Word of the day :)

[petra_r]

As English is my third language I am still stumbling across words that fascinate me.

Today our Janean used one in a post and I LOVED it (once I looked it up, lol, admittedly)

vicissitude

vɪˈsɪsɪtjuːd,vʌɪˈsɪsɪtjuːd/

noun

plural noun: vicissitudes

1. 1.

   a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant.

   "her husband's sharp vicissitudes of fortune"

   synonyms:

   change, alteration, alternation, transformation, metamorphosis, transmutation, mutation, modification, transition, development, shift, switch, turn; More reversal, reverse, downturn; inconstancy, instability, uncertainty, unpredictability, chanciness, fickleness, variability, changeability, fluctuation, vacillation; ups and downs "he maintains his sunny disposition despite life's vicissitudes"

2. 2.

   literary

   alternation between opposite or contrasting things.

   "the vicissitude of the seasons"

I adore language(s) and words, so shall we have a thread about wonderful words? Could be fun?

[boshoffirene]

practise vs practice....

Doing a short bio for a British doc..... and this discrepancy between Uk and US English hit me...(OK it hits me quite often while writing but this one was it for today)

In the UK (and other places the Queen's English is spoken).....

You would practise medicine at your practice (i.e. practise the verb with an 's' and the noun with a 'c')

In the US, however, practice is it!

[jmlaidlaw]

Here is a word I love, and I used it just this morning: "bugbear" (which you will also see in its cousin-alike, "bugaboo," or even "bug-a-boo").

What I wrote this morning in an email was this: "As you will have noticed, spurious claims of native English are a real bugbear for me..."

(I also adore the rich French  phrase «bête noire» !)

[renata101]

---

@Janean L wrote:

Here is a word I love, and I used it just this morning: "bugbear" (which you will also see in its cousin-alike, "bugaboo," or even "bug-a-boo").

What I wrote this morning in an email was this: "As you will have noticed, spurious claims of native English are a real bugbear for me..."

(I also adore the rich French  phrase «bête noire» !)

---

@Janean  I love bugbear.

One of my favorites is "nebulous," which is closely related to nebula. 
After lots of editing contracts, I find that I now cringe at any mention of the word "flow."  "Bad flow" is a chronic complaint among writing clients, but it's sometimes really hard to diagnose just what they feel is blocking the free movement of their verbosity.  It's often hard to know what to suggest for these kinds of hazy, poorly defined issues. So far I've manged to hold back from telling anyone, "Gee, have you tried bran? It's usually structural."

So my bugbears are clients with "nebulous flow problems."

[moutcom]

@Janean

la «bête noire» something you hate it or is evil to you.

But still people are not sure where is coming from; some like to use the theory wher the word is derived from «black cat» ...

[jmlaidlaw]

Today I found myself writing "hornswoggled." That definitely qualifies as a word I love!

**Edited for spelling!!**

[mthornton-cpc]

"Hornswaggled" is a great one. Most of my favorite words are swears... in several languages. However, for the simple beauty of the words themselves I like "pamplemousse" and "fauteuil" in French (grapefuit and armchair) and "patience" and "mellifluous" in English (of which I have little and something I am not). 

[jmlaidlaw]

I enjoy words such as "hornswoggled" that sound as if they are swear words... But that are not!

I used to befuddle students by saying to them, for instance (with mock shock): "Is that vestigial?!?!??"  Or:  "I didn't really want to have to say this in front of the entire class, but I heard that someone might have varicella. Please don't touch anyone if you have the varicella."  Or:  "Well, he is just trenchant, isn't he?"

**Edited for spelling!!**

[moutcom]

Hi there,

the french words are ok, understood.

Here is another one -voila un autre, juste pour vous- : Porcelaine

But "Hornswaggeld"  ... too heavy, no idea. Even google translate doesn't coem up with something.

But in definition i found that it is a state of confusion, and very funny the example: 

Describes a pirate who just had his booty stolen.

🙂

[jmlaidlaw]

to "hornswoggle" means to trick or cheat, to fool, to "con" -- to cleverly but with ill intent effect a fraud

The word "hornswoggle" is often used to imply that the "con" has not been of a serious or deeply criminal nature; the intent is bad, but not necessarily evil or deeply malicious; a "hornswoggle" (used as a noun) is a deception that is related to a person being cheated out of money or goods.  The "hornswoggler" may even, at times, be inept or buffoonish.

(These are my own definitions. YMMV.)

(N.B. When I used the word "hornswoggle" in my own post earlier today, I did actually refer to a "client" whose actions I believe to have been deliberate and malicious. I used the verb knowingly, however, in order to somewhat lighten the tone of my response to a distraught newbie freelancer who had been duped.)

***Edited for spelling!!***

[versailles]

I always believed that zygomatic was a made up word. It's not. It's a muscle.

Once, in a French official agency, I read a memo written by a high-ranking executive. He used the French word superfétatoire. French is my native language, but I had to look this word up because I've never encountered it and I doubt many people have. It means superfluous. Which has a perfectly valid synonym in French, that is actually the only one people know and use: superfelu.

Why this idjit had to dig out an obscure synonym and use it in a memo? Probably to show to the world how cultivated he was.

I love the Spanish word Cabron. Yes, I know what it means and I use it extensively.

Also I love long German words. I have no idea about their meaning, but I love the idea that Germans can actually say them.

[moutcom]

Interesting fact about superfelu, I didn't know it.

German words are sometimes complex, and often a fusion of 2 or more words. That make it sometimes funny when people try to spell it mentally, to find out how to write it down ! No joke !

One interesting word, i learned during my short time in Bavaria, and actually it exists only in Bavaria 🙂 

Wolpertinger 

Google it, you'll love it !!

[sgoble]

Wolpertinger  ... In The western part of the USA, a Jackalope with wings? 

We have very few examples of them  because they are hard to shoot.

==============

I shall contributer

Transmogrify  and devolve

[colleenezzell]

I LOVE this thread! We lived in Germany for 2-1/2 years and I could never speak or understand the language, but it did provide one of my favorite jokes

A Frenchman, a Spaniard, and a German were having a heated discussion about which of their three languages was most mellifuous.

"Of course it's French! Think of the word butterfly -- papillon --- it just flutters and sings!" insisted the Frenchman.

"No, no! Butterfly sounds much more beautiful in Spanish," argued  the Spaniard. "Mariposa -- it just rolls off the tongue, as smooth as silk!"

"Wait a minute," interrupted the German, "What's the matter with Schmetterling?"

[mthornton-cpc]

Superfétatoire certainly seems like its usage lives up to its definition. I'm taking a refresher course in conversational French because I'm flat-out rusty and want to shake the dust off my brain before a visit over the summer and will keep an eye and ear out for more fun words. 

I typically love the differences between UK and US English (much like practice/practise mentioned earlier), but will never get used to aluminium/aluminum. Both words sound wonderful, but only one sounds like an actual word to my American ears. 

[versailles]

---

@Melissa T wrote:

Superfétatoire certainly seems like its usage lives up to its definition. I'm taking a refresher course in conversational French because I'm flat-out rusty and want to shake the dust off my brain before a visit over the summer and will keep an eye and ear out for more fun words. 

---

 Ok. Then, next time you visit, we'll speak French only. No exceptions. 🙂

[moutcom]

Aluminum ... there now more words i hear/read in the community which i can't imagine before they where right/wrong.

For me Aluminium is the correct one ... too british ?  

[mthornton-cpc]

Yes, Moutacim, that's the UK way... here in the Wild West it's aluminum. 🙂 

Rene, AAAAAHHHHH! I mean to say, yes, we should. I need the practice/practise.  

[moutcom]

Thank you Melissa, and now i've learned another thing maybe ... 

You said Wild West ! Is this for the whole US, or New York ?

I thought Texas was the wild west .... ? Too much old-school-western-movies i guess ^-^

I came across to another word : Gobbledygook 

Btw its a word that means in german Kauderwelsch, but the translation in French or Arabic sounds meaningless to me.

So Gobbledygook = Kauderwelsch ...  and sounds like that ...

[mthornton-cpc]

Moutacim, typically you're right - the Wild West refers to previously frontier-esque parts of the country, but I've had a sufficient number of international friends ask me if everyone in the US has a John Wayne poster on their wall that I've come to affectionately refer to the entire nation peu ou prou that way. Funny enough, the only friends of mine who have a John Wayne poster on their wall are Parisien and the only person I know who really loves western movies is my Moroccan brother in law, though the closest thing he owns to cowboy boots are babouches. 

[moutcom]

@Melissa,

babouche are slippers for me, in-house only; but nice cowboy boots are unbreakable !

"once upon a time in the west" style, i'd rather prefer Henry Fonda and/or Lee Marvin.

Me also i asked myself about the image/style of americans; at least when i was younger and medias was far from what it is today. But i can say, that i also thought John Wayne was everywhere ^^ funny clichés !

One day i will visit the "land of the free" and discover what is real, and what's cliché ^^

[sgoble]

Moutacim  ... If you visit the USA I can guide you.  My grandfather was a western sheriff, my great-grandfather a buffalo hunter and I know where the Grand Canyon is. 

[moutcom]

Thank you Very much Stephanie for the invitation, it's appreciated.

There are two places i want/must see: New york (most likely to say hey i was in New York) and, my dream New Orleans !!

As long as i remeber i wanted to see New Orleans !

[renata101]

I've been browsing some AWAD backissues and I found this wonderful addition to any erudite vocabulary (if I could only get through trying to pronounce it without laughing): 

floccinaucinihilipilification = estimating as worthless

PRONUNCIATION:

(FLOK-si-NO-si-NY-HIL-i-PIL-i-fi-KAY-shuhn)
https://wordsmith.org/words/floccinaucinihilipilification.mp3

 

And I can't believe this one is considered obsolete: 

grimgribber

 
I'd say its hour has come round again at last. 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grimgribber

[jmlaidlaw]

LOVE "grimgribber"!  (That one was new to me. Sounds very Dickensian, but not sure that Dickens used it.)

Ran across "peu ou prou" in a Simenon collection of short stories this week. Interestingly, neither of the native French speakers in my French club (one from Nîmes, one from Montreal) recalled ever having heard of the word "prou," and each Francophone said they would always use "plus ou moins" rather than "peu ou prou." An example of a very short, simple word that seems to have dropped out of use fairly recently.

[versailles]

---

@Janean L wrote:

Ran across "peu ou prou" in a Simenon collection of short stories this week. Interestingly, neither of the native French speakers in my French club (one from Nîmes, one from Montreal) recalled ever having heard of the word "prou," and each Francophone said they would always use "plus ou moins" rather than "peu ou prou." 

---

Funny, I use peu ou prou more or less as much as plus ou moins (pun was intended, but I was serious about me using this expression 😀). I have no idea what prou means but it sounds funny, so I use it.

[jmlaidlaw]

@ René/Moutacim --

I guess that I'll have to search out a better-quality French club... (A group that has a wider vocabulary than does mine... is more au courant, pour ainsi dire.)

[moutcom]

@Janean

depends on what you are looking for, to improve or to get lost ^^.

Sometimes you know that a word exists and you use in the right way, but you dont know WHY.

This is the sound of the language, the music that we all have in our head.

If the people in your club don't know the word, maybe just a matter of slang, educational background or i dont know.

I have cousins in Usez, they speak a french which is a nightmare ... in Paris they call it largo.

But seriously, i had a german BU manager speaking good french; when i asked about how he did, he told me that he was reading everything he gets: news, magazines and tons of books.

Depends on person, some aquire the language by practice, some by reading and then practice ...

For myself TV and newspaper helped me a lot, but my problem is the german accent.

A moroccan guy speaking french with a german accent !! I can't tell how confusing this is, and what questions sometimes i get ... Rene as frenchmen might have an idea ^^

[renata101]

And maybe my favorite from this list of obscure words for bad odors is 

noisome

which is kind of like loud on the senses.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/whats-that-smell-10-obscure-words-for-bad-odors/noisom...

[moutcom]

@Rene

Its an adverb stand for 'beaucoup' enough. Dates from somewhere in the middle age, where people used prou for profit.

Long time ago, it was said "avoir prou de quelque chose" to say that they had a lot/enough.

[moutcom]

hmmm very strange things going on here ...

the postings are NOT in the right manner ... i am sure my posts are somehow mixed-up in the order i wrote and posted them !

[AveryO]

Hi Moutacim, 

I'm not sure if your set your posts to sort to older to newest, or newest to oldest, but you should be able to sort your posts according to the image I've included below.

[moutcom]

Hi Avery.
Well, well, well ...what a nice surprise !
Thank you very much for your kind help !!

In fact it was set to sort by topics, and i saw my answer to Rene always at my last posting. After your advise i set the right sort, et voila ca marche 🙂 Merci

[versailles]

---

@Moutacim L wrote:

@Rene

Its an adverb stand for 'beaucoup' enough. Dates from somewhere in the middle age, where people used prou for profit.

Long time ago, it was said "avoir prou de quelque chose" to say that they had a lot/enough.

---

Thanks!

[moutcom]

U R Welcome !

[moutcom]

@Renata
Stinkaroos i like,
we use to have a similar word in arabic dialect describing a real bad smelling cigarette

[iaabraham]

I'm so lame - when I was young I made a word doc of my fav words/phrases/expressions, and after seeing this post, I just had to go back and find it lol  

English:

Miscellaneous

Incongruous

Avaricious

Simultaneous

Magnanimous

Tenacious

Gregarious

Ostentatious

Ubiquitous

Obstreperous

Aphrodisiac

Ramifications

Alacrity

Mendacity

Ricochet

Placebo

Incognito

Falsetto

Ditto

Consecrated

Incarceration

Unison

Serene

Sublime

Harmony

Valiant

Philanthropist

Vendetta

Reprisal

Façade

Nota bene

Faux pas

Sotto voce

Terra firma

Status quo

Rigor mortis

Corpus Christi

Modus operandi

Walking contradiction

Totalitarian society

Fat penguin (for breaking the ice)

French:

Enchanté

Avec

Poubelle

Acajou

Hippopotame

Pamplemousse

[versailles]

Ditto sounds like a Fiat model.

Would be funny.

- I bought a Fiat Ditto.

- Ditto.

[mthornton-cpc]

---

@Rene K wrote:

Ditto sounds like a Fiat model.

Would be funny.

- I bought a Fiat Ditto.

- Ditto.

---

Pretty sure I rented one of those last summer in Normandie. It was terrible.  

[moutcom]

Hi folks,

@Melissa

Fiat comes from FIASCO .... 

Its not a car, sorry to offend any italian, they are great engineers .... but Fiat ....

[mthornton-cpc]

Isabelle,

lame Awesome