Brimming with wishes

I am brimming with wishes! See musinglog.blogspot.com.

Teeming.

Overflowing.

Brim is usually a noun, but as a verb, it means:
to fill to the brim.

Rim is a synonym for brim (the noun).

Brim comes from Old English.

M Words for Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Magnificent Health
and
Munificent Wealth

in 2011!

These are my wishes for you, my dear friend!

Delightful D Words

Dash -- v. destroy quickly, or run fast.

Delve -- v. explore, dive in , dig, unearth.

What do these words have in common? They are both one syllable and start with the letter D.

Useful Words

If you are full of wishes, it's called wishful. If you are full of thanks, it's called thankful.

What are you full of when you are bashful?

Affluence

Affluent. I like the sound of that word, it's very mellifluous.

affluent -- adj. abounding, abundant. wealthy, opulent.

Affluence is the noun formation. From Latin.

Abounding? I've heard of abundant, but abounding? what is abounding?

abounding -- adj. form of

abound -- v.i. to be plentiful; to teem, overflow. From Latin

abundant -- existing in plentiful supply, ample. From the same root as abound.

The synonyms for the word abounding are abundant, maybe even affluent, or bountiful.

Charlatan

Charlatan -- n. one who makes false claims about knowledge or skill; quack.

From Italian, babbler.

I am delirious

I am delirously ecstatic and enduring about all the unintelligible comments I've been getting on Phololog's blog!

Here is one of the comments:

I be enduringly familiar with insufficient of the articles on your website. I extremely like your fashionableness of blogging. I added it to my favorites and last will and testament. Be checking back soon. Please add me to your input as ok and fail me conscious what you think. Thanks.

Imagine that! I've been added to their last will and testament.

Now, I don't know how this works, but these comments pop up, anonymously, of course, and if I publish it, I get several more comments in gibberish. So I'm just going to tweek it a bit.

I am now familiar with all of your blogs and articles and I
enjoy them tremendously. I am so envious of your
fascinating style of writing. I even recommend it to
my friends who don't speak English. I am hoping
I can hire you soon to write some content for my own
website. Thanks for sharing your impeccable insight
and wisdom with us!

That kind of sounds like English.

They do send me crazy links, some in other languages and some that are completely inappropriate.

I would like to thank you in advance for sending me some intelligent, intelligible comments. I would really love to receive them.

Ambassador

Ambassador is a grand word.

It means representative. But sounds more regal.

ambassador - n. a diplomat of the highest rank or personal representative. From Late Latin.

Do you have the Gumption?

gumption - n. 1. bold, energetic initiative. 2. shrewd common sense. From English dialect (Scot.)

So initiative and shrewdness would be synonyms...

shrewd - adj. 1. sharp or wise; sagacious. 2. artful, sly. Middle English.

I think boldness would be a better synonym.

But I chose this word because gumption is such a weird-sounding word. Most words that end with tion are words on their own. For example, invention and action. But gump is not. Gump is a very harsh-sounding syllable, and is not in the dictionary.

It also does not have an adjective associated with it. May I suggest gumptuous? Rhymes with sumptuous. Now that is a horse of a different color. That one letter, which makes the initial sound, G or S, makes a BIG difference!

A Jury of Your Piers

I know orthography doesn't count for anything anymore, but when I get an email from someone trying to sell me high priced products, I expect them to edit and correct their work. Once in a while I publish my blog with a misspelling, and I correct it as soon as possible. And if I were sending marketing material, it would be proofread first. I understand that spell-check will not find this mistake. "Pier" is a valid word, so the computer cannot know or care if someone has a pier full of boats or is referring to another person, considered equal in legal terms. And people might not notice, because pier sounds just like peer and both are nouns...

I am probably in the minority, but send me a sales pitch with such a glaring error and you lose all credibility in my eyes. I won't do business with you.

I am probably in the minority, because most people wouldn't notice the error, that I find so glaring. But I think people should be more careful with written documents.

Do I have any peers that agree with me?

Any piers?

Gloria

It has come to my attention that gloria is not just a name, but a valid word in English.

gloria -- n. a burst of brilliant dazzling light. From Latin.

Glorious means splendid, magnificent, delightful.

I was awakened by the gloria in my room this morning.

Magnificent Munificent Extravagance

I encountered this word in a book by Wayne Dyer. He's a very prolific writer.

He said something about the Munificent Universe.

Munificent -- adj. Lavish, liberal or generous. From French.

This word sounds a lot like magnificent.

Magnificent -- adj. 1. great in deed, exalted.
2. marked by stately grandeur and lavishness.
3. sumptuous in structure and adornment.
4. impressive to the mind or spirit.
5. exceptionally fine.

So they are synonyms in one sense of the word (meaning #2).

Swell is also a synonym for Magnificent, but magnificent sounds much more impressive than swell, or even munificent.

Grand would also be a synonym for swell and magnificent. Great also... and extravagant.

I also like sumptuous. I think I have written about it before.

I will end this rumination before I become magniloquent.

Magniloquent -- adj. characterized by a pedantic or bombastic manner. French, mais oui (of course).

May you be spared Mayhem

Those commercials are so funny that feature a man in a suit who claims to be Mayhem.

Mayhem -- violent accident; needless or willful damage; crippling mutilation, or disfigurement of any body part.

It is a mellifluous word for a disaster.

It comes from Old French.

Are you Indefatigable?

How do you spell Indefatigable?
indefatigable.

How do you pronounce it?
in de FAT igable.

unable to be fatigued; untiring. From Latin.

I love it!

My indefatigable son showed me some words he encountered, that he thought were made up, like quixotic and indefatigable.

Quixotic.

This one is easy, if you've ever heard about or read about Don Quixote.

It means unrealistically idealistic or extremely romantic.

Are you quixotic?

Sesquipedalian Pedant

I saw a few minutes of the movie, Love Happens, the other night. In it, the characters look up some words in the dictionary.

I was intrigued by one of them and looked it up myself. It is not in the pocket dictionary, so I googled it. It came up in wikipedia, but since that isn't very authoritarian, I pulled out the Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary.

Sesquipedalian. adj. characterized by the use of big words; or measuring a foot and a half long.

Pedantic. adj. artificially or exagerratedly scholarly.

Whilst googling, I discovered that others had made the same mistake I had at first. There were no quotations which included the word, sesquipedalian, but there were some with "sesquipedantic," which I would venture to guess is not a word. It is not in my unabridged dictionary.

If you are a pedant, or pedantic, your language is probably sesquipedalian.

The philolog is not pedantic and this blog is never sequipedalian. The philolog actually prefers monosyllablic words and has written many blogs about them.

Red Heads

Why am I suddenly the red-headed step-child?!

I'd rather be the red-headed vixen.

Where do these expressions come from?

Red hair is beautiful. It is rare. True redheads are rare, of course, though it is very popular as a hair dye. When I made my hair copper, people came up to me on the street and said "I love your hair!" They do not do that with ash brown hair.

The best definition of this term is from Urban Dictionary:
A term that originated out of the common mistreatment and social ostracism of redheaded individuals (gingers). A redheaded individual born into(legitamately or not), or adopted into a family of non-redheads was typically subject to physical and emotional abuse, and usually short handed when it came to financial matters in the family, such as the estate or any savings the family had acquired. Today, the term can be applied to an individual or group of individuals who are outcasts, or are typically dealt the worst hand in society.

I used to be the fiery redhead. But now I'm barely smoldering.

I'm going to get back that fire!

The Demise of The King's English

The St. Pete Times had an interesting article about the Death of the English Language in yesterday’s paper, by Gene Weingarten. It was very funny.

Regarding the death of English, most people seemed unconcerned. Anthony Incognito, an average man in the street, said, “Between you and I, I could care less.”

Weingarten cites other examples of poor usage and blatant mistakes. He even criticizes something I thought was a definite improvement: the use of "alot" as a word describing an amount. He feels that newspapers should definitely use spell-checkers, especially ones which can detect that the word "pronounciation" is misspelled. He says it has been misspelled in several newspapers, including the Boston Globe and St. Paul Pioneer Press, as well as the Contra Costa, where it appears in a column apologizing for previous misspellings of the word!

Thanks, Gene, I'm LOL. Oops, is that correct?

I find it very ironic, that in the same newspaper, on the same day, I find a book review, of a new book, entitled, The Glamour of Grammar, a Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English, by Roy Peter Clark.

The author believes that the English language is magic, and that the words, grammar and glamour, both come from the same root. He also points out that "spell," can refer to the letters in a word, as well as to an enchantment.

I only read half the review and I want to go out and buy this book!

Coincidentally, I have also discovered a blog which highlights the agony and the ecstacy of words and language. It is called Throw Grammar from the Train. This is a BLOG of NOTE on blogger. I am so priveleged to share the same virtual space with this writer who claims she is a "nitpicker." (Jan Freeman.)

It will probably soon show up on my blog as one of the blogs I follow.

I used to say, so many books, so little time, now I can also add, so many blogs, so little storage space on my computer!

I guess the thing is, that we don't speak the King's English in America, which is actually just the US portion of the North American continent, anyway. The King is dead and English is very much alive and constantly evolving! Long live the grammarians!

Deftly Adequate

Is "deft" a word?

Is it related to "adept?"

Is "inept' the opposite of adept?

adept -- highly skilled proficient. Latin.

adequate -- 1. fully sufficient 2. barely sufficient. From Latin.

deft- neat and skillful, adroit. From Old English.

It does not appear to be related to inept. "Inept" is from Latin, from "aptus" which means "to fit," and the "ept" in adept is supposedly from a different word, "apisci," which means "to get" in Latin. It certainly looks like the same root to me (ept)... I will have to consult my unabridged dictionary about this discrepancy!

And why does "adequate" sound so inadequate when your supervisor says your skills are adequate?!

I'd much rather be adept than adequate, and deft rather than adroit.

Is it better to be adequately deft or deftly adequate...?

Why do I always have more questions?

All's Well

Swell is an interesting word. I'm swelling with pride and sweltering with excitement.

As anjective I wonder if it is really a contraction, 's well, like All's well.

Rampage

Rampage is both a noun and a verb. I don't believe I've heard it used as a verb. More often than not, I hear "they went on a rampage," not "they rampaged."

Rampage as a noun means violent action or excitment. It comes from Old French.

To Rampage means to attack or act violently; to storm or rage.

I think this is sometimes confused with rant.

But I will not rant or rampage here!

Lugubrious or Ludicrous

Sadly, this is a very sorrowful article. I feel lugubrious today.

Lugubrious means exaggeratedly or affectedly mournful.

It says it is from both Latin and Greek, because it is from a Latin word, which is "akin" to a word in Greek. Curious. Strange.

Lugubrious is possibly an antonym for ludicrous. Also from a Latin word, akin to a Greek word.

Ludicrous means laughable, amusing through obvious absurdity or exaggeration.

It would be ludicrous to be lugubrious about spilt milk.

Filthy Wealthy

Filthy rich sounds right. Filthy Wealthy doesn't.

Where does the saying filthy rich come from?! I know money, the actual metal or paper has been through a thousand hands and maybe some toilets (the metal ones), but what does filth have to do with rich?!

Filthy is not just dirty. Filthy also means obscene or morally foul.

A poor person must have assumed all rich people were morally unjust. Or maybe a jealous person.

Rich is a great word. a noun and an adjective. Means full, intense, abundant, complete, thick, dense, creamy, opulent, luxuriant, not just the state of owning many possesions and a large bank account.

Utterly Amazing

"That's utterly amazing," she uttered. She must have been watching John Weir at the NGH convention. That's what I thought when I saw him demonstate the NLP technique of collapsing anchors under hypnosis at his workshop last weekend!

Utter is a verb, which means to vocalize, express or pronounce; also to put forth or out, send.

Utter is also an adjective, which means absolute, total.

Utterly is an adverb which means extremely, totally.

So how are these related? They all come from Old English, ut, which means out.

Sometimes my blogs are related. For more about John's amazing demonstration, see Verbal Impact (link on upper right).

Vile Villain

Vile is a monosyllabic word with several meanings.

1. common, of little value.
2. morally despicable or physically repulsive.
3. disgustingly or utterly bad. obnoxious, contemptible

It is from Latin.

I have never actually heard it used the first way.

It is related to villian, of course.

Villain means a scoundrel, criminal or uncouth person.

Dither

I've recently heard these two uncommon words.

Blather means to speak foolishly. From Old Norse.

Dither means a state of nervous excitement or anxiety. no root language given, but it is an alternate form of "didder" (to shake or tremble).

Before you get in a dither, I'll stop blathering.

Collaborate or Corroborate?

Collaborate means to work with someone else.

Corroborate means to find additional evidence for something.

I got these confused this week. Not exactly. What I did was use the wrong one.

I have been trying to corroborate the information I found on the benefits of hypnosis therapy for dementia. But I was saying I needed to collaborate this information.

Collaborate -- to work jointly with others, especially in an intellectual endeavor; to cooperate. From Latin.

Corroborate -- to support with evidence or authority, to confirm. From Latin.

Dreadful

I have heard some dreadful news recently. It seems the horizon is bleak all around.

Bleak -- 1. exposed, bare, barren; 2. cold, cutting; 3. cheerless, dreary.
From Old Norse.

Dread -- v.t. to anticipate with great fear or anxiety.
adj. 1. causing great fear; terrible.
2. exciting awe.
n. 1. a terrifying feeling as of fear or danger.
2. awe.
From Old English.

Dreadful -- adj. awful, terrible.

Awe is an awful word. Or awesome. Depends on how you look at it. "Awesome" is bright and cheery, whereas "Awful" is dreadful!

Festooned

I like to use my pocket dictionary as a reference for these posts, but recently, I discovered that the definition for festoon in my pocket dictionary was different from the one in the grammarian’s dictionary. I prepared for my Toastmaster's meeting last week by looking up the word of the day, festoon.

My dictionary is Funk and Wagnell's Standard Dictionary, so there is no subtitle necessary, but the first page says "Your Perfect Pocket Guide to the English Language."

Inside it there is a definition for the word FESTOON.

As a noun it lists the meaning as, a bunch of flowers.

And as a verb it says to adorn with flowers.

So I put on a flowered dress and went to the meeting, thinking myself appropriately festooned. As Toastmaster for the Day, I even mentioned that I was festooned.

Then the grammarian stood up and gave the definition as to drape or adorn with draperies. I was nonplussed. I felt like I had shown up dishabille instead. I could've worn a drape!

Within the Realm of Possibility

Are your dreams within the Realm of possiblity. Are they realistic?

Is realm related to realistic?

It's kind of old-fashioned or science fictionish. Maybe mathematical, ie. the realm of imaginary numbers.

Which Realm do you occupy?

Interesting word. From Old French. Definition:

1. A kingdom or domain.
2. The scope or range of power or influence.

I like to use my pocket dictionary as a reference for these posts, but recently, I discovered that the definition for festoon in my pocket dictionary was different from the

Drenched

The word "drench" comes from Old English and means to soak or saturate.

Florida is know for its sudden drenching downpours!


Is it related to "quench?" They both come from Old English, but quench comes from a word that means to vanish. Quench means to reduce or eliminate, to cool or calm, to relieve or satisfy, as in "quench the thirst."

There is some overlap: you can quench a fire by drenching it.

And if you attempt to quench your thirst with a hose, you will get drenched.

To Extol the Verb, EXTOL

Let me extol the virtues of Forgetting. If you really want to hear about the virtues of forgetting, it is on Musinglog, which has a link over there on the right side of this page.

Extol is a wonderful word, an action word, that means to praise highly, exalt. I'm sure it comes from Latin.

Hoodlums

Someone told me there are too many hoodlums at the school near my house.

Hoodlum?

What a strange word. It means a young troublemaker; a thug; ruffian; or a violent and rough youth.

But where did it come from? Wiktionary tells me German, from huddlellump. I tend to think that it has something to do with gangsters and robbers wearing "hoods." It became common usage in San Francisco around 1933.

My Peccadillo

So many words, so little time!

I was asked to be the grammarian for my club and come up with an inspiring word. The Toastmaster complimented me on my previous choice of words, so the pressure is on to choose judiciously, without plaigarizing another.

I am the philologue. I can do this. But there are so many choices! I wanted to pick "impeccable." Yet I suspect most members are already famliar with it. So I'm going with a related word, "peccadillo." Now how do I illustrate it?

Peccadillo comes to us from Latin, through Spanish, peccadillo means a little sin in Spanish.

My pocket dictionary says "a slight or trifling sin."

Underneath that is peccant, which means sinful.

And of course, the pecc in impeccable comes from the same root, and means without error, flaw or fault.

Thes words are all related and a point will be given to anyone for using any of these 3 words.

So what is my peccadillo? I love words. It is impossible to choose just one!

Hero vs. Heroine

Heroine. A hallucinogenic, illegal drug.

Hero. An elongated sandwich.

Heroine is more powerful, but still too many negative connotations.

We could of course, go with She-ro....

Too childish.

Where are the feminine role models?

Women are so aggressive in the movies now. There is definitely too much violence overall. Isn't there anything else to watch? My son likes to watch Crush, Kill, Destroy.

There are lots of shows that destroy or blow things up. And they are educational. Why can't peacemaking be so appealing as a good explosion?

Why can't a heroine be more compassionate than a hero?

Blow my Mind

Blow my Mind

I want to write an article about this expression.

You don't hear it much anymore, though it was once popular. I guess that was when recreational drug usage was more poplular. I think there is more drug usage now, but prescriptive, not recreational. Either way people still use drugs to feel happy.

Blow off, Blow up, blowout, Blow over,

There are many expressions using the word blow. Blow as a verb means:
to move in a current of air, emit a jet of air, to be in motion, to play (a bugle), or to inflate.

Dunderhead

On the same page as dubious is another powerful word, dunderhead.

Dunderhead comes from a Scottish dialect and means a stupid person. It is unequivocal and unambiguous, not dubious at all, perfectly clear. What's the word for that? Perspicuous?

Yes! I like it.

Perspicuous means having clarity of expression or style; lucid. From Latin.

So a dunderhead would rarely be perspicuous, though the meaning of the word is always crystal clear.

Dubious Implications

Dubious is an insidious, double-dealing word. Related to double? Probably Latin.

It means doubtful, equivocal, or suspicious. It comes from Dubium, Latin for doubt.

Equivocal means ambiguous, doubtful, or suspicious.

Insidious means subtly cunning or deceitful.

So dubious is less insidious than insidious. Insidious is more egregious.

Egregious is conspicuously bad, flagrant. From Latin also.

Whether somone is dubious or insidious would depend on whether they were intentionally ambiguous or just innocently unclear.

Facetious

Facetious comes to us from Latin via French. It means jocular, waggish, merry, or jocose. It also means jocose at an inappropriate time. Jocular and jocose apparently share etymology with the word "joke."

Waggish is a synonym for facetious. Droll also. Waggish has a bit more pizzazz, though. Waggish means like a wag.

Wag means someone who likes jokes and humorous antics, a merry rogue.

Rogue means a vagabond, rascal, scoundrel, or someone who is mischievous or fun-loving.

And now back to the beginning:

Facetious is also an unusual word, in that it has all of the vowels of our alphabet in alphabetical order! I wonder if there are any others? Readers, let me know if you are aware of any.

Dishabille

That was the word for the Day on Thursday, at the Toastmasters meeting.

I had to look it up. My pocket dictionary, said,
"partially or improperly dressed."

The first thing that came to my mind was the teenagers at the High School where I used to work. I would say almost all of them were dishabille. The boys wore huge long Tee shirts to hide the fact that the gymn shorts or jeans they had on were hanging off their butts. I call that imPROPERly dressed.
And the girls had on strapless tops (not allowed in the dress code) and tiny shorts or skirts (not allowed either, but usually ignored. At least they had shorts or a skirt on.) I call that partially dressed or scantily clad.

Scantily Clad??!! Scantily? CLAD?!

Scantily--the adverb form of the adjective scanty. (Actually that is not in my dictionary, but I'm sticking with it. "Scantly" does not sound right to me. And it may be a typo.)

Clad-- clad? what is that? Is that a word? I know I have heard it, but is it in the dictionary??? Yes, it is! Adjective, meaning covered or clothed.

At the meeting, it was defined as wearing casual clothing, or perhaps too casual.

And the pronunciation is dis uh BEEL. From the French word meaning undressed.
Not "dish" as in disheveled.

The official dictionary says, the state of being dressed in a casual or careless style.

So I can definitely say that I never go to work dishabille.
I can also tell my child not to go to school dishabille.
And I can call those high school students dishabille.

Also think of a child when they learn how to dress themselves, but can't match up the buttons properly, find things that match, or maybe leave something out. Children like to be dishabille, in the sense of not completely covered up, barefoot or topless.

I can really use this word in Florida, where people spend most of the year dishabille. Especially at the beach, but not just at the beach.

My advice, Don't leave home dishabille! Bring a sweater, just in case.

Gibberish

I like gibberish. I don’t know how to spell it, tho.

Gibberish, nonsense, rubbish. Gabble, twaddle, claptrap. Balderdash, drivel, baloney, tripe.

I knew there were a lot of words for nonsense, but I've never encountered some of these before. Twaddle? Gabble? Interesting sounds.

Wait a minute. Isn't tripe also a food? A fish or intestines or something some people eat?!

OMG. I just looked up Tripe. This is what it says:
Tripe (from Italian trippa) is a type of edible offal from the stomachs of various farm animals.

Offal means internal organs.

Gross.

Enough of this twaddle. Get back to work!

Elation

ELATION!

Yes!

Hypnotic elation!

Circle of elation.

Jubiliation.

Tintinabulation.

Elation comes from Latin and means state of joyfulness.

Some more monosyllables

Hone - verb - to move toward, or direct attention to an objective; practice.

Ilk - noun - sort, category.

Thwart -- verb -- prevent, block, defeat, frustrate.

Dalliance

dalliance

alliance?

D'alliance?

French, n'est pas?

dally?

Glut

The word of the month, is Glut.

It is a very unusual, a little awkward, monosyllabic word.

The noun means an excessive amount, surfeit, overflow, abundance.

The verb means to feed or supply in excess.

The word comes from Old French, but I suspect they have a much different pronunciation.

Between a rock and a stone...

Listen to these words:

Feather ... Stone

Why does feather sound so light and floating? And why does stone sound so heavy?

How about Rock? It sounds hard. Even more solid than stone.

I guess that's why they say "Between a rock and a hard place." It sounds much worse than "Between a stone and a hard place."

Bombs

First of all, I want to know why these two words sound the same:

balm

bomb

I was looking for my lip balm and noticed the similarity.

The meanings are very dissimilar and so is the spelling....

What do they have in common?

Phenomenal Words

You are a phenomenal person!

And phenomenal is a phenomenal word!

It comes from Greek, see the "ph?"

The adjective phenomenal means remarkable, outstanding. and comes from the noun, phenomenon, which means something that can be observed by the 5 senses. The plural is phenomena.

Peace of Mind

"For every moment you remain angry, you give up 60 seconds of peace of mind."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Knuckles

I wonder where the expression, knuckle-head" came from? Is it related to knuckle-sandwich?

Knuckle comes to us from Middle English, somehow related to the Old High German word for knot. It is the rounded prominence formed by the ends of 2 adjacent bones at a joint. And a few other things that somehow resemble a knuckle or the prominence at an intersection.

Knucklehead means dumbbell according to my Dictionary, another interesting compound word. This could be confusing, as dumbbell has 2 meanings. It would be strange to hear someone at the health club looking for some knuckles!

Knuckle-sandwich is not in my dictionary. I think the meaning is clear, but there could be people who speak English as a second language and they might not understand that it means a punch to the mouth.

Dismal Predictions

Dismal is an interesting word.

Dis which means down or not.

Mal which means bad, in Latin.

Dismal. A downer.

What is the opposite of dismal?

Optimistic, hopeful, joyful, positive, propitious, un-, in-, or a-dismal? Abysmal?

Hope your day is cheerful, propitious and non-dismal!

Fit and Trim

I am wondering why all the words for thin are so tiny. Like skinny, slim, thin, trim, fit, and my personal favorite, svelte.

A Few More Monosylables

On this World Hynosis Day, I am pondering 2 monosyllabic words:

girth
and
mirth.

Girth is volume or width. Mirth is silliness or happiness.

Of the 2, I resolve to reduce girth this year and to maximize mirth.

Happy 2010, that's "Twenty-ten," not Two thousand ten!