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Favourite word of the day

 
  

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Brigade du jour
04:39 / 01.02.03
Here's mine - SYNECDOCHE.

I like it because it's terribly rare outside proper, like, academic English studies, yet it means something very simple - figure of speech where you use the whole for a part or a part for a whole, e.g. 'the law' meaning 'police officer' or 'pickpocket' for 'thief'.

Also, I put it because I have no idea how to pronounce it until I get home from work and get hold of a dictionary.
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
04:58 / 01.02.03
Sih neck doh key.
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
07:08 / 01.02.03
I always had a thing for Quincunx, which, incidentally, is the highest scoring word possible in a Scrabble game.
 
 
alas
12:27 / 01.02.03
kinda love "rhythm." simple. but no real vowels, just that "sometimes y" rule.... and it's got a good beat and its easy to dance to.
 
 
Char Aina
12:49 / 01.02.03
for some reason, i like the word misogyny(sp). i thinkits the squelchy g.

oh, and anything that ends in -lth. stealth especially.
 
 
The Apple-Picker
12:50 / 01.02.03
And since you're online, you can always go to a dictionary site to find out how to pronounce it. The accent is on the second syllable. Here: Webster pronounces it for you!

I love latin names for plants. I could read plant catalogues with those names all day long. Ilex aquifolia!

I'll say my favorite word for today is onomatopoeia because it's fun to say aloud. I don't know anyone who doesn't like to say that word. And it's a word describing words, which I always love.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:05 / 01.02.03
Mmmm....probably 'hive sac', I think. I think the link will speak for itself.
 
 
Char Aina
13:17 / 01.02.03
onomatopoeia

i like that word because it is so lush and complictaed, but it describes some of the simplest and earliest learned words we ever use. like whoosh. which is another great word.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
19:47 / 01.02.03
I like the adjective cromulent very much, which has its origins in Homer and is extraordinarily useful.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
20:01 / 01.02.03
Aha. Sorry, very sad, but it pops up in the Simpsons now and then. Thank you for explaining the high-brow refs in my low-brow culture...

I like dolt very much indeed. Short, sweet, and somewhat onomatopoeic.
 
 
Brigade du jour
20:14 / 01.02.03
Scrofula is quite a nice word, like misogyny for the sound not the meaning.

Thanks for the synecdoche pronounciation advice, think I've got the hang of it, but I have no sound card on my crappy work computer so I can't listen to a mellifluous Californian accent saying it for me, a la 0898 phonelines.

Come to think of it, mellifluous is a nice word too.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
22:52 / 01.02.03
Yeah, but as cool names for diseases go, you can't beat necrotising fasciitis, which I erroneouls love to translate as "Fascist death-bug".

Plinth's still nice.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
22:53 / 01.02.03
(The mis-spelling of "erroneously" was, of course, for comic effect.)
 
 
De Selby
23:05 / 01.02.03
perspicacity - Cos it sounds kinda clicky.

superfluous - Because instead of "super fluous" its "su per fluous".
 
 
Strange Machine Vs The Virus with Shoes
23:23 / 01.02.03
Wanton hussy. Say it out loud, you either sound like a gay troubadour, a repressed gay tabloid journalist or a stage actor.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
23:27 / 01.02.03
Ah, but I have now committed erroneouls to memory, Charming Moomin, and will find a sentence it will fit in any time now

shifgrethor and kemmer are good but invented by Ursula Le Guin to describe things that only happen on another (made up) planet. Shame.
 
 
Saint Keggers
00:58 / 02.02.03
Today my favorite word is "sympatico". I used it much when talking with the tech-rep from Sympatico (my ISP). He infuriated me with his lack of knowledge and I proceeded to do the same to him by pronouncing it Sim-
paTEA-KO. I kept saying it..he kept correcting me. Then he'd say some tech stuff (actually, read it from his step-by-step problem solving manual) and I would correct him. A beau-temp was had by all.

My second favorite word is Cacophony...by only if pronounced Cack-O-phony.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
01:18 / 02.02.03
I'm also fond of palaver, shenanigans, hootenanny, hobble-de-hoy, shindig, brouhaha and smew (a type of duck).
 
 
Brigade du jour
21:16 / 02.02.03
Smew is a type of duck? I thought it was Kryten said when he couldn't say 'smeg'.

Today's word for me is ... cantankerous. Fantastic four-syllable plodder.
 
 
Jackie Susann
03:28 / 03.02.03
Inspired by synecdoche, my word of the day is catachresis.

I can't actually remember what it means, but I think it may be a metaphor in which the two terms are not just different, but contradictory.
 
 
gentleman loser
03:59 / 03.02.03
Cocksure.

It sounds like a description of an annoying fuckwit and it is.
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
05:51 / 03.02.03
Propinquity

Because it sounds like an immoral act, but isn't.
 
 
Unencumbered
07:14 / 03.02.03
I've always thought that 'Xenophobia' would be a good name for a girl.

It's probably just as well that I don't have kids.
 
 
Smoothly
07:35 / 03.02.03
I've always thought that, for a girl, Clitoris has a nice ring to it. And for a boy, Fellatio. As in Hornblower.
No wonder the authorities won't let me procreate.

As for favourite words in general, I think Discombobulate takes a bit of beating.
 
 
Loomis
08:33 / 03.02.03
I like words which when you first hear them you think they've been made up, but they're actually real. (Well I guess all words were made up by somebody or other, but you know what I mean).

crapulence - sickness caused by excessive eating or drinking. It's nice to be able to tell someone that you're feeling totally crapulent, and still be talking proper.
 
 
Catjerome
10:26 / 03.02.03
copacetic. My dad uses it fairly often, and yesterday it was in the crossword!
 
 
deja_vroom
10:56 / 03.02.03
shitcrap. as in: "Well, I don't know shitcrap about car maintenance."

Smegma. Smegma, smegma.... smegma is already hors concour, of course, and i don't even know what it means (I don't even know if it *means* anything at all, and I'm not interesting in finding out). Sssssmeg-mah!

Trichion: Being the point where the hairline meets the midpoint of the forehead. This is "The Word I Know I Will Never Use Even If I Live 100 000 Years". I keep it in a jar by the window, and stare at it through entire weekends.

Chumbawamba - Genius. I wanna turn this one into a verb, meaning "To be hit by a minivan while dancing outside in the rain". "Dude, I'm a wreck. My daughter and I spent the weekend chumbawambing back at her granny's place. Lookit me legs!"

Symplegades - Being the 'Clashing Rocks' through which the Argo had to pass in order to enter the Hellespont. Try saying it three times really fast!
 
 
Eloi Tsabaoth
11:52 / 03.02.03
I was reminded by Rizla's post in Runce's 'Job Go Boom' thread of this beauty- Fruition. It gives me chills. Good chills.
 
 
Loomis
11:55 / 03.02.03
Jade, do you really not know what smegma means? It would make my day to tell you ...
 
 
William Sack
11:57 / 03.02.03
I feel the need to use the word "bevelled" today. Chairman Maominstoat has already mentioned "smew" which is marvelous, but "wigeon" is not bad either while we're on the subject of aquatic wildfowl.
 
 
deja_vroom
12:36 / 03.02.03
Go on, Loomis. But be gentle.
 
 
Loomis
12:55 / 03.02.03
The gentlest way I can think of is to stick with the dictionary definition, thanks to dictionary.com:

The cheesy, sebaceous matter which collects between the glans penis and the foreskin.

And from looking that up I now have a new word: sebaceous!
 
 
deja_vroom
13:18 / 03.02.03
Oh. My. Soul.

I hope you are happy now, Loomis. I really do.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:23 / 03.02.03
Concatenation. I love that word. It's so bindy.
 
 
Loomis
13:25 / 03.02.03
It even binds posts together ...

Jade, I told you it would make my day, and it did! Man I love that word.
 
  

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