Seldom-Used Words

[size=+2]Jerome[/size]
teenager … champion of “favorite” writers
dixie’s nemesis
retard regurgitator

POSTS by the dumb texan Sept 29th 2011

With assistance from misshick

dumb texan said:

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AllardChardon said:

I will be taking pictures soon and will post one after I do, Handley.

ramp(1) - verb 1.a. to be rampant b. (1): to stand or advance menacingly with forelegs or with arms raised (2): to move or act furiously: STORM 2. to creep up, used especially with plants

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(1) Crabs and Scorpions ramp. A well-placed heavy boot will deter the latter, or squash if required. For crabs, just move behind them and pick them up.

Some species of spiders ramp too. The boot is just as effective.

(2) This afternoon I will be attacking some rampant convolvulous that has crept through from the neighbour's garden and decided to creep all over the honeysuckle.

More on (1) When a very young Boy Scout, a tenderfoot, I went on my first ever Scout Camp to North Africa. I had read, and re-read Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys. As a result of my reading, on the first morning I banged my boots on the ground to remove any wildlife that might have taken refuge in the boots.

One of the older Scouts asked what I was doing. I stopped banging the first boot and explained that I was following Baden-Powell's advice. I might even have offered to show him the exact passage. He watched as I banged the second boot. He was as surprised as I was when a three-inch long scorpion was dislodged and once on the ground ramped, curling its sting.

A swipe with my boot and he was a deceased scorpion.

For the rest of the camp, every Scout banged his boots before putting them on but no one else found a rampant scorpion.

Grand_High_Poobah said:

If you’re new to this thread and can see this post let me just explain: three AHers, the dumb texan, misshick and miss odious have seen fit to repeatedly post the following (and other similar garbage) on various of the Scouries World threads. We will return the favor as long as they continue their silly actions.

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I don't understand. None of those people started this thread.

Og, we have scorpions here, too, but they are very small, thank goodness. After leaving my gardening shoes on the back porch overnight, I always turn them over and give them a good whack to see if any have crawled inside and occasionally I find one. I rarely kill it, though. The black widows are never spared.

ramekin - noun 1. a preparation of cheese with bread crumbs, puff paste, or eggs baked in a mold or shell 2. an individual baking dish

AllardChardon said:

Og, we have scorpions here, too, but they are very small, thank goodness. After leaving my gardening shoes on the back porch overnight, I always turn them over and give them a good whack to see if any have crawled inside and occasionally I find one. I rarely kill it, though. The black widows are never spared.

ramekin - noun 1. a preparation of cheese with bread crumbs, puff paste, or eggs baked in a mold or shell 2. an individual baking dish

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I am SO glad my teenage son did NOT see this word! If he had, I would be preparing somethings in the ramekins, like individual apple crisps or potato au gratin.

Originally Posted by AllardChardon:
ramp(1) - verb
1.a. to be rampant b. (1): to stand or advance menacingly with forelegs or with arms raised (2): to move or act furiously: STORM 2. to creep up, used especially with plants


A couple more definitions of Ramp:-
3. [n] The [hard-standing] strip of concrete in front of the hangar where aircraft are prepared for immediate flight.
4. [v] To increase the level of something, like an activity.
Usually used as "Ramp it up".

Welcome, Rj Thoughts and SevenSquared. Here is a favorite of mine;

rambunctious - adj marked by uncontrollable exuberance: UNRULY

Here is an interesting set of words;

rake(5) - noun [short for rakehell] a dissolute person: LIBERTINE

rakehell - noun RAKE

rakish(1) - adj of, relating to, or characteristic of a rake: DISSOLUTE

rakish(2) - adj [probably from French, the raking masts of pirate ships] 1. having a smart stylish appearance suggestive of speed (a ~ ship) 2. negligent of convention or formality: JAUNTY (~ clothes)

As I watch it rain out my big windows, I found this;

rainy day - noun a period of want or need

AllardChardon said:

As I watch it rain out my big windows, I found this;

rainy day - noun a period of want or need

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Hence "putting something away for a rainy day" ?

A rictus is a frozen grimace or grin. I bend the definition a little and use it to describe someone's face during intense pleasure or pain: "Her face was a rictus of obscene ecstasy..."

Ineluctable is a juicier way of saying inevitable or unavoidable. "He felt the stirrings of his ineluctable release."

Candaulism. Strictly, "...the sexual practice or fantasy in which a man exposes his female partner, or images of her, to other people for their voyeuristic pleasure." (Wiki) But also now applied to the practice of watching your lover with another partner.

Ravish and ravage. They're often used interchangeably, but ravish means either rapeor give great pleasure to (kind of gives new meaning to the term "ravishing beauty"), while ravage means to devastate, pillage, or destroy.

Zoanthropy: A form of insanity where one believes himself to be a beast

Hello, Doc, nice to hear from you and those are some great seldom-used words you posted.

rail(4) - verb to revile or scold in harsh, insolent, or abusive language

Good morrow, here is a funny one;

ragtag and bobtail - noun RABBLE

sorry; error

How funny! I posted a dictionary entry over on my Olympian Gods thread by mistake. It was Ragnarok, a good word, anyway. LOL

raggle-taggle - adj MOTLEY

I thought the history of this word was worth noting;

ragamuffin - noun [Ragamoffyn, a demon in Piers Plowman (1393), attributed to William Langland]: a ragged often disreputable person; esp: a poorly clothed often dirty child

How about this word for varying entries;

rag(1) - noun 1.a. a waste piece of cloth b. pl: clothes usu. in poor or ragged condition 2. something resembling a rag 3. NEWSPAPER 4. the stringy axis and white fibrous membrane of a citrus fruit

rag(2) - noun 1. any of various hard rocks 2. a large roofing slate rough on one side

rag(3) - verb 1. to rail at: SCOLD 2. TORMENT, TEASE

rag(4) - noun chiefly British: an outburst of boisterous fun; also PRANK

rag(5) - noun [short for ragtime] a composition in ragtime

AllardChardon said:

How about this word for varying entries;

rag(1) - noun 1.a. a waste piece of cloth b. pl: clothes usu. in poor or ragged condition 2. something resembling a rag 3. NEWSPAPER 4. the stringy axis and white fibrous membrane of a citrus fruit

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Why rag for a newspaper?

Because early newspapers were printed on rag paper, paper made from old rags. That was less white than ordinary paper but cheaper and fairly strong. I have some 17th and 18th Century newspapers that are in better condition than modern copies from 10 years ago.

My copies of newspapers from the French Revolution are still easy to handle and show no signs of deteroration after 220 years - because they were printed on rag paper.

Copies of newspapers from the French Revolution? Og, you continue to amaze me, while my respect for you grows steadily! I had no idea newspaper was called a rag for that reason. Thank you, again.

Please excuse me, if I have posted this word before;

raffish - adj 1. marked by or suggestive of flashy vulgarity or crudeness 2. marked by careless unconventionality: RAKISH

AllardChardon said:

Copies of newspapers from the French Revolution? Og, you continue to amaze me, while my respect for you grows steadily! I had no idea newspaper was called a rag for that reason. Thank you, again...

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I have 60 copies of French Revolutionary newspapers 'Le Moniteur' from that era. In 1989 I lent them, together with my Assignats (French banknotes of the time) to an exhibition held in the UK about the 200th Anniversary of the French Revolution.

I bought the newspapers in the 1970s, at 25 pence each, from a book market stall in Farringdon Road, London. The stall was the last of a large bookmarket that had been in Farringdon Road for over 100 years.

The Assignats are easily found in the UK. I bought my first ones at an antique fair, but they turn up on eBay almost every week. Why?

The French Revolutionary Government printed the banknotes apparently backed by the value of lands they had seized from deceased and emigre aristocrats. However, they soon sold the land, at knock-down prices, to their friends and so the Assignats became worthless. Every day in Le Moniteur, they announced how many Assignats had been withdrawn from circulation and burned.

The idea was that by reducing the number of Assignats, those that were left would regain value. However, that idea had two flaws:

1. The announcements that the Assignats had been burned was a LIE. They hadn't burned them. They just SAID they had. The government lying to the people? Never!

2. Those they did actually withdraw, eventually, when their value was almost nil, they sold to English factory owners at a very low price by weight. The factory owners, instead of paying their workers in good English money, paid them in Assignats. Those Assignats could only be used to pay the rent on the houses owned by the factory owner, or spent in the store run by the factory owner. The store charged higher prices for food than normal shops, but the Assignats couldn't be used anywhere except in the factory shop. Remember the song line 'Sold my soul to the company store'? That's where it started - with Assignats. The UK parliament eventually passed an Act making such payments illegal, and all the Assignats in England became worthless. But they weren't destroyed. They survived as curiosities for people like me to buy over 100 years later.

At the 1989 exhibition, I was presented with a bottle of Bicentennial Champagne. I also drank some at the formal opening ceremony. I still have the unopened bottle in its original packaging - because it was bloody awful champagne.

I also have a few copies of London-published 'The Annual Register' which was, and is, an annual publication detailing all the events of the past year, military, political, literary, etc. I have copies for the French Revolution of 1789 and of course, the American Revolution of 1776.

The ones for 1788 the year of the first settlement of Australia I sent to my old school in Australia. They were interested but there is no mention at all of Australia in that year. Why not? Because the news didn't get back to England until 1789 and even then wasn't worth mentioning.

Og, I will forever be your fan. I hope when I visit England, I can find an Assignat to buy for fun! EBay is too easy, hehe.

radionics - noun plural - ELECTRONICS

Oops! Double post.

AllardChardon said:

Og, I will forever be your fan. I hope when I visit England, I can find an Assignat to buy for fun! EBay is too easy, hehe.

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I just checked on eBay.co.uk - six assignats on offer from 99 pence (low value 15 sols) to 22 pounds (high value 50 livres).

They didn't muck about in those days. The penalty for forging an assignat was 'death'.

Rag paper is far from cheap paper; rag content still makes the highest quality paper for printing or drawing. The older the rag the better, and Europe used to import mummies from Egypt for their wrappings to make paper. The cheap wood pulp process was only developed in the second half of the 19th Century in Canada.

I was under the impression that newspapers earned the sobriquet "rag" as a result of their value when recycled and as a result of their worth as reportage of reality.

Tio_Narratore said:

Rag paper is far from cheap paper; rag content still makes the highest quality paper for printing or drawing. The older the rag the better, and Europe used to import mummies from Egypt for their wrappings to make paper. The cheap wood pulp process was only developed in the second half of the 19th Century in Canada.

I was under the impression that newspapers earned the sobriquet "rag" as a result of their value when recycled and as a result of their worth as reportage of reality.

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Rag paper is more expensive now. The rags that were used for 18th and early 19th Century newspapers were collected from the slums. Mummies were wrapped in linen - far removed from shoddy rags collected by rag and bone men.

There was and is a whole industry about quality paper. I have some French books from the 19th Century that proudly claim that they were printed on English Whatman paper from Maidstone, Kent. Whatman also produced filter papers for the chemical industry.

Until the 20th Century, newspapers weren't recycled, except cut up for use as toilet paper, or for lighting coal fires. I remember that there was a pecking order for used newspapers for toilets. The quality papers, such as The Times, The Manchester Guardian, The Telegraph and The News Chronicle were preferred because the ones that were or became red-top tabloids used a cheaper printing process that left printers' ink on your backside.

During WWII in the UK, paper recycling became important because importing wood or wood pulp was a waste of scarce shipping resources.