Word of the Day

[Eichhörnchen]

And plenty of people continue to get the words infer and imply confused.

[Jimbuna]

Never desert your friends in the desert.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Never desert your friends in the desert.

Lest... in vengeance... your friends dish out your just desserts

[Jimbuna]

"Scale the fish completely before weighing it on the scale."

[fireftr18]

I like medical terms. Some of them are so stupid, that you have to think that someone made it up just to confuse people. My favorite is "contralateral." It's always in reference to the arms or legs. It means the opposite or the other.
"When evaluating an injury in a leg, compare it to the contralateral limb."

[Eichhörnchen]

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!"

[Eichhörnchen]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/prosaic

I always imagined this word referred to the poetic, or imaginative, in literature. Instead I later found that it in fact means dull or everyday.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by fireftr18

I like medical terms. Some of them are so stupid, that you have to think that someone made it up just to confuse people. My favorite is "contralateral." It's always in reference to the arms or legs. It means the opposite or the other.
"When evaluating an injury in a leg, compare it to the contralateral limb."

Once in a blue moon, out of boredom, I'd right up a fake run report for the dispatcher to have to process later that night. One time I had Big Bird going off his meds and jumping off Mr. Hooper's store, insurance via the autobahn society.

Well, one of my favorites during halloween was to write one about acephalic equestrian engineers. Headless Horseman.

[Gargamel]

BAHAHAHA too good to fix. Autobahn / Audubon. ROFL.

[ivanov.ruslan]

Doctor Foster went to Gloucester.....

[Aktungbby]

Autobahn / Audubon.!

An inspiration there! diet of worms vs Diet of Worms trying to curtail Martin Luther's 95 Theses ( a real can of worms) @AndyJWest:

Cleave. A useful word, meaning to stick together. Or to split apart...

Would certainly describe Henry VIII to a 'T': He married Anne of Cleves (cleave unto) and then immediately divorced( Cleave apart) her; beheading his minister Cromwell into the bargain; Cleaving head from shoulders...."I liked her before not well, but now I like her much worse." He described her as having unpleasant body odour and sagging breasts" ie her 'cleavage' didn't suit his royal taste! Anne outlasted all Hank's wives-one tough kraut! and unlike wives Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard-both beheaded... No further serious 'cleavage' issues ensued!

[vienna]

"I was in the bow of the ship when an archer, with his bow, introduced himself, with a deep bow, and also introduced his daughter, who had a blue bow in her hair. At his point, a violinist joined us, with his instrument and its bow, but i has to leave due to another engagement, so I asked their pardon, since I had to bow out..."

One of my exes was studying Japanese at university and was bothered by the similarity of some words in the language. The most commonly cited example is hashi: depending on the context, inflection or accent emphasis, hashi can mean either "bridge", "edge", or "chopsticks". I used an example of the English word "bow" similar to to one above to show her such soundalikes are common in all languages...


<O>

[Platapus]

One of my favourite words is "Disgruntled" While it may be difficult to know what exactly that means, I do feel confident that I am that thing most of the time.

The prefix dis usually means opposite or not. But to assume that disgruntled means not gruntled is incorrect. Another use of the prefix is as an intensifier. In fact it is the archaic use of the prefix dis that was applied to the term gruntle.

So we are now dealing with feeling more gruntled as opposed to not gruntled.

So what does gruntle mean? Well it means to grunt or grumble indicating disagreement (note the different use of the prefix dis) dissatisfaction, or unhappiness (Dishappiness? nah).

So when I am disgruntled, I am more unhappy. So if I can cure myself of my disgruntlement, I will be back to my normal level of unhappiness.

The opposite of disgruntlement is not being happy, but being less unhappiness.

That's weird.

[Platapus]

What's up with UP?

English is a crazy language.


You lovers of the English language might enjoy this . . . There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is "UP."

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?

Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends.
And we use art to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.

We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

Fess UP...you like this!
One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so............ Time to shut UP.....!


We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

[tomfon]

@Platapus

You summed up the use of "up" in an interesting way!

Cheers and bottoms up!