Tag: words

I’m just a soul whose intentions are good

If this had happened some years ago, I would been mortified, and probably depressed, for days.

There’s an article, Quoof and other family nonsense, which is about the mispronunciation of words, both intentional and otherwise. I have done both.

There are a slew of words I simply cannot spell unless I say them – sometimes in my head but occasionally aloud, albeit in fun – the way they are spelled. For instance, I’d say epitome is EP-i-tome, not e-PIT-o- me; facade is fa-CADE, rather than fa-SAHD . And my favorite word, because it has all the vowels in alphabetical order, is facetious, which I like to do as FACE-tious, rather than fa-SEE-shus; it also works with the adverb form, by adding the -ly.

But one word I simply had never said aloud was omniscience, which I knew from reading, often religious books, meant the state of knowing everything. When I saw it, I thought OM-ni-science. Now I could, and have, pronounced omniscient, and so I knew the emphasis was on the second syllable. But that last syllable confounded me.

I discovered this on Mother’s Day, when the youth of the church was running the services. So, instead of going to choir, I attended Christian education for the adults. Folks took turn reading this paper written by the leader, my friend Grace, about “Exploring the nature of God and the existence of suffering in the world.”

The word omniscience showed up, not once but about five times. After I butchered it a few times, someone said aloud, “om-NI-shents”, and the brain said, OK. Truth is, if this had happened some years ago, I would been mortified, and probably depressed, for days, or probably longer.

During the church service, two of our church high schoolers gave the sermon on diversity fighting hatred. One of them was Sofia, the daughter of the Transitional Presbyter for Albany Presbytery – well, not for too much longer. So I jokingly say to Pastor Miriam, in front of Shannan the Presbyter, “So we got someone to take your [preaching] job.” But I was misunderstood, with both of them thinking I wanted to get rid of Pastor Miriam, instead of sideways complimenting Sofia. I so hate being misunderstood.

And since Eric Burdon’s birthday was this month, it’s time for a #15 song in the US in 1965 by the Animals, oh, Lord, Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.

Good day: asylee, bamboozled, storyline

“Persecution or the fear thereof must be based on the alien’s race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

This is what makes a good day: learning something new. Often it’s at work, but not always.

I was doing some research on demographics. I could NOT find what I wanted at the Census, so I looked on the page for the Department of Homeland Security. I discovered a word that was new to me: asylee. My spellcheck does NOT like it.

USCIS’ somewhat skewed definition: “An alien in the United States or at a port of entry who is found to be unable or unwilling to return to his or her country of nationality, or to seek the protection of that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution. Persecution or the fear thereof must be based on the alien’s race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. For persons with no nationality, the country of nationality is considered to be the country in which the alien last habitually resided. Asylees are eligible to adjust to lawful permanent resident status after one year of continuous presence in the United States. These immigrants are limited to 10,000 adjustments per fiscal year.”

The difference between a person seeking refugee status and asylum status you can check out here; the distinction is narrow. The dictionary definition of asylee is merely “a person who is seeking or has been granted political asylum.”

That day, Facebook decided that I might want to repost something from five years ago, and I, unusually, actually did. The item received more likes this time around than it did in 2012, maybe because it’s even more true:

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

On my way home on the bus that night, I hear the guy behind me talking, ending with “I try not to f@#& too many of the shanks in the apartment building.” I figure he’s some sort of lowlife scum.

But then I hear, in an odd mechanical male voice, “I try not to f@#& too many of the shanks in the apartment building,” which is oddly amusing. And then he sends the audio file to someone, I believe to himself. Is he some sort of writer? If you find that line in a book published in the next couple years, or hear it in a movie theater near you, know it was created and dictated on the CDTA 905 bus.

F is for farpotshket (ABC W)

Can you think of a word that sounds more complicated, muddled and frustrated than farpotshket?

Better Than English: Untranslatable Words defines the Yiddish word farpotshket as “Something that is all fouled up, especially as the result of attempts to fix it–repeatedly making something worse while trying to fix it.” It is pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable.

This term rather well described me when I took woodshop in 7th and 8th grade. A minor wobble in one leg of a project would eventually become three legs that could not bear the weight of the creation.

There was a 2005 National Public Radio story The New Words and Ideas We Need sings praises of the word: “The art of trying to fix something only to make it far worse is described by the Yiddish word farpotshket. Can you think of a word that sounds more complicated, muddled, and frustrated than farpotshket? It’s like a Frankenstein of obscenity, created from different parts of a dozen swears. The next time you reach to brush a piece of lint off your date’s shirt, then spill the bottle of wine on their pants, try screaming, ‘Farpotshket!’ It’s far more satisfying than a hundred curse words.”

Both the Urban Dictionary and definithing describe the word farpotshket as Completely ruined as a result of attempts to fix a minor imperfection. “Don’t try to fix that tiny smudge! You will make the entire painting farpotshket.”

The painting reference, of course, reminds me of that famous story of Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) in the Sanctuary of Mercy church in Borja, Spain. It was an unremarkable painting, but the attempt to restore the fresco by Cecilia Giménez, an untrained elderly amateur, in 2012, made it international news. Oddly enough, the botched repair has made the site a major tourist attraction.

When do YOU experience your farpotshket moments? Do you get it right the first time, or do you settle for “that’s good enough”?

ABC Wednesday – Round 20

Z is for words that start with Z

The only four letter word that I did not know but that had a definition was zarf

zigzagBereft of an appropriate topic for the week, I went to the Wordfinder Words that Start with Z, which “can help you score big playing Words With Friends® and Scrabble®.”

I started with the one two-letter word, za: Shortening and alteration of pizza.
Our Living Language: When people speak casually of ordering a za, “pizza,” they are unwittingly producing an expression that language historians find interesting. Za derives from the full form pizza by a process known as clipping.

OK, I get it, but can’t say I really like it.

Moving on to the three-letter words:

zin: (informal) Zinfandel wine
I’ve used that, actually. And have drunk it.

zag: any of the short, sharp angles or turns of a zigzag pattern, as alternating with a zig; any sharp turn away from a straight course
No surprise that zig has a similar definition, both deriving from zigzag, which is shown above. I’ve only used the shorter words in variation, such as “I zigged when I should have zagged.”

zep: Chiefly New Jersey (See submarine sandwich)
Origin of zep – Possibly short for zeppelin (from its shape).

zek – An inmate of a Soviet labor camp.
From the Russian

zax -A tool similar to a hatchet, used for cutting and dressing roofing slates.
Origin of zax: Variant of sax, from Middle English, knife, from Old English seax; see sek- in Indo-European roots.
Which looks a lot like a variation of ax.

The only four-letter word that I did not know but that had a definition was zarf
-a small, metal holder, used in the Levant to hold a cup of hot coffee
-a chalicelike holder for a hot coffee cup, typically made of ornamented metal, used in the Middle East.
-an ornamental container designed to hold a coffee cup and insulate it from the hand of the imbiber
Origin of zarf: Arabic for receptacle, vessel, container

Interestingly, none of the Z words appear in my spellcheck. This is not to say that they are illegitimate, only uncommon. Check out the longer words that start with Z for yourself, see which ones you know, and improve your Scrabble® prowess.

ABC Wednesday – Round 19

L is for lunaversary

Luna- is the prefix, not just for moon-based objects, from which the word “month” comes, but for “lunatics” and “lunacy,” all the things “early-stage intense romantic love” is.

moon-20120922-thm“Six-month anniversary.” Something is just linguistically WRONG about that. Anni- refers to the year. Now, semi-anniversary, or some variation would be OK.

You may have read about the studies dealing with the “swooning magic of head-over-heels love.” Researchers “found high amounts of activity in a ‘reward’ part of the brain when the smitten subjects were shown photos of their honeys. That part of the brain has previously been linked to the desire for cocaine, chocolate, and money.

“It shows us exactly why love looks so crazy. It’s activating these circuits that are associated with very intense desire,” said SUNY Stony Brook psychologist Arthur Aron,” who helped lead one study.

Well, luna- is the prefix, not just for moon-based objects, from which the word “month” comes, but for “lunatics” and “lunacy,” all the things “early-stage intense romantic love” is. Lunaversary (loon’ a ver’ sah ree) is the monthly recurrence of a notable event. It is far more accurate than “one-month anniversary”, and far shorter to boot.

You never heard of lunaversary before? That’s because I created it. Or so I believe. When I wrote about this previously, some other guy claims HE invented it, and he probably did, and around the same time; the logic is rather rudimentary.

Nevertheless, I had sent this word to the late William Safire’s “On Language” column in the New York Times about twenty years ago. Safire thought it was interesting construction, and he did type me a response suggesting that the idea had merit. He said he considered using it in his column, but never did. I still have that blue postcard somewhere in the attic.

Use “lunaversary” at will. Tell them when they say “fifth month anniversary” that the PREFERRED term is “fifth lunaversary.” Impress your friends, and confound those who aren’t familiar with this word.

(Based on a post from June 15, 2005.)

abc 17 (1)
ABC Wednesday – Round 17

Ramblin' with Roger
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