I don't do this.

shilly-shally    \ SHIL-ee-shal-ee \  , verb; 
1.to show indecision or hesitation; be irresolute; vacillate.2.to waste time; dawdle.noun:1.irresolution; indecision; vacillation: It was sheer shilly-shally on his part.adjective:1.irresolute; undecided; vacillating.

Like I said. I don't indulge in this. Especially the noun form. Ok so I do. I mostly chose it because I like the sound of the word/phrase. And because I almost posted about yesterday's word, haberdashery, which I also have a fondness for. Not necessarily the thing, er.. cloths and stuff, but the word is, well, suitably clunky and interesting sounding. And my dad used to like it a lot, I remember.

So..

no more pissing about..

no, none at all.

this time i mean it..

took my time doing stuff the last week or so before leaving.. got a few obstacles in the way.. then I was away for a week..

then it was Friday, then it was the weekend.

I swear there will be no more pissing about.

Truly.

Monday.

Is today. Should't be such a letdown, as I don't have a traditional job, and in fact, don't work much at all. Shameful, I know. I am being bothered though. I just want to get some of my stuff done, look up some stuff and.. well let's face it a lot of today will be spent me doing stuff that is mostly in the "wasting time" category, and very little of researching, practicing, editing, cleaning up etc.. and even stuff that's useful for work (that is the paying kind) but still, if I'm not going to get anything out of this time, then I might as well spend it a way that I enjoy, as opposed to not getting any of that stuff done, and not being able to do whatever due to someone being here who will hang around for way longer than is necessary, which is already way longer than I'd like.

So yeah, Monday, blah.

Is there something like this out there?

Today's word o' the day is yet another one, which sounds kind of funny and has a kind of cool meaning..

incunabulum
\ in-kyoo-NAB-yuh-luhm \ , noun;
1. The earliest stages or first traces of anything.
2. Extant copies of books produced in the earliest stages (before 1501) of printing from movable type.

I like the word itself because it almost sounds like it has bum in it :) No really.. ok really.

OMG the earliest stages or first traces of anything! It's like.. it's like.. wow.. kinda like this.

Somewhere in the incunabulum of time the New Year lay awaiting birth. Outside, in the dark, and with none to call it friend, the old year was fading into death.

-- Edwin Markham, The real America in romance, Volume 12

that's so deep man...

I was gonna say more about it and how it might potentially apply to me that is if I actually have a clue what it really means and how it's supposed to be used and there's a good chance I don't anyway.. but I can't be bothered...

um...

Today's Word o' the day is:

spatchcock:

*insert frazzled smiley here*

Definition:

1. To insert or interpolate, esp. in a forced or incongruous manner.
2. A fowl that has been dressed and split open for grilling.
3. To prepare and roast (a fowl) in this manner.

kay..

Happy Monday.

Being all dorky and stuff.

It's Monday and the word o' the day is:

potlach: A ceremony at which gifts are bestowed on the guests in a show of wealth that the guests later attempt to surpass.

I quite like that.

That's all.. carry on.

I'm not so sure about this one...

Lazy boring dork day blogging today.. being Monday we're interested in TWOTD.. which is:

mugwump: mugwump: a person who is unable to make up his or her mind on an issue, esp. in politics.

Well.. there you go.

Oh Monday.

It's Monday.. traditional day o' whining and grumbling. And indeed, due to a certain fucking volcano I remain here alone, bashing away at the keyboard obsessively to fill the emptiness...

having said that, it's a pretty nice day.. and as I have untraditional working patterns I'm not beginning the work week today.. and I might be meeting a friend at a beergarden later on so woo hoo or 2 is in order.

Oh and it's word day. Today's word is:

scapegrace: A reckless, unprincipled person; one who is wild and reckless; a rascal; a scoundrel.

Doesn't sound like a very nice person at all.

*sniffs disapprovingly*

*insert blog post here*

I have a sorta serious, otherwise than self indulgent rambling about whatever I'm thinking right now about what's happening right in front of me right now post in my head that I think I won't end up putting out there because.. well I don't know but whatev... right now I'm just doing the usual.

So I'm online. Of course the computer could die again any second but I'm enjoying it while it lasts, it's a particularly happy occurrance (the revival due to whatever it is I did, of the computer) because it's been doing nothing but raining the last few days.. not exactly ideal but I don't really care. I trust that we'll get spring back when it matters.

Monday is Word o' the Day day.. (I think) so I thought I'd give you today's word.

neologism: a new word or expression; the use or creation of new words or expressions.

So if I were to make up a word.. say.. "forfiz" and use in this sentence for example..

"Over the hills forfiz the cows in the sunshine"

and people could generally get the meaning from that and other sentences in which it's used, and found it pleasing enough to use occasionally, it caught on after a while and with the internet and everything before you know it'd be a new word and in one of them dictionaries that includes slang and new stuff.. that would be a neologism.. or that would be neologism. I think.

NOTE: If I bothered to take more time with it, say at least 30 seconds I could have come up with a better word, and a better sentence to put it in. Probably.

Back To Work.

Right you lot, off you go.

*hangs out and wastes time on internet*

Wait.. I can't get here fiddling around! I have stuff that needs going out and doing.

*goes out and does stuff*

Honestly.. I am. Ok now I'm going. I'm literally out the door as we speak. Well not literally out the door then I wouldn't be able to type this but I'm going after I post this and do a few more things that need to be done and waste a bit more t.. no. I won't. I'm going in a matter of minutes!

*looks all determined and stuff*

*goes after posting*

I think I know this one..

Today's Word o' the day is... surreptitious

Not as obscure as many, I've heard of it, I think I even know what it means, kind of, and may have actually used it once or twice. I would say it means something like.. um, secretive, sneaky? Sorta.

The dictionary says, done, made, or gotten by stealth; also, marked by stealth.

Kay.

That's all. Except I'll leave you with this quote:

The monitoring is not surreptitious; on the contrary, the defendant and his or her attorney are required to be given notice of the government's listening activities.

"-- John Ashcroft, "National Security; Prevention of Acts of Violence and Terrorism", Federal Register 66, no. 211, October 26, 2001"

Catch ya later.

Quite a mouthful.

This is not about anything rude, though perhaps you weren't thinking it was.. it's just me projecting.

Today's word o' the day is, tergiversation, which is what I was referring to when I was talking about a mouthful. Don't you think it's a mouthful? I do. I already said that.

The meaning is "evasion; also, desertion of a cause, party, etc." That clears it up. Wait..

1. The act of practicing evasion or of being deliberately ambiguous.
2. The act of abandoning a party or cause.

ah.. I see.

Like most writers, I have always championed thrift . . . . Not long ago, however, I experienced an extraordinary tergiversation. Now I'm an ally of excess, a proponent of redundancy.
-- Michael Norman, "When an Author's Words Are Sold by the Pound", New York Times, September 15, 1991

kay.

Yes, I know what day it is, thank you.

It's Monday, and the word o the day is:

fillip - a snap; also, a stimulous

Okay. Sounds like a name, in fact my cousin has/had a dog with that name. Maybe it just had one l though.

It gets more complicated when you get more.. er complicated, well anyway there's more:

1. A snap of the finger forced suddenly from the thumb; a smart blow.
2. Something serving to rouse or excite; a stimulus.
3. A trivial addition; an embellishment.

transitive verb:
1. To strike with the nail of the finger, first placed against the ball of the thumb, and forced from that position with a sudden spring; to snap with the finger.
2. To snap; to project quickly.
3. To urge on; to provide a stimulus, by or as if by a fillip.

I've got a feeling I won't be using this in conversation. I'm still not sure about it. Don't like it that much to be honest. A bit boring. It has been used by literary types though.. like this:

If any one in Mirgorod gives him a neckerchief or underclothes, he returns thanks; if any one gives him a fillip on the nose--he returns thanks then also.
-- Nikolai Gogol, "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich"

You fillip me o' the head.
-- Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

Yeah.. still boring.

What is that noise?

Today's word o' the day is..

bombinate - To buzz; to hum; to drone.

It sounds pretty innocuous until you get more detail:

He is often drunk. His head hurts. Snatches of conversation, remembered precepts, prefigured cries of terror bombinate about his skull.
-- Elspeth Barker, "Nobs and the rabble, all in the same boat", Independent, September 22, 1996

That sounds kinda negative.

Sometimes the computer bombinates way into the night, stops for a bit of rest, then resumes its hum at the early hours of the morning.
-- Cheryl Glenn and Robert J. Connors, New St. Martins Guide to Teaching Writing

Hey, that's very modern. I can actually relate to that.

Anyway.. happy Monday.

WOTD - What the cutlery gets up to when you're not looking..

Word o' the day is,

spoonerism : The transposition of usually initial sounds in a pair of words.

A true gem, I don't know if I like the word or the definition better, some examples..

We all know what it is to have a half-warmed fish ["half-formed wish"] inside us.

A well-boiled icicle ["well-oiled bicycle"].

It is kisstomary to cuss ["customary to kiss"] the bride.

Is the bean dizzy ["dean busy"]?

*groans* you get the drift.. I suppose it's too much to ask for witty "spoonerisms" when the word itself is so amusing..

oh and if you're disappointed that it's not actually anything to do with cutlery (technically flatwear, cutlery refers to things that cut, eg knives /dorkout) well, I've got that too.

Word o' the Day, the begging you please.... edition

Today's word o the day is:

beseech: to ask earnestly, implore

and if don't know what implore means, it means to beg urgently or piteously

Back to beseech, it's kind of a boring word. In the sense that it doesn't have either a rude sound or meaning, and it's one that's in common use, in the sense that it's in use at all by anyone except for people who speak to show off their vocabulary, though I suppose those who use it are probably trying to be posh, though I don't know if that makes it interesting.. and I'm really only posting about it because I don't have anything else to write. I could just not write but.. well, there's no reason not to really.

*stops writing*

Bit o' nerdism for Monday.

Flounce. I love this word, it's so flexible and so expressive. It came to my attention when I used it the other day. My use of the word was one of it's modern, internet related version, when someone on a site I contribute to regularly considered it necessary to tell the folk of the forum that they thought it sucked and they were leaving.. actually there were a few people who did this, and I left a comment about all these people who have to do the "flounce".. like we give a shit why they're leaving.. I used it without really thinking.. subconsciously being aware that the word was sorta suitable..

so, I was talking about this incident and the word with my significant other one evening.. as you do.. and he decided to look up the word in the Urban Dictionary. We found..

2. Flounce When a member of an online community announces they are leaving, usually after a protracted disagreement with other members of the community.
"I'm gone. You all enjoy your little discussions."

So I was surprisingly accurate! It wasn't the only definition.. in fact there are 6 on the page, most of which I've never hard.. but I really liked this one..

1. flounce: A person who is annoying bouncy when annoyed or way too excited about lame stuff!
"Heather is one big flounce!"

Hehe.. lame stuff. I am afraid that.. according to this definition, in light of this very blog post.. I could accurately be referred to as "a flounce".

Monday Word o' the day - the vain and silly man edition..

I had a cool weekend. Picked up our guests on Friday, ate and drank, went to the park on Saturday, and ate and drank, and went on a day trip to Kutna Hora yesterday, rode on a train, saw the "bone church" as it's colloquially referred to, and walked around a charming and dare I say quaint little town, and ate and drank. Oh and I took lots of photos. Both days.

A problem with this word of the day thing is that it's never updated until it's business hours wherever Dictionary.com is.. which I'd guess is California, as it's always late in the day.. so I'll pick the one I like best from the weekend.. and I do quite like this word..

fop -\FOP\, noun:
A man who is overly concerned with or vain about his dress and appearance; a dandy.

I wear ties because I don't have to, because in an increasingly dressed-down,
homogenized world, they can set you apart. I wear ties because they nurture the
inner fop. Also the outer one.-- Abbott Combes, "Secrets and Ties", New York Times
Magazine, November 14, 1999

He's swaddled in a heavy black wool overcoat
and his shoes are silver-buckled with cap toes, the black leather well taken
care of. He's a bit of a lounge lizard, a hip-hop fop.-- Po Bronson, The
Nudist on the Late Shift

Fop comes from Middle English fop, foppe, "a fool." The adjective form is foppish.

/end w.o.t.d part..

another example of a fop in popular literature (according to myself) is Sir Walter Elliot of Persuasion.. in fact, I thought of him as soon as I read the word.

Speaking of word nerding, I played boggle for the first time ever last night, and got my butt walloped.. I sucked! Unfortunately, a rather fabulous word like "fop" would be disallowed because the words have to be at least 4 letters long, but "foppish" would be just perfect, as long as all the letters are there, and they fall in the right places. I did get points for the words "frock" and "gusto", of which I was quite proud.

Word o the day/week.. the rabble rousing edition..

Today's word is:

foment \foh-MENT; FOH-ment\, transitive verb:1. To nurse to life or activity; to incite; to abet; to instigate; -- often in a bad sense.

noun:1. Fomentation; the act of fomenting.2. State of excitation.

Cynical politicians may even foment conflicts among groups to advance their
own power.-- Martha Minow, Not
Only for Myself

Here, over many cups of coffee and other brews, John Adams, James Otis,
and Paul Revere met to foment rebellion, prompting Daniel Webster to call it
"the headquarters of the Revolution."-- Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon
Grounds

Having burned to taste the foment of the sixties, I romanticized
Diego's experience of it.-- Katherine Russell Rich, The
Red Devil

Foment is from Latin fomentum, "fomentation," from fovere, "to warm, to foster, to encourage." /

Don't you feel smarter already :)

Starting the week afresh..

It's Monday, the sun is shining, the birds are singing. Actually it looks like it might rain.. whatever, the main point is that it's a new week, so it would be time to start my new system a-proper if it wasn't for the fact that last Monday I was busy introducing my scheme and didn't actually include an idea for Monday itself.

So.. gimmick of the day for Monday shall hereby be... WORDS. A word.. Word o' the day if you like. I shall pick a one of the daily words I get daily.. (yes, I get them daily strange that) and will dissect them.. or whatever.

But today, in my what I can call a tradition if I like, of not following the rules I create for myself just yet because it's the first time, I'll just talk about a words, different words, a few particular words and their appropriateness to their function.

I will start with the word phonetic which troubles me. The entry says..

pho·net·ic - [fuh-net-ik, foh-]

–adjective
1. Also, pho·net·i·cal. of or pertaining to speech sounds, their production, or their transcription in written symbols.
2. corresponding to pronunciation: phonetic transcription.
3. agreeing with pronunciation: phonetic spelling.
4&5. etc etc etc.

So, in general, the word is to do with vocal sounds and such, but what I am concerned is with my interpretation of the word, which is no fault at all of the ancient Greeks or whoever originally meant the word to mean what it originally meant, but as I said, it troubles me. When I hear the word "phonetic", I usually think of definition #3, the one about spelling.

Do you see where I'm going here? Now, the word as it sounds, should have no effect it's suitability for a word which describes CORRESPONDING TO PRONUNCIATION, so I guess I'm incorrect in saying that the word itself troubles me, and once again, no disrespect to the ancient Greeks (or whoever) for if indeed this was one of the original meanings of the word.. I'm pretty sure they weren't the ones who decided to SPELL IT THAT WAY!!!

If you didn't get the irony before, I'm sure you do by now. A word, which spelling a word how it sounds, is spelt ABOUT AS UNLIKE HOW IT SOUNDS AS YOU CAN SQUEEZE INTO ONE SMALL WORD!! So.. in short, they fucked up. They being the deciders o' spelling with all their p,s and h,s and letters that don't sound like f, amongst others. Unless it's a joke in which case hardy fucking har har.

Ok enough about that How about a really cool word that is just perfect for it's intended meaning. I came across this one about a week ago, it is...

sesquipedalian

and can you guess what it means? Bet you can't, ok.. here it is:

adjective
1. Given to or characterized by the use of long words.
2. Long and ponderous; having many syllables.

noun:1.
A long word.

Isn't it brilliant? And so suitable! I totally have to figure out a way to work into conversation.