Quizmonster n Clanad - What are your favourite words?

[padanarm]

As two of the most erudite and wise wordsmiths on AB, what are your favourite words?

[Clanad]

In my case, padanarm (interesting moniker, that) it would be impossible to pick a fruit from such a many splendored tree. However, one of the most pleasing to the ear in a Spanish derived term... Conquistadore... not as usually pronounced with harsh emphasis on consonants: Kahn- qwist-tadoor, but as heard from an elderly, self-taught Zapatista in front of his small but tidy home in Santiago de Quer�taro in the State of Quer�taro, Mexico... He was, of course, of mixed Indian and Spanish descent, and denied neither. Most Mexicans can easily trace their ancestry 300 years or more and his pronunciation of the word (forget the pejorative meaning) was a singular Cadenza on the listeners ear.

On a more practical note, defenestrate is oddly useful and, again, pleasing to hear... (verb tr.: To throw someone or something out of a window. From Latin de- (out of) + fenestra (window). Similar in vein is Invigilate ... ("a descendant of the Latin verb "vigilare," meaning "to stay awake." As you may have guessed, "vigilare" is the ancestor of our adjective "vigilant" ("alertly watchful"), and it also gives us "reveille" ("a signal to wake up in the morning," via French "r�veiller") and "surveillance" ("close watch, supervision," via French "surveiller"). "Invigilate" has been a part of the English language since the mid-16th century..."

Lastly, perhaps eleemosynary... (el-uh-MOS-uh-ner-ee... From Latin eleemosynarius... relating to charitable giving).

Contd.

[Clanad]

Contd.

Mine are predominantly multi-syllabic (Late Latin syllabicus) and probably means I like to hear myself talk. Or so opines the lady with whom I trade sleeping priveleges for garden chores... (Shhh... don't tell her it's the practised art of dissimulation...)

Thanks for the compliment, however ill-deserved (in my case) and a chance to describe the utilization of the churrigueresque in today's culture...

[padanarm]

Ah, wonderful answer, Clanad.

I can hear you savour those words and I know that you've looked them up - not merely to find out what they literally mean but also to understand where they came from and enjoy their history.

My current fave is fantastic (the modern meaning) because you have to smile while saying it. Rapscallion, ne'er-do-well, and interrobang are words I love but rarely get a chance to use. Overall I still think bingo is the dog's biscuits.

PS. Good luck with the dissimulation stuff - is it cheaper than rohypnol?

[Quizmonster]

Two of my favourites are deemed and tantamount, not so much for their sound-qualities but for the way in which they can make what isn't so, so!
'He was deemed to have passed the exam' equals, 'He didn't even sit the thing!'
'This is tantamount to blackmail!' equals, 'I know perfectly well that it isn't blackmail, but I'll say it is anyway!'

My thanks for your kind comment.

[factor-fiction]

Good answer, Quizmonster. A topical example of deemed would be Strauss was deemed to have taken the catch cleanly .

A similar word to 'deemed' is 'adjudged'. It's a strange word- it's used regularly in football and cricket commentaries but I don't ever recall anyone using it in day to day conversation. Does anyone ever use it?

I like Schadenfreude which meansone person's delight in another's misfortune.

A good short word is hone (to perfect or make more intense or effective).

Clanad- do you really use the word defenestrate ?
Can you give me an example of a sentence?

[Quizmonster]

Defenestrate is generally used only figuratively nowadays, though often literally in past times!
"Thatcher was finally defenestrated in 1990."
In other words her colleagues "chucked her out the window" in the vernacular.

[Clanad]

Thanks for interim posting Q... my own use of the fine verb form has been used often in addressing my occasionally miscreant teenagers... such as "... You're belongings are subject to defenestration if your room isn't cleaned post-haste..."

My goal in it's usage (well known by even the 7 year old) is to befuddle, obfuscate and generally produce a puzzeled look on the face of a man-child who should certainly write a book immediately, since at this stage of life he obviously knows everything...

Belatedly, I'd add cleave, since it's one of those rare words that has two meanings, both absolutely contrapositive... one can cleave to something or one can cleave something, as in cut away...

[Quizmonster]

Re the knowing child, C, I love the story of the man who said, "When I was sixteen, my father knew nothing, but when I was twenty-one, I was amazed at how much he'd managed to pick up in only five years!"

[TCL-MUMPING]

There's a list here of other words similar to cleave in that they have opposite meanings http://www.fun-with-words.com/nym_autoantonyms .html.

[Ankou]

some of my favourite words (of a sort) come from the hilarious blackadder episode 'ink and incapability'. in fact, they often make me anispeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused such pericombobulation.

i would also like to offer Quiz & Clanad my most enthusiastic contrafribularities.

[albaqwerty]

this thread is an absolute pleasure to read. I'm not offering any words other than what is on screen. Thank you all for an intelligent (and amusing post)
This is not a sarcastic or rude post, just a genuine thank you.

[factor-fiction]

I couldn't get TCL Mumping's link to work.
This one should work
http://www.fun-with-words.com/nym_autoantonyms .html

[Quizmonster]

Thank you and a thrackling good day to you, Ankou. I loved that episode, too.
I am constantly making up such idiotic words, so I thought I'd better check with the OED that it didn't actually exist. Strangely, thrack does - meaning cram/load - but not thrackle. I hereby claim it as my own!

[TCL-MUMPING]

Believe it or no, "thrackle" does exist.

"A thrackle is a drawing of a graph such that every pair of nonadjacent edges cross. The name is coined by John Conway, who notes that a thrackle is also a tangle of fishing line. The name is appropriate, as a thrackled drawing of a graph appears very tangled indeed."

I was going to say that by that definition, a "thrackling good day" would not make sense but then again you could say "afa" in a good way.

[Quizmonster]

Well, I'll be skumblethrodged, TCL! Never thought of googling it. Certainly it does not exist in the OED - either in print or online - nor Chambers, nor Bloomsbury nor Collins. It's not even in my dictionary of Doric, which seemed like a possible source, given its sound and the fact that you came up with it!

I would have thought the 'tangle of fishing line' meaning at least would be recorded somewhere, but not in any of the above.

Still, well spotted, TCL.

PS I shall be quite nonplussed if you can find a reference to skumblethrodged.

[TCL-MUMPING]

I looked in the DSL because it has a Scots feel to it but no joy, maybe I was thinking on trachle but as I've been lazing in bed most of the morning it's not been a trachle for me...

[Quizmonster]

Aye, it's a sair trachle noo an' than, in't it? Bit nae 'e day for yersel, Ah see. Enjoy't!

(Trachle actually is in the OED...and why not?)

[jno]

I picked up these from somewhere, though alas I can no longer remember the source:

scaphocephaly: Having a head which is the shape of a boat.
paneity: The state of being bread.
wayzgoose: An annual picnic for members of the printing profession.
stillicide: The right to drop water on somebody else's property.
haecceity: Thisness, ie the quality of being this.
corsned: The practice of establishing somebody's guilt or innocence by seeing whether they are able to swallow a large piece of mouldy cheese