W.O.R.D. September 2008
twiss 09-30-08
big neon signs in Hudson Falls, NY
on US 4: "Hairstyling with a twiss"
fallaparticle board 09-29-08
from Robbie Nihoff
I've become really hooked on old beat-up furniture. . . . It's so much better made than some of the new stuff. I don't even mind knotty pine . . . Most of it is that fallaparticle board.
lox 09-28-08
from Julia Goody
I found out the difference: Lox is salted before it's smoked. Smoked salmon is not.
legerdemain 09-27-08
from Ruth G
def: sleight of hand; magic tricks; any illusory feat
from French: 'light of hand"
why I like it?? it's one of those words that's filed somewhere in the back of my brain. earlier this week, Paul Shakespeare mentioned it while sharing a glass of wine with us, while Julia and I had dinner (after making phone calls for Obama). now I can't even remember how he used it, but none of the 3 of us could quite define it, I’ve been meaning to look it up all week, so that I could be, well.... more definitive about exactly why I liked it. this is a lovely word, and a tricky one.
whisker 09-26-08
from Kitty
Obama's still ahead, if only by a whisker.
[kittens and stubble--what a 'close' word!]
remuddled 09-25-08
from Scott K.
Victorian buildings that have all been remuddled.
apposite 09-24-08
from Jane the K.
I am currently reading a book about Virginia Woolf and the servants, and the author Alison Light had this to say in the preface (talking about her own husband's death from cancer) which seemed to me so apposite that I copied it down to send to you all. [fitting apt appropriate. it's pronounced app-uh-zit, or uh-paw-zit; but I like app-o-zeet!] "The circumference of life kept shrinking at the insistence of the body, no matter how expansive the mind and spirit remained. This process....was like that of premature ageing and brought with it, as ageing itself does, the terror of loss, and the fear of being treated like a child, patronized and turned into an object by others."
squeegee 09-23-08
from anonymous
"Anyone want a squeegee?" heard every morning on the top deck of the Machigonne.
woop 09-22-08
from Marc Newquist
woop: v. Let's woop something like this together and put lights on it! (of course woop can also be an interjection, as in Woop! Wooop)
shambling 09-21-08
via David Sedaris
I didn't know to shamble was a verb, until DS wrote about a truck driver's shambling hand. A house in shambles, was all I ever did with that word. To shamble is to walk lazily, slowly, unsteadily. I thought that was ambling, but actually amble has much more confidence . . . lazy perhaps, slow too, but steady and jaunty compared with shamble, I think.
silly 09-20-08
try singing to your most silliest loved one:
I'm in the mood for silly
simply because you're silly!
Funny, but when you're silly,
I'm in the mood for silly!
buoy 09-19-08
I like buoy as a verb: something the ocean does to us and we can do to each other. also . . . I like the way it sounds like "BOOYA!" (whatever that means!) and the way it trips me up in spelling.
malingerers 09-18-08
via Julia G.
people who pretend to be sick
eminent 09-17-08
from Jane K.
read on flap-copy of a self-published book: eminent demise!
teddy 09-16-08
via Tim Nihoff
I wouldn't call bears teddies. I think teddies are more adult rated. A bear is a bear and a teddy leaves you partly bare. Both cute.
up 09-15-08
a fun, brief, and useful preposition that is also a noun, verb, adverb, and adjective or so it would seem. verb: up the ante; noun: the ups and downs; adverb: dress up; adj. the up escalator. I like uppity too!
word 09-14-08
from Cameo
word-up! circa 1986
heavenlies 09-13-08
from Cathryn Douglass
those cookies were fabulous. They were so fabulous that they should be called something different than cookies. Heavenlies, maybe
pruno 09-12-08
via Nick Flynn
I never heard of pruno. Except now, I'm reading Nick Flynn's memoir, "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City." He describes pruno roughly as a (foul tasting) wine some prisoners make by fermenting ketchup in a ziplock bag. Pruno as a word sums up its own meaning -- It seems to combine "prison," "wino" and the scrunched up face you have to make when you smell, taste, or handle the stuff. Also the fruit-cocktail aspect (see link) and the inventiveness. It conjures Flynn's style and story--in a word.
juxtapose 09-11-08
from Prescott
It JUST means side by side. It doesn't mean relating, comparing, making a connection. It just means putting two things side by side.
patella 09-10-08
pretty name for pretty body part: kneecap.
I don't like the sound of "meniscus" or "menisci" the "moon-shaped" knee cartilage. They sound cartilaginous.
untoward 09-09-08
I like toward. You like towards. Mostly we can just say "to." I like to conjure the image of someone saying "untoward." The someone is probably Mom. Untoward has mucho resonance, esp. compared with the pinchy plosive "inappropriate." Untoward is open ocean with no direction that dumps itself all over an unfortunate soul.
dunsil 09-08-08
from Spock
"It's a word from the Starfleet
Academy, used by a midshipman.
It means 'a useless part.'"
gravity 09-07-08
from Tim
Don't ask what it is.
It is the answer, not the question.
It's not just a good idea,
It's the law.
bite 09-06-08
from Talulah
She uses words so expertly now. Just about age 1.5, she struts and captivates, and freely interjects when you are eating an ear of corn: "Bite?" knowing full well each bite is hot enough to instigate a new dramatic protest about the contrasting sweetness and burning temperature. It's just so fun to bite an ear of corn.
biobrick 09-05-08
Time to fill up the island homes with biobricks. Time to gather the 5 tiny apples form Fitzy Magoun, in the annual harvest. In three short years, biobrick has gone from odd duck to foreign-oil alternative staple, and the price has nearly doubled, as the demand far exceeds supply. Now new supplies have been secured across the border in Canada, and we await our foreign biobricks.
programatically 09-04-08
via Maureen
Maureen was searching for this word. It fit the occasion, but I'd like it better if it could be used to mean: Endorsing all things gramatical.
thigmotaxis 09-03-08
Moving toward contact, as Ellsbury's mitt does toward the long ball. As earwigs do . . .toward anything.
mitt 09-02-08
How did Ellsbury make that
amazing catch?
He used his mitt!
I guess "mitt" is the word of the day
on some Portland, ME talk show tomorrow
. . . if you know it, you win something.
rabble 09-01-08
from Scott Nash
A rabble of butterflies . . .
It doesn't sound very "butterfly,"
but I like it.