Being as C. S. Lewis was born in 1898, I'd go with pub-crawling, as someone in their 40s would have been wont to do before the pubs closed. Either that, or they just stopped to soak up the quiet of the night.

3. To drink intemperately or gluttonously. [Slang]

Hmm. I've heard "underwhelmed" and "underwhelming" before, in the sense of being not to impressed with a presentation, but I didn't know their coinage was so recent in the scheme of the language. My late friend Larry Bowen often talked about using the term "fully gruntled&qu...

True, a lot is by feel. If you're out in a boat but don't have a depth-finder of fish-finder you could be fishing blind, so to speak, not being able to see where they're schooling below you. You also may not be able to tell if you've hit a snag when reeling in, or where the gulls are feeding on a sh...

duf·fel or duf·fle (dŭfəl) n. 1. A blanket fabric made of low-grade woolen cloth with a nap on both sides. 2. Clothing and other personal gear carried by a camper. 3. A duffel bag. [Dutch, after Duffel, a town in Belgium.] duffel see duffle duffle (n.) Look up duffle at Dictionary.com1670s, from D...

Only 15 years? Does that count yDc and, going back further, A Web of Online Dictionaries, too? Maybe people don't realize you've been a retired professor for a number of years. To quote The Grateful Dead, "What a long, strange trip it's been!" Glad to have been an early part of it, Doc.

Chuck, How do you think Romans would have said "2500th"? MMDΘ :D (With an Athenian Lisp) Remember sesqui - means "a half AND". I believe Eduardo had it correct in translating "two and a half thousand". ... --RB I remember the "que: from "SPQR" - "Se...

I'll be copying that comment to the board, Perry!

par·o·no·ma·sia (păr′ə-nō-māzhə) n. 1. Word play; punning. 2. A pun. [Latin, from Greek paronomasiā, from paronomazein, to call by a different name : para-, beside; see PARA-1 + onomazein, to name; see ONOMASTIC.] par′o·no·mastic (-măstĭk), par′o·no·masial (-māzhəl) adj. The American Heritage®...

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Not language related, but worth keeping in mind. Keep living in honor of those who have gone before you.

That's why I asked the Good Doctor to create a Res Diversae when the Agora first started.

Asymptotic From: as·ymp·tote (ăsĭm-tōt′, -ĭmp-) n. A line whose distance to a given curve tends to zero. An asymptote may or may not intersect its associated curve. [Ultimately from Greek asumptōtos, not intersecting : a-, not; see A- + sumptōtos, intersecting (from sumpiptein, sumptō-, to converg...

akros "high", found in the borrowed word acrobat, from Greek acro "high" + bat, from bainein "to walk". So, somebody who is walking while drunk or high on drugs would be a high walker, or an acrobat? A new crime to be charged with instead of DWI: Acrobatcy or WWH -- Wa...

Jousting is the State Sport of Maryland. In the modern version, a horseback rider takes a pointed lance and tries to spear a ring hanging from a support.

I see the relationship between military and militate and why they are related. One observation: is anyone able to use militate in a sentence without following it with "against"? militate (v.) 1620s, "to serve as a soldier" (now rare), from Latin militatum, past participle of mil...

Maybe because they are merely informative, describing what makes for a Good Word; not much to discuss about them.

According to the Good Word Dictionary it was used five and nine years ago (we've been around a loooonnnngggg time here!).