December 2011
1 post
my whereabouts
internet people,
“things” are changing radically in my life. for instance, my favourite gas station is now hess and my stew of choice is now brunswick stew. another “thing” that’s happening right now is that i’m currently in the middle of a spontaneous road trip that started in the american south and will terminate in south america (all the best road trips...
November 2011
6 posts
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words wholly unrelated
cushy & cushion
on account of modern technology (u.s. robotics sportster 14400 fax modem) i’m typing this post from the comfort of a bed. the bed is not my own bed, indeed it’s not a bed in which i’m accustomed to waking up in. i know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking “there goes raynor being the international playboy that i know he is. he probably...
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today in intriguing german loanwords:
kassiber • a letter smuggled out of jail, a secret coded message.
the word originally comes from the practice of red army faction prisoners using their attorneys to smuggle letters out of the stammheim prison but now refers to any type of secret coded message. it’s derived from the yiddish word kessaw meaning “written.”
my infatuation with prison culture is well...
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October 2011
13 posts
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some peculiar halloween customs
On Halloween hang an apple by the door just the height of the chin. Rub the chin with saliva, stand about six inches from the apple, and hit the chin against the apple. If it sticks to the chin, you will be married, and your true love will stick to you.
On Halloween a girl is to go through a graveyard, steal a cabbage and place it above the house-door. The one on whom the cabbage falls as the...
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miscellaneous portmanteaux trois
every 400 days for the rest of my life, i plan to release a new batch of coined portmanteau words into the wild and see if any of them stick. 400 days ago, i told you about bar-b-coup and nonline which have since risen to #451 and #1,033 on the mla’s list of hot new words to watch out for™. 800 days ago, i told you about farticle and gratuitesque and now these two words alone comprise 40% of...
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some peculiar fan community nicknames
Avatards (Avatar: The Last Airbender or Avatar)
Buffistas (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Daisy-Pushers (Pushing Daisies)
Darklings (Darkwing Duck)
Dunderheads (US version of The Office)
Gleeks (Glee)
Heroes or Colbert Nation (The Colbert Report)
Leaper (Quantum Leap)
Lostralians (Lost)
Pokémaniac (Pokémon)
Sidekicks (Heroes)
Transfans (Transformers)
Wheel Watchers (Wheel of Fortune)
...
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blog like you live in south minneapolis day
for the three-year anniversary of the southtwelfth tumblr, i did my best to channel my inner andy and wrote a recap of all the latest glee webisodes. andy’s real recaps can be found here, here, and here.
webisode 04: in the tent city that sits in the shadow of prague’s charles bridge, jordyn discovers vaclav havel’s well-oiled body. she sings “dirge inferno” by cradle of filth while some...
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words wholly unrelated
[what the] dickens & [charles] dickens
“what the dickens” has long been the catchphrase of my parole officer. i always assumed it had something to do with charles dickens and was some whacky victorian euphemism—the way saying jiminy christmas is a way of not saying jesus christ. it turns out that “what the dickens” predates charles dickens and the victorian era by...
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another thing about cats: they can solve murders
From the Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight, Lady Companion to the Princess Charlotte of Wales, I take the following scrap :— “An old woman, who died a few years ago, in Ireland, had a nephew, to whom she left by will all she possessed. She happened to have a favourite Cat, which never left her, and even remained by the corpse after her death. After the will was read, in the adjoining...
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September 2011
16 posts
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today in intriguing german loanwords:
künstlerroman • a novel that has as its main theme the formative years of an artist.
some english examples of this sub-sub-genre are »
David Copperfield, The Tragic Muse, Martin Eden, In Search of Lost Time, Sons and Lovers, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Of Human Bondage, This Side of Paradise, To the Lighthouse, Black Boy & Life Is Elsewhere
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yesterday in intriguing german...
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my suffolk summer
at one time, when i was much younger and imperceptibly less handsome, i challenged you to write about your summer using the 12 words of the word summer series. while the results are still trickling in, i wanted to alert you all to my friend amelia and how she spent her summer cruising for boys wearing speedos (join the club, amelia). let’s listen in…
I can crookle very well. It was...
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snuff & cold lemonade
as many of you know, my underground mariachi band is about to drop our latest album. all this studio time has really been taking a toll on my voice however and for the last few days i’ve been sounding a lot like alec baldwin with a bullfrog in his larynx.
my personal trainer has been treating me with all the usual holistic remedies for laryngitis (orchid honey, pickle brine, kerosene)...
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the continuing adventures of t. s. eliot
many people know that t.s. eliot was a highly successful banker. but did you also know that he wrote poetry?
one day, i. a. richards had a run-in with one of eliot’s bosses at lloyd’s bank and learned the following about his banking prospects:
Bank Official: Tell me, if you will—you won’t mind my asking, will you? Tell me, is he, in your judgement, would you say, would you...
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on the evils of the skating rink
Here all who pay the admission fee—the virtuous maiden and the abandoned libertine, the drunkard, the gambler, and the church member—meet together on terms of social equality, and slide, and joke, and laugh, and bet with each other in the most unrestricted manner
In Wilkesbarre, in a rink chiefly owned and controlled by a prominent member of a large, popular church, they had…a prize of twenty...
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today in intriguing german loanwords:
geisterfahrer • a driver who mysteriously appears on the wrong side of the road.
urban dictionary clears up the mystery on why german speakers need a word for this seemingly rare phenomenon:
[Its literal translation is] “Ghost Driver;” a driver who drives on the wrong direction on an autobahn, often with headlights turned off at night. Usually a drunk driver but can also be a...
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August 2011
11 posts
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know your car____ movement verbs
to careen is fall to one side
to career is to rush at full speed
to carom is to glance and rebound
this is also a secret words wholly unrelated post because none of the car____ verbs are related etymologically and each comes from different sports.
careening, a nautical term, is from the latin carina meaning the keel of a ship (or “nutshell”).
careering, a horse racing term, comes...
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today in intriguing german loanwords:
schlimmbesserung • a so-called improvement that makes things worse
off the top of my head: scrolling on osx lion, how my dad now puts a bar of bitter chocolate into his famous bunkhouse chili, 3d movies, my new van dyke beard, the effects of botox, the new budweiser identity, et cetry, et cetry.
what falls on your schlimmbesserung list?
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words wholly unrelated
faker & fakir
i’ve been in indi(an)a for the last week on “business”. every morning, on my way from my five star hotel to the convention center where i conduct my shadowy dealings, i wade through a throng of peddlers, beggars, and hustlers. this morning, as i gazed upon these busy souls, i got to wondering about the relationship between fakir and faker. properly speaking,...
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July 2011
8 posts
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some peculiar adjectival forms of country names
on my flight back from wyoming, i was seated next to a woman who claimed to be a resident of the principality of monaco. obviously, this led to a conversation about the only (and perhaps stereotypical) items that i know about that particular micro-state: gambling, f1 racing, and grace kelly. at some point, i fumbled when trying to use the adjectival form of the country by muttering something like,...
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