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  1. - Top - End - #31
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Fyraltari's Avatar

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    Default Re: What new words have you learned recently?

    I see your Inigo Montoya and I raise my James Bond!
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    Troll in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: What new words have you learned recently?

    Quote Originally Posted by Berenger View Post
    Kenning - a combination of words used as a metaphor for another word or person (e.g. winter's blanket = snow, giant slayer = Thor).

    https://examples.yourdictionary.com/...f-kenning.html
    Quite where that meaning for the word comes from, but it must be very modern - it isn't any of the meanings in the Oxford English Dictionary (the full version which attempts to include any word ever used as English).

    The OED's definitions pretty much fit my understanding of the word (with a couple of surprises):
    It's a dialect word for the dry measure of 2 pecks or half a bushel.
    It is an obsolete word for teaching.
    It is an obsolete word for being able to see something or visual range.
    It is an obsolete word for teaching.
    And it means to understand something.

  3. - Top - End - #33
    Dragon in the Playground Moderator
     
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    Default Re: What new words have you learned recently?

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Elan, as a Dashing Swordsman, is a stereotypical action hero, therefore I posit to you that he is Tom Cruise-levels of jacked, which is nothing to sneer at.
    Tom Cruise is a slightly short guy with show muscles. Further, why Tom Cruise and not Keanu Reeves or Nic Cage?
    Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.

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  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    Tom Cruise is a slightly short guy with show muscles. Further, why Tom Cruise and not Keanu Reeves or Nic Cage?
    Why these two and not Daniel Craig or Jean Reno?
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  5. - Top - End - #35
    Dragon in the Playground Moderator
     
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Why these two and not Daniel Craig or Jean Reno?
    Because Daniel Craig stinks, but I'm a sucker for Jean Reno. So, Jean Reno then?
    Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.

    Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2

  6. - Top - End - #36
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
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    I think Orlando Bloom would be more Elan.
    Quote Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
    I thought Tom Bombadil dreadful — but worse still was the announcer's preliminary remarks that Goldberry was his daughter (!), and that Willowman was an ally of Mordor (!!).

  7. - Top - End - #37
    Colossus in the Playground
     
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    Quote Originally Posted by Khedrac View Post
    Quite where that meaning for the word comes from, but it must be very modern - it isn't any of the meanings in the Oxford English Dictionary (the full version which attempts to include any word ever used as English).

    The OED's definitions pretty much fit my understanding of the word (with a couple of surprises):
    It's a dialect word for the dry measure of 2 pecks or half a bushel.
    It is an obsolete word for teaching.
    It is an obsolete word for being able to see something or visual range.
    It is an obsolete word for teaching.
    And it means to understand something.
    It's a Nordic and Germanic word in that meaning, and an outdated or possibly even archaic one at that (I don't speak any Nordic languages, just German). And I've never seen it used except to refer to Norse poetry, which is extremely heavy on Kennings. (As in, there's entire verses without normal nouns.)
    Last edited by Eldan; 2020-07-08 at 12:21 PM.
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  8. - Top - End - #38
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    "Bildungsroman" is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood.

    It was in a book review and it's use in the sentence " This book is a Bildungsroman" didn't help me in the slightest.
    "We are the people our parents warned us about!" - J.Buffett

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  9. - Top - End - #39
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: What new words have you learned recently?

    Bildungsroman is what RPG enthusiasts call "zero to hero".
    The Curse of the House of Rookwood: Supernatural horror and family drama.
    Ash Island: Personal survival horror in the vein of Silent Hill.

  10. - Top - End - #40
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    From my experiences in German classes, it's mostly whiny upper middle class teenagers growing into whiny middle class young adults.
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  11. - Top - End - #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by deltamire View Post
    Similar to thirsting's first word, there's also haberdashery - anything fiddly and small used in sewing, like buttons, ribbons and thread.
    A haberdasher is either a seller of men's clothing or a seller of what you mention. A haberdashery is where a haberdasher sells his stuff. Haberdashery is the stuff a haberdasher sells.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eldan View Post
    From my experiences in German classes, it's mostly whiny upper middle class teenagers growing into whiny middle class young adults.
    That sounds like a rather unfortunate amount of the "literature" I read in school. Catcher in the Rye is probably the ultimate example I was made to suffer through.

    And although I learned it 5 or six years ago, I present "trunion", which is a system for allowing something to tilt, especially a cannon.
    Quote Originally Posted by Wardog View Post
    Rockphed said it well.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sam Starfall
    When your pants are full of crickets, you don't need mnemonics.
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  12. - Top - End - #42
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    Catcher in the Rye has nothing on The Sorrows of Young Werther. The one where he philosophizes for an entire chapter about how happy the poor peasants working in the fields are, because all their suffering is physical, unlike his own, which is mental and artistic and deep and they aren't smart and educated enough to suffer like he can. Because the girl he's stalking doesn't love him enough.
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  13. - Top - End - #43
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eldan View Post
    Catcher in the Rye has nothing on The Sorrows of Young Werther. The one where he philosophizes for an entire chapter about how happy the poor peasants working in the fields are, because all their suffering is physical, unlike his own, which is mental and artistic and deep and they aren't smart and educated enough to suffer like he can. Because the girl he's stalking doesn't love him enough.
    Is the point to come out hating Werther? Because just from that description I already hate Werther.
    Quote Originally Posted by Wardog View Post
    Rockphed said it well.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sam Starfall
    When your pants are full of crickets, you don't need mnemonics.
    Dragontar by Serpentine.

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  14. - Top - End - #44
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    ElfPirate

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rockphed View Post
    And although I learned it 5 or six years ago, I present "trunion", which is a system for allowing something to tilt, especially a cannon.
    Trunnion with 2 N:s. And I must have read too much historical non-fiction because I knew this without actually knowing the word right away. Just a voice in my head going, "nah must be with 2 Ns".

    Quote Originally Posted by Rockphed View Post
    Is the point to come out hating Werther? Because just from that description I already hate Werther.
    No it actually isn't. It is a classic (ok many will dispute that) from the Romantic period. It was quite serious about itself, and IIRC accused, even in its time to have encouraged "Romantics"to kill themselves. The majority of the Romantic movement is like that, pretentious, angsty and superbly insufferable. The whole moment is a reaction against the rationality of Enlightment thought. I read Dostoevsky's The Idiot as an assignment, as we had to read a book from the period-genre-style. My bookreport of it was titled:"Aaaaaaaaaargh!". True story. It was painful to slog through. Every character always acted in the most painfully insane emotional way ensuring the utmost misery for everyone involved. The reader included. Many of the Romantic classics are like this, The Humpback of Notre Dame I am only 50% sure I read has the same general set up.
    Last edited by snowblizz; 2020-07-16 at 06:39 AM.

  15. - Top - End - #45
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
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    Hmm, I try to learn new words when I see them... I'm blanking, only remembering colors, I'll put one here:

    aeneous: greenish gold
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    As a DM, I deal with character death by cheering and giving a fist pump, or maybe a V-for-victory sign. I would also pat myself on the back, but I can't really reach around like that.
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  16. - Top - End - #46
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    Panglossian : marked by the view that all is for the best in this best of possible worlds : excessively optimistic.

    An article in my newspaper read: " should this seem naively panglossian..."
    "We are the people our parents warned us about!" - J.Buffett

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  17. - Top - End - #47
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    The word comes from Pangloss, a character from Voltaire's short work Candide, ou l'Optimisme, who believes that this world is the best of possible worlds.
    Quote Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
    I thought Tom Bombadil dreadful — but worse still was the announcer's preliminary remarks that Goldberry was his daughter (!), and that Willowman was an ally of Mordor (!!).

  18. - Top - End - #48
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    Pangloss is a satire/strawman of the philosopher Leibniz.
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  19. - Top - End - #49
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    Default Re: What new words have you learned recently?

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Pangloss is a satire/strawman of the philosopher Leibniz.
    Leibniz? Like, the "I independently invented calculus" Leibniz?
    Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.

    Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2

  20. - Top - End - #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    Leibniz? Like, the "I independently invented calculus" Leibniz?
    That’s the one, yes.
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  21. - Top - End - #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vinyadan View Post
    The word comes from Pangloss, a character from Voltaire's short work Candide, ou l'Optimisme, who believes that this world is the best of possible worlds.
    An optimist believes that this world is the best of possible worlds. A pessimist fears that might be true.

  22. - Top - End - #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vinyadan View Post
    The word comes from Pangloss, a character from Voltaire's short work Candide, ou l'Optimisme, who believes that this world is the best of possible worlds.
    And who continues to believe that through a great deal of suffering, including losing multiple body parts permanently.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

    I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that.
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  23. - Top - End - #53
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    Again in another book review I ran upon a German word that I never heard of before.

    Weltschmerz (from the German, literally world-pain, also world weariness) .

    A book review referred to Lincoln as "a character of deep wisdom and soul and Weltschmerz".
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  24. - Top - End - #54
    Pixie in the Playground
     
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    That's so funny you guys have a thread for this. On FB I post words frequently that I encounter while reading news articles online. The most recent one I shared is:
    Vacillate - to alternate or waver between different opinions or actions; to be indecisive
    Example: "I had, for a time, vacillated between teaching and journalism."

  25. - Top - End - #55
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    Default Re: What new words have you learned recently?

    Recently learned the word Sonder, which is great because I find it hard to believe that people actually get concerned enough by that realization that it needs its own word.

    I dunno, I just find it pretty natural to think I'm just one person out of billions, and everything that happens to me is just as hectic as everyone else. Never needed to realize it, I just always knew it.

  26. - Top - End - #56
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    Default Re: What new words have you learned recently?

    Quote Originally Posted by WinterKnight404 View Post
    That's so funny you guys have a thread for this. On FB I post words frequently that I encounter while reading news articles online. The most recent one I shared is:
    Vacillate - to alternate or waver between different opinions or actions; to be indecisive
    Example: "I had, for a time, vacillated between teaching and journalism."
    Keep doing that. In my early Internet days I was edified by others who were themselves hobby etymologists and wordsmiths. Having well-read forum peers, namely ones with handles such as Abacinate, Dark Angel and Skinflint, was and is always beneficial.

  27. - Top - End - #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Wizard_Lizard View Post
    Tautology-Two words that mean the same thing put beside each other consecutively.
    That’s a pleonasm actually. A tautology is a statement that bears no new information or a logical construct that is always true regardless of the truth of its hypothesis.

    Example: ‘All red ants are red’, every single math theorem ever, ‘my older brother was born before I was’, etc.
    I'd call that a truism. I'd say tautology is a repetition of information, either from acronym confusion (e.g. PIN number) or describing nouns with adjectives already included in their definitions e.g. organic aldehyde, French Parisian, microscopic atom.

    As for new words, I learned "crepuscular" today, meaning "of or related to twilight"*. I therefore move that Stephanie Meyer fans henceforth be referred to as "the crepuscular collective".

    *Here was the context, if anyone's interested.

  28. - Top - End - #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by SZbNAhL View Post
    I'd call that a truism. I'd say tautology is a repetition of information, either from acronym confusion (e.g. PIN number) or describing nouns with adjectives already included in their definitions e.g. organic aldehyde, French Parisian, microscopic atom.

    As for new words, I learned "crepuscular" today, meaning "of or related to twilight"*. I therefore move that Stephanie Meyer fans henceforth be referred to as "the crepuscular collective".

    *Here was the context, if anyone's interested.
    A French Parisian isn't really a tautology as you could have, say, a Moroccan Parisian or an American Parisian. They domicile there, they are not culturally or nationally French. I live in Phoenix, thus I am a Phoenician but I am not an Arizonan Phoenician. I wasn't born in Arizona nor do I identity as an Arizonan culturally. Also a tautology may be used to mean "a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form." which the quoted examples fall under. That's how it's defined in logic.
    Last edited by Razade; 2020-08-15 at 01:23 PM.

  29. - Top - End - #59
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
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    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    A French Parisian isn't really a tautology as you could have, say, a Moroccan Parisian or an American Parisian. They domicile there, they are not culturally or nationally French. I live in Phoenix, thus I am a Phoenician but I am not an Arizonan Phoenician. I wasn't born in Arizona nor do I identity as an Arizonan culturally. Also a tautology may be used to mean "a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form." which the quoted examples fall under. That's how it's defined in logic.
    In this case, I think it's important to specify what you mean by Phoenician; I'd never heard that with that sense.
    Quote Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
    I thought Tom Bombadil dreadful — but worse still was the announcer's preliminary remarks that Goldberry was his daughter (!), and that Willowman was an ally of Mordor (!!).

  30. - Top - End - #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vinyadan View Post
    In this case, I think it's important to specify what you mean by Phoenician; I'd never heard that with that sense.
    I think I did? I said I live in Phoenix, thus am Phoenician. Considering the real Phoenicians didn't even last to the CE, I think that's enough context.

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