Seldom-Used Words

[AllardChardon]

Very enlightening, Og. The information I read said they were powdered and often gathered at the back in a ponytail tied with a ribbon, so I just assumed it was the kind George Washington wore. Thanks for correcting my thoughts.

JackLuis, that is a good one and shouled be used more often around here than it is, I suspect.

perturb - vt 1. to disturb greatly in mind: DISQUIET 2. to throw into confusion: DERANGE 3. to cause (a celestial body) to deviate from a theorectically regular orbital motion

[fifty5]

Originally Posted by driphoney

chiropodist

The more common version is podiatrist.

In the UK, reverse that. I've been to a chiropodist, I've wondered what a podiatrist was...

[oggbashan]

Originally Posted by fifty5

In the UK, reverse that. I've been to a chiropodist, I've wondered what a podiatrist was...

I have posted this elsewhere, but:

My local community hospital has signs outside the buildings directing patients to the Chiropody department, where the Chiropodists work.

Inside the building, the signs are to the Podiatry Department, where the Podiatrists work.

The reason?

There is a budget to change signs inside the building, but no money to change signs outside. Podiatry is the new Chiropody.

You want a blood test? Outside is simple - Blood tests this way. Inside? Phlebotomy/Biological Testing.

[fifty5]

Originally Posted by oggbashan

Staff at our local hospital's Out-Patient Clinic have to refer to both because the signs OUTSIDE the building direct patients to the Chiropody Dept and the signs INSIDE refer to the Podiatry Dept. They also have signs to "Blood Tests" outside and "Cardiology Tests" inside. Apparently one section of the local NHS is responsible for external signs and another for internal ones.

My local hospital has a phlebotomy clinic where phlebotomists take blood samples. Cardiology relates to the heart, not to blood.

[NaokoSmith]

[quote=oggbashan;43055167]



/QUOTE]

Is that dashing handsome devil in the picture you when you had just got your first appointment from the admiralty?

[CarlusMagnus]

Originally Posted by NaokoSmith

Is that dashing handsome devil in the picture you when you had just got your first appointment from the admiralty?

I think wigs were old-fashioned when he was made post. Og was probably one of the first post captains to wear an epaulet.

[NaokoSmith]

Originally Posted by CarlusMagnus

I think wigs were old-fashioned when he was made post. Og was probably one of the first post captains to wear an epaulet.

Og is claiming to be old enough to be my Dad but his lively wit and active intelligence will always give him the edge over callow youths.



Callow - that's a good one.
Lacking adult maturity or experience; immature. A callow young man.
From the Old English calu.

[CarlusMagnus]

Originally Posted by NaokoSmith

Callow - that's a good one.
Lacking adult maturity or experience; immature. A callow young man.
From the Old English calu.

It is a good one. I used it in Chapter 2 of Book 1 of Charlie and Mindy, where I wrote "Even at the callow age of 19, I knew that anything—anything at all—a guy says about that can, and will, be used against him."

(If you really want to know what "that" was, you're gonna have to read the story. )

[NaokoSmith]

Originally Posted by CarlusMagnus

It is a good one. I used it in Chapter 2 of Book 1 of Charlie and Mindy, where I wrote "Even at the callow age of 19, I knew that anything—anything at all—a guy says about that can, and will, be used against him."

(If you really want to know what "that" was, you're gonna have to read the story. )

LOL! OK, I will! I just have to finish a novel I'm reviewing for another pal, some stories by friends I want to review on my blog and the next chapter of my own werewolf safe sex story (ROFLOL!) Oh and do my job, clean my house, chastise my child.

Anyone who uses elegant words like 'callow' can go in my library. (If it's a safe sex story it can have a review on my blog too.)

[Handley_Page]

.
Lets all let the alphabet run down in the order given, eh ?.
Jumping to a C from a P is getting a trifle ahead, eh ?
.
I think we need a 'comment' thread.

[NaokoSmith]

Originally Posted by Handley_Page

.
Lets all let the alphabet run down in the order given, eh ?.
Jumping to a C from a P is getting a trifle ahead, eh ?
.
I think we need a 'comment' thread.

Oops I should read the whole thread maybe. I didn't realise you were going in alphabetical order. Pippity-ping was a serendipitous call! (I will wait for 's' to do Serendipity!)

Parse (much beloved instruction of Latin teachers)
1. to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech, syntactic relations, etc.
2. to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech, inflectional form, syntactic function, etc.

Example of parsing: the Roman centurian gently explaining to Brian in Life of Brian that he doesn't mean Romanes eunt domus but needs the vocative plural, the imperative and locative of each of those words: Romani ite domum.

[AllardChardon]

Naoko, just for the record, this thread is backwards, starting with Z and ending with A, and I could care less if you post words that are not in that order. I so thoroughly enjoy everyone's input, I must encourage all comers, new and old. Please feel free to post whatever you want, as long as it is done in a polite manner. That is my only request on this thread; civility.

pertinacious - adj 1.a. adhering resolutely to an opinion, purpose, or design b. perversely persistent 2. stubbornly unyielding or tenacious

[oggbashan]

Originally Posted by NaokoSmith

...

Parse (much beloved instruction of Latin teachers)
1. to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech, syntactic relations, etc.
2. to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech, inflectional form, syntactic function, etc.

...

In my primary school when I was about age 8, parsing was a required part of the English curriculum. We had to explain that a sentence had to have a subject, a verb and an object, even if the object was implied and not stated.

Analysing sentences was a bore, but the teachers considered that a reasonable command of parsing, and therefore English grammatical construction, was necessary before we started Latin at age 9.

How else would we know about gerunds and gerundives?



(Thank you, Ronald Searle)

[NaokoSmith]

Originally Posted by oggbashan

(Thank you, Ronald Searle)

LOL! That gerund looks like me when it's raining and I can't hang the laundry out to dry.

[AllardChardon]

When I was in school, we called it sentence construction and used diagrams to show what each part of the sentence was, and I was very good at it. Parsing is a new word for me, even though it is essentially the same thing.

pert - noun 1.a. saucily free and forward: IMPRUDENT b. being trim and chic: JAUNTY c. piquantly stimulating 2. LIVELY, VIVACIOUS

[oggbashan]

Originally Posted by AllardChardon

...

pert - noun 1.a. saucily free and forward: IMPRUDENT b. being trim and chic: JAUNTY c. piquantly stimulating 2. LIVELY, VIVACIOUS

Pert breasts feature too frequently in Lit stories.

[steve44uk]

Originally Posted by oggbashan

Pert breasts feature too frequently in Lit stories.

Perspicacious - adjective. - having keen insight

I, too, used to have to parse sentences in English (and Latin, for that matter). Stood me in good stead when I hit Tacitus In the sixth form. Not literally, obviously. Although I really wanted to, at times...

[NaokoSmith]

Originally Posted by steve44uk

I, too, used to have to parse sentences in English (and Latin, for that matter). Stood me in good stead when I hit Tacitus In the sixth form. Not literally, obviously. Although I really wanted to, at times...

I was lucky enough to get an MM romance! Nisus and Euryalus. I still get goosebumps when I think of some of the beautiful poetry of their love and deaths.

[CarlusMagnus]

Originally Posted by AllardChardon

When I was in school, we called it sentence construction and used diagrams to show what each part of the sentence was, and I was very good at it. Parsing is a new word for me, even though it is essentially the same thing.

pert - noun 1.a. saucily free and forward: IMPRUDENT b. being trim and chic: JAUNTY c. piquantly stimulating 2. LIVELY, VIVACIOUS

We called it diagramming, and I was pretty good at it, too. Good enough, in fact, that at least 75% of the time I had to spend on it was wasted.

But parse has another meaning in computer programming. Your web browser must analyze, or parse each page you look at in order to display it properly. If you don't get what I mean, you can go to your browser's menu and locate the item titled something like "Page Source" or "View Source" in order to see what the document looked like as it was stored on the server and transmitted to your computer before your browser parsed it.

[Handley_Page]

[quote=AllardChardon;43062653]When I was in school, we called it sentence construction and used diagrams to show what each part of the sentence was, and I was very good at it. Parsing is a new word for me, even though it is essentially the same thing.

We just called it Parts Of Speech, as I recall. It was a very long time ago and not continued when I changed schools.

Originally Posted by CarlusMagnus

But parse has another meaning in computer programming. Your web browser must analyze, or parse each page you look at in order to display it properly. If you don't get what I mean, you can go to your browser's menu and locate the item titled something like "Page Source" or "View Source" in order to see what the document looked like as it was stored on the server and transmitted to your computer before your browser parsed it.

Well, not quite. It may look like that now, but its original purpose was to check that a If was matched by the appropriate THEN, for example. The layout of the text came from the C language, where matching things up was more important,.
It kinda stuck.

[AllardChardon]

Welcome, steve44uk, you guessed my next entry. Backward I go...

persona non grata - noun a diplomatic official who is personally not acceptable to the government of a foreign country to which he is accredited

[fifty5]

Originally Posted by Handley_Page

[i]Well, not quite. It may look like that now, but its original purpose was to check that a If was matched by the appropriate THEN, for example. The layout of the text came from the C language, where matching things up was more important,.
It kinda stuck.

The quintessential point is that parsing is an analysis of the syntax of a text to check the structure obeys the rules of a language (computer or human) as opposed to the semantics, or meaning.

e.g. "Og sprayed a fluffy television on his patriotism." Parsing this will verify that the syntax is correct (subject, verb, object, etc.), but semantically, it is rubbish (everyone knows it's a cake - and it's on his head!)
"Head then cake" is the opposite - bad syntax, but a self-evident truth.

[NaokoSmith]

I am so sorry but I'm unable to wait for the 'M's (MMs or even M&Ms).

Meretricious -
1. Attracting attention in a vulgar manner; Plausible but false or insincere; specious.
2. Of or relating to prostitutes or prostitution.
From the Latin meretrix, prostitute, also merere, to earn money.

Many years ago when I was but a callow teenager, The Times ran a set of descriptions of bad wines, including:
Yes, it's a meretricious little paintstripper.

This picture is from Ronald Searle's illustrations to descriptions of wines which I bought my Dad as a Christmas present around this time. I was very cross when he fell about laughing at the picture in this link, entitled Leave to Age.

http://www.artnet.com/artists/ronald...bdNsPHwnN_iuQ2

[AllardChardon]

Thank you, Naoko for such a great word and totally new to me.

And thank you, fifty5, for such a great explanation of parse in computerese.

personal property - noun property other than real property consisting of things temporary or movable: CHATTELS

personalty - noun PERSONAL PROPERTY

There is that chattels word again, and I do know what that can mean, slaves.

[steve44uk]

Peripatetic

adj.
1. Walking about or from place to place; travelling on foot.
2. Of or relating to the philosophy or teaching methods of Aristotle, who conducted discussions while walking about in the Lyceum of ancient Athens.

Also used to describe teachers or more commonly lecturers who ply their trade at more than one educational establishment.

Always loved that word...