopher 1975: 139)....

...According to Brugger, "The propensity to see connections between seemingly unrelated objects or ideas most closely links psychosis to creativity ... apophenia and creativity may even be seen as two sides of the same coin." Some of the most creative people in the world, then, must be psychoanalysts and therapists who use projective tests like the Rorschach test or who see patterns of child abuse behind every emotional problem. Brugger notes that one analyst thought he had support for the penis envy theory because more females than males failed to return their pencils after a test....

.... It is highly probable that the apparent significance of many unusual experiences and phenomena are due to apophenia, e.g., ghosts and hauntings, EVP, numerology, the Bible code, anomalous cognition, ganzfeld "hits", most forms of divination, the prophecies of Nostradamus, remote viewing, and a host of other paranormal and supernatural experiences and phenomena.

- snippets from http://skepdic.com/apophenia.html

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Apophenia: Definition and Analysis

by Sandra L Hubscher

Introduction to Apophenia

August Strindberg, the early 20th century Swedish playwright, chronicles in Inferno/From an Occult Diary his descent into what would likely be diagnosed as schizophrenia in modern times:

“There on the ground I found two dry twigs, broken off by the wind. They were shaped like the Greek letter for “P” and “y”… t struck me that [they] must be an abbreviation of the name Popoffsky. Now I was sure it was he who was persecuting me, and that the Powers wanted to open my eyes to my danger.”

This is an eerie and extreme glimpse at the propensity of the human mind to commit what the statisticians Neyman and Pearson (1933) termed Type I error. As a statistical error, it is the acceptance of a false positive, that is, believing to see a difference or meaning when the given result is attributable to chance.

- a brief snippet from an excellent article at http://www.dbskeptic.com/2007/11/04/apophenia-definition-and-analysis/ The article also discusses the evolutionary merit of apophenia and also its usefulness to such creative persons as writers.

[D. Allan]

Seeing the face of Jesus in burnt toast, or a man in the moon is called pareidolia, an instance of the more general term apophenia, the finding of meaningful connections in meaningless, random data. Todays word makes fun of all that, as I see it, in the making of a parody religion: Discordianism.

Discordianism /dis-kor'di-*n-ism/ ,proper noun

The veneration of Eris, also known as Discordia; widely popular among hackers. Discordianism was popularised by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's novel "Illuminatus!" as a sort of self-subverting Dada-Zen for Westerners - it should on no account be taken seriously but is far more serious than most jokes. Consider, for example, the Fifth Commandment of the Pentabarf, from "Principia Discordia": "A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing What he Reads." Discordianism is usually connected with an elaborate conspiracy theory/joke involving millennia-long warfare between the anarcho-surrealist partisans of Eris and a malevolent, authoritarian secret society called the Illuminati.

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe

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Discordianism is a modern, chaos-centered religion founded circa 1958–1959 by Malaclypse the Younger with the publication of its principal text, the Principia Discordia. It is widely regarded as a parody religion, and has been called "Zen for roundeyes", based on similarities with absurdist interpretations of the Rinzai school. Discordianism recognizes chaos, discord, and dissent as valid and desirable qualities, in contrast with most religions, which idealize harmony and order. Discordianism is largely composed of whimsical and absurd ideas, though many adherents claim there is a deeper meaning to their flippant attitude. Eris, the Greek mythological goddess of discord, has also become the matron deity of the religion Discordianism.

It is difficult to estimate the number of followers and correctly identify Discordian groups. The anarchist ethic that pervades Discordianism is reflected in an encouragement to form schisms and cabals. Additionally, few adherents hold Discordianism as their only or primary faith. Instead, Erisians tend to adopt Discordianism as a complement to other faiths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discordianism check there for more.

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The Principia Discordia The Discordian "Bible." Very nice!

A Sermon on Ethics and Love from the Principia Discordia. kool

[D. Allan]

A silly little song improvised just now for the WOD. To be sung to a Tony Bennett tune the title and words of which have escaped from memory:

The catenaries of your gloomy frowns

Are really turning me so upside down.

If you'd wear a little smile,

Even if for just a while

My very heavy soul would lose --- five hundred pounds.

cat·e·nar·y [KAT-n-er-ee; especially Brit. kuh-TEE-nuh-ree] n. pl. cat·e·nar·ies

1.The curve formed by a perfectly flexible, uniformly dense, and inextensible cable suspended from its endpoints. It is identical to the graph of a hyperbolic cosine.

2.Something having the general shape of this curve.

cat'e·nar'y adj.

1788, from L. catenanus, from catena "chain"

[D. Allan]

maybe that tony bennett song is 'the shadow of your smile' ?

[D. Allan]

macaronic (mak-uh-RON-ik), adj.

1. of language, Latin words, mixed with non-Latin words, or with fake Latin.

2. made of a mixture of languages

noun

1. macaronic language, plural macaronics

macaronic from Mod.L. macaronicus (coined 1517 by Teofilo Folengo), from It. dial. maccarone (see macaroni), in allusion to the mixture of words in the verse: "quoddam pulmentum farina, caseo, botiro compaginatum, grossum, rude, et rusticanum." – The American Heritage Dictionary

macaroni ,1599, from southern It. dialect maccaroni (It. maccheroni), pl. of *maccarone, possibly from maccare “bruise, batter, crush,” of unknown origin, or from late Gk. makaria “food made from barley.” Used after c.1764 to mean “fop, dandy” (the “Yankee Doodle” reference) because it was an exotic dish at a time when certain young men who had traveled the continent were affecting Fr. and It. fashions and accents. There is said to have been a Macaroni Club in Britain, which was the immediate source of the term. – Online Etymology Dictionary

MACARONICS, a species of burlesque poetry, in which words from a modern vernacular, with Latin endings, are introduced into Latin verse, so as to produce a ridiculous effect. Sometimes Greek is used instead of Latin. Tisi degli Odassi issued a Carmen macaronicum de Patavinis in 1490. The real founder of the practice, however, was Teofilo Folengo (1491-1544), whose mockheroic Liber Macaronices appeared in 1517. Folengo (q.v.) was a Benedictine monk, who escaped from his monastery and wandered through Italy, living a dissolute life, and supporting himself by his absurd verses, which he described as an attempt to produce in literature something like macaroni, a gross, rude and rustic mixture of flour, cheese and butter. …

….Folengo is frequently quoted and still more frequently copied by Rabelais. The earlier editions of his Opus macaronicum are now extremely rare. The often reprinted edition of 1530 exhibits the text as revised by the author after he had begun to amend his life.- Classic Encyclopedia based on the 1911 Britannica

Now, here for your reading pleasure is an English-Latin macaronic.

Malum Opus

Prope ripam fluvii solus

A senex silently sat;

Super capitum ecce his wig,

Et wig super, ecce his hat.

Blew Zephyrus alte, acerbus,

Dum elderly gentleman sat;

Et a capite took up quite torve

Et in rivum projecit his hat.

Tunc soft maledixit the old man,

Tunc stooped from the bank where he sat

Et cum scipio poked in the water,

Conatus servare his hat.

Blew Zephyrus alte, acerbus,

The moment it saw him at that;

Et whisked his novum scratch wig,

In flumen, along with his hat.

Ab imo pectore damnavit

In coeruleus eye dolor sat;

Tunc despairingly threw in his cane

Nare cum his wig and his hat.

L'envoi

Contra bonos mores, don't swear,

It is wicked, you know (verbum sat.),

Si this tale habet no other moral,

Mehercle! You're gratus to that!

—J.A. Morgan

“Of course, some of it isn't in English, which is part of what's neat about it: there should be macaronic or multilingual verse by and about U.S. Latinos, verse dense enough to work on the page rather than only in performance, and Herrera-- among others--- is inventing it.” – Stephen Burt http://poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/12/sonnets_busyness_influence_and.html

HANS BREITMANN'S BARTY.

HANS BREITMANN gife a barty;

Dey had biano-blayin',

I felled in lofe mit a Merican frau,

Her name vas Madilda Yane.

She hat haar as prown ash a pretzel,

Her eyes vas himmel-plue,

Und vhen dey looket indo mine,

Dey shplit mine heart in dwo.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty,

I vent dere you'll pe pound;

I valtzet mit Matilda Yane,

Und vent shpinnen' round und round.

De pootiest Fraulein in de house,

She vayed 'pout dwo hoondred pound,

Und efery dime she gife a shoomp

She make de vindows sound.

- two stanzas from The Breitmann Ballads by Charles G. Leland. There is much more at http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/TheBreitmannBallads/chap3.html

[D. Allan]

hauteur \haw-TUR; (h)oh-\, noun:

Haughty manner, spirit, or bearing; haughtiness; arrogance.

My silence, I hoped, would be taken as expressive of the hauteur of a man who was above it all -- a man with a mission, in fact, a mission authorized from somewhere on high.

-- Jeffrey Tayler, Facing the Congo

Sheikhs and presidents have often heard little about the royal family's follies, and don't object to the hauteur and self-importance that remain its inextinguishable traits.

-- Hugo Young, "Blair and the Queen", The Guardian, April 10, 2001

That self-deprecation and lack of hauteur are typical of the earthy style that enables Powell to get close to his troops in a way that many top brass never do.

-- "Colin Powell: The master planner of Desert Shield is ready for its ultimate test", People, December 31, 1990

Hauteur is from the French, from haut, "high," from Latin altus, "high." It is thus related to altitude.

Dictionary.com

[John317]

...Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data..

Thomas Pynchon would love this. Have you ever read any of his books, such as V., Gravity's Rainbow or The Crying of Lot 49? The last named book proposes a series of seemingly incredible interconnections between several bizarre revelations that confront the novel's protagonist, Oedipa Maas.

Like V., the novel contains a wealth of references to science and technology and to obscure historical events, and both books dwell upon the detritus of American society and culture.

Based on what I've seen you post, I believe you'd be likely to really enjoy his books.

Regards,

"John 3: 17"

[D. Allan]

Yes, Pynchon, sounds an interesting writer for me to check out! Thanks

Quote:

Apophenia.... The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness".

- snipped from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

Conrad when he made up the word used Greek, didn't he? I haven't found it in any dictionaries.

[John317]

Yes, that word was made up of two Greek words, the prepostion, Apo, meaning "from" or "out of", and, I believe, the verb, phano, to appear; so it means, "from appearances."

Read Pynchon's shorter work (less than 100 pages) Lot 49, first, then go to V. Both V. and Granvity's Rainbow are quite long but really well worth it. Some of his books require great perseverance but are some of the most important fiction of the 20th Century. They can be horrifying and funny at the same time, similar to Kafka in that way.

It's interesting that I just saw this sentence in the Wikipedia connecting Pynchon with apophenia: "Postmodern novelists and film-makers have reflected on apophenia-related phenomena, such as paranoid narrativization or fuzzy plotting (e.g., Vladimir Nabokov's "Signs and Symbols", Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 ..."

Be prepared for one wild and crazy ride.

Regards,

"John 3: 17"

[D. Allan]

Copasetic (kō′pə set′ik), adjective

also spelled copacetic, copesetic or - less commonly - kopasetic

very satisfactory or acceptable.

Some say it is a slang word and some say its not. It is rarely used anywhere other than in North America. It was often used in communications between the astronauts and Mission Control of the Apollo Program in the 1960s.

Etymology -wikipedia

The earliest known usage given in the Oxford English Dictionary is from the Irving Bacheller 1919 biography of Abraham Lincoln:

1919 I. BACHELLER Man for Ages iv. 69 ‘As to looks I'd call him, as ye might say, real copasetic.’ Mrs. Lukins expressed this opinion solemnly... Its last word stood for nothing more than an indefinite depth of meaning.

There are many theories to the origin of copasetic

"It is widely accepted that it originated from some form of American slang. This conclusion stems from the slow introduction of the word into the written language mainly through use in periodicals and in character dialog in 20th century novels. Copasetic may have originated from African American slang in the late 19th century. It was used by African Americans in the American South (most notably by Bill "Bojangles" Robinson) and by jazz musicians in Harlem in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

One theory claims the origins are from the Creole French dialect of Louisiana, specifically from the French word coupersètique (meaning "able to be coped with"; from French couper, to cut)."

[D. Allan]

defictionalization n.

When a product or object from a movie, book, or other fictional source is made in the real world.

—defictionalize v.

Example Citations:

Defictionalization isn't nearly so common. Not yet.

Consider the energy drink Brawndo, "the thirst mutilator." It first emerged in the blackly comic, 2006 cult film Idiocracy, directed by Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill.

The movie is set in a future where stupid people have outbred intelligent ones, and corporations have thoroughly dumbed down the populace. The sports drink Brawndo has completely replaced water (deemed to be inferior because it's used in toilets), even for farm irrigation. And, because Brawndo is high in electrolytes, it poisons all the plants.

Cut to last November, when Twentieth Century Fox, which released the movie, joined with Redux Beverages to bring Brawndo to the public. The bright green citrus drink, with its electrolyte, caffeine and vitamin jolt, comes with this tagline, adapted from the film's dialogue: "It's got what plants crave!"

—Patricia Hluchy. "When fiction becomes fact; Thank movies, TV, and literature for Holiday Inn, this jolt drink, and earthworm-flavoured jelly beans. Could 'defictionalization' become a new corporate strategy?," The Toronto Star, January 13, 2008

Whenever things claw their way out of books or movies and into the real world, I like to call it defictionalization. Favorite examples: when Spinal Tap went on tour in 1992, and when Buzz Rickson's started making jackets to match the one in Pattern Recognition.

—Lloyd Burchill, The object produced through suggestion (comment), Making Light, December 3, 2007

Earliest Citation:

For the past decade, "All My Children" viewers have watched Erica Kane's (Susan Lucci) cosmetic company, Enchantment, grow. Soon, those viewers will be able to smell like their favorite fictional characters.

ABC's popular soap and retail behemoth Wal-Mart are turning the fictional Enchantment perfume into a real-life specially formulated scent.

—"ABC, Wal-Mart team up to defictionalize soap scent," Zap2It, June 21, 2004

- wordspy.com

[D. Allan]

amative \AM-uh-tiv\, adjective:

Pertaining to or disposed to love, especially sexual love; full of love; amorous.

Theoretically, any given left-kisser should meet more right-kissers and, over an amative lifetime, or even good year in junior high, be subtly pressured to shift to the right in order to land a wet one -- or just avoid a broken nose. No?

-- Donald G. McNeil Jr., "Pucker Up, Sweetie, and Tilt Right", New York Times, February 13, 2003

In the spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of another nap even more often than it does to amative imaginings, Tennyson to the contrary notwithstanding.

-- "Touch of Spring Fever Makes Whole World Kin", Science News, May 23, 1931

Well, poetry has been erotic, or amative, or something of that sort -- at least a vast deal of it has -- ever since it stopped being epic.

-- Helen Deutsch, "Death, desire and translation: on the poetry of Propertius", TriQuarterly, March 22, 1993

Amative comes from Medieval Latin amativus, "capable of love," from the past participle of Latin amare, "to love."

—Related forms

am·a·tive·ly, adverb

am·a·tive·ness, noun

-Dictionary.com

[Gail]

Hmmm... am I a left-kisser or a right-kisser? Never thought of that!

[D. Allan]

Whose thinking at such times?! :)

[D. Allan]

hip·po·drome (HIP-uh-drohm) –noun

1. an arena or structure for equestrian and other spectacles.

2. (in ancient Greece and Rome) an oval track for horse races and chariot races.

[Origin: 1540–50; < L hippodromos < Gk hippódromos, equiv. to hippo- hippo- + drómos -drome]

—Related forms

hip·po·drom·ic (hip-uh-DROM-ik) adjective

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[color:#6600CC]

"A Hippodrome (Gr. from hippos, horse, and dromos, race, course) was a course provided by the Greeks for horse racing and chariot racing. Some present-day horse racing tracks are also called hippodromes, for example the Central Moscow Hippodrome." -wikipedia.com

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MORE -DROME WORDS:

air·drome (air-drohm) –noun

a landing field for airplanes that has extensive buildings, equipment, shelters, etc.; airport.

Also, especially British, aerodrome.

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autodrome (plural autodromes)

A circuit used for motor sports events, but not for high-speed racing.

from "http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/autodrome"

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Derived terms

aerodrome / airdrome

hippodrome

loxodrome - If the surface is a sphere, the loxodrome is a spherical spiral.

palindrome - a word which "runs" (spells) the same in either direction

prodrome - a premonitory symptom (it runs before)

syndrome - a group of symptoms (they run together)

velodrome - a banked oval track for bicycle or motorcycle racing

from "http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-drome"

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Greek &#948;&#961;&#972;&#956;&#959;&#962; dromos a course, race course, road

[D. Allan]

Frenemy , noun,

can refer to either an enemy disguised as a friend or to a partner that is simultaneously a competitor. The latter can describe relationships involving:

People;

Politics and International Relationships; or

Commercial Relationships between Companies.

These type of relationships grow more common in times of great change and make for uneasy relations.

People

In personal relationships, the use of the term 'frenemy' has become increasingly used to describe two (or more) people who are apparently friends but are actually enemies. Such relationships may occur due to the desire (of either) to keep a close eye on the actions of their close rival (i.e. keep your friend close, keep your enemies even closer).

Alternatively, two people who are apparently enemies may actually be friends in private, with the apparently hostile relationship portrayed in order to deceive or for other forms of gain. Such an arrangement may even be used to cover up a secret relationship between the two parties.

In popular culture

Frenemies was used in the popular New Radicals song, You Get What You Give - released on April 20, 1999.

The word was further popularized when used as the title of an episode in the HBO series, Sex and the City episode #46 October 1, 2000 Frenemies.

On February 13, 2007, comedian Stephen Colbert quoted the word frenemy on his Comedy Central show The Colbert Report during his segment "The Wørd." He used the word to describe the foreign policy between the United States and China, saying that the United States is friends with China as far as the "invisible hand of the market," but enemies as the two nations are widely considered to be international rivals in military power. He then hosted an interview with New York Times editor Sheryl WuDunn, author of the book China Wakes, to discuss whether or not China is a "friend, enemy or frenemy" to the United States.

source: http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Frenemy

also see the book forum of club/adventist

[D. Allan]

Since the word 'hippodrome' and its several relatives pertaining to racecourses and 'running' I've been wondering about the word

'dromedary,'noun,

a word for the one-humped domesticated Arabian camel (Camelus dromedarius), used as a beast of burden in northern Africa and western Asia. Does the camel, aka 'dromedary,' run? The word sounds like drome-dairy! A running supply of milk? Or even drama-dairy! A theatrical milkhouse? Sure, I know, that is very very silly. So here, without any more verbal prankishness, is the serious etymology.

Quote:

[color:#CC6600] dromedary

c.1280, from O.Fr. dromadaire, from L.L. dromedarius "kind of camel," from L. dromas (gen. dromados), from Gk. dromas kamelos "running camel," from dromos "a race course," from PIE *drem-, from possible base *der- "to run, walk, step" (cf. Skt. dramati "runs, goes," Gk. dromas "running," M.H.G. tremen "to rock, shake, sway"). One-humped Arabian camels were bred and trained for riding. A charming early variant was drumbledairy (1570).

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

Did you see that!! Being silly was common as far back as 1570. Unless I misunderstand those ancients and that could well be. Drumbledaiy! Goodness!

More about camels:

Quote:

Camels are large mammals that live in dry areas. There are two types of camels: the one-humped camel (the Arabian Camel or Dromedary) and the two-humped camel (the Bactrian Camel). The Arabian camels are found in the very hot deserts of North Africa and the Middle East. Bactrian camels are found in the rocky deserts and steppes of Asia that get very hot and very cold.

The Hump: The camel's hump contains fat (and NOT water). The camel can go without food and water for 3 to 4 days. It is well adapted to desert life.

Anatomy: Camels are very strong mammals with wide, padded feet. They have thick leathery pads on their knees and chest. Camels have nostrils that can open and close, protecting them from the desert environment. Bushy eyebrows and two rows of long eyelashes protect their eyes from sand. Their mouth is extremely tough, allowing camels to eat thorny desert plants. Camels are over 7 feet (2 m) tall at the hump and weigh in excess of 1,600 pounds (725 kg).

Diet: Camels are herbivores (plant-eaters). Most camels are domesticated and are fed by people; they eat dates, grass, wheat, and oats.

Classification:Class Mammalia (mammals), Order Artiodactyla, Suborder Tylopoda, Family Camelidae, Genus Camelus, Species C. dromedarius (dromedary camel) and C. bactrianus (Bactrian camel).

- source: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/mammals/camel/Camelcoloring.shtml

[D. Allan]

Well, there are bactrian camels too, besides the dromedaries. Bactrians we learned yesterday, have two humps, and live in the Asian steppes where it gets hot AND cold. Dromedaries have only one hump.

Bactrian Camel range

bactrian (BAK-tree-un), adjective

type of camel (Camelus bactrianus is a large even-toed ungulate), 1601, from L. Bactria, ancient region in what is now northwestern Afghanistan, lit. "the western province," from Persian bakhtar "the west."

used as a noun:

1. A native or inhabitant of Bactria (an ancient country in W Asia, between the Oxus River and the Hindu Kush Mountains. Capital: Bactra.)

2. The Middle Iranian language of the Bactrians, known from scattered inscriptions and legal documents extending into the Islamic period.

A Bactrian camel in the Kyzyl Kum desert in Uzbekistan

Slower but hardier than Dromedaries, Bactrian camels have nostrils that can open and close, a double row of eyelashes, and two layers of hair, and inner down and an outer coat. They grow about 15 lbs. per year of fibers similar to cashmere wool, good for knitting.

sources: www.dictionary.com

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

[D. Allan]

The Bactrian language is an extinct Eastern Iranian language which was spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria, also called Tocharistan, in northern Afghanistan. Linguistically, it is classified as belonging to the Northeastern Iranian branch. It was written using the Greek alphabet with the additional letter &#1016; for the Kushan sound "sh".

Bactrian was probably spoken by the local populations of Bactria when Alexander the Great invaded the area around 323 BCE, inaugurating a two-century period of Hellenistic rule by the Seleucid Empire and the then the Greco-Bactrian kingdom.

Greek rule ended around 123 BCE with the invasions of the Yuezhi from the North, who adopted the Greek alphabet to write the local Bactrian language, a case which is unique among Iranian languages. Before that time, Bactrian was written in the Aramaic alphabet.

Bactrian seems to have been, together with Greek, the official language of the Kushans, descendants of the Yuezhi, and was used in their coins and inscriptions.- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactrian_language

[D. Allan]

"Fictitious" is a word we are familiar with meaning, false, fake, made-up; but todays word has only one letter different (the first vowel).

factitious \fak-TISH-uhs\, adjective:

1. Produced artificially, in distinction from what is produced by nature.

2. Artificial; not authentic or genuine; sham.

The extreme arbitrariness of this color in relation to the "real" colors of the human figure indicates that Picasso's initial analysis turned on a redesignation of the idea of local color, displacing it from the surfaces of the natural world to the wholly factitious veneers in the world of cultural artifacts.

-- David Carrier, "Modernist art and its market", Art Journal, Winter 1998

When a significant level of distrust evolves among segments of the public, for genuine or factitious reasons, police may be seen as "them" as opposed to the "us" of the general populace.

-- Woody West, "Cops Get Caught in a Catch-22", Insight on the News, July 17, 2000

I sensed that it was time to step back, take stock, and try to untangle and think through a series of events, a great many of which I had either undergone with impassioned abandon or been asked to write about with factitious enthusiasm (a constant temptation for cultural critics who are expected to celebrate the new).

-- James Miller, Flowers in the Dustbin

Factitious comes from Latin facticius, "made by art, artificial," from the past participle of facere, "to make."

-www.dictionary.com

[D. Allan]

ereptation

[L. ereptare, to creep forth]

obs. 'A creeping forth' {Bailey, 1736}

"But the oddest things of all are to be found in the

dictionaries. Why they are all kept there no one knows;

but what man in his senses would use such words as

zythepsary for a brewhouse, and zumologist for a brewer;

would talk of a stormy day as procellous and himself as

madefied; of his long-legged son as increasing in

procerity but sadly inarcid, of having met wilh much

procacity from such a one; of a bore as a macrologist;

of an aged horse as macrobiolic; of important business

as moliminous, and his daughter's necklace as moniliform;

of some one's talk as meracious, and lament, his last

night's nimiety of wine at that dapatical feast, whence

he was taken by ereption?"

- Charles Dickens (ed.), All the Year Round (1861)

ereption /e REP tion/

[L. ereptio, fr. eripere, to snatch away]

obs. 'A taking away.' {Cockeram, 1623}

"[T]he recovery of the civil inheritance by hereditatis

petitio might be rendered unavailing by ablation or

ereption for Indignitas."

- Gaius, Elements of Roman Law (tr. by E. Poste, 1875)

-found at http://home.comcast.net/~wwftd/

[D. Allan]

bashert , noun

a person's soulmate, considered as predestined or ideal

Etymology: Yiddish 'destiny, fate'

Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.7)

Bashert, (Yiddish: &#1489;&#1488;&#1463;&#1513;&#1506;&#1512;&#1496;, also transliterated besherte, beshert or besherter) is a Yiddish word that means "destiny". It is usually used in the context of one's Heavenly foreordained spouse or soulmate, and thus has romantic overtones.

Jewish singles will say that they are looking for their bashert, meaning they are looking for that person who will complement them perfectly. However the opinion has been given that whomever one marries, whether the marriage is perfect or not, is by definition one's bashert because the marriage was foreordained by God who controls the universe by default.

The word is also used in the phrase, "Bashert is bashert", which is the Yiddish way of saying, "Que sera, sera." - wikipedia.com

Bashert: Soul Mates

According to the Talmud, Rav Yehuda taught that 40 days before a male child is conceived, a voice from heaven announces whose daughter he is going to marry, literally a match made in heaven! In Yiddish, this perfect match is called "bashert," a word meaning fate or destiny. The word "bashert" can be used to refer to any kind of fortuitous good match, such as finding the perfect job or the perfect house, but it is usually used to refer to one's soul mate. - http://www.jewfaq.org/marriage.htm

bashert

BASHERT means destiny in yiddish

"Just as well/ i figure/everything happens for a reason/ BASHERT — as we say," she wrote. "And on we go..." said Rosie O'donnel. - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bashert

http://www.inner.org/covenant/marr01.htm The mystery of marriage from the Jewish point of view.

[ChildofChrist]

Quote:

1.nakkele from Tulu (a language in India) meaning a man who licks whatever the food has been served on.

on page 14.

What is a person called that takes bread to clean the plate? lol It's how I make sure I savor every drop. Turns out that my great grandfather did the same thing. In private, I'm liable to lick the platter clean too.

[Woody]

That's a bashert if I ever heard of one.

[D. Allan]

dibble

"to make a hole in the soil (as to plant seeds)," 1583, probably from M.E. dibben, probably akin to dip. The noun meaning a tool to do this is attested from c.1450.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

A dibber is a pointed hand operated wooden tool for making holes in the ground so that seeds or bulbs can be planted.

The dibber, or dibble, is the simplest garden tool. Its only job is to poke holes in the dirt. A dibber is good for planting little bulbs, small seedlings or seeds. Dibbers come in a variety of designs including: Straight dibber, T-Handled dibber, Trowel Dibber and L-Shaped dibber.

History

The dibber was first recorded in Roman times and has remained mostly unchanged since. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, farmers would use long handled dibbers of metal or wood to plant crops. One man would walk with a dibber making holes, and a second man would plant seeds in each hole and fill it in. It wasn't until the Renaissance that dibbers became a manufactured item, some made of iron for penetrating harder soils and clay. -wikipedia