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Posted: 13-08-2009 20:52 Post subject:

[deleted]

Posted: 13-08-2009 20:53 Post subject:

[deleted]

Posted: 13-08-2009 20:54 Post subject:

[deleted]

Posted: 13-08-2009 20:57 Post subject:

[deleted]

Posted: 13-08-2009 21:01 Post subject:

Came across this one today in a book of short stories by Colin Dexter (creator of Inspector Morse):

kyphotic

Had to look it up:

kyphosis??... [kahy-foh-sis]
–noun Pathology. an abnormal, convex curvature of the spine, with a resultant bulge at the upper back.

Origin:
1840–50 kyphosis a hunched state ....
Related forms:

kyphotic ?..., adjective

crookback, crookbacked, gibbous, humpbacked, humped

[Had to edit this to get the moronic MB ("Could not insert new word matches") to accept the post - link for details:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kyphotic ]

Posted: 13-08-2009 21:03 Post subject:

[deleted]

Posted: 13-08-2009 21:05 Post subject:

[deleted]

Posted: 13-08-2009 21:08 Post subject:

[deleted]

Posted: 14-08-2009 12:39 Post subject:

rynner - you going for the multiple post record or summat?

Posted: 14-08-2009 12:58 Post subject:

Posted: 29-08-2009 09:39 Post subject:

Weird Words: Dozenal
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"We want to replace decimal numeration by dozenal," is the stated
aim of the Dozenal Society of Great Britain. That will give you the
necessary clue to its meaning - it's from the word "dozen" and it
refers to a system of counting by twelves. You're much more likely
to be familiar with the well-established "duodecimal". If you did
New Maths as a child you might also remember "base 12".

In a dozenal system, with counting based on twelve,
not ten, the number "100" would mean 144 in our base-ten
counting system, and twelve "dozades" (each twelve years
long) would make up a grossury, with 144 decimal
years.
[Coast Lines, by Mark S Monmonier, 2008.]

"Dozenal" is a rare adjective (sometimes a noun for an advocate of
the numbering system) that's absent from every dictionary on my
shelves, though it does appear occasionally in technical literature
as well as in reports about the system:

Dozenals contend much of life already is divided into
twelves: People buy dozens of eggs and dozens of
doughnuts. There are 12 months in the year and 12 inches
to a foot.
[Los Angeles Times, 17 May 1982.]

Any popularity it has would seem to be the result of its adoption
in its title about a couple of decades ago by the Dozenal Society
of America (the successor to the old Duodecimal Society of America)
and by its British cousin.

An enthusiast for the duodecimal number system has been called a
dozenalist or a dozener. Both are highly unusual. Wink

http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/gbps.htm

Posted: 05-09-2009 09:13 Post subject:

One here for any Fortean dictionary:

Weird Words: Ostrobogulous
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The word is weird not only because it looks strange and is rather
rare but because it can refer to something weird (or to a strange,
bizarre or generally unusual happening). To increase its oddity, it
can also mean something mildly risqué, indecent or pornographic.

"Ostrobogulous" was Vickybird's favourite word. It
stood for anything from the bawdy to the slightly off-
colour. Any double entendre that might otherwise have
escaped his audience was prefaced by, "if you will pardon
the ostrobogulosity".
[Magic my Youth, by Arthur Calder-Marshall, 1951.]

It was coined by Victor Neuburg (Vickybird in the quotation), a gay
British Jewish poet and writer and a close friend of the occultist
Aleister Crowley, whose sexual magic practices he helped develop.

Neuburg said that the word was formed, highly irregularly as you
might expect, from Greek "ostro", rich, plus English "bog" in the
schoolboy slang sense of the toilet, hence "dirt", and ending in
Latin "ulus", full of. The Oxford English Dictionary doesn't agree,
suggesting that the first part is from "oestrous". But we ought to
let Victor Neuburg have the last word on its etymology, as it was
his creation.

The word is a favourite of people like me who collect interestingly
weird words. A notable recent appearance was in the Mail on Sunday,
a British family newspaper which might have looked askance at it
had its editors known of its indecorous antecedents. It was quoted
as the favourite word of Professor Christian Kay, who has worked
for 42 years on the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English
Dictionary, due to be published next month.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/nfkl.htm

Posted: 17-10-2009 09:22 Post subject:

This is new to me - Twink

Michael Quinion writes:
TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE TWINK It's amazing what you can learn
from e-mail error messages. The issue last week was blocked by one
site in the UK because it had a rude word in the message body. Do
you recall reading any rude words? I don't remember writing any. It
transpired that the offending "word" was in the title of a nursery
rhyme I listed: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. The filtering system
spotted the first five letters of the first word and pounced. I had
to look it up: TWINK is gay slang (I quote Wikipedia) for "a young
or young-looking gay man (usually white and in his late teens or
early twenties) with a slender build, little or no body hair, and
no facial hair."

http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/puqo.htm

Not a word I expect to use much! Wink

Posted: 24-10-2009 10:26 Post subject:

GOOSTRUMNOODLE

GRAND WORD Lord Myners, who is usually referred to in newspapers
as the City minister, though his full official title is Financial
Services Secretary to the Treasury, gave a speech on Wednesday at
the dinner of a City of London guild, one that has the currently
inappropriate title of the Worshipful Company of International
Bankers. He ended: "The next few months will set the blueprint for
public perceptions of the banking industry for decades to come. The
taxpayer will not be taken for a GOOSTRUMNOODLE a second time - nor
should they be allowed to." What a wonderful word! I had to search
a while before finding a dictionary that contains it. Eventually, I
tracked it down in the English Dialect Dictionary of a century ago.
It turns out to be a Cornish word for a fool. It's not surprising
that Lord Myners should know it - his childhood was spent in
Cornwall.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/okbl.htm

Wonderful word! Though I must say that, although I've lived in Cornwall for 20 years, I've never heard it before.

Posted: 13-02-2010 10:17 Post subject:

Weird Words: Tumbarumba
-------------------------------------------------------------------
A tumbarumba is not a belly-dance to South American music, as a
contestant in an Australian words competition once suggested. Nor
does it directly address the small Australian town of that name
that lies south-west of Canberra in New South Wales, though some of
its inhabitants must surely tumbarumba without knowing that name
for it.

No, "tumbarumba" is another name for tmesis, one form of which is
that curious trick of stuffing one word into the middle of another.
"Abso-bloody-lutely", "a whole nother", "fan-bloody-tastic" and
"any-blooming-where" are classic cases, though many of the most
powerful examples include the F-word. For a reason buried in local
linguistic history it's a verbal tic Australians are fond of, who
insert their favourite adjective, "bloody", to great effect.

The origin of the term is disputed, but who can sensibly decry the
claim of this de-flaming-lightful poem:

"Howya bloody been, ya drongo, haven't seen ya fer a week,
And yer mate was lookin' for ya when ya come in from the creek.
'E was lookin' up at Ryan's, and around at bloody Joe's,
And even at the Royal, where 'e bloody NEVER goes".
And the other bloke says "Seen 'im? Owed 'im half a bloody quid.
Forgot to give it back to him, but now I bloody did -
Could've used the thing me bloody self. Been off the bloody booze,
Up at Tumba-bloody-rumba shootin' kanga-bloody-roos." Very Happy

[The Integrated Adjective, or Tumba Bloody Rumba, by John O'Grady.]

http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/xcbg.htm