In a Word

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Angostura_aromatic_bitters_dD.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

argute
adj. sharp, as a taste

missment
n. a mistake, an error

mauvais quart d’heure
n. a short period of time which is embarrassing and unnerving

deligible
adj. worthy to be chosen

The label on Angostura bitters is larger than the bottle. When company founder Johann Siegert died, his sons planned to enter the tonic in a competition and divided the preparatory work between them. One oversaw the design of a new bottle, the other of a new label. They failed to coordinate the work, and by the time the mismatch was apparent they had no choice but to use the oversize labels. The oddity was so distinctive that it’s been retained as a branding measure.

(Thanks, Colin.)

In a Word

https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Maps_Terms_of_Use#where-data
Image: OpenStreetMap

rarachose
adj. rare, unusual

selcouth
adj. extraordinary in appearance

cordate
adj. heart-shaped

trothplight
n. engagement to be married

The Croatian islet Galešnjak, in the Pašman Canal of the Adriatic Sea, is one of the few naturally occurring heart-shaped objects in the world.

It’s uninhabited, but the family that owns it provides facilities for engagements and weddings.

STOP

What’s the longest possible 10-word telegram? One wordplay enthusiast offered this try, at 198 letters:

ADMINISTRATOR-GENERAL’S COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY INTERCOMMUNICATIONS UNCIRCUMSTANTIATED. QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL’S DISPROPORTIONABLENESS CHARACTERISTICALLY CONTRADISTINGUISHED UNCONSTITUTIONALISTS’ INCOMPREHENSIBILITIES.

But in Language on Vacation (1965), Dmitri Borgmann observes that “we don’t like a message interrupted by two hyphens, three apostrophes, and a period.” He offered this:

PHILOSOPHICOPSYCHOLOGICAL TRANSUBSTANTIATIONALISTS, COUNTERPROPAGANDIZING HISTORICOCABBALISTICAL FLOCCIPAUCINIHILIPILIFICATIONS ANTHROPOMORPHOLOGICALLY, UNDENOMINATIONALIZED THEOLOGICOMETAPHYSICAL ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISMS HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS.

It’s 45 letters longer.

Dead Letter

Last year Grant Maierhofer published Ebb, a novel written entirely without the letter A:

Ben went to school, worked in the Co-op, tried to write some but liked to be close with his friends. His friends comprised this kind of collective, this unity of spirit. Ben studied history. His friends studied too, some music, some writing, some science. They didn’t hope to extend their lives beyond this though, which left them odd. People who study, who hope to write, who hope to sing, who hope to push something through of their spirit, they often wish to flee, to go to New York, somewhere more, somewhere living, somewhere electric. These friends though they’d decided to let this be enough, their little communion with themselves, their communion of the work, which Ben enjoyed endlessly.

To describe the project, he wrote a thousand-word essay, itself without the letter A:

Why write the book? Good question. Possibly to try something out. To see where something brings you, then the things beyond this something. People write things. Sure, of course they do. People write things frequently. I write things, hm, since I like to figure the writing out. I bring problems on myself, then figure some route out of the box. The box? Stupid. Out of the box, outside the box? So stupid. Then how would you put it? The problem could be this cell, this thing you built surrounding your work. The problem could be the cell, then your working through it could be the tunneling out. This is nice. This is the thing, sure.

The essay and a longer excerpt are here. See The Void, The Great Gadsby, and Dead Letters.

In a Word

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giuseppe_Penone_The_Hidden_Life_Within.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

monoxylous
adj. made out of a single trunk or piece of timber

For this 2011 work, Italian artist Giuseppe Penone carved away the successive growth rings of a fir tree, revealing the sapling of its early days.

“My artwork shows, with the language of sculpture, the essence of matter and tries to reveal with the work, the hidden life within.”

Misc

  • Fletcher Christian’s first son was named Thursday October Christian.
  • SLICES OF BREAD = DESCRIBES LOAF (Dean Mayer)
  • 16384 = 163 × (8 – 4)
  • Of the 46 U.S. presidents to date, 16 have had no middle name.
  • “It is ill arguing against the use of anything from its abuse.” — Elizabeth I, in Walter Scott’s Kenilworth

Star Trek costume designer William Ware Theiss offered the Theiss Theory of Titillation: “The degree to which a costume is considered sexy is directly proportional to how accident-prone it appears to be.”

(Thanks, Michael.)

In a Word

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hector_cloud_from_Gunn_Point.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

daymark
n. a mark to help navigators to find their way

nimbiferous
adj. bringing storms or showers

kenspeckle
adj. easily recognizable, conspicuous

onymous
adj. having a name

During World War II, pilots in northern Australia noted that an enormous thunderstorm formed daily between September and March on the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory. Regularly reaching heights of 20 kilometers, “Hector the Convector” is one of the world’s largest thunderstorms, an object of concentrated study by meteorologists, and a relative oddity — a cloud with a name.

Arcaicam Esperantom

In 1969, linguist Manuel Halvelik created an “archaic” version of Esperanto, so that Ivanhoe (for example) could seem suitably “old” in translation. Here’s the Lord’s Prayer in standard Esperanto:

Patro nia, kiu estas en Ĉielo,
Estu sanktigita Cia Nomo.
Venu Cia regno,
Plenumiĝu Cia volo
Kiel en Ĉielo, tiel ankaŭ sur Tero.
Al ni donu hodiaŭ panon nian ĉiutagan,
Kaj al ni pardonu niajn pekojn
Kiel ankaŭ ni tiujn, kiuj kontraŭ ni pekas, pardonas.
Kaj nin ne konduku en tenton
Sed nin liberigu el malbono.
Amen.

And here it is in “Old Esperanto”:

Patrom nosam, cuyu estas in Chielom,
Estu sanctiguitam Tuam Nomom.
Wenu Tuam Regnom,
Plenumizzu Tuam Wolom,
Cuyel in Chielom, ityel anquez sobrez Terom.
Nosid donu hodiez Panon nosan cheyutagan,
Ed nosid pardonu nosayn Pecoyn,
Cuyel anquez nos ityuyd cuyuy contrez nos pecait pardonaims.
Ed nosin ned conducu in Tentod,
Sed nosin liberigu ex Malbonom.
Amen.

Halvelik also devised slang and patois versions of the language — both are understandable by every reader, but they register as different styles. In translations of The Lord of the Rings, elves speak archaic language and hobbits speak patois.

Wallflower

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20170618_3678_Masai_Mara_Touraco_masque.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Marked by its face and call, the turaco Crinifer personatus of East Africa is known as the bare-faced go-away bird.

This seems unfair. Hummingbirds get names such as royal sunangel, empress brilliant, blue-chinned sapphire, golden-crowned emerald, and shining sunbeam.

“One tends not to want to devote much energy to tracking down birds with names such as the unadorned flycatcher, drab water-tyrant, grayish mourner or one-colored becard,” writes birder William Young. “In Costa Rica, I saw a tiny (albeit friendly) drab bird with the oxymoronic name of paltry tyrannulet.”

(William Young, “Words of a Feather,” Word Ways 32:4 [November 1999], 297-299.)

Lexicon

Words that don’t exist but ought to, proposed by Gelett Burgess in Burgess Unabridged (1914):

cowcat: an unimportant guest, an insignificant personality
critch: to array oneself in uncomfortable splendor
edicle: one who is educated beyond his intellect, a pedant
fidgeltick: food that is a bore to eat
flooijab: an apparent compliment with a concealed sting
gloogo: foolishly faithful without reward
gorgule: a splendiferous, over-ornate object or gift
gowyop: a perplexity wherein familiar things seem strange
jip: a dangerous subject of conversation
lallify: to prolong a story tiresomely, or repeat a joke
leolump: an interrupter of conversations
oofle: a person whose name one cannot remember
paloodle: to give unnecessary advice
pooje: a regrettable discovery
spillix: accidental good luck
tashivation: the art of answering without listening to questions
uglet: an unpleasant duty too long postponed
vorge: voluntary suffering, unnecessary effort or exercise
xenogore: an interloper who keeps one from interesting things
yamnoy: a bulky, unmanageable object to be carried
yowf: one whose importance exceeds his merit

Interestingly, we owe the word blurb to Burgess — he invented it in 1906 for his book Are You a Bromide?, and it proved so useful that we’re still using it more than a century later.