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Lost for Words

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ONLY NICE THINGS

07:44 / 07.07.04

Well, heteros means "other". So a heterodox position is one that holds a different opinion (doxa) to the "correct" or accepted one. A heterosexual has sex with the other sex, a homosexual with the same sex (homos). The other way of doing it, though, might indeed be heterosexual (somebody who has the other kind of sex) and orthosexual (somebody who likes having straight sex). Or sex with orthodontists. Tee hee.

08:25 / 07.07.04

So this word is one of those lovely soundy feely words that ibis goes xtreme was trying to define earlier. It's very olde Englishy like 'Gloaming' or 'Waxen'

Hahahahaha! Michel Serres uses this word in his book Rome: The Book of Foundations to describe some theoretical formation or other, and I just opened the book up at random and found it!! (Hmm. I really hope it's the right word now.)

Thalweg. Does that sound right? And, for a bonus, here's a bit of Serres (on the page I opened to, 46):

Go there and see the thalwegs before they are drawn or determined. Follow for a while the fluctuations of several drops of water scattered near the source. If the flux diverts a little, very little, infinitely little, with the aleatory encounter of an obstacle placed there - a little pebble, a lacunar stone, the little bird's foot that alights just for an instant - you will see that it will direct itself very surely due east; whereas without the fine stamp of circumstance it would have [gone] due north; whereas with the foot of another bird, with the help of another little stone placed there, it would have fled toward the south. Tell me now, even in the neighbourhood of the stone a little ways upstream from its site, where this handful of indistinct water will rush to, with the enormous choice in the compass of immense distances. Almost no cause, but stupefying effects.

08:28 / 07.07.04

Grant - mwah, thank you, you are a star. The graph one (and the crystalline structure) is exactly what I was looking for, and the biological definition(s) suggest all sorts of interesting possibilities.

pointless and uncalled for

08:36 / 07.07.04

Does that make Marco from BB5 an unorthosexual?

08:46 / 07.07.04

Deva, that is such a good word, thank you for introducing me to it!

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:12 / 07.07.04

A thalweg, which is indeed a lovely, lovely word, is a line drawn between the lowest points of a valley in a series of cross-sections- that is, the natural path water will flow along it. See also Melkweg, where we saw Prag Vec.

"Liminal" is possible, although you'd have to specificy what it was the threshold *of*. Maybe the tidal limen (although limen also has a specific meaning in English that being the point at which a stimulus is imperceptible).

God, I love this language. But no idea on a properly Anglo-Saxon term...

09:25 / 07.07.04

Melkweg!

What's one of those then?

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:45 / 07.07.04

It's Dutch for "Milky Way" - and the name of nightclub in Amsterdam. "Prag Vec at the Melkveg" is the name of a Half Man Half Biscuit Song...

"Thalweg" has a similar Germanic route - it means "valley way" or "valley path".

Ex

09:50 / 07.07.04

'Maremma' is another nice liminal coastal word. Although not the one that is being sought. Although possibly one could convert it; it is far too nice a word to be wasted on 'low, marshy, unhealthy land near a seashore; the supposed malarial exhalations of coastal marshes'.

09:51 / 07.07.04

A thalweg... is a line drawn between the lowest points of a valley in a series of cross-sections- that is, the natural path water will flow along it.

Damn. Colour me Sokhal. Oh well: even though we are no closer to discovering the name for the tidal tipping point of an estuary/river, we are all much the richer for thalweg.

10:13 / 07.07.04

Damn right, Thalweg rules, thank you.

The word I'm after though is more of a colloquial descriptive - 'aye, she's certainly ****** jeb, she'll be out afore we know it' 'on the wane' etc. Rather than a factual term for the exact point of change, er I think...please let there be a word, and me not be mad....

13:48 / 07.07.04

If you're talking about direction of a tidal current, then it'll be ebb or flow (or flood), but that didn't seem to be what you were describing before. See here for more.

The image I got before was of the line where Charlie Apopka Creek, deep tannic brown, flows into the Peace River, soupy phosphate green -- all swirly, a definite border between the two waters. Now that I think of it, there's definitely another "canoeing" kind of word besides the more clinical "liminal zone."

I haven't found it yet, but did find this really kind of cool paper on "Human Geography". Especially fond of the "Challenges on the ground: understanding that edges are not boundaries" section.

Do this or this shed any light? I looked up "confluence" -- "alluvion" and "bore" seem like they might be along the same lines.

13:50 / 12.07.04

Thanks Grant, that Bartleby site is superb.

Still not got the term, but I did find: 'disembogue' (To flow out or empty, as water from a channel: “the river whose dirty waters disembogue into the harbor”) Which is a fantastic word, so the term I'm after would be the state of the river when it has stopped coming in and directly before it starts to disembogue. Pre-disemboguing if you like.

This is getting tough....

EDIT: Just looked up 'Gurge' and 'Billow' and Billow is very close: Billow - A large wave or swell of water.
A great swell, surge, or undulating mass.

The river really does look look like an 'undulating mass' when it is doing this thing

15:55 / 12.07.04

I bet if you looked up old accounts of the Bay of Fundy, you'd find something close to the word you're after. Turning of the tides and that.

Hmm. And there are specific sorts of high tides -- neap is the one that comes to mind. If I'm thinking about this right, a neap tide is the highest of the high tides, when the earth is closest to the moon.

I love tides and water language, so I'm interested in what you uncover.

Ooo -- according to this glossary of coastal terminology, "neap" is the opposite of what I said -- it's when high tide and low tide are closest to average sea level. Spring tide is what I was thinking of. Anyway, surf around that glossary and you might find something useful. (Like, apparently slack tide is one way of saying what you're saying.)

12:33 / 13.07.04

Cautiously, I think I may have it! or at least one I am happy with:

Waxen.

'A waxen tide'
'Aye, she's waxey all right, be out in less than an hour'

From: waxen

Wax \Wax\, v. i. [imp. Waxed; p. p. Waxed, and Obs. or Poetic Waxen; p. pr. & vb. n. Waxing.]

1. To increase in size; to grow bigger; to become larger or fuller; -- opposed to wane.

The waxing and the waning of the moon. --Hakewill.

Truth's treasures . . . never shall wax ne wane. --P. Plowman.

2. To pass from one state to another; to become; to grow; as, to wax strong; to wax warmer or colder; to wax feeble; to wax old; to wax worse and worse.

So to Wax usually means to get bigger/stronger, but specifically in this case it is describing the state of the river 'passing from one state to another'

I have only previously heard 'Waxy' used to describe someone, usually female for some reason, being snappy/stroppy/irritable.

So I recon 'Waxey' with an e fits this river state perfectly, as the e softens it a bit as, after all, the river is not irritable, just slightly confused about passing from one state to the other.

I recon I must have picked up this obsession from my Granddad who was a docker on the Thames for 65 years.
Memory fails me, but if he didn't describe it as Waxen, he would certainly have approved of the term as he was slightly potty about the intricacies of the English language too.

Very Big thanks for all the help, I can sleep a little better now.

pointless and uncalled for

12:38 / 13.07.04

Waxen appears to be (in context) a corruption of waxing. Makes waxey seem a little awkward, like calling an olympic sprinter runny.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:19 / 13.07.04

Well, either a corruption or an archaic perfect, like graven, "waxen" meaning "having grown bigger/become". Unfortunately, it also means like or made of wax, as does "waxy". "Waxey" with a "e" doesn't, as far as I can tell, mean anything. It's a made-up word - if you want to use it to describe that moment, then you certainly can, but nobody else will know what you mean, which could cause problems.

More generally, I think you have have to wax something for it to mean "become" - like to wax lyrical. If you just wax, it means you become bigger, so a waxing tide would be understood instinctively as a swelling tide...

pointless and uncalled for

13:29 / 13.07.04

Although to be honest the context of waxey did intimate that it was being used as a colloquialism and therefore makes it's use entirely subjective.

Actually more of a dialectal.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:40 / 13.07.04

Way-ull, not necessarily. It's intimnated that "waxen" *might* be a colloquialism or dialect word, but that it is uncertain - it may be remembered, or it may be imagined. If the former, there should be some way of verifying.

But colloquialism is not subjective...

15:25 / 13.07.04

I like the idea of a riverman using the word "waxey". That seems pleasant.

16:37 / 20.08.04

Can anyone think of a synonym for 'manipulate' that doesn't refer to hands (mani-)? The context is a female figure who is both a telephone network and the operator of that apparatus, so she [manipulates] the apparatus ('operate' would do, but can you think of any others? Especially ones which are a bit less goal-oriented than 'operate'?)

17:01 / 20.08.04

No hands? That cuts out manage, maneuver, and handle...

Perhaps: utilize, control, pilot, direct, administer?

Or, more casually: run, work, use, steer

11:26 / 24.08.04

Bankruptcy

When people file for bankruptcy they're basically admitting that they've cocked up their finances to such an extent that they need to be air-lifted out of the world of money - they leave all their debts behind but also any chance of getting hold of any credit. I've been thinking about a form of bankruptcy that would cover everything; it would enable someone who had made a complete pigs ear of their life to cop to it and be air-lifted from society. You would no longer be responsibe for anyone, but you'd have no friends either, and no chance of 'credit' in that area.

What would you call it? I've been thinking of it as social bankruptcy, but I'm not sure that it covers everything. Any ideas?

pointless and uncalled for

11:34 / 24.08.04

hermetic self-containment

or for a more accessible version

hermitation

14:34 / 24.08.04

I've been thinking about a form of bankruptcy that would cover everything; it would enable someone who had made a complete pigs ear of their life to cop to it and be air-lifted from society. You would no longer be responsibe for anyone, but you'd have no friends either, and no chance of 'credit' in that area.

Well, I'm pretty sure the etymology of "bankrupt" has to do with "breaking the bank," so the word you want probably has to do with breaking the social contract.

Socioruptcy? (broken society)
Fidiruptcy? (broken trust)

02:18 / 25.08.04

Can anyone think of a synonym for 'manipulate' that doesn't refer to hands...

Orchestrate?

14:34 / 27.08.04

Thanks, chaps.

Seldom Killer> Hmm, I reckon that's a good way to describe the state that a social bankrupt would go into, rather than the state of social bankruptcy itself. ie somone who declared themselves socially bankrupt would have initiated a process that would put them into a state of hermitation, but there might be other routes to that state.

grant> socioruptcy is best, I reckon. If you declared fidiruptcy in this country you'd probably find yourself on the front page of the News of the World in a list of sex offenders.

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

08:50 / 02.09.04

Right - say I was talking to someone about a friend or relative, or whatever, who was really famous or successful and that I was trying to make myself look better by virtue of their fame or success, what am I being?

In other words, what is the word that describes someone who uses other people's success to cast themselves in a better light? It's killing me, coz I know I know it. Any help would be, like, really helpful...

09:12 / 02.09.04

Nothing to do with riding on coattails, I take it.

Is it an adjective? More to do with basking in borrowed lime-light than exploiting one's connections?

09:30 / 02.09.04

All I can think of is namedropper, but it sounds like you're looking for a better word than that...

09:32 / 02.09.04

A name-dropper?

Good old dictionary.com says:

name-drop:

intr. v. To mention casually the names of illustrious or famous people in order to imply that one is on familiar terms with them, intended as a means of self-promotion.

But that's still not quite right methinks.

09:52 / 02.09.04

It's not a word, but there is the phrase "riding on another's coat-tails", though it's still not exactly what you were looking for.

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

10:00 / 02.09.04

It's really getting on my nerves now - I'm sure that there's a single word that exactly describes what I'm talking about, but I'm damned if I can remember it. Thanks for your pointers; at least I know people understand what I'm looking for.

Grrrrrrr......

10:40 / 02.09.04

Starfucker?

Actually, there was a thread named for your word in, I think, Music. shortfatdyke started it. It was slang, though.

14:34 / 12.09.04

I should know this, but I desperately need a noun for an autobiographical character in a novel--a character who is, essentially, the writer, but has a different name. In this case, the writer hid her own identity and used the novel to wreak a kind of revenge on her family; her character is innocent, victimized, yet victorious in the end. I don't think "persona" or "mask" is specific enough. I picture a word that would give an image like a ventriloquist's dummy, in a way--the writer moving the mouth of a doll that represents herself. Surely there is such a word?

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