What Word Did You Learn Today?

[Chuck Nessa]

[king ubu]

defenestration

(don't think there's undefenestration, at least not literally )

[Leeway]

Salchipapas.

Turning up on food trucks around here.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

defenestration

(don't think there's undefenestration, at least not literally )

I've ALWAYS LOVED that word!!!

Never actually used it though - never needed to write or talk about someone being bunged out of a window. But I find the fact of its existence a truly wonderful reflection of humanity.

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

Defenestration entered my vocabulary in 1972 whilst studying the Thirty Years' War.

I use it daily now, normally as a threat to unruly students.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Defenestration entered my vocabulary in 1972 whilst studying the Thirty Years' War.

I use it daily now, normally as a threat to unruly students.

Quite right, too!

MG

[king ubu]

Defenestration entered my vocabulary in 1972 whilst studying the Thirty Years' War.

I use it daily now, normally as a threat to unruly students.

Yup, that's of course what I've been reading about in the past days (got the big two part Whaley book on the way as well, not sure when I'll find the time for it, but what bits I read left a pretty good impression).

[BeBop]

Tentsletje (According to the Telegraph, Flemish word of the year): tent-slut, a word for a woman who has multiple sexual partners at a music festival, a popular summer pastime for young people in Flanders.

[danasgoodstuff]

glurge http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=glurge

[A Lark Ascending]

Tentsletje (According to the Telegraph, Flemish word of the year): tent-slut, a word for a woman who has multiple sexual partners at a music festival, a popular summer pastime for young people in Flanders.

And the word for a male who does the same? Bet there isn't one.

*************************

And a word that is not new but seems to have changed its meaning in the UK over the last ten years.

Guys.

Used to mean blokes.

Now is a collective term for people of any gender, usually used in order establish a mood of informality. I sat through an assembly this morning when the external provider (who was very good) must have used it ten + times.

Mercifully she didn't describe the visit she was drumming up support for as 'awesome'!

Edited October 6, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[Big Beat Steve]

Mercifully she didn't describe the visit she was drumming up support for as 'awesome'!

One of the most inflationarily used words in recent human speech (at least in the Anglosaxon world of lingo).

Probably because nothing is "held in awe" in the original sense of the word anymore these days.

[BillF]

Tentsletje (According to the Telegraph, Flemish word of the year): tent-slut, a word for a woman who has multiple sexual partners at a music festival, a popular summer pastime for young people in Flanders.

And the word for a male who does the same? Bet there isn't one.

*************************

And a word that is not new but seems to have changed its meaning in the UK over the last ten years.

Guys.

Used to mean blokes.

Now is a collective term for people of any gender, usually used in order establish a mood of informality. I sat through an assembly this morning when the external provider (who was very good) must have used it ten + times.

Mercifully she didn't describe the visit she was drumming up support for as 'awesome'!

Usage well established by now. I first heard it on a visit to Canada in 1973, when a woman referred to her small daughters as "my guys".

[A Lark Ascending]

Tentsletje (According to the Telegraph, Flemish word of the year): tent-slut, a word for a woman who has multiple sexual partners at a music festival, a popular summer pastime for young people in Flanders.

And the word for a male who does the same? Bet there isn't one.

*************************

And a word that is not new but seems to have changed its meaning in the UK over the last ten years.

Guys.

Used to mean blokes.

Now is a collective term for people of any gender, usually used in order establish a mood of informality. I sat through an assembly this morning when the external provider (who was very good) must have used it ten + times.

Mercifully she didn't describe the visit she was drumming up support for as 'awesome'!

Usage well established by now. I first heard it on a visit to Canada in 1973, when a woman referred to her small daughters as "my guys".

Did she sing it?

[xybert]

Mercifully she didn't describe the visit she was drumming up support for as 'awesome'!

One of the most inflationarily used words in recent human speech (at least in the Anglosaxon world of lingo).

Probably because nothing is "held in awe" in the original sense of the word anymore these days.

Forgive my usage of it, i was an impressionable kid in the late eighties/early nineties when we were bombarded with Ninja Turtles/Bart Simpson/Bill & Ted style 'bogus duuuuuudes' and i've never been able to shake it.

Defenestration! That word entered my consciousness via Garth Ennis' run on Hitman, the DC comic. There was a character called The Defenestrator, and his super power was pushing people through windows, or hitting them over the head with a window pane that he carried around:

[kinuta]

Mercifully she didn't describe the visit she was drumming up support for as 'awesome'!

One of the most inflationarily used words in recent human speech (at least in the Anglosaxon world of lingo).

Probably because nothing is "held in awe" in the original sense of the word anymore these days.

Forgive my usage of it, i was an impressionable kid in the late eighties/early nineties when we were bombarded with Ninja Turtles/Bart Simpson/Bill & Ted style 'bogus duuuuuudes' and i've never been able to shake it.

Defenestration! That word entered my consciousness via Garth Ennis' run on Hitman, the DC comic. There was a character called The Defenestrator, and his super power was pushing people through windows, or hitting them over the head with a window pane that he carried around:

A like totally awesome dude. It must cost him a fortune in glaziers bills.

[xybert]

He sure is radical! Not sure about where he gets his glass from, honestly can't remember if he was ever shown just ripping it out from the nearest wall to 're-load' as he went along... if they ever sought to explain it they'd probably make it that he was an alien from the planet Glassia. On his home world they use their reality manipulation abilities to form 'Juintoze' which they use during ceremonial combat. These 'Juintoze' just happen to resemble what we on earth know as 'windows'.

Edited October 8, 2014 by xybert

[Leeway]

CHYRON - the text blocks or text scrolls you see at the bottom of a video or TV screen.

STOOKS - A stook, also referred to as a shock, is a circular or rounded arrangement of swathes of cut grain stalks placed on the ground in a field.

[BillF]

CHYRON - the text blocks or text scrolls you see at the bottom of a video or TV screen.

STOOKS - A stook, also referred to as a shock, is a circular or rounded arrangement of swathes of cut grain stalks placed on the ground in a field.

Haven't seen the first one before. Looks like a Greek word - is it one of those long established words that has been imported into present-day techno-speak?

I'm sure many people in Britain of my age are familiar with the second, perhaps because we're a bit closer here to the rural past than you are.

[JSngry]

I've always thought a Chyron was just called a "crawl". I guess the renaming is supposed to make it less irritating and appear to be the inevitability of the future that it's becoming?

[Leeway]

CHYRON - the text blocks or text scrolls you see at the bottom of a video or TV screen.

STOOKS - A stook, also referred to as a shock, is a circular or rounded arrangement of swathes of cut grain stalks placed on the ground in a field.

Haven't seen the first one before. Looks like a Greek word - is it one of those long established words that has been imported into present-day techno-speak?

I'm sure many people in Britain of my age are familiar with the second, perhaps because we're a bit closer here to the rural past than you are.

The closest I got to rural when I was growing up were the marigolds in front of the rowhouse I lived in. . I actually came across stooks in the Coetzee book we were discussing in another thread.

I came across chyron in a media column that referred to the scroll at the bottom of the screen as the chyron. I had never heard that before. Apparently it's the name of teh company that came up with the technology. I thought it was the guy who rowed you over to Hades.

Jim, I also would just hear it referred to as the crawl. Here are some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chyron

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/chyron

Edited October 8, 2014 by Leeway

[BillF]

MEME

Reading this one a lot these days. Getting some idea of what it means.

[A Lark Ascending]

Like 'trope' I suspect it's a word only academics use.

I was completely bewildered by 'trope' when I read it first in that George Lewis book about the Chicago jazz scene. He used it a lot.

[JSngry]

"meme" began as an academic term, but these days, it's pretty commonly used by young-ish people who spend a lot of time participating on the net.

http://memegenerator.net/

http://knowyourmeme.com/

Me, I'm a follower, not a creator, but they're all over the place, and have been for a while now.

The Willie Wonka ones in particular make me lol. The Gene Wilder guy, yeah!

http://memegenerator.net/Willy-Wonka

[xybert]

What's the difference between a Meme and a running joke? the wikipedia page for a Meme describes it as "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture" and goes in to detail along those lines although for all intents and purposes it just seems like running jokes.

[JSngry]

The "running joke" thing would be the most currently visible, popular/pop-culture manifestation of the broader "academic" concept.