Seldom-Used Words

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Quinn, wouldn't that be the size of her breasts?

From the steam-boating days;

promenade deck - noun an upper deck or area on a deck of a passenger ship where passengers promenade
 
Quinn, wouldn't that be the size of her breasts?

From the steam-boating days;

promenade deck - noun an upper deck or area on a deck of a passenger ship where passengers promenade

Size, shape, firmness...take your pick:D
 
Good day, everyone. Here is today's entry from the same source;

ebullience - noun the quality of lively or enthusiastic expression of thoughts or feelings; EXUBERANCE

I was reading through this thread today and saw this contribution from AllardChardon and it made me smile. In the story I'm currently writing I used the word ebullient to describe one of my characters (and he's one of the most fun characters I've ever written, lively but with lots of deep, dark secrets) but have since changed the word to loquacious. So that's my contribution.

Loquacious - talking or tending to talk much or freely; talkative; chattering; babbling; garrulous
 

shonky • adj. (slang, Australia or U.K.), of poor or dubious quality; shoddy.






I'd n'er seen nor heard the word before. That extraordinary polymath, Willis Eschenbach, used the word in the following paragraph:

...I bring this up for three reasons. The first is to show the continuing shabby quality of peer-review at scientific magazines when the subject is even peripherally related to climate. Nature magazine blew it again, and unfortunately, these days that’s no news at all. It’s just more shonky science from the AGW crowd … and people claim the reason the public doesn’t trust climate scientists is a “communications problem”? It’s not. It’s a garbage science problem, and all the communications theory in the world won’t fix garbage science...

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/25/the-ocean-wins-again/


http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shonky



 
Dreg (floaties) comes from Old Norse (dregg = sediment.)

Dree (Dreogan) is the base word for many Old English words. Dright (People, Citizen population), Drighten (leaders of the population, Lords), Dreg (the Suffered). Probably shared the same root as Draw, Drag, and Draft (Pre-Germanic: *draghanan - to carry.)

Edited - Drear does not share the same root. Comes from the notion of "dripping blood."

And in case you come across it dreghe means something different again. On dreghe means at a distance or long as in:

Thane the dragone on dreghe dressede hym agayne ( Morte Arthure)
 

derecho • n., A line of intense, widespread, and fast-moving windstorms and sometimes thunderstorms that moves across a great distance and is characterized by damaging winds.








http://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/derechofacts.htm#definition

What is a derecho?
A derecho (pronounced similar to "deh-REY-cho" in English, or pronounced phonetically as "") is a widespread, long-lived windstorm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms.

Because derecho is a Spanish word (see paragraph below), the plural term is "derechos." In this case there is no letter "e" after the letter "o."

What is the origin of the term "derecho"?
The word "derecho" was coined by Dr. Gustavus Hinrichs, a physics professor at the University of Iowa, in a paper published in the American Meteorological Journal in 1888. A defining excerpt from this paper can be seen in this figure showing a derecho crossing Iowa on July 31, 1877. Dr. Hinrichs chose this terminology for thunderstorm induced straight-line winds as an analog to the word tornado. Derecho is a Spanish word which can be defined as "direct" or "straight ahead" while tornado is thought by some, including Dr. Hinrichs, to have been derived from the Spanish word "tornar" which means "to turn". A web page about Dr. Gustavus Hinrichs' background has been created by National Weather Service Science and Operations Officer Ray Wolf, and he provides more details about Dr. Hinrichs' development of the term "derecho" in the late 1800s. He also mentions how the term "derecho" became more commonly used in the late 1900s...






 
I took Spanish in school and derecho meant right as in right turn or right hand. I learn something new almost every day on this thread, thank you, contributors.

I am currently in Tennessee and there are lots of streets called pike here, so here is a local word;

pike - says it comes from turnpike - noun 1. a toll bar: TOLLGATE 2.a. a toll road or one formally maintained as such, esp. a toll expressway b. a main road, esp. a paved road with crowned surface
 
And in case you come across it dreghe means something different again. On dreghe means at a distance or long as in:

Thane the dragone on dreghe dressede hym agayne ( Morte Arthure)
Appears to be derived from draw.
 
polkadodge - everyone has done this one. it is the akward dance one does when two people try to move aside to pass each other but both go in the same direction.
 
I took Spanish in school and derecho meant right as in right turn or right hand. I learn something new almost every day on this thread, thank you, contributors.

I am currently in Tennessee and there are lots of streets called pike here, so here is a local word;

pike - says it comes from turnpike - noun 1. a toll bar: TOLLGATE 2.a. a toll road or one formally maintained as such, esp. a toll expressway b. a main road, esp. a paved road with crowned surface

The Shorter Oxford gives 6 major different meanings to the word Pike and the Maquarie goes one better with 7. A common Australian expression is to accuse anyone who wriggles out of a minor commitment that they have piked or are a piker

Sca Fell Pike is a mountain. A pike is the pointy bit of an anvil or the raised upper of a shoe, or something a Roundhead pointed at a Cavalier with serious intent. When they're not being a fish!
 
The Shorter Oxford gives 6 major different meanings to the word Pike and the Maquarie goes one better with 7. A common Australian expression is to accuse anyone who wriggles out of a minor commitment that they have piked or are a piker

Sca Fell Pike is a mountain. A pike is the pointy bit of an anvil or the raised upper of a shoe, or something a Roundhead pointed at a
Cavalier with serious intent. When they're not being a fish!

During World War 2, after the Dunkirk debacle, the UK was short of rifles to arm its troops and the Home Guard were at the end of the queue.

They started by drilling with broomsticks until someone had the bright idea of attaching a sharp point to the ends. This developed when the War Office discovered a store of ancient bayonets. Once fitted to the broomstick, the Home Guard had Pikes. They were supposed to shove the sharp end into descending German Parachutists. (Note: Unlike US and Allied Airborne troops the German parachutes needed two-handed control and did not allow firing while in the air.)

The Home Guard Pikes became more sophisticated even after rifles supplied by the US became available. In the 1960s I bought one from a military surplus shop. It was a pickaxe handle fitted with a bayonet socket into which a long sword bayonet clipped. At the other end a spade blade could be attached. Apart from being a very dangerous Pike, it could be a Pickaxe or a spade for entrenching.

The BBC Comedy programme "Dads' Army" featured a Private Pike, and an aged soldier who kept claiming that the pike/bayonet was superior because "They don't like it up them". Both were allusions to the Home Guard's original weaponry.

Og
 
Og and Ishtat, I did wonder how many other meanings might show up for pike, other than the ones stated in the dictionaries, that is.

Welcome, RicoLouis, and yes I know that dance very well. LOL

acumen - noun keenness of perception, discernment, or discrimination esp. in practical matters
 
The Shorter Oxford gives 6 major different meanings to the word Pike and the Maquarie goes one better with 7. A common Australian expression is to accuse anyone who wriggles out of a minor commitment that they have piked or are a piker

Sca Fell Pike is a mountain. A pike is the pointy bit of an anvil or the raised upper of a shoe, or something a Roundhead pointed at a Cavalier with serious intent. When they're not being a fish!

Pike's Peak in Colorado is also a mountain, but named after the American General and explorer, Zebulon Pike, who met his end in the War of 1812 when he was hit by debris as the losing British garrison blew up their munitions in the Battle of York (now Toronto).

The fish of the genus Esox are called pikes for their long, pointed shapes, but the Canadian band of the 1980s, The Northern Pikes, did not have particularly pointed lyrics.
 

cabochon • n., 1. A highly polished, convex-cut, unfaceted gem. 2. A convex style of cutting gems.





 
With as many pikes as there are out here, you would think at least one was a peak rather than a road, but this is not the case. The best of them all is Granny White Pike!

wan - adj 1.a. SICKLY, PALLID b. FEEBLE 2. DIM, FAINT 3. LANGUID
 
Funny thing in all of this posting of seldom words. The ones I don't hear often enough in this thread are "wanna fuck?"
 
Wanna pikelet myself. Growing up in Yorkshire I used to have warm pikelets smeared with melting butter often as a child. To my surprise when I went Down South to college they toasted things called crumpets in front of the fire, and they were quite similar :)

P
 
Thanks for the laugh, CharleyH. Maybe you should start a new thread with that title, I bet you get some takers. On a personal note, those particular words are always in the forefront of my mind.

Here is a quote by Samuel Clemens from the same book;

"The sunset is like some Brobdingnagian fire Company that is trying to put out the stars."

Brobdingnagian - adj gigantic; huge; immense
[from Brobdingnag, an imaginary country of giants in Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726)]
 
Thanks for the laugh, CharleyH. Maybe you should start a new thread with that title, I bet you get some takers. On a personal note, those particular words are always in the forefront of my mind.

Here is a quote by Samuel Clemens from the same book;

"The sunset is like some Brobdingnagian fire Company that is trying to put out the stars."

Brobdingnagian - adj gigantic; huge; immense
[from Brobdingnag, an imaginary country of giants in Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726)]

Check out my version of Swift's Gulliver's Travels in Lilliput and Brobdingnag...

Og
 
I will do that, Og, thanks for the tip.

Another legal drug used in 1906;

phenacetin - noun ACETOPHENETIDIN a white crystalline compound that is used to ease pain or fever
 
Don't forget the Yahoos from Gulliver's Travels, particularly if you use their email service.

I haven't written the Yahoo chapters yet. I think they might breach Literotica's guidelines on bestiality.

Og
 
I never read Gulliver's Travels, Og, but you make it sound much more interesting than I would have guessed.

neurasthenia - noun a condition marked by fatigue, worry, inadequacy, and lack of zest and often by headache, undue sensitiveness to light and noise, and by disturbances of digestion and circulation
 
Funny thing in all of this posting of seldom words. The ones I don't hear often enough in this thread are "wanna fuck?"

I did post hame though, which is Old English for "to copulate." Comes from the notion of taking someone home.

Another word from the modern orthagraphised Old English is dernliership: adultery.
 
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