Tag Archives: language

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’26 A To Z Challenge – D

Here’s another English word that, like most of the others, is not English.

DYBBUK

When I first encountered it, I thought it might be a small, South African antelope, like a springbok, but the word turns out to be Hebrew – a language which has already contributed a number of words to the English language about superstitions, including Yahweh, and Messiah.

A dybbuk is an uneasy spirit.  It can be a demon, or the soul of a dead person, that enters the body of a living person and directs the person’s conduct.  It’s somewhere between a shade, and a poltergeist.  I’ve worked with a number of people who fit this description.

It may have been what happened to Donald Trump.  We need to have him either excised, or exorcized – but that’s for the next post.  CU then.

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Altered Allegiance

 

I recently read a blogpost from a guy who said that it just added up that Mathematics was his favorite subject as a scholar.  Post-post-secondary education, he began to read more and more, and for personal pleasure, not just mathematical problems.  A train leaves Chicago at noon, heading west at 65 MPH….

He found that he really liked language usage, and that English had become his favorite subject.  Hey, any friend of English, is a friend of mine.  He said that he came to appreciate the puns, the alliteration, the similes, the metaphors, the rhymes, and the plot twists in Shakespeare’s plays.

SCUREETCH!!  WHUUUTT??

I think he oughta read his Shakespeare again.  Even though his plays were performed at the Royal Court, Wild Bill wrote for the groundlings – the very common commoners.  He was about as subtle as a brick through a plate glass window.  We never discovered at the denouément, that Ophelia was an LGBTQ water safety instructor, that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were essential-oil MLM scammers, or that Yorick didn’t actually die.  He entered the Witness Protection Plan, and is happily working, making lingonberry Danish pastries in a little bakery in Copenhagen, under the name, Lars Larsen.

Read on, Macduff
I can never seem to get enough.

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’25 A To Z Challenge – Z

This is the final episode of the 2025 A To Z Challenge.  I wanted to end the series with a bang, but this is what has become the standard, two-days-late, so I can’t do that.  Besides, it’s almost impossible, with a word beginning with Z.  I don’t want to go out with a whine.  I do enough of that without a challenge, so I decided to go out with a

ZHUZH

To make something more stylish, lively, or attractive:

It comes from a language/dialect known as Polari, originating in the mid-1800’s British theater workers, or gay community – often the same thing.

I’ve written about Polari before.  I finally, actually, saw/heard the word Zhuzh used, in a YouTube short.  We went to a party store, and bought a bunch of decorations to Zhuzh up the apartment for Christmas and New Years.  It sounds as gay as it looks.  I will not be using it in conversations or blog-posts – any more!

Some more (hopefully) humorous fibs will be coming up on Friday.  Hope to see you then.  😀

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’25 A To Z Challenge – Y

 

This week’s A to Z challenge is to honor a request of – though, hopefully, not to honor the memory of – yet another blogger who seems to have quietly disappeared.  A couple of years ago, one of my regular visitors/commenters, who named himself Daniel Digby, requested that I do a challenge for the letter Y, with the word

YCLEPT

The all-too-often-late, great, blogger named Archon, finally got around to it, just after the nick of time.

Yclept is a word that means “named” or “called.” It is an archaic term that was commonly used in Old English and Middle English, but it has largely fallen out of use in modern English.

The word “yclept” is derived from the Old English word “cylt,” which meant “called” or “named.” This word was often used in phrases such as “yclept by name” or “yclept after his name,” to indicate that someone had been given a specific name or title.

In modern English, we might use the word “called” or “named” instead of “yclept,” so for example: “He was called John” or “She was named Sarah.” However, “yclept” can add a more formal or archaic touch to writing, and it can be used to create a sense of historical or literary context.

Archon was never called to the bar, but has been sent home from a few in a taxi.  Y’all come back in a coupla days.  We havin’ barbecue and Coors Lite.  CU then.

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’25 A To Z Challenge – X

I have previously whined opined that I accept the inevitable evolution of the English language.  I just don’t want it to be led by guys with their name on their shirt.  HOLY SHIT!!  It just got even worse.  I recently ran into the Newspeak word

XERTZ

At first, I thought it might have something to do with new, electronic, micro-circuitry.  We should be so lucky.  The Earl of Sandwich invented a new type of food, because of his addiction to, and his refusal to leave, the gambling tables.

This word, which means, Xertz means to gulp or swallow something quickly, often in a greedy or hurried manner, similar to chugging or scoffing down a meal or beverage.

It is a (mostly) slang term, invented by gamers, who are addicted to, and refuse to leave, their precious keyboards, barely taking time to eat, drink, sleep, or attend to basic bodily needs and functions.

Heroin is not toxic, and by itself, will not damage the body.  All of the harm – physical, emotional, social, financial – is caused by distraction from immediate reality.  JUST SAYIN’!!

 

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Natural Stupidity

A comic strip character recently complained, “Artificial Intelligence isn’t as smart as it thinks it is.”
The blog-site name of one of my regular visitors is INGLANDIO.  My squirrel brain can only look at that for so long, before I just have to know what it means.  Despite a similarity in spelling, I doubted that it had any reference to England.  First I plugged it into Bing, because it’s attached to MSN.CA, my home page.

Here are all the results for inguinal; did you only want results for inglandio?
YES! Click
Here are all the results for inguinal, did you only want results for inglandio?
GAAH!!

People who searched for inglandio also searched for:
ingenio
linguine
duolingo
why is England called Britain  (The other three I understand.  This one bemuses me.)

So I gave it to Google – and got exactly the same page of unhelpful stupidity.  😳  I decided to try Google-Translate.  I thought the word was probably Italian, but I’ve been fooled before, so I clicked on “Detect Language.”  Translating – from English – to English – meaning – inglandio.  There is no English word, “inglandio!”

I clicked Translate Italian to English, and was finally rewarded with, “I am going to swell.” which the same translation program, in reverse, tells me is, ”Mi gonfierò.”  That sure is swell.  Now I’m popping blood-pressure pills from a Pez dispenser.  What a ridiculous, useless, unlikely, definition, there is probably an idiomatic connotation for the word, or name, so, Mister Linguine Inglandio, if you hear someone tapping at your website’s back door, it’s just me, searching for meaning.

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I implored Mr. Inglandio to elucidate, and he was kind enough to put me out of his misery.  First, you just take twice the square root of the split infinitive of a word that does not exist.  You add in some verbiage to simulate action.  Then you divide by the number of nosy inquisitive readers who question it – ONE – unity – just me.  You get a genuine imitation word that not only convinces readers that you can do it, but that you can do it in English.  The biggest reason that both AI and I had trouble was that I managed to misspell it as Inglandio – rather than Ingliando.  Poor old new Artificial Intelligence – it never stood a chance.  I know the feeling.

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’25 A To Z Challenge – Q

When someone asked my Dad to perform some difficult or problematic task, he would sometimes reply, “I’m like a steer.  I can only try.”

I’m going to try to show you the many, muddled meanings of the word

QUIXOTIC

taken to mean (among many other things) dreamy, foolish, impractical, impulsive, romantic. unrealistic, utopian, chivalrous, ineffective, impetuous, imaginary, fantastic, and starry-eyed.

It comes, of course, from the early 1600’s Spanish novel about Don Quixote – a man who tried to do the right things, for the right reasons, but failed, because of poor eyesight and worse judgement – only succeeding to draw his many personality peculiarities into the English language.

Finding the meaning of the original name – Quixote – using internet dictionary, translation, and Google research was like riding a carousel, round and round it went – like having Christian apologists claim that the Bible is inerrant…. because the Bible says that it is inerrant.  The character was quixotic – because he was Don Quixote – and he was Quixote – because he acted quixotic.

The Spanish suffix ‘ote’ means ‘large.’  Old Spanish says that ‘quix’ meant ‘leg’ or ‘thigh.’  It apparently began as an occupational name for someone whose job required much lower limb exercise, producing muscular, large legs.  Sounds like an American Thanksgiving turkey advertisement.

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’25 A To Z Challenge – K

Welcome back to KARCH-TV’s riotously funny comedy program,

KERMIT AND FAWZI

This week’s episode is titled KERMIT AND KISMET.

The name Fawzi seems to be middle-eastern.  When The Muppet Show first appeared on TV, I wondered if Jim Henson had intentionally named the unthreatening, goofball character Fawzi as a way to normalize and reassure people about the presence of peaceful Arab/Muslim immigrants.

Of the very few people that I was aware of, named Kermit, it seemed that most of them were Jewish, so I thought that this name was also middle-eastern.  Imagine my surprise when I actually did some research, and found that it is a pronunciation/spelling evolution slide from the Scottish/Irish Gaelic name Diarmid, or Diarmaid – meaning either “free man,” or “without envy,” apparently depending on how much whiskey you’ve imbibed.

My kismet from not doing my research earlier, is having to do it now, for this post.  Kismet is a kind of soft, easy-going word that carries the connotation of, “What goes around, comes around,” unlike its harder, nastier cousin Karma, which implies that, “You deserve what you get.”

I am disappointed (yet again) by the number of “Good Christians” who believe in karma.  It means that they must also believe that young children deserve to get cancer, or that nice people deserve to have their homes flooded, or blown down by tornadoes or hurricanes.  I don’t care, though.  My Karma ran over their Dogma.

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Fibbing Friday#280

Another mixed bag from Pensitivity101 last week.

1. What is a saga?

The wife’s boobs, and my gut

2. What is a synopsis?

A list of things that The Church doesn’t want you to do

3. What is a dialect?

An old, rotary telephone

4. What is a goblin?

Me, when I see a French-fry wagon, and the censor spoilsport wife isn’t in the car

5. What is a pinstripe?

San Bruno, USA – October 7, 2022: A burgundy Chevrolet Impala with custom pinstriping, chrome trim, gold wire wheels and whitewall tire at a car show

It was a way to adorn cars, back in the nostalgia days of big-block engines and floor-shifters – when cars had personality, and showed more decoration than just corporate logos.  The closest thing I’ve seen recently is a TRO – Toyota Racing Organization – sedan with decals that make it look like the body panels are laced, or strapped, together, with images of stuffed toys on the rear deck, and a gas filler cover that appears to be made from armor.

6. What is a catapult?

The sound made during the frantic escape of the Poor Cat that the cartoon skunk, Pepe Le Pew is always harassing…

7. What is a mousse?

Isn’t that the plural of “Mouse”??  I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere, must be French or something…

8. What is meant by bona fide?

What I used to be able to create, in the presence of a naked female

9. What is a sally?

She’s a Religious chick that you sully, silly

10. What is a harem?

A rabbit hole that’s not on YouTube

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Fibbing Friday #278

Last week Pensitivity101 asked, How’s your history and general knowledge? (I’m old enough to have lived through most of it, so you may see the occasional reference to Plato, or Julius Caesar)

1. Which Monarch famously said ‘I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king?’

Queen Latifah

2. What is the rarest blood type in humans?

Canadian blood – we’re Eh-positive

3. Who wrote the novel Brave New World?

Elon Musk!  It was going to be the tale of using SpaceX to terraform and colonize Mars, but it became a how-to manual about surviving the last Trump.

4. Which famous composer was deaf for much of his later life?

Eric Clapton – in the beginning, his group played so loud that the Cream clotted.

5. What was the name of Rick’s nightclub in the movie Casablanca?

In honor of a broken knee that he got while on a drunken bender, he called it the Gin Joint.

6. What is the world’s largest species of penguin?

The one in the Batman movies

7. Who was the first female Prime Minister of the UK?

Lloyd George’s grandsomething – Boy George

8. Which painter cut off part of his own ear?

The contractor who was renovating the Roman coliseum.  He heard Marc Antony say “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,” and he wanted to Make Rome Great Again.

9. What is the most widely spoken language in the world by number of native speakers?

Profanity

10. Who were the Axis Powers of WW2?

Argentina and Uruguay  A lot of Germans who would have been considered war criminals, quietly spun out of sight in Europe, and rotated across the Atlantic, to become preferential citizens of these countries – because they preferred to bring gold with them.