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LIT CAMS (200 Free Tokens)ADULT TOYSVOD MOVIES

Seldom-Used Words

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AllardChardon said:
Carlus, my dictionary thanks you for such a lovely compliment. And the dictionary user does, too.

I had no idea this word was defined as thus;

officialism - noun lack of flexibility and initiative combined with excessive adherence to regulations in the behavior of usual government officials
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I hadn't encountered that one before; it's a weak version of officiousness—the difference being that officialism lacks the domineering quality of officiousness.
 
Two great reads in one day is fantastic, indeed. Thanks so much, Carlus, for posting the link on pornocracy. Pope history always gets my interest. I must say, our current Pope Francis makes me proud to have been baptized as an adult in the Catholic Church. He impresses me more every day, whether I ever attend Mass, again or not.

ofay - noun slang a white person

This one escapes me. Has anyone ever heard or read it?
 
AllardChardon said:
Two great reads in one day is fantastic, indeed. Thanks so much, Carlus, for posting the link on pornocracy. Pope history always gets my interest. I must say, our current Pope Francis makes me proud to have been baptized as an adult in the Catholic Church. He impresses me more every day, whether I ever attend Mass, again or not.

ofay - noun slang a white person

This one escapes me. Has anyone ever heard or read it?
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Yes—I'm familiar with it. It's pretty much the same as honky, or the Navaho word bilagona. All are vulgar terms for whites, of much the same crudeness as the n-word for blacks.

Don't use any of these words in polite company. Probably not on Lit., either, in spite of the fact that crude obscenity is acceptable here. These words are all racial slurs.
 
Re: Pornocracy

One might, given an acute attack of cynicism, regard many a government as being Pornocratic. This works if one considers that Politicians sell (prostitute) themselves to some thing.
The Oxford on my PC has a lot to say about the word, but this is in line with my thoughts:
A person devoted to shameful or corrupt practices; esp. a person who misuses his or her talents, skills, etc., or who sacrifices his or her self-respect, for the sake of personal or financial gain.

---------------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from Oxford Talking Dictionary
Copyright © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 
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Thank you, Carlus, for the heads up on those words, none of which I have ever used nor plan to, here or elsewhere.

I agree, Handley, that pornocratic is a word that could describe many American politicians, female or male. And that is a sad thing to say.

oeuvre - noun a substantial body of work constituting the lifework of a writer, an artist, or a composer
 
I'd be more interested in seeing an actual pornocracy. That would be a country mainly lead by women and gay men, At least some of whom know poverty.
 
hylas, maybe you should just write a story about it. All of my work is historical in nature and I really like writing about times in the distant past.

Oerlikon - noun any of several 20mm automatic aircraft or antiaircraft cannon
 
AllardChardon said:
Oerlikon - noun any of several 20mm automatic aircraft or antiaircraft cannon
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Named for the Swiss region of Oerlikon, via the Swiss armament company:

Oerlikon Contraves was a Swiss anti-aircraft artillery manufacturer famous for its adaptation of the 1916 20 mm Becker as the Oerlikon 20 mm autocannon design, which was used in the Second World Wars and still in use today. Copies and derivatives of these designs were made by German, French, British and Japanese weapon manufacturers. Oerlikon Contraves was purchased by Rheinmetall, a German armament manufacturer, in 1999.
Click to expand...
 
AllardChardon said:
Thank you, Carlus, for the heads up on those words, none of which I have ever used nor plan to, here or elsewhere.

I agree, Handley, that pornocratic is a word that could describe many American politicians, female or male. And that is a sad thing to say.

oeuvre - noun a substantial body of work constituting the lifework of a writer, an artist, or a composer
Click to expand...

oeuvre is French for work (the noun), as in "a work of Shakespeare." It's related to the Latin opus.

Trick question: What is the plural of opera?

Answer: It's already plural. Its singular is opus.
 
Thank you, Harold, for posting more on the Oerlikon 20mm canon. I was happy to see what a modern one looks like.

Carlus, yes, opus and opera, who would have known one was the plural of the other. I would have switched them, if asked. Opera being single and opus the plural word. But then I never took Latin in school. I chose Spanish instead.

Oenone - noun a nymph of Mount Ida and the wife of Paris who abandons her for Helen of Troy
 
A pleasant Saturday greeting to you all;

oenomel - noun 1. an ancient Greek beverage of wine and honey 2. a strong sweet draft (as of inspiration)
 
A rainy Sunday here, which affords lots of editing time;

oeillade - noun a glance of the eye; esp: OGLE
 
Œthel

We're in the right place for this word: œthel which means the ligatatured letter, "Œ" (upper case) or "œ" (lower case) joining the letter "o" to the letter "e". See the Wikipedia article for oethel. The word is sometimes spelled without using the symbol: oethel. Many words in American English that are now spelled with a simple "e" used to contain this letter instead: for example, fœderal, instead of federal; diarrhœa instead of diarrhea. The Brits retain the older spelling. I imagine that India and Australia do, too.

There is also the letter "Æ" (upper case) or "æ" (lower case), called ash. It's in Wikipedia, too, but it's a little harder to find, because it's buried among the other meanings of the word "ash". American English spelling has mostly eliminated this letter, too. It was once pædiatrician, instead of pediatrician. (The former is still correct in British English.)

It's common practice to replace the ligatured symbols with the two letters, "ae" for ash and "oe" for œthel, when one doesn't have access to the correct symbols in one's font or, especially, on one's typewriter. (How quaint!)
 
Thank you, Handley, for the literal translation.

Very interesting, Carlus, my dictionary is devoid of oethel and I am always interested in older forms of words and their evolution.

Here is a good mix for this site;

oedipal - adj of or relating to the Oedipus complex

Oedipus - noun a son of Laius and Jocasta who kills his father and married his mother as foretold by an oracle at his birth

Oedipus complex - noun the positive libidinal feelings that a child develops toward the parent of the opposite sex and that when unresolved are conceived as a source of adult personality disorder
 
CarlusMagnus said:
We're in the right place for this word: œthel which means the ligatatured letter, "Œ" (upper case) or "œ" (lower case) joining the letter "o" to the letter "e". See the Wikipedia article for oethel. The word is sometimes spelled without using the symbol: oethel. Many words in American English that are now spelled with a simple "e" used to contain this letter instead: for example, fœderal, instead of federal; diarrhœa instead of diarrhea. The Brits retain the older spelling. I imagine that India and Australia do, too.

There is also the letter "Æ" (upper case) or "æ" (lower case), called ash. It's in Wikipedia, too, but it's a little harder to find, because it's buried among the other meanings of the word "ash". American English spelling has mostly eliminated this letter, too. It was once pædiatrician, instead of pediatrician. (The former is still correct in British English.)

It's common practice to replace the ligatured symbols with the two letters, "ae" for ash and "oe" for œthel, when one doesn't have access to the correct symbols in one's font or, especially, on one's typewriter. (How quaint!)
Click to expand...

I used to travel to India a lot in the late 80's to late 90's and Indian English language Newspapers at that time were great preservers of older forms, styles and spelling of English. Their sub editing was superbly accurate by the standards of about 1910.

If one considers that there are more Indian speakers of English than Americans and Brits combined, maybe that is where we should look for the language's future development.:)
 
AllardChardon said:
Thank you, Handley, for the literal translation.

Very interesting, Carlus, my dictionary is devoid of oethel and I am always interested in older forms of words and their evolution.

Here is a good mix for this site;

oedipal - adj of or relating to the Oedipus complex

Oedipus - noun a son of Laius and Jocasta who kills his father and married his mother as foretold by an oracle at his birth

Oedipus complex - noun the positive libidinal feelings that a child develops toward the parent of the opposite sex and that when unresolved are conceived as a source of adult personality disorder
Click to expand...

Oedipus, from which your other two words derive, is almost certainly Œdipus in older spelling, as it comes from a Greek name beginning with "oι" (the Greek letters omicron and iota), which was replaced with "Œ" in older English spelling.

And yes, Œdipus did "love his mommy," as the Tom Lehrer song puts it.
 
Do please tell me how to generate those letter (I'm sure my ole' Dad called it a diphthong).
I also think you missed an important one: Foetal.
 
Handley_Page said:
Do please tell me how to generate those letter (I'm sure my ole' Dad called it a diphthong).
I also think you missed an important one: Foetal.
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Use the HTML codes, which you can find at

http://www.ascii.cl/htmlcodes.htm

One gets "Œ", for example, by entering

& #338;

I've put a space between the "&" and the "#" to keep the code inactive in this note. Don't leave out the semicolon; it's part of the code. If you type the code without the space, you get "Œ". Lower case (œ) is

& #339;

An mdash (—) is

& #8212;

without the space.

And yes, fœtal is another one. There are many, and I wasn't trying to be exhaustive.

Œ and Æ aren't exactly diphthongs; they're digraphs, which, depending on use, may represent diphthongs.
 
Carlus, I must thank you for taking the time to explain the digraphs and how to make them on a keypad. I am not sure I will be using them anytime soon, but now I have the instructions on how to do it, if I ever want to, and so can anyone else who reads this thread.

odoriferous - adj 1. yielding an odor: ODOROUS 2. morally offensive
 
Tio_Narratore said:
And then there's the old anti-perspirant, Odo-ro-no, which e. e. cummings presented as "Odor? O No!" in his poetic diatribe, Poem, or beauty hurts Mr. Vinal, against an "advertised" America. It seems somehow modern in its intent...

Herhttp://poetry.rapgenius.com/E-e-cummings-poem-or-beauty-hurts-mr-vinal-lyrics#note-1485125e it is with some of the ads, including the Odo-ro-no box.
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I remember my cousin having that stuff.
 
Tio, I have never encountered that one before, but thanks for sharing, anyway.

odorant - noun an odorous substance

Add a de to the front and it is a word everyone uses; without it, I think it is seldom-used.
 
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