~ Word of the Day ~

Started by Blythe, March 21, 2017, 01:41:05 PM

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Heinakori

#1175
Quote from: Flower on June 14, 2018, 06:29:07 AM
Today's word of the day is...

defenestration

noun dee-fen-uh-STRAY-shun

Definition
1 : a throwing of a person or thing out of a window

2 : a usually swift dismissal or expulsion (as from a political party or office)

Quote
7th of June. Baikal-lake. 1912


My Dearest Ivana,

Oh, my friend, I am exhausted! These lousy farmers around me are driving me beyond insane! I feel like deteriorating, intellectually! I promise, if I stay in this God's forgotten crevasse any longer, my brain will simply give up and resign!
I came all the way here, to the banks of Lake Baikal for just some peace and solitude, as far as I ever could from the chocking and delirious atmosphere of St. Petersburg, to write!
Oh, it is beautiful here. The lake is even more beautiful than I could have ever dreamed - and I brave to state - than what even you could imagine. The lake glimmers under the golden sun, and the mountains loom against the blue skies, tirelessly herding their heavenly sheep... I can feel my creativity flowing through me now. Once more, as my muses are not suffocated by the polluted atmosphere of our home, I feel myself as a true writer again. There is nothing amiss here... except the local people...
Ivana, they are simply insane. Everything they touch is infected with lice, peasantry, and with blatant stupidity.
This very morning was I, and my good friend Tagarimoff from whom I have told you so much about, in the village hearing. I, as a generous intellectual, was granting these poor people some educated perspectives of collective farming: the very same thing you are constantly talking about!
It doesn't make much sense to me in Petersburg's cramped and merchant-filled streets, but out here, in a small scale, it really seems as a logical possibility due to the simplicity of life out here.
The peasants went beyond mad!


In an instant, they rushed at me like a barbaric horde, and to my huge surprise, they launched at my dear friend Tagarimoff! He had done nothing, but the drunk rabble defenestrated Tagarimoff through the only window of the house! And me? They dare to demand me to pay for something they broke themselves (with Tagarimoff's body!).
This is what I call as the true form of this socialism what you so praise: A vodka fuming proletariat demanding for the intellectual to fix the problems they themselves brought upon them!
O/O

Luzette

Defenestration is the last word I saw to explore and Ameliorate is the first so let me try to cross-pollinate the inferences between them because the first is too specific while the other is too vague.  Let’s consider the immigration issue, more precisely international migration and if that has meaning anymore.

I pose that immigration law has been built up over the centuries to be a hallmark of civilization but in 21century eyes has outlived its utility.  It should be defenestrated from the edifice of societal values in order to ameliorate world tensions.

Consider that any number of people can move from Maine USA to Oregon USA without government interference even if such a relocation adversely impacts either polity, right.  But if even one person moves between Juarez Mexico and El Paso USA, there is police interference.  Why?

The issue is the nation state which I will posit is a transitionary form of government that really started with the French Revolution and was only reified by Woodrow Wilson’s ‘Self-Determination of Nations’ concept which swept Europe after WWI.

Before that we had Empires and Federations of which the USA is really one of the latter as evidenced by individual state’s Sanctuary laws regarding its immigrants.  Empires were military conquests where the ruler had no ties with the conquered nations and kept control through naked power or maintained poverty.

Federations were alliances of mutually beneficial polities from the Delian League through the EU but which retained their own national identities. Nation states exist I believe only superficially as the ‘strong nuclear force’ binding the quarks and atoms of the group are readily broken when stressed.  Almost every country has a separatist movement somewhere hidden in the woof and weave of their constitutions.

The silver lining here is that it has been the well-informed, first-world’s elites that have made so many ameliorating changes by defenestrating the received wisdoms of the past. Racism, sexism and national superiority ideas are not condoned anymore by the majority peoples and their governments.  So why is there an immigration quota?

If I buy a dress from Amazon, who gets the money, whose job is maintained, who is advantaged?  If people from poor parts of a country can move readily to rich parts of that same country, which wasn’t possible less than a century ago by the way, then why can’t we cross irrelevant national borders whenever we want?  What is so different between the USA and New England?

Think about it.

Luzette <3

Flower

June 15's word of the day is...

pugnacious

adjective pug-NAY-shus

Definition
1 : having a quarrelsome or combative nature : truculent




June 16's word of the day is...

tantalize

verb TAN-tuh-lyze

Definition
1 : to tease or torment by or as if by presenting something desirable to the view but continually keeping it out of reach





Kyranna

Jacob was a jerk, though that word alone was not enough to fully sum up just how Christine felt after their most recent interaction. That they were in the same course was irritating enough, she had thought that graduation had been the last she would see of the guy. Now, to her great horror, she had been pared up with the pugnacious creep who seemed to believe that anything she did was wrong, regardless of the facts laid out before him.

It was utterly unfair, and adding further insult, she had to watch as Donna and Christopher worked together, her brother was so lucky to get to spend so much time with the tantalizing woman. There was just something magnetic about Donna in the same way as the inherent repulsive nature of one Jacob McIssac.
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Flower

Today's word of the day is...

meritorious

adjective mair-uh-TOR-ee-us

Definition
1 : deserving of honor or esteem

Mellific

Today's word of the day is...

jabberwocky
noun JAB-er-wah-kee

Definition
1 : meaningless speech or writing

O/O | A/A | MM

Luzette

What’s jabberwocky is the definition of Jabberwocky: How ironic is that?  While the connotation of the word has come to mean gibberish and nonsense, it really meant quite the opposite when penned by Lewis Carroll.  The word comes from his book Alice through the Looking Glass which was written for Alice Liddell, a sometime photography subject of his, if we wish to be kind.

Carroll was the pen name of Charles Dodgson, a distinguished English mathematician of the Victorian Era and the ‘looking glass’ he was allegorically referencing was a mathematical study of the Charge-Parity-Time (CPT) Transformations popular in the 19th Century. 

Changing the charge of electricity from positive to negative or running an event forward or backward in time changes the meaning of an event.  Even looking at yourself in the mirror transforms your right arm into your left.  What seems superficially the same is actually quite different? We laugh when we see a video run in reverse but to a scientist it's only changing the sign of (t) to (-t) If those ideas are meaningless speech to you Professor Dodgson would suggest, it is because of your ignorance not his.

In fact the very first famous lines of the poem which sound like nonsense are really coherent if obtuse real words.  I didn’t say he wasn’t a snob now did I?  But he also gave joy to millions with his seeming paradoxes including a simple country girl of Midlands England.  Not bad for nonsense, eh?



Flower

Today's word of the day is...

quail

verb KWAIL

Definition
1 : to give way : falter

2 : to recoil in dread or terror : cower

Mellific

Today's word of the day is...

balmy
adjective BAH-mee

Definition
1 a : having the qualities of balm : soothing

b : mild, temperate

2 : crazy, foolish

O/O | A/A | MM

The Green One

He opened his eyes at the loud whistle of boiling water. Stumbling out of bed, he headed over the kitchen, his green slippers rustling against the black wooden floor. He turned off the electric kettle and poured the steamy water into a large, Spiderman mug, and added the nicely scented Chinese tea. Taking a deep breath of that sweetened steam, he smiled at the balmy sensation it left behind on his sore throat.

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Kit Cat

I walk outside on this balmy day,
And feel my thoughts drift to the grey.
The gentle sun can’t seem to quell,
The sorrow of my own personal hell.

Each step I take is worn and weary,
As further I go from those I love dearly.
But leave I must before the night has come,
Though the act leaves me cold and numb.

How foolish is it that I have been?
To gaze upon that which should not be seen.
And yet come back I will someday soon,
Look for me then, if I have not met my doom.

Flower

Today's word of the day is...

voracity
noun  vuh-RASS-uh-tee

Definition
1 : the quality or state of being ravenous or insatiable

Kit Cat

Vast is the twilight galaxy,
Out it stretches, infinitely.
Reaching out beyond our sight,
A blanket of stars coated in night.
Creating and destroying endlessly,
I can’t but wonder at its voracity.
There is a beauty to this constant dance,
You can see it yourself if you but glance.

Kyranna

Sharp, curved teeth ripped deeply into the flesh, tore the limb into tiny shreds before he devoured the remnants. It seemed the bunny's voracity in the presence of the apple tree branch was a wonder to behold.
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Flower

Today's word of the day is...

notorious
adjective  noh-TOR-ee-us

Definition
1 : generally known and talked of; especially : widely and unfavorably known


Kit Cat

There was a young girl of notorious mind
Who loved to flash her curvaceous behind
She had one off the wrist
Got her knickers in a twist
And now her beautiful butt is all lined.

Lady Lunarius

#1191
Today's word of the day is....

skirl
verb skerl

Definition
1 :of a bagpipe : to emit the high shrill tone of the chanter; also : to give forth music

2 : to play (music) on the bagpipe
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Lilias

When I told Grandma I had been accepted at the grammar school that my brother and sister had attended, the first thing she asked was who was currently head. Not the reaction I expected, but I answered anyway. If she’d bitten into a slice of raw lemon instead of candied, her expression wouldn’t have looked more sour.

‘Wanker still there, huh?’ Grandma didn’t swear. ‘He’ll have it in for you, make no mistake. He’ll be expecting you to go the way your brother and sister did.’

My curiosity was well and truly piqued. I didn’t know much about my siblings’ school years. Matthew and Claire were 12 and 10 years older than me, respectively, and by the time I was old enough to have any interest in school, they were almost done with it. All I knew was that Matthew’s final exam results were the best seen since the founding of the school, until Claire bested him two years later. Apparently, her record still held.

Grandma was all too pleased to satisfy my curiosity. I had called my siblings a lot of things, but hellraisers was not one of them. Still, apparently, Matthew had been infamous for flouting every single school rule, from uniform code to punctuality to behaviour to homework - and always saved his skin through his stellar exam performance. Claire, on the other hand, had been the kind of overachiever who thought nothing of raising her hand and correcting her teachers in front of the whole class, and called out - very vocally - every instance of oppression or injustice she saw. The protests she stirred had caught the attention of the local press more than once, as had her streak of 6 top-mark A-levels at the end.

‘Our name is quite notorious over there,’ Grandma cackled gleefully. ‘You’ll need to keep up, or the head and any old-timer staff will make your life a misery. But I know that won’t be a problem for you, little hellion.’

I don’t know if she expected me to top my siblings’ performance to the point of getting expelled, but that’s a whole other story.
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~Wendell Berry

Double Os <> Double As (updated Feb 20) <> The Hoard <> 50 Tales 2024 <> The Lab <> ELLUIKI

Jaclyn

  She donned her forest green cloak over her simple linen dress and stepped out to greet the dawn. Today was the day she feared woud come yet knew for all her life that it would. So prepared she was for the coming struggle. When the road to her future came down from the sky to greet her. When all her ancestors gathered at the other end of that road to greet her.

  As the sun rose in the east, she saw the road descending. The one with the scythe stood at the end, awaiting. She glanced back once at the house where those she had cared for slept under the spell she had cast. They were prepared though they knew it not. She watched the road arrive mere steps before her, no question the road was coming for her. With a sigh she stepped from her life onto the road to her next, the pipes' skirling rose round her as she walked to her glory

Flower

June 24's word of the day is....

effigy
noun EFF-uh-jee

Definition
1 : an image or representation especially of a person; especially : a crude figure representing a hated person

2 : to play (music) on the bagpipe





Today's word of the day is....

amortize
noun AM-er-tyze

Definition
1 : to pay off (an obligation, such as a mortgage) gradually usually by periodic payments of principal and interest or by payments to a sinking fund

2 : to gradually reduce or write off the cost or value of (something, such as an asset)


Kit Cat

You’d think it was the nature of the effigy that would upset me most, but it wasn’t.

I’d been around long enough now to have received far worse a hundred times over, after all, and it wasn’t even a good likeness, when all was said and done.

No, what irritated me was the inaccuracies.

I prided myself on having a certain reputation, built on actual deeds I have committed to achieve it. A lie may travel the world before the truth has got its boots on, but it is also eventually found out, and in my line of business, that was a bad thing.

Power was built on fact. If a person believed, beyond doubt, that the individual they were confronted with was not only capable of committing the act they threatened, but had a proven history of it, they would be more willing to cede to your wishes.

These kinds of falsehoods tend to amortize the effectiveness of that over time and could not be allowed to continue. To allow it would to send forth the skirl of rumour that would be hard to undo, and lead to a longer, drawn out process with each future confrontation.

Not that I am concerned about the time it would take, of course, but I am a being of efficiency, and I have made it a habit of ensuring my deeds match my actions.

So, the only question is; how long it will be before you tell me who created this fallacy. I won’t promise to let you live, because we both know you are beyond that now. There are a thousand and one ways to die, however, and I can guarantee there are some you would never like to experience.

Of that, you have my word.

Sain

"Brother no worry. We wait, bide our time. The Elysium is ours now. The Jungars have nothing left but leftover estate of their sire. They are nothing. We wait, let it..." Abimbola's fingers twirled as he searched for: "Amortize. They will be ash. Let years do the work."

"Mmmh... So it would seem. But does not sit well with me. There is something, something about them. I know not why Jungars would have sired so many. Something wrong with those neonites. I cannot say what it is brother, but mark my words. In coming years their value will do anything but wane."
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Lilias

‘Stay away from the bagpipers, okay? Like, other side of the street away. Any closer than that, and the first skirl will send you to the emergency room with a burst eardrum or two. You can’t imagine how loud the blasted things are!’

‘Duly noted. Am I to keep similar distances from firespinners as well?’

‘Only the inept ones. Problem is, you can’t tell from the first spin, so better start far and move closer as necessary.’

‘Do you think there will be many inept ones, of anything?’

‘Anyone who manages not to be inept after half a dozen rounds is a prodigy. Or a local. Either way, they are the ones to request training from.’

‘Now that’s a boundary I don’t expect to cross, drunk or otherwise.’

‘Just wait until you see pics of yourself utterly wasted on Instagram. Ain’t connectedness grand?’

As the lads collected their drinks and moved away from the counter, I allowed myself an open chuckle, without hiding behind my mug. Ah, first-timers at the Edinburgh Festival were always delicious. They never knew what they should really beware of.
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~Wendell Berry

Double Os <> Double As (updated Feb 20) <> The Hoard <> 50 Tales 2024 <> The Lab <> ELLUIKI

Flower

Today's word of the day is....

kaput
adjective kuh-PUT

Definition
1 : utterly finished, defeated, or destroyed

2 : unable to function : useless

3 : hopelessly outmoded

The Green One

He wrote a series of jabberwocky, consecutive characters, a mere excuse to justify his need of spamming words everywhere.

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