Lexical Compendium

Wait... what is this? Sometimes I come across a word, phrase, idiom, quote, reference, bit of slang, person of interest, etc that either I don't know or I find amusing, interesting, etc. This is a collection of those items so that I can refer back to them in emails, texts, etc.

Recent Entries:

abrogate

I won't abrogate my duties as a journalist...

I heard the above while listening to the news and had to look up the word abrogate. By context clues, it's obvious that one meaning of this word is to abandon one's responsibilities.

The more common use is in a legal context and here it means to abolish a law.

And there's also a medical use, where it is used in the context of suppressing an immune response (...strategies to abrogate antibody production...).


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References:

Tags: vocabulary, abrogate

Date Added: 29 Jul 2024
Date Modified: 21 Dec 2024

AGI

AGI stands for "Artificial General Intelligence." Unlike AI, AGI is meant to connote a system that exhibits human-like intelligence and is not trained for specific tasks.

Related: ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence), ANI (Artificial Narrow Intelligence), p(doom)


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References:

Tags: ai, computer-science

Date Added: 23 Jun 2024
Date Modified: 27 Jun 2024

albedo

Albedo is the measure of reflectivity of a surface, specifically Earth's ability to reflect solar radiation back into space. It is expressed as a percentage, with higher albedo indicating greater reflectivity.

I first came across this term while reading a SciTechDaily post about how scientists have a theory as to why global warming in 2023 exceeded predictions. The year 2023 was also had a record-low albedo.


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References:

Tags: science, vocabulary

Date Added: 21 Dec 2024

alla turca time

While alla turca generically just means "in the Turkish style," alla turca time (or alaturka saat) specifically refers to the way that time was reckoned in the Ottoman Empire.

In the alla turca time Sun always sets at the 0’th hour and rises at the 12th hour. The hours of the alla turca time have variable length. During winters the length of 1 (alla turca) night hour is longer than the length of 1 (alla turca) day hour. During summers the opposite is true.

-- from alla turca time (blog post)

Clocks around the empire were manually set/reset by the muvakkit, or timekeeper. It's hard to even imagine using this sort of time keeping in our modern era.

I haven't been able to find a whole lot about this online, but I've noted what I have found. My father introduced me to this term; it was something he recalled from his childhood.

Heather Cox Richardson's "Letters from An American" series had a good essay covering the event when US railroads adopted a standard time on 18 November 1883. There are some interesting parallels -- some opponents to the standard time because telling time by the sun was "God's time."


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References:

Tags: time, ottoman, clock

Date Added: Unknown
Date Modified: 18 Nov 2024

anathema

An anathema is something or someone that is abhorrent or extremely disliked.

I came across this word while reading an essay, "'Weird' Should Not Be An Insult."

Using “weird” as an insult ought to be anathema to Democrats.

Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, Democrats took to calling Republicans (especially Donald Trump and his VP candidate JD Vance) weird. (And the Republican retort seems to be: "I'm not weird, you are.")

While writing this, it's too early to know whether or not this tact will pay off.

The word anathema has its origins in the Greek word anatithenai, meaning "to dedicate." In the "Old Testament" of "The Bible," the word anathema is sometimes used in this way. Interestingly, the meaning of the word shifted to mean something accursed or repulsive and translated into Hebrew as herem. We see this meaning in the "New Testament" of "The Bible."

The ecclesiastical meaning of the word still exists today (it's the second definition in Merriam-Webster's dictionary). A more prominent use in English, though, is something that is vehemently disliked.


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References:

Tags: vocabulary

Date Added: 03 Aug 2024

"...and she stepped on the ball."

My favorite line in the movie "Trading Places" is a reference to a joke in another movie called "Aunti Mame." In that movie, a rich and condescending woman tells a story about a ping pong game in which she "stepped on the ball."

In "Trading Places," this exchange takes place as Louis Winthorpe III, now disgraced, jobless and homeless, enters his tennis club in in hopes of getting help from his rich friends. As Louis enters the scene, we hear the end of a story being told by one of these friends to the rest of the gang, "...and she stepped on the ball." Louis, of course, discovers that his friends and even his fiancée want nothing to do with him.


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References:

Tags: quote, trading_places, movie

Date Added: Unknown

"...an effective plot must be 'unexpected but inevitable'..."

I came across this quote in the television series Mythic Quest. In that show, it was attributed to Aristotle, but I haven't been able to confirm this.


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References:

Tags: writing, plot, quotes, story

Date Added: Unknown

antipathy

Antipathy is a deep and strong dislike for something.

While composing a message, I was trying to figure out which of these two words fit my sentiment more accurately: antipathy and animosity. I had the realization that I wasn't really sure what the difference was. While trying to figure that out, I came across this old opinion piece:

Some people are irritated by the weirdest things.

Wow! He summed up exactly how I feel about mourning doves -- and all pigeons generally. (I do, however, own an Argus.)

Unfortunately though, I'm still not sure I know the difference between antipathy and animosity.


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References:

Tags: vocabulary

Date Added: 03 Sep 2024

argy-bargy

Argy-bargy is British slang for the kind of back-and-forth that accompanies a vigorous argument.

When my brother and I discuss politics, there's always a bit of argy-bargy.

Argy-bargy and the similar argle-bargle appear to have originated in Scottish slang. One can clearly see that the first part of the rhyming pair is formed from the word argue and the second is nonsense... or mumbo-jumbo. This type of word is what's known as a rhyming reduplication (other examples are mumbo-jumbo or okey-dokey).

I first encountered this term while listening to the Aussie host of the podcast Risky Business (#758).


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References:

Tags: slang, vocabulary

Date Added: 18 Aug 2024

banoffee

Banoffee is a portmanteau combining the words "banana" and "toffee" and is often used in reference to Banoffee Pie, which seems to be a popular pie flavor in the UK.

I learned of this while watching a YouTube show: Food Tours: Finding the Best Afternoon Tea in London.


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References:

Tags: pie, toffee, desert, banana

Date Added: 21 May 2024

Bees?

There is a "Cards Against Humanity" card that simply reads: "Bees?" It's so fatuous that it has become a common expression for me.

Some on the internet believe that this is a reference to an "Arrested Development" episode.


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References:

Tags: games, bees

Date Added: Unknown

bespoke reality

"Bespoke realities" is a term used by David French in a NYT op-ed. The op-ed describes a phenomenon that is bigger (and perhaps more dangerous) than quirky little "confined" conspiracy theories.

There is a fundamental difference between, on the one hand, someone who lives in the real world but also has questions about the moon landing and, on the other, a person who believes the Covid vaccines are responsible for a vast number of American deaths and Jan. 6 was an inside job and the American elite is trying to replace the electorate with new immigrant voters and the 2020 election was rigged and Donald Trump is God’s choice to save America.

Such individuals don’t simply believe in a conspiracy theory or theories. They live in a “bespoke reality.” That brilliant term comes from my friend Renée DiResta, the technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, and it refers to the effects of what DiResta calls a “Cambrian explosion of bubble realities,” communities “that operate with their own norms, media, trusted authorities and frameworks of facts.”

-- French, David. Welcome to Our New ‘Bespoke Realities', NYT, 30 Nov 2023

I heard reference to this on a Hard Fork podcast episode on which Renée DiResta was a guest, A Surgeon General Warning, The Disinformation Battle and The Rise of CryptoPACs, 21 Jun 2024.


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References:

Tags: op-ed, disinformation

Date Added: 24 Jun 2024
Date Modified: 26 Jun 2024

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!"

From Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," a poem in "Through the Looking Glass."

The poem was about the capture and killing of a creature called the "Jabberwock" and is filled with many other nonsense terms.

The word "jabberwocky," itself, has come to mean something meaningless in writing.


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References:

Tags: quote, book, poem

Date Added: Unknown

Caledonian Orogeny

When Great Briton's two halves were slammed together.


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Tags: history, geography

Date Added: Unknown

canard

A false or unfounded statement/story.


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Tags: vocabulary

Date Added: Unknown

chookas

The word chookas is Australian slang and something performers traditionally say to each other to wish luck before a show. It's similar to the expression "break a leg."

Chook is Aussie slang for chicken. One explanation for how chookas came to be used in the performing arts is that if there was a full house, the theater company could afford a chicken dinner.

Other sources seem to indicate that it was originally pronounced choogas was was an abbreviation of the phrase "cheers and good wishes."

I first came across the word chookas while watching Deadloch (S1, E6).


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References:

Tags: slang, vocabulary, aussie

Date Added: 01 Oct 2024

Christian Zionism

An ideology that, in a Christian context, supports the concepts of Zionism (Jewish people returning to the "Holy Land").

Joe Biden considers himself a Zionist.

Mike Huckabee (nominated in Nov 2024 as the US Ambassador to Israel by the forming Trump administration) considers himself to be an "unapologetic, unreformed Zionist."


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References:

Tags: religion

Date Added: Unknown
Date Modified: 13 Nov 2024

COINTELPRO

Short for Counter Intelligence Program, COINTELPRO was a series of covert operations conducted by the FBI from 1956 to 1971 (when it was exposed). Its primary goal was to disrupt, discredit, and neutralize civil rights organizations, political activists, and other groups deemed "subversive" by the government. Targets included Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Panther Party, and anti-Vietnam War protestors.

Though I had some knowledge of the illegal tactics used by the FBI during this era, I first came across the term COINTELPRO after listening to the second season of SNAFU with Ed Helms.


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References:

Tags: podcast

Date Added: 03 Dec 2024

djent

Djent, pronounced "duh-jent", is a subgenre of progressive metal music characterized by guitar riffs that produce a percussive, and rhythmic sound. The term is derived from the sound the guitar makes when playing it in this fashion, resembling a "djent" noise. Duh-jent. Duh-duh-duh-jent. Duh-duh-jent. Duh-jent. Puh-keng-keng-keng.

When I recently saw my nephew, he was wearing a Meshuggah shirt. I asked him what genre they were and he replied djent which, of course, I had to have him further explain what that meant. Meshuggah are considered pioneers of the djent sound.

The phrase "pick up a pancake" is sometimes used when describing this sound, but I haven't been able to figure out why. Perhaps the way the guitar pick is held? Perhaps that the sound is so strong that it could literally pick up a pancake?


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References:

Tags: slang, music

Date Added: 03 Dec 2024

down to raisins

An expression coined by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. It means something similar as "seeing the light at the end of the tunnel." In other words, a task or period is reaching its end.

When Lincoln was asked where this phrase came from, he told the story of a little girl who ate too much and then followed that up with a dessert of raisins. She became sick and, eventually, was throwing up only the raisins. Thus, she knew that she was nearly done.

I came upon this phase while watching Manhunt, S1E6.


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References:

Tags: civil war, expression, lincoln

Date Added: 05 Jun 2024

DSKY

An acronym for Display Keyboard (pronounced diskey). This was the interface that Apollo astronauts used to communicate with the computers on the Command and Lunar Modules.

I first came across this acronym while watching the television series For All Mankind.


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References:

Tags: space, astronaut, apollo

Date Added: Unknown
Date Modified: 27 Jun 2024

Floyd Hole

In the Venture Bros episode "Perchance to Dean," Dr. Venture introduces Dean to progressive rock (including one of my favorites, King Crimson!). He leaves Dean and comes back later to find that he's fallen unconscious. Dr. Venture screams, "He's fallen into a Floyd Hole!"

The term "Floyd Hole," now refers to the act of losing track of time while consuming media.

For example, "It's already 4PM?? I fell into a Floyd Hole watching YouTube!"


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References:

Tags: quote, television

Date Added: 05 Sep 2024
Date Modified: 05 Nov 2024

"Focus on the things that make your beer taste better"

A quote from Jeff Bezos during the 2008 YC Startup School.

Bezos made an analogy between AWS and breweries, at the turn of the 20th century when electricity had just been invented. These early breweries started generating their own power to leverage machines that ran on electricity. Soon, utility companies came along. Newer breweries that were able to just use electricity from the utility companies didn't have the capital expenses of the older breweries and were able to beat them.

I heard of this analogy from the Acquired podcast.


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References:

Tags: amazon, aws, bezos

Date Added: Unknown
Date Modified: 29 May 2024

fomite

A fomite is an object or surface that acts as a medium to transmit infection. I became aware of this word during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.


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References:

Tags: covid, public_health, virus

Date Added: 23 Jun 2024

grumbletonian

This archaic word was used to describe someone who was discontent, i.e. someone who grumbles a lot. The origins of the word are in 17th century English politics.

I heard the word in an episode of the podcast The Allusionist.


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References:

Tags: vocabulary, grumbletonian

Date Added: Unknown
Date Modified: 05 Jun 2024

ICE

An acronym for Internal Combustion Engine. This acronym seems to be bandied about a lot during automobile discussions, especially when discussing electric vehicles (EVs).


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References:

Tags: engine, ice

Date Added: Unknown

"I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal, you sockdologizing old man-trap."

These were the lines spoken in the play "Our American Cousin" when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. A "sockdologer" is the decisive word in an argument; the final blow.


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References:

Tags: sockdologizing, quote, history

Date Added: Unknown

infinocchiare

Infinocchiare is an Italian word which means to cheat or swindle someone.

The term has interesting origins. The root of the word comes from the term finocchio which means fennel in English. In the Middle Ages, fennel was used as a masking spice. Wine merchants would serve customers fennel before offering them wine, in order to hide defects. In the same way, butchers began to put it in their salami as an alternative to pepper in order to cover up the taste of not very good meat.

Though not for the same reasons, this tradition persists today. When we were in Tuscany, Italy, we discovered finocchiona salami and I became intrigued with this word.

In Italian, the phrase Non farti infinocchiare means Don't be fooled but it translates precisely in English to Don't get fenneled.


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References:

Tags: vocabulary, foreign language

Date Added: 22 Oct 2024

interregnum

  1. A period when normal government is suspended, especially between successive reigns or regimes.
  2. An interval or pause between two periods of office or other things.

As in:

...the interregnum between the discovery of radioactivity and its detailed understanding.

or:

You are a weak monarch in a dangerous interregnum.

The latter comes from a line of dialog from the character Gerri in the television series "Succession"


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References:

Tags: word

Date Added: Unknown

jawbone

"Jawboning" is a political technique in which statements are made by persons of authority in order how to influence public perception or behavior without making formal policy changes.


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References:

Tags: vocabulary, politics

Date Added: 24 Jun 2024

Leahy Law

From Wikipedia:

The Leahy Laws or Leahy amendments are U.S. human rights laws that ostensibly prohibit the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights with impunity.

In 2024, as the Israel–Hamas war wages on, the Leahy Law has been in the news a lot.


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References:

Tags: international, legal, leahy

Date Added: 30 May 2024

Lindy's Law

In simple terms, the longer something is around, the better it gets (or the longer it's likely to continue to be around).

I first heard a reference to this in a Breaking Points episode in which the hosts were debating the merits of lab grown meat.

The origin of this term comes from a 1964 article published in The New Republic by Albert Goldman. In this article, Goldman described comedians that used to meet up at Lindy's Deli in NYC discussing comedy shows. An observation was made that the longer a show has been running, the longer it is expected to continue to run. This was formalized in something Goldman called "Lindy's Law." Note: this is also commonly referred to as the "Lindy Effect."


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References:

Tags: lindy effect, lindy's law, lindy

Date Added: 21 May 2024

"Mice lie and monkeys exaggerate."

Mice lie and monkeys exaggerate.

-- David B. Weiner, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Chair, Gene Therapy and Vaccine Program, CAMB Co-Leader Tumor Virology Program, Abramson Cancer Program University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine

Dr. Weiner coined this aphorism while musing on the use of NHP (nonhuman primates) in HIV vaccines studies at a conference in 2008. In essence, animal models aren't necessarily predictive of how drugs will work in humans.

The phrase is often used in research papers and by science journalists. I can't recall where I first heard it, but I thought of it recently when a friend shared a blurb about how rapamycin is purported to have anti-aging benefits in humans. Though there is no evidence for this in humans, there have been studies with the drug on mice that have found that they live ~12% longer.


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References:

Tags: quote, aphorism

Date Added: 03 Oct 2024
Date Modified: 11 Dec 2024

milquetoast

The word milquetoast is used to describe a meek or timid person.

It originated from the comic strip character Caspar Milquetoast, created by Harold T. Webster in 1924. The character was known for his timidity and refusal to participate in controversial discussions. Some time after the character's debut, the term "milquetoast" began to be used to describe people with similar characteristics.

Caspar's last name is derived from "milk toast," a breakfast food that was thought to be easy to digest and was a popular food for convalescents in New England (USA) in the 19th and early 20th century.


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References:

Tags: slang, vocabulary

Date Added: 18 Jul 2024
Date Modified: 19 Jul 2024

neologism

A neologism is a newly coined word or expression.


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References:

Tags: vocabulary, neologism

Date Added: 30 May 2024

"Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds"

An English translation of a line from The Bhagavad Gita, written in Sanskrit. A more accurate translation is "Time I am, destroyer of the worlds..."

I first encountered this expression in the late 90s on the CAKE BBS. It appears many times in popular culture:

  • Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer
  • Bolivar in s01e07 of Xmen '97
  • Captain Ramius' diary in Hunt for Red October
  • Caleb Smith in Ex Machina

And probably many more.


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References:

Tags: hindu, shiva, krishna

Date Added: Unknown

orthosomnia

Orthosomnia is an obsession with getting "perfect" sleep. The word was coined in a 2017 article in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine titled Orthosomnia: Are Some Patients Taking the Quantified Self Too Far?

We termed this condition “orthosomnia,” with “ortho” meaning straight or correct, and “somnia” meaning sleep, because patients are preoccupied or concerned with improving or perfecting their wearable sleep data. We chose this term because the perfectionist quest to achieve perfect sleep is similar to the unhealthy preoccupation with healthy eating, termed orthorexia.

I first encountered this term while listening to an episode of The Guardian's Science Weekly podcast called Is sleep perfectionism making us more exhausted?


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References:

Tags: vocabulary

Date Added: 22 Oct 2024

Pale Blue Dot

The "pale blue dot" is how Carl Sagan described the Earth as seen in a photograph taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 (the last picture of the Earth it took as it continued to leave the solar system).


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References:

Tags: space, carl_sagan, earth

Date Added: 23 Jun 2024

p(doom)

p(doom) stands for "probability of doom" and is a term used when talking about AGI.


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References:

Tags: ai, computer-science

Date Added: 27 Jun 2024

pogrom

A pogrom is an organized (i.e. mob) attack of a particular ethnic group. Historically the word has been used to describe ethnic cleansing of Jews, but it can apply to any instance of violent, organized persecution against a specific group.

The word originates from the Russian word "погром," which means "to wreak havoc." It was first used in reference to the violent attacks on Jewish communities in the Russian Empire.

In 2024, as the Israel–Hamas war wages on, the word appeared in the news when on Sunday, 23 June, a protest turned violent in Los Angeles.

Demonstrators were protesting a real estate fair at a synagogue. The Pro-Palestinian protesters have been criticized as antisemitic as violence broke out and CNN's Van Jones called it a pogrom. And this rhetoric seems to be spreading.

The reason for the protest appears to be because the real estate event was promoting the sale of land located in the illegally-occupied Palestinian territories and restricting those sales to Jews. It's unfortunate that this hasn't been the headline in the news. How is this type of event even be allowed to happen??


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References:

Tags: war, israel-hamas war

Date Added: 26 Jun 2024

pulses

The dried seeds of legumes (beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, etc). This seems to be a word that is commonly used in the UK. In the US, I don't think I've ever heard it.

I looked this up after watching a YouTube show: Food Tours: Finding the Best Cheeseburger in Los Angeles. The two hosts (popularized on Food Wars) are from the US and UK. In the US, if I were eating chickpeas and lentils I'd say that I was eating "chickpeas and lentils," while in the UK it seems like it might be common to say that one is "eating pulses."


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References:

Tags: pulses, chickpeas, food

Date Added: 21 May 2024

rhodopsin

I learned, from sort of an unlikely source -- the National Park Service, the reason why "night vision" is reset after exposure to light.  That our pupils dilate  is probably obvious, but what I didn't know was that the body produces a protein called rhodopsin which, through a series of chemical reactions, gives our rods the ability to "see" in dim light.  The protein decays in bright light (though much slower in longer wavelengths, i.e. red light).  When depleted, it takes ~30m to regenerate.


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References:

Tags: word, science, vision

Date Added: Unknown

rozzer

Rozzer is British slang for a police officer.

"Cripes, the rozzers are after us!"

I first heard this while watching the movie Wicked Little Letters.

The terms rozzers , bobbies and peelers (all slang words for police officers) likely originate from a play on the name Sir Robert Peel, founder of the Metropolitan Police Service in 1829.


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References:

Tags: slang, british

Date Added: 16 Jul 2024

sanewashing

Sanewashing (also sometimes hyphened as sane-washing) is a term that rose in popularity during the 2024 US Presidential election to describe the practice of minimizing or explaining some of the bizarre rhetoric from Donald Trump (this is often tied to a critique of "the media").

According to Wikipedia, it originated on a Reddit forum in 2020.

The sentiment that the media has been sanewashing Donald Trump and his campaign perhaps shifted a little with the coverage of Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on 27 October 2024. The headline from a NYT article covering the event read Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism.


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References:

Tags: vocabulary, politics

Date Added: 02 Nov 2024

sawbuck

A sawbuck is slang for a $10 bill. Likewise, a double-sawbuck is a $20 bill.

It has been suggested that the slang originated because a sawbuck (sawhorse) resembles an "X," the Roman numeral for "10."

I came across this slang while watching For All Mankind, S3E2.


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References:

Tags: slang, vocabulary

Date Added: 05 Jun 2024

Shoe Leather

"Shoe Leather" is a bit of television/movie jargon that refers to all of the boring/procedural parts of an exchange that often get eliminated from a script.

For example, you often don't see actors answering the phone with "hello" or even saying "good-bye" before hanging up. These little exchanges don't do much to move the plot forward.

(Note: there are other definitions of this term as well to refer to an "old fashioned" process, especially in police or detective work)

The origin of the phrase seems to refer to the sound of someone walking, i.e. the sound of their shoe's leather soles hitting the ground.


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References:

Tags: entertainment, movies, jargon

Date Added: 09 Jul 2024

skramz

There is a point in one's life in which not only does the music of the younger generations make no sense, neither do their labels. For me, this is illustrated by the musical genre of "skramz" (I've also seen it spelled "scramz"). When I asked my nephew what he likes to listen to, he told me skramz. When I asked what that was, he told me it was a synonym for screamo. And, well, the rabbit hole continues to HXC and post hardcore.

Listening to this music, it all just sounds like punk. But... maybe these are all just subgenres of punk?


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References:

Tags: music, screamo

Date Added: 25 Jun 2024

spaghettification

Spaghettification refers to the streching and compressing that occurs as an object passes within a black hole's event horizon. The process was first described by Stephen Hawking in the book "A Brief History of Time."


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References:

Tags: science, space

Date Added: 05 Jul 2024

specious

Something that is specious is superficially plausible, but actually wrong.

You know how there are some words that you know would fit exactly what you're trying to communicate, but you can never remember them? This is one of those words for me.

The Latin speciosus means "beautiful" (or "plausible"). According to Merriam-Webster, in Middle English the word specious was used to mean "attractive." Over time, however, the word was used to denote a fake or superficial beauty.

I don't usually hear this word being used to represent a false-beauty, but more in rhetoric. A specious argument is a type of argument that seems to be good at first glance, but is actually fallacious.


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References:

Tags: vocabulary

Date Added: 20 Aug 2024

spoonerism

A spoonerism is a slip-up in speech in which the person talking transposes the first part of two words. For example, saying "shake a tower" instead of "take a shower." The word is named after Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930) who, apparently, this happened to often.

I came across this while listening to an episode of The Allusionist which discussed an old puzzle novel called "Cain's Jawbone." Among the many word-based challenges in this puzzle novel are spoonerisms which the player must identify in order to put the pages in the right order.


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References:

Tags: vocabulary, spoonerism

Date Added: 29 May 2024
Date Modified: 30 May 2024

stigmergy

From Wikipedia:

Stigmergy was first observed in social insects. For example, ants exchange information by laying down pheromones (the trace) on their way back to the nest when they have found food. In that way, they collectively develop a complex network of trails, connecting the nest in an efficient way to various food sources. When ants come out of the nest searching for food, they are stimulated by the pheromone to follow the trail towards the food source. The network of trails functions as a shared external memory for the ant colony.


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References:

Tags: word, social_insect, ants

Date Added: Unknown
Date Modified: 30 May 2024

thagomizer

A thagomizer is a bit of paleontology jargon referring to the spikes on a stegosaurian dinosaur.

When I was young, the Stegosaurus was my favorite type of dinosaur. I had no idea what the spikes were called until very recently though. I especially didn't know that the word was coined by none other than Gary Larson of Far Side fame.

In 1982, Gary Larson wrote a comic in which a caveman, perhaps in a teaching role, explains to an audience that these spikes were named "after the late Thag Simmons."


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References:

Tags: dinosaur, thagomizer, stegosaurus, far side, paleontology

Date Added: 23 May 2024

"There's nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there?"

This is a quote from the 1994 movie "Clerks."


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References:

Tags: quote, movie, clerks

Date Added: Unknown

"This feels schemey. Redolent of thwart."

Something that the character Tom Wambsgans says in the television series "Succession."


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References:

Tags: quote, television, succession

Date Added: Unknown

tilt at windmills

To tilt at windmills means to fight or pursue some imaginary adversary.

I've always found idioms to be an interesting part of language and this is one of my favorites. In Jr. High, my class read/translated Don Quixote de la Mancha, which is where this expression comes from.


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Tags: idiom, Don Quixote

Date Added: 30 May 2024

trial balloon

A trial balloon is a metaphorical term describing a tentative action or statement meant to test reactions or explore possibilities before committing to a course of action. It's often used in diplomacy, politics, and awkward social situations, where one wants to gauge sentiment or diffuse tension without directly confronting the issue.

The phrase originates from the early days of hot-air ballooning in the late 18th century. British aeronauts would send up small, unmanned balloons as trial balloons to assess weather conditions, wind direction, and other factors before launching a manned flight. By the mid-19th century, the term was being used figuratively, particularly in politics, where governments or individuals would "float" proposals through unofficial channels to gauge public opinion before formally committing. Over time, it came to describe any cautious, preliminary step taken to assess outcomes.

I first heard this term in an interview with Bill Hader on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) podcast. Hader shared a story about embarrassing himself by badmouthing a movie to someone who starred in it. To mend the social faux pas, he waited an hour and floated a trial balloon by saying, "Um, hey, they’re grilling some chicken over there."

He shared this awkward story with Larry David, who, of course, loved it -- particularly the hilariously ineffectual nature of the "trial balloon" attempt -- and encouraged him to repeat it often.


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Tags: vocabulary, metaphor

Date Added: 10 Dec 2024

wagwan

Wagwan means "what's going on" and is Jamaican/English slang. It seems to have originated from Jamaican Creole wah gwan ("what go on").

I first heard this while watching Supacell, where it's used prolifically in the dialog.


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Tags: slang, creole

Date Added: 07 Jul 2024

"What ho! She bumps!"

I came across this bit of old-timey slang in the television show "The Artful Dodger." It means something like, "Wow! It works!"


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Tags: quote, television, slang

Date Added: Unknown