Search found 291 matches

by Palewriter
Tue Feb 13, 2007 7:24 pm
Forum: Good Word Suggestions
Topic: lunula
Replies: 2
Views: 7339

especially the white area at the base of a fingernail that resembles a half-moon.
At last I know what this is called. But how do I work this into a conversation?
The interview candidate was so nervous, he chewed his fingernails all the way down to the lunulae.

Harder to find a rhyme.

-- PW
by Palewriter
Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:45 am
Forum: Good Word Discussion
Topic: ANANYM
Replies: 16
Views: 29872

Indeed. One of the last of the great mid-20th Century literary comics. Perelman, Thurber, Nash, Buchwald. Who's next? Who's funny?

-- WP
by Palewriter
Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:26 pm
Forum: The Rebel-Yankee Test
Topic: talkin' southern
Replies: 34
Views: 145095

Putting in my 2 cents (a little late perhaps), BBQ is chicken or pork and served with BBQ sauce. Steak is grilled. A slab of brisket, barbecued slowly over a mixture of mesquite and apple woods, makes a mighty convincing case for beef BBQ. And a plain roast (or grilled) chicken or piece of pork wit...
by Palewriter
Tue Jan 30, 2007 8:49 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: Other greens
Replies: 16
Views: 42499

...and let's not omit Shecky Greene.

-- PW
by Palewriter
Tue Jan 30, 2007 7:59 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: Grammar
Replies: 14
Views: 32972

For some reason, the teaching of English grammar seems to have been absent from schools in the UK and US (state and public, respectively). Dropped in favor of...um...something or other, I suppose. Home Economics, perhaps, or Games. I encountered no real grammar teaching whatsoever until university. ...
by Palewriter
Mon Jan 29, 2007 5:42 pm
Forum: Etymology
Topic: Encyclopedia
Replies: 8
Views: 25783

Re: Encyclopedia

Is education a circle?
Perhaps education is a spiral?
Or maybe a double helix. :-)

-- PW
by Palewriter
Mon Jan 29, 2007 2:41 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: Grammar
Replies: 14
Views: 32972

This site looks quite good for basic grammar. And this looks like a good introduction to linguistics, or at least to transformational grammar. Some would say, I know, that pure transformational grammar is a little dated, and there are certainly other, more recently developed approaches out there. B...
by Palewriter
Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:22 pm
Forum: Etymology
Topic: Encyclopedia
Replies: 8
Views: 25783

Re: Encyclopedia

Is education a circle? From the Online Etymology Dictionary: Encyclopedia 1531, "course of construction," thought to be a false reading by L. authors of Gk. enkyklios paideia taken as "general education," but lit. "training in a circle," the essentials of a liberal edu...
by Palewriter
Sun Jan 28, 2007 7:51 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: Other greens
Replies: 16
Views: 42499

Institutional green is often AKA hospital green.

BTW, you left off my favorite green of all: mondgreeen.
I like mondegreens, too. Though I confess, I do have a weakness for greenbacks.

-- PW
by Palewriter
Sun Jan 28, 2007 12:38 am
Forum: Good Word Discussion
Topic: EXPATIATE
Replies: 7
Views: 14250

Stargeezer has it right, as ever. I've been an ex-pat most of my life. I bless the day I left the Sceptered Isle. The trick is to avoid "British Pubs" like the plague. Almost every city in the world seems to have a "British Pub" filled with fake Oxford Street street signs, framed...
by Palewriter
Fri Jan 26, 2007 12:32 pm
Forum: Grammar
Topic: Odd construction
Replies: 13
Views: 41674

caddish? mark more-interested-in-Ferrus'-definition-than-the-dictionary's Bailey Yes. He was a buddy of Churchill's and he was quite notorious for fooling around with women. Not altogether a bad thing, in my book. :-) You certainly have to admire him for having the strength of character to resign i...
by Palewriter
Thu Jan 25, 2007 3:44 pm
Forum: Good Word Discussion
Topic: HEGEMONY
Replies: 5
Views: 11844

The Italian socialist Gramsci developed an interesting theory of hegemony, partly to explain the failure of the pre-20th Century proletariat to foment a successful overthrow of the bourgeois class.

-- PW
by Palewriter
Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:05 pm
Forum: Good Word Suggestions
Topic: caduceus
Replies: 3
Views: 8327

Nice one, Bailey. Reminds me of the Hippocratic Oath, the old-fashioned version of which is a joy to read: I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath an...
by Palewriter
Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:00 pm
Forum: Good Word Suggestions
Topic: for good
Replies: 23
Views: 35109

Sometimes, the only expression that seems to be an appropriate response to ridiculous or abnoxious behavior is: "pi$$ off". It may lack something in delicacy of phrase; it may not qualify as a cunning trope; it may even lack a certain wit. But it does the job.

-- PW
by Palewriter
Mon Jan 22, 2007 9:55 pm
Forum: Good Word Suggestions
Topic: denouement
Replies: 8
Views: 14315

Surely, it must be everyone's ambition to get older. I'm certainly not a fan of the alternative.

I work primarily with 20- and 30-somthings, who seem constantly to be bemoaning their advanced years. Pshaw, is my only reply to that.

-- PW

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