darkoshi

Doing a search on Amazon, I got annoyed that it doesn't let you exclude certain words from the results. (I want chewable vegan vitamins that are NOT gummies!) So I ended up including a few profanities in my ever-lengthening search string.

The results made me laugh.

Yodelling Pickle Musical Toy, Fun for all Ages, Great Gift
"Are you sick and tired of trying to teach your pickles to yodel? Pickles can be so stubborn. At last, the yodeling pickle you've been waiting for. With a mere press of a button (yes, it has a button) this little pickle will yodel its heart out. You'll think you're in the Swiss Alps listening to a yodeling pickle!"

Mugs with witty things written on them:

Mug: "Of course I talk to myself. Sometimes I need expert advice"

(Amazon seems to be telling me, "With a search string like that, you must talk to yourself a lot")

Mug: "i before e. Except after C and also when you heinously seize your feisty foreign neighbor's conceited beige heifer from the ceiling. Weird."

(now I can't even remember any i-before-e words other than retrieve and believe/belief... sieve...)

Mug: "I Shall Purchase a Large Sword | and name it Kindness | and Kill People With Kindness"

Current Mood: amused

frocket: a front pocket, usually on a shirt.

sciamachy: an act or instance of fighting a shadow or an imaginary enemy.
sciamachy: shadow-boxing; fighting that is futile or make-believe.

.

My shirt, it has two frockets; two frockets has my shirt. And has the shirt not two frockets, then is it not my shirt.

(allusion)

.

I cut my hair short today because my reflection was bothering me. Otherwise I would have waited til the weather was warmer. Now my head feels cold so I put a rag on it.

I started playing Wordle on Jan. 8, although I forgot and missed several days since then.

So far I've played 16 games and lost once.

The number of guesses it took me each game so far were:
6, 6, 4, 4, 4, 5, (lost), 3, 5, 4, 3, 4, 4, 2, 2, 2.

My first few games, I played in hard mode ("Any revealed hints must be used in subsequent guesses") without realizing I was doing so.

Then I began to choose words with completely different letters for the first few guesses to more quickly reveal what letters the final word had.

When that began to feel easy, I went back to doing it the "harder" way. 3 days ago I switched it to "hard mode" in the Settings panel, as I was playing it that way anyway.

Those last 3 days' games seem odd to me. I guessed the word correctly on my 2nd try, three times in a row now. The first time I thought I was lucky. The 2nd time I thought I was very lucky. But now the 3rd time, it feels weird and suspicious. How can I be that lucky?

Based on the 2 or 3 letters I guessed right in my first guesses, several words could have fit. Yet I chose the right one each time, apparently.

This is a word that doesn't mean what I thought it did. Maybe if I start posting these, it will help me to remember the actual new-to-me meaning as opposed to (or at least in addition to) the false meaning.

Sanguine (adj.) - cheerfully optimistic, hopeful, or confident.

Sanguine (adj.) - cheerful, hopeful, vivacious, confident

I knew the word "sanguine" derived from a word for "blood", but thought it meant "calm, content, unperturbed". I didn't know why a word based on "blood" would mean any of those things; the actual meaning makes more sense in that regard.

I was trying to think of a word with a meaning like "visually stifling", as in when your vision is blocked towards the bottom by an too-large cloth face mask and towards the top by a thick warm headband, making you feel trapped like in a nightmare. (I'd been trying on different masks for keeping my face warm while I went for a quick walk before sundown.)

Instead I came across this term, which I hadn't heard of before:

Visual Snow Syndrome

Visual Snow Syndrome is a neurological condition that impacts an individual’s vision, hearing, and quality of life. Patients see flashing lights, flickering dots, and static, which obstruct their visual field 24/7. There is no relief for them, even when their eyes are closed. It causes many other debilitating visual & non-visual symptoms. Once thought to be rare, Visual Snow affects an estimated 2-3% of the world’s population.

I don't have the condition. But these videos about it (as well as the comments) are interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCoNaIyRJ5w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JStDb4EiYAs

Errant thought from a while back:

"I remember when mice used to have balls."

.

I'd been trying to remember this word: Boggart, which I once learned from a Susan Cooper book, as I could imagine a boggart being behind the weird bug-related mystery I've been trying to solve.

After a while, the supernatural explanations seemed as likely as any others I came up with.
"These bugs must have the power of invisibility!"
"Maybe they aren't invisible bugs; maybe they are ghosts."
I remembered a mischievous supernatural creature that was a boggart, but it took me a while to remember the word.

Fittingly, it turns out that boggart and bug even share the same etymology!

Why must so many news reports about COVID-19 include video clips of vaccine needles being pushed into and pulled out of arms? I'm only a little needlephobic (I avert my gaze when getting shots) and a little bothered when I see those videos. But I imagine many people are a lot more disturbed by seeing it, and might avoid watching the news because of it? Seeing all those needles may be adding to their anxiety about getting vaccinated instead of relieving it.

..

Another thing that oddly irritates me is hearing or reading the British term for it, "jab". The word "jab" makes me think of 2 friends walking down the street, and one of them giving the other a friendly shove of an elbow in the side. (Why do I associate it with that? Dunno.) So when I hear it used about the vaccine, it sounds like an attempt to downplay the fact that it's a needle piercing your skin. It sounds like a word you'd say to a small child to keep them from being afraid of it.

I have this reaction even though I know that's simply the term used in Britain and not a euphemism. And I know the word "shot" doesn't really describe an injection better than "jab".

WSJ has this intriguing-sounding article, but it requires a subscription to read: ‘Jab’: A British Term for a Covid-19 Shot, but Born in the U.S.A.

The newly imported name for a vaccination actually originated on this side of the Atlantic ...
It might not be the most important point of contention in the pandemic era, but a British-style, three-letter word for a vaccination shot has proved irksome to many Americans: “jab.”

So I'm not the only American irritated by that word?

Here I found a screenshot of the article on twitter.

Hah, so just like that flu of 1918, the word "jab" started in the U.S., spread out in Europe, and then came back.

..
Damn:
SC tops entire country for COVID case rate as hospital reports record COVID patient count

Is the whole area between the shoulder joint (where the bones come together in the ball&socket) and the neck considered to be a part of the "shoulder"? Or is there any other word for that area of the body?

A layer of fog persisted here past noon today. It felt quiet and muted and calm, like after a snowfall.

An Austrian radio station mentioned a "Schneeflockdown". Schneeflocke is German for 'snowflake'. So Schneeflockdown is a cute bilingual way of saying "snowed in".

.

While debugging, I came across this comment in angular.js:

// Insanity Warning: scope depth-first traversal
// yes, this code is a bit crazy, but it works and we have tests to prove it!

(I didn't write down what version of the file we are using, so am not able to find it online right now.)

This is the code that followed the comment. After that comment, I didn't bother trying to make sense of it. It wasn't related to what I was debugging anyway:

   if (!(next = ((current.$$watchersCount && current.$$childHead) ||
         (current !== target && current.$$nextSibling)))) {
       while (current !== target && !(next = current.$$nextSibling)) {
         current = current.$parent;
       }
     }
   } while ((current = next));

What do these verbs have in common?

seek, buy, fight, catch, teach, bring, think

(It should be quite obvious once you figure it out; you shouldn't have to wonder whether you've guessed right.)

As a bonus round, there's at least one more verb that could be added to the list, though it's more tenuous. What letter does it start with?

Mask Envy:
When you keep seeing photos and videos where other people's face masks look better fitting, more comfortable, more snug and protective, than your own. Even though you've got like, 5? different kinds, but none of which are without problems.

.

I wanted to wear something other than a turtleneck+sweatshirt this evening, but I've already tried on 5 combinations of things, and they've all been too uncomfortable. How did I ever find things to wear to work, every day?
Egadz, these cuffs on my wrists, this collar at the back of my neck, this metal zipper by my chin, this fabric in my elbow when I bend my arm...

Note to self: Don't buy waffle-pattern undershirts, even if they are 100% cotton. Uncomfortable against my skin.

On another site, I saw a comment by someone with surname "Bumgarner".

I'm familiar with the surname "Baumgartner" which comes from German and means something like "Tree Gardener". So I wondered if that was the person's real name, and he'd shortened it like that as a joke... bum-garner... gatherer of bums... I was thinking of the British definition of "bum", ie. "buttocks", though gatherer of tramps could be amusing too.

But no, according to the 2010 Census there were over 6000 people in the U.S. with the surname Bumgarner.

It truly is however, a "Respelling of German Baumgartner."

Bumgarner History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms - This page seems lip-curling to me. It shows the "Ancient Arms of Bumgarner" image with a tree and a small picket fence around it. It says "They are believed to have been of the order of the Teutonic Knights." Jeez Louize, the site is trying to sell stuff. It says the name means "Orchard" when it must have meant someone who worked in an orchard - the name comes from BaumgartNER, not BaumgarTEN. But anyway, the page also has some good stuff:
"Spelling variations of this family name include: Baumgarner, Baumgarten, Baumgart, Paumgarten, Baumgartel, Paumgartel, Paumgart, Bomgarten, Baumgarden, Pomgarten, Pomgarden, Baumgartner, Paumgartner, Baumgarden, Bamgardner, Bogart, Bogaard, Bogaart and many more."

So the name Bogart (from Dutch) (as in Humphrey Bogart) also comes from, or is related to Baumgartner! And actually, boomgaard is the Dutch word for "orchard", so ok then.

.

Kudos to

conuly, for letting me know about this online etymology dictionary!

This was another post intended to be quick and short on something that amused me, which while writing it morphed into umpteen more things of curiosity to me. It's now an hour and a half later. This is why I shouldn't...

It also took longer to write due to words being difficult to me this morning.

.

Other items of curiosity:

Bummer - is related to the German verb "bummeln - to go slowly, waste time." In my experience, "bummeln" is used in a positive sense, as in "let's go have a good time, strolling around downtown looking at stores and things."

Bumptious - an adjective that means "offensively assertive".

errant thought:
Is the skin of a banana called a banana peel, even before it is peeled?
Is the rind of an orange called orange peel, while it is still all on the orange?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abugida
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abugida

"a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary."

I'm still not clear on the difference between an abugida and a syllabary or alphasyllabary. But no matter. I'm posting this mainly in case I forget the word, as I suspect I will.

It feels like a Spanish word to me... abogada/abogado, that's what it reminds me of. Lawyer.
And that sure is similar to avocado, now that I think of it.

Notes to self:
Shotguns are called shotguns not because you shoot with them, but because they shoot out shot, those small round metal things.
Rifles are called rifles because their barrels are rifled on the inside rather than smooth-bored.

Her peers up here appear to be peering at and paring two pairs of pears out on the piers.

For a peer to peer and pare a pair of pear on the pier.
A peer's pair of pier pears.

.

I think on average I pronounce the vowels in peer (the noun and maybe the verb too) and pier differently (with a diphthong starting with long E to begin with) than the other words. But they all sound pretty much the same to me and would be hard to tell apart without other clues in the sentences.

A co-worker thanked me for something small while we were Skyping. When You're welcome feels awkward or too formal, sometimes I reply No problem. This time I typed Sure.

But then the word on the screen looked odd to me, and I wondered if that wasn't a well-known response after all. Maybe it looked odd to the other person too.

I'm of the impression that using Sure in this way is short for Sure thing to imply it's a sure thing, ie. a certainty, that one is always willing to help out like that, and it's no big deal.

But when I checked a few dictionaries, neither the definitions for "sure" nor "sure thing" mention it being used in this way.

So I looked up "saying sure instead of you're welcome". These pages mention saying "sure":

30+ Things You Can Say Instead of ‘You’re Welcome’ - this is quite a good list.

10 Ways to Say “You’re Welcome”

This page confirms my belief that "Sure thing" is also used:
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/30554/can-sure-thing-mean-youre-welcome

Yes, this is why "you're welcome" feels awkward to me sometimes:

Why Don’t We Say ‘You’re Welcome’ Anymore?

If you’ve done something for someone and you say ‘you’re welcome’ after they thank you, the implication is kind of, ‘Yeah, I really did you a favor and you should be grateful,” she said. “So ‘certainly’ or ‘of course’ means you’re kind of belittling what you just did, which is more courteous.”

New word definition I learned today:
Snag (noun)
as in "A dead tree that remains standing."

...kids will still want to swap for a different color or style.

This search phrase returns what I was looking for on DuckDuckGo, but not on Google:
school facemask "paw patrol" spiderman lunch swap

That is unusual, and speaks well of DDG. Replacing "facemask" with "mask" brings back the wanted result on Google too, but it's odd that their algorithms aren't doing that replacement automatically. Normally Google returns as many or more relevant results for me than DDG, but not this time.

This is what I was looking for, a wryly prophetic* tweet I'd seen shared on FB yesterday:

You gon send your kid to school with the Paw Patrol mask and he gon come home with a Spider Man mask because he made a trade at lunch. Whole school gon be shut down the next day.

*I'd have written premoniscient, but the dictionaries are telling me that isn't a word no matter how much it sounds like one to me. "Premonitory" is a word but it doesn't sound right to me at all. "Prescient" is also a word, but isn't exactly the meaning I intended.

..

Auditory illusion, "Brainstorm or Green Needle?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pRY3wlKwm8

I only hear green needle. The first part could be either brain or green; those words sound similar. But how can the 2nd part possibly be "storm"? - it has clearly 2 syllables!? Even if I stretch out "storm" in my mind to be as long as 2 syllables, it sounds nothing at all like the sound in the video clip.

I object to the current trend of referring to a certain kind of person as a "Karen". Karen is a common name. Just because a few people with that name have done objectionable things, is no reason to besmirch everyone else who happens to have the same name by associating them with that particular group of people. The same would be the case for referring negatively to any other group of people by any other common (or maybe even uncommon) name.

Besides being a common English name, Karen is also the name of an ethnic group of people from Mynamar.

I've known several people named Karen and it bothers me to think how they would feel reading these things. Imagine your name being used in place of "Karen". How would it make you feel? Please don't do it. Find a better word or phrase if you must.

Brought on by this:
https://twitter.com/Steve_R_Walker/status/1286400379266228227

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Page generated Sunday, June 29th, 2025 11:37 am

Entries tagged with words

now I want a yodelling pickle

fighting an imaginary enemy with front pockets on my shirt

Wordle ... strange luck

the word sanguine

visual snow syndrome

of bugs and balls

needles SINKING into flesh

anatomy

blankets of white

word puzzle

mask envy

names. TREES. ALL the TREES and trees and trees.

the unpeeled peel

lawyers, avocados, syllabaries

firearms

two pair pear

"sure thing" vs "you're welcome"

oak snag

even if they enforce solid colors...

this current "Karen" usage