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 loanwords:

a while back i made a post about the very intriguing geisterfahrer “a driver who mysteriously appears on the wrong side of the road.” i wondered why there was a need to name this seemingly rare phenomenon and was content with urban dictionary’s explanation: daredevils, drunks and suicides. and then this guy named luke (who is a real person) wrote to me with the following tale that sheds a whole new light on the geisterfahrer. said luke:

Before WWII, Austria’s drivers motored on the left side of the road. Being quite close physically and culturally, Germans and Austrians visited each other and understandably struggled to stay on the proper side. During WWII the Austrians changed their driving laws (cough, Hilter’s invasion and subsequent martial laws, cough).

My friends grand father was killed by a geisterfahrer after the rules changed. The anonymous on-coming driver had reverted to old habits and was on the wrong side of the road.

September 30, 2011
∞ 42 notes
tags
tiigl joyce show and tell day

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 my party trick as a child; I used to spend my summers cooing across the lake by my grandmother’s house in Suffolk. She’s into tyromancy and recently read in a particularly ripe stilton that a boy was coming my way soon. My Suffolk summer was therefore dedicated to finding him. A gossipry of old ladies in the village caught on to my venture and would laugh at me as I waited hopelessly on the park bench. One week our village pharmacy ran out of pulvil, so the old ladies all got terrible sores on their bald scalps – served them right. One of them tried to apply silica dust to her wig instead, but she caught pneumonoultramicroscopic-silicovolcanoconiosis and was rushed off to hospital. That turned the attention of the old ladies elsewhere, as they spent their afternoons picking lakke flowers to take to her bedside. On a rare warm Sunday I was swimming in the lake when I spotted him. The boy. He was standing on the bank opposite me.  I thought he had shot me a belgard, but apparently he’s always doing that.  I later found out that he’s a gongoozler.  Normally I can see that in a guy’s eyes, but this one was so palpebrous that his features were partially hidden.

He pulled down his speedos and started wading towards me. I had to make a quick enatation, startling ducks as I splashed clumsily onto the bank.

Boyfriend hunt is cancelled; I shall take up polydoggery instead.   Here ends my ben trovato.

(Source: ragbag)

September 28, 2011
∞ 160 notes
tags
wss show and tell day
via aclwood

word links & hijinx

while i was away from my desk for the last one point five months, a few standout individuals took it upon themselves to keep me apprised on what is fresh in the world of lexicography. the answer: a lot. here are some juicy word-related items that are sure to make you howl with ecstasy.

oxford’s sekrit word vault is a heavily-guarded filing cabinet deep inside the catacombs underneath the offices of the oxford university press. some dipshit graphic designer was recently given (indirect) access to a few of the “non-words” that oxford editors don’t want you to know about (or that they deemed unsuitable for print). among the choicest:

furgle · to feel in a pocket for a small object
percuperate · to prepare for the possibility of being ill
scrax · the waxy coating that is scratched off of a lottery ticket.

forvo.com is an online pronunciation guide for over 750,000 words in more than 250 languages. i immediately looked up flaccid because if you pronounce it correctly in my presence, i become anything but—needless to say, forvo.com is all the v14gr4 that i need.

the first english dictionary of slang 1699 is set to be published for the first time in over 300 years. some of the many headspinners found inside are:

arsworm · a little diminutive fellow
fizzle · a low sounding fart
grumbletonians · malcontents

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mad respect to my informers: allan, june, and danielle

August 31, 2010
∞ 30 notes
tags
language words show and tell day

ragbag readers’ favourite stage directions

who knew that my brief breech of the proscenium would cause so many of you to send me erotic poulets filled with your own favourite stage directions? who knew that stage directions were a thing that a *regular* person had a favourite of? who cares? thanks to 4 anonymous ragbag readers (or people that pretend to read it), today’s post has written itself:

from shakespeare’s titus andronicus:

  • Enter the empress’ sons, with lavina, her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravish’d

from shakespeare’s much ado about nothing:

  • Enter Prine, Leonato, Claudio and Jacke Wilson

the only problem is that “jacke wilson” is not in this scene nor in the play at all. from wagner’s götterdämmerung:

  • The flames immediately flare up so that the fire fills the whole space in front of the hall and appears to seize on the building itself. Horrified, the men and women press to the very front of the stage. When the whole stage seems engulfed in fire, the glow suddenly dies down, so that soon all that remains is a cloud of smoke which drifts away to the back of the stage, setting the horizon as a layer of dark cloud. At the same time the Rhine overflows its banks in a mighty flood, surging over the conflagration.

from ring lardner’s [dadaist drama] i gaspiri:

  • The curtain is lowered for seven days to denote the lapse of a week

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beckett bonus: the stage directions for beckett’s ghost trio specify that the door leading to a room stage right should be ‘imperceptibly ajar’.

April 22, 2010
∞ 30 notes
tags
lists show and tell day theatre peculiarities

words wholly related -or- words wholly unrelated

junior etymologists from across the information super highway have very kindly sent me their own list of words that may or may not be related to other words. here are the best of them.

  • my ex-lover’s ex-lover, matt langer writes to tell us that shebang (a nerdy mark for for unix nerds) and interrobang (a nerdy mark for grammar nerds) are wholly related through banging—where bang is slang for the exclamation point!
  • my current union rep, billiam dalto has informed me that mosaic and mosaic (with a capital m) are wholly unrelated. the former, meaning “the juxtaposition of colours and patterns,” comes from the latin word, mosaicus and is related to the word muse. the latter is an eponym for christendom’s own wily muse—moses malone.
  • my færie godfather, albert jorgenson had clued me into an etymological hat trick: host, host and host are wholly unrelated. host in the ecclesiastical sense means “sacrificial victim” and comes from the latin word, hostia. host in the riders of rohan sense (a company of armed men) comes from the latin word, hostis. And host in the sense of the farmer that feeds you fried chicken and strawberry rhubarb pie and lets you doggystyle his daughter in a hayloft comes from the latin word, hospes.
November 23, 2009
∞ 41 notes
tags
etymology words show and tell day trivia
condung while i am on the subject of posting things that look like things, i thought that i might share with you this <ahem> reworked conlang flag from a ragbag reader by the name of cinnabonboy (most likely a pseudonym). while i am a supporter of mash-‘em-ups, as the kids say, i realise that poking fun at the hobby of people who larp around as orcs and klingons and ultraviolent droogs is probably a bad idea. therefore cinnabonboy, i understand your need for a goofy handle (though: good going with the stink lines).

condung

while i am on the subject of posting things that look like things, i thought that i might share with you this <ahem> reworked conlang flag from a ragbag reader by the name of cinnabonboy (most likely a pseudonym).

while i am a supporter of mash-‘em-ups, as the kids say, i realise that poking fun at the hobby of people who larp around as orcs and klingons and ultraviolent droogs is probably a bad idea. therefore cinnabonboy, i understand your need for a goofy handle (though: good going with the stink lines).

November 10, 2009
∞ 9 notes
tags
conlang show and tell day pareidolia language linguistics
(but i did not shoot the drop cap E) tudza (a cyberbuddy and notorious crank) made this marvelous graphical pun and says: I copied the idea of course, but while the original&#8230; was done in Photoshop, this was done with a Hi-Point 9mm at the local pistol range. who needs the adobe creative suite when one has access to FIREARMS!?!? also: does seeing a large s in this way remind anyone else of ulysses?

(but i did not shoot the drop cap E)

tudza (a cyberbuddy and notorious crank) made this marvelous graphical pun and says:

I copied the idea of course, but while the original… was done in Photoshop, this was done with a Hi-Point 9mm at the local pistol range.

who needs the adobe creative suite when one has access to FIREARMS!?!?

also: does seeing a large s in this way remind anyone else of ulysses?

October 13, 2009
∞ 50 notes
tags
joyce show and tell day things to look at typography wordplay design
the great bowel shift as i have not officially called off show and tell day, i am still receiving the odd submission. and thus i have recently received a hot lead on the great vowel shift from an internet celebrity of such magnitude that i&#8217;m not even going to say his name, nor am going to link to a picture of him in camo pants holding a dead snake. anywho, while i have always been captivated with the great vowel shift and the mystery behind it (which is referenced in the dinosaur comic above), my favourite part has always been the EXCEPTIONS and the eventual spelling fallout that would soon take place. wikipedia elaborates: Not all words underwent certain phases of the Great Vowel Shift. ea in particular did not take the step to [iː] in several words, such as great, break, steak, swear and bear. Other examples are father, which failed to become [ɛː] / ea, and broad, which failed to become [oː].Shortening of long vowels at various stages produced further complications. ea is again a good example, shortening commonly before coronal consonants such as d and th, thus: dead, head, threat, wealth etc. (This is known as the bred-bread merger.) oo was shortened from [uː] to [ʊ] in many cases before k, d and less commonly t, thus book, foot, good etc. Some cases occurred before the change of [ʊ] to [ʌ]: blood, flood. Similar, yet older shortening occurred for some instances of ou: country, could. if the history of the english language is your bag (it is the bag of the ragbag), you might enjoy the following (raynor recommended) books. they are written for the general public and are a real gas. the mother tongue by bill bryson (1990). the adventure of english: the biography of a language by melvyn bragg (2006). if you want to skip the foreplay and go right to the authority, then look no further than a history of the english language (5th edition) by albert c. baugh &amp; thomas cable (1951).

the great bowel shift

as i have not officially called off show and tell day, i am still receiving the odd submission. and thus i have recently received a hot lead on the great vowel shift from an internet celebrity of such magnitude that i’m not even going to say his name, nor am going to link to a picture of him in camo pants holding a dead snake.

anywho, while i have always been captivated with the great vowel shift and the mystery behind it (which is referenced in the dinosaur comic above), my favourite part has always been the EXCEPTIONS and the eventual spelling fallout that would soon take place. wikipedia elaborates:

Not all words underwent certain phases of the Great Vowel Shift. ea in particular did not take the step to [iː] in several words, such as great, break, steak, swear and bear. Other examples are father, which failed to become [ɛː] / ea, and broad, which failed to become [oː].

Shortening of long vowels at various stages produced further complications. ea is again a good example, shortening commonly before coronal consonants such as d and th, thus: dead, head, threat, wealth etc. (This is known as the bred-bread merger.) oo was shortened from [uː] to [ʊ] in many cases before k, d and less commonly t, thus book, foot, good etc. Some cases occurred before the change of [ʊ] to [ʌ]: blood, flood. Similar, yet older shortening occurred for some instances of ou: country, could.

if the history of the english language is your bag (it is the bag of the ragbag), you might enjoy the following (raynor recommended) books. they are written for the general public and are a real gas.

if you want to skip the foreplay and go right to the authority, then look no further than a history of the english language (5th edition) by albert c. baugh & thomas cable (1951).

July 13, 2009
∞ 18 notes
tags
1600s history mediæval raynor recommends show and tell day linguistics
all this for a dameinternet wunderkind (and brassy aviatrix), kyle bingman knows the perfect recipe for a ragbag post (1 part literature, 1 part chart, and 30 parts of head-smashing battle gore!). she says: Attached a[re]&#8230; two charts, one showing the battle wounds/fatalities as described in the Iliad and another the wound lethality in the Iliad by area of body&#8230; In the text the authors cite the Iliad as one of the earliest detailed literary accounts of ancient warfare and the wounds suffered by the armies involved. One item of particular interest is the high fatality rate from head wounds, a curious fact when one considers that the helmets worn by the Greeks were effective at reducing shock from blows and providing coverage from cutting actions. The authors posit that many of the lethal head wounds were caused by stones being dropped from the 40 foot walls of Troy. Another option includes soldiers being struck in the face by arrows, as while standing at the base of the wall the open area of the face would present an easy target to those above. Finally, it is also likely that many Greek soldiers either wore their helmets improperly or took the face plates off of them to reduce heat. public service announcement: when you are laying seige to an enemy&#8217;s city and standing at the base of his wall, MAKE SURE that your helmet is on properly or you will get an ARROW through your face (statistics from bingman don&#8217;t lie). the more you know. both charts can be found in, from sumer to rome: the military capabilities of ancient armies by richard a. gabriel and karen s. metz (greenwood: london, 1991).

all this for a dame

internet wunderkind (and brassy aviatrix), kyle bingman knows the perfect recipe for a ragbag post (1 part literature, 1 part chart, and 30 parts of head-smashing battle gore!). she says:

Attached a[re]… two charts, one showing the battle wounds/fatalities as described in the Iliad and another the wound lethality in the Iliad by area of body… In the text the authors cite the Iliad as one of the earliest detailed literary accounts of ancient warfare and the wounds suffered by the armies involved.

One item of particular interest is the high fatality rate from head wounds, a curious fact when one considers that the helmets worn by the Greeks were effective at reducing shock from blows and providing coverage from cutting actions. The authors posit that many of the lethal head wounds were caused by stones being dropped from the 40 foot walls of Troy. Another option includes soldiers being struck in the face by arrows, as while standing at the base of the wall the open area of the face would present an easy target to those above. Finally, it is also likely that many Greek soldiers either wore their helmets improperly or took the face plates off of them to reduce heat.

public service announcement: when you are laying seige to an enemy’s city and standing at the base of his wall, MAKE SURE that your helmet is on properly or you will get an ARROW through your face (statistics from bingman don’t lie). the more you know.

both charts can be found in, from sumer to rome: the military capabilities of ancient armies by richard a. gabriel and karen s. metz (greenwood: london, 1991).

July 2, 2009
∞ 27 notes
tags
ancient data viz history literature show and tell day
for wunderkammer: tableau synoptique d&#8217;oreilles d&#8217;a. bertillon mysterious lurker, ramona has submitted this beatiful taxonomy of the ears of french criminals to the wunderkammer. says ramona: The attached is for the wunderkammer – now I am suffering from anxiety that it is not sufficiently wunderful [editor&#8217;s note: ramona, stop being a dork].   I love it as its own thing, but i also particularly love the odd story of its creator, M. Alphonse Bertillon, who never let the obtuseness of lesser mortals (everyone else) stand in the way of his rampant o.c.d.   He was even written up by Ida Tarbell, a gobsmacking interview at which to have been a fly on the wall.   I would like to think that there are picturesque names for each characteristic shape, but I fear M. Bertillon had no room for poetry in his cataloguer’s soul. one of the five hearts (a metaphor) of the ragbag is my obsession with the names of things. let you and i be the poets that bertillon was not. to wit: my left ear is an emesis basin (fig. 3) and my right ear is somewhere between a bass clef (fig. 44) and a wilting orchid (fig . 16).

for wunderkammer: tableau synoptique d’oreilles d’a. bertillon

mysterious lurker, ramona has submitted this beatiful taxonomy of the ears of french criminals to the wunderkammer. says ramona:

The attached is for the wunderkammer – now I am suffering from anxiety that it is not sufficiently wunderful [editor’s note: ramona, stop being a dork].   I love it as its own thing, but i also particularly love the odd story of its creator, M. Alphonse Bertillon, who never let the obtuseness of lesser mortals (everyone else) stand in the way of his rampant o.c.d.   He was even written up by Ida Tarbell, a gobsmacking interview at which to have been a fly on the wall.   I would like to think that there are picturesque names for each characteristic shape, but I fear M. Bertillon had no room for poetry in his cataloguer’s soul.

one of the five hearts (a metaphor) of the ragbag is my obsession with the names of things. let you and i be the poets that bertillon was not. to wit:

my left ear is an emesis basin (fig. 3) and my right ear is somewhere between a bass clef (fig. 44) and a wilting orchid (fig . 16).

July 2, 2009
∞ 19 notes
tags
1800s early 1900s wunderkammer show and tell day
opposite day mike from the internet has sent me the above sentence (to which i added a calming grey-pink gradient and then typeset it in rustika). it is part grammar lesson, part logic riddle, and part buddhist kōan. mike writes: I think the sentence should be read front to end as normal, and the resulting instruction would be nonsensical, like if somebody said to &#8220;Stop at green traffic lights, go at red traffic lights.&#8221; since i am a reader (and unabashed abuser) of parentheses (and nested parentheses (like this one)) i default to reading parentheses. therefore, i would read this sentence as &#8220;do not read words inside of parentheses&#8221; and then, (providing i always did what imperative verbs told me) i would disregard all future parentheses. supposing i was then to read the sentence over again, i would trip the gate in the opposite direction (do read words inside of parentheses) and get stuck in an infinite loop. if it weren&#8217;t for that soothing grey-pink gradient, i would soon luze my marbles (marbles is a metaphor for sanity). finally, mike mentions that i may refer to him as mike but that i don&#8217;t need to. therefore, i will refer to him as kilroy. so readers, how do you interpret kilroy&#8217;s sentence?

opposite day

mike from the internet has sent me the above sentence (to which i added a calming grey-pink gradient and then typeset it in rustika). it is part grammar lesson, part logic riddle, and part buddhist kōan. mike writes:

I think the sentence should be read front to end as normal, and the resulting instruction would be nonsensical, like if somebody said to “Stop at green traffic lights, go at red traffic lights.”

since i am a reader (and unabashed abuser) of parentheses (and nested parentheses (like this one)) i default to reading parentheses. therefore, i would read this sentence as “do not read words inside of parentheses” and then, (providing i always did what imperative verbs told me) i would disregard all future parentheses. supposing i was then to read the sentence over again, i would trip the gate in the opposite direction (do read words inside of parentheses) and get stuck in an infinite loop. if it weren’t for that soothing grey-pink gradient, i would soon luze my marbles (marbles is a metaphor for sanity).

finally, mike mentions that i may refer to him as mike but that i don’t need to. therefore, i will refer to him as kilroy. so readers, how do you interpret kilroy’s sentence?

July 2, 2009
∞ 33 notes
tags
cc literary device puzzles show and tell day macro
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