• scuttlebutt •
Pronunciation: skê-dêl-bêt • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, mass (no plural)
Meaning: 1. The drinking fountain or other source of water aboard a ship. 2. Gossip, rumors.
Notes: Although it originally referred to gossip picked up around the water cooler (see Word History), today this Good Word refers to any kind of gossip or rumors. It began its life as an adjective in phrases like scuttlebutt rumor and a scuttlebutt yarn, talk around the water container, whatever it was. But in the 30s it began to spread through the general language until it became a fixture of English vocabulary.
In Play: Today's word is available when you need a word longer than rumor or gossip or when you tire of using these two old stand-bys: "The scuttlebutt has it that Faye Slift has had so much cosmetic surgery on her face that every time she sits down she grins." Scuttlebutt no longer has to be gossip picked up by the water cooler—but that remains a verygood spot to get the latest: "I hear Wadley got a transmotion (lateral change of positions) to Kuala Lumpur."
Word History: Today's Good Word is a lexical gift from the US Navy. It originated as a British naval slang phrase, scuttled butt, the keg for drinking water on board a ship. As a result, scuttlebutt originally referred exclusively to the gossip you pick up around the water cooler. To scuttle means "to cut a hole in something" and is still used in reference to sinking a boat or ship. But a hole in a butt (keg) of water allows access to the contents. Now, I know what you are thinking and butt has nothing to do with that. The British Navy lifted this word from Old French boute, a descendant of Latin bottis "cask, keg". A small cask was a butticula in Latin, a word that Old French converted to botele and passed on to English as bottle. (The scuttlebutt around the alphaDictionary water cooler is that Lenn Zonder suggested today's Good Word and you can bottle our scuttlebutt.)
SCUTTLEBUTT
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SCUTTLEBUTT
• The Good Dr. Goodword
By GP, I mean that you are now a Grand Panjandrum.yeah, what is that? I gotta get over this pneumonia I'm sitting home wa-a-y too long.
mark feelin'-better Bailey
I didn't know that you were under the weather. Make that pneumonia of yours so last year.
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
Anonymous
Anonymous
Perry, I knew what the GP meant, I was thinking I must have waaaaay too much time on my hands, that is to say I knew you weren't being mean, so why I'm I so wordy? Did you know I'm not the talkative one in my family.
mark too-chatty Bailey
mark too-chatty Bailey
Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
kb
I'll tell you what it takes, it takes a bloody lot of sitting around with nothing more exciting to do than checking the Alpha all the time. It's time I've enjoyed, to be sure but my mind is wandering so much these days, but wait! I do get postcards on occasion.
Oh no, and there's 8 more today.
mark with-the-gamboling-mind Bailey
Oh no, and there's 8 more today.
mark with-the-gamboling-mind Bailey
Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
kb
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