When I drift off to sleep, nothing rattles me. I have slept through many noisy calamities, tornado like weather, and family members being awake and sick with lights on and making noise enough to wake the dead. My own snoring, which I am told causes window glass vibration throughout the neighborhood, does not wake me. When I sink into the arms of Hypnos and Morpheus, my position in bed does not change. Apparently I don’t twitch a muscle until hours later when I arise and quickly move with a stiff, hobbling sprint to the restroom for urgent urinary relief. I am what you might call a heavy sleeper, or deep sleeper, both of which mean the same as sound sleeper.

On the other hand, Roomie is the antithesis of that, as she usually has trouble getting to sleep and will waken at the drop of a tissue three houses away. She tosses and turns, kicks and bucks, thrashing the night away, in and out of bed until she can’t stand it any longer and just gets up and stays up. She might be described as a light or shallow sleeper.

On several occasions my good Welsh blogging friend, Liz, has made reference to rough sleepers. I understand the words rough and sleeper, so initially I thought I knew what she was talking about — someone like Roomie who kicks and thrashes about in a very rough manner. But that was nonsensical when used in Liz’s context. Yet again, Liz often weaves fantastical mysteries for her American readers by writing about such things as fish pie, Mumbles, beans on toast, titchy spaces, portakabins, dithering, and… well, you get the picture. English is the native tongue for both of us, but my American version is not nearly so rich as Liz’s Welsh slant on it. I have not heard her voice, but I can imagine that it has that same richness and melodic quality that we love to listen to.

According to dictionary.com, a rough sleeper is an informal UK phrase used to refer to “a homeless person; a person living on the streets.” So, if you’re reading Liz spinning her stories about George, her often misbehaving pup, and her charming life in Swansea, Wales, if she mentions a rough sleeper, she is really referring to what we know in the States as a street person or homeless person. As for titchy, I have not a clue…

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If two negatives make a positive, how many positives does it take to make a negative? Or how many conditional statements make one definitive declaration?

A Tennessean story by Staff Writer and NFL/Titans beat writer Jim Wyatt about the on-again / off-again, almost there / widely separated negotiations for future services of suspended Titans bad boy Adam “Pacman” Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones, was quoted as saying something to the effect of…

I can say with a high degree of certainty that this thing probably may or may not come about.

How do you spell doublespeak? How about posturing?

Jerry Jones’ actual words and the full article can be found here.

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Doing what I do, supporting customer networks, requires a lot of butt-time in my trusty Subaru Outback traveling around the Greater Nashville Metro area, sniffing out problems to fix. Occasionally I see something of vital interest that is granted documentation in these pages, but most of the drive time is routine and humdrum. To puncture the tedium, I listen to a lot of sports talk radio, which is as good in this town as anywhere in the country. There are three stations that I surf through, but most of my time is spent on my favorite, 104.5 The Zone. Their on-air personalities are the best — well informed, covering a wide range of sporting activities and events, articulate and personable — and they have the strongest signal of any, always available wherever my adventures take me.

What’s that, you say? You think the words sports and articulate do not belong in the same paragraph? Well, keen observers, you may be right in general, but not with the specificity wherein I dwell. To be sure, there are some jocks that have pursued post-playing careers in broadcasting, who demonstrate with every parting of their lips and movement of their tongues that the selection committee for Rhodes Scholars has not erred in omitting them from those prestigious awards. Some of the language is so colorful that I note it for relaying on to you, both of my readers. Here for your reading pleasure is a small sampling of what I have heard recently. Enjoy…

• A team or player that is not intimidatable…

• A team or player that out-athleticed another…

• A player has great quickness of speed…

• Both players can talk trash like Charles Barkley, but so-and-so can out-Barkley the other…

• The ubiquitous ath-uh-lete … used by many, perfected by Coach Doug Matthews on 104.5 The Zone…

• This one is used repeatedly (substitute football, baseball, or any other sport for basketball): A player has good Basketball IQ…

• Every player and coach and analyst declares that the way their team can win the game is to execute…

• … the dramaticness of the crash … (4/5/08 — Doug Matthews, talking about a NASCAR crash. I am not putting him down. Doug has forgotten more football than most people ever know. I love the guy, but he does use some language at times that makes me think and go … hmmm …)

• And from the master analogist of the sports world, one of the most articulate, intelligent, and highly respected sportscasters anywhere, Mark Howard of 104.5 The Zone, right here in Nashville, comes this nugget from a recent discussion of how the Nashville Predators had overcome so many non-game and off-season obstacles to make the NHL playoffs: People don’t want to hear about the labor pains, they just want to see the baby.

In all sincerity, I believe 104.5 The Zone and The Director, George Plaster, are to be commended for assembling a stellar cast of personalities that inform and entertain Nashville area sports fans every day. In addition to George and the aforementioned Mark and Doug, the list of inmates and regular guests includes Frank Wycheck (yes, that Frank Wycheck, former Titan of Music City Miracle fame), Kevin Ingram (impersonator par excellence), Willie Daunic, John McClain (of the Houston Chronicle), Darren McFarland, Coach Eddie Fogler (during basketball season), and others. Collectively, they are the best. And as George Plaster says, you can Book It!

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Some time ago I discovered a weird word that I have been looking for an opportunity to write about. This little Cuss-O-Meter test gave me the perfect opportunity, so here goes…

Coprolalia is involuntary swearing or the involuntary utterance of obscene words or socially inappropriate and derogatory remarks. This uncontrolled, often obsessive use of obscene or scatological language, may accompany certain mental disorders, such as Tourette’s syndrome.

There’s another unusual word — scatological — which has to do with an obsession with excrement or excretory functions.

While coprolalia and scatology deal with serious mental and medical afflctions that should not be taken lightly, they also have a humorous underbelly, appearing on the surface to be just extreme examples of behavior that is part of our culture. Cursing is all around us — on the streets, in the workplace and schools, on TV and other media. There are probably studies backed by statistics and demographics and trends, but I am too damn lazy to go dig them out. Rather, I will share my opinions and feelings based on years of practice, experience, and observation.

Northerners cuss more than Southerners. Urban people use more profanity than rural folks. Males curse more than females. Golfers yell shit more often than do tennis players. The probability of a sideline coach disgustedly screaming fuck goes sky-high if a TV camera is locked onto them at close range. There is no discernable difference in quantity or quality of cursing among people of various religious affiliations and those who walk a more secular path. The very young don’t know to curse, the very old have learned that it doesn’t really help, but those in-between ride high on the bell-curve of cursing. Divorce causes a permanent, irreversible uptick in the use of blue colored language, and every subsequent thought of that bitch or son-of-a-bitch spikes the volume of cursing and blood pressure a little bit more.

I do not consider it inherently wrong to curse, and I make no moral judgements about those who do or those who don’t. One person’s curse word list will include some entries that others consider perfectly acceptable. Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words might be a lowest common denominator starting point for most of the population, but even a couple on that list have become more tolerated as their ubiquity has grown. In fact, I have used two of Carlin’s words in this post, but would not use a couple of the others anywhere other than in private conversation with someone I know well.

Like it or not, so called curse words are a legitimate and useful part of our language. Whether used to express mood, demonstrate or emphasize a point, or in complete jocularity, these colorful collections of alphabetic characters have been part of our language for hundreds of years, and are not likely to disappear anytime soon. Before we get our noses out of joint and become all incensed over someone’s use of a word that offends us, we should, as Carlin suggested, consider the thought and intent behind the word. There are no bad words, only bad thoughts and bad intentions. If you get pissed-off because I say shit, it is more of a reflection of your thoughts than of my morality.

[Cuss-O-Meter created by OnePlusYou]

[A wiggle-waggle of my damn Titans cap to Ginger, who has a sweet, clean mouth at 2.7%…]

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During my daily dip into dictionary.com in search of words with which to describe my discovery of the true meaning of life, I frequently uncover never before seen (with these eyes…) jewels. Such as this one…

cen·to [sen-toh] –noun, plural -tos.
1. a piece of writing, esp. a poem, composed wholly of quotations from the works of other authors.
2. anything composed of incongruous parts; conglomeration.
3. Obsolete. a patchwork.

[Origin: 1595–1605; < Latin: centō patchwork quilt or curtain]

—Related forms
cen·ton·i·cal [sen-ton-i-kuhl] -adjective
cen·to·nism [sen-tn-iz-uhm]
cen·to·ni·za·tion [sen-tn-uh-zey-shuhn] -noun

Hmmmm … anything composed of incongruous parts … I do believe that centonical might provide an accurate descriptor of this blog site, nobodyasked.com

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scha·den·freu·de (shahd-n-froi-duh) n. Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.On first seeing this word years ago, I grabbed the dictionary immediately. Damn. Just damn. Until that epiphanic moment, I had no idea there was an actual word to describe bosses and ex-wives. It remains a very interesting word, one that is not to be sprinkled into daily conversation, but used sparingly when speaking of the devils among us — Bush and Cheney and McCain and their ilk. And of course, bosses and ex-wives.On a more serious note, this commentary is from the Online Etymology Dictionary, Douglas Harper, Historian:

What a fearful thing is it that any language should have a word expressive of the pleasure which men feel at the calamities of others; for the existence of the word bears testimony to the existence of the thing. And yet in more than one such a word is found.

These words speak volumes about the human condition and about the outer fringe boundaries of our attitude, behavior, and treatment of each other. I also found it somewhat troubling that none of the online reverse dictionaries or thesauri yielded even one hint of a word for the opposite of schadenfreude, which would mean unbridled joy for the fortunes of others. Sure, we can describe the flip-side with a phrase, but apparently not a single word. Since schadenfreude is from High German, perhaps there is an antonym in German. Dr. Stu?

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Nope, that’s not snoring in Czech. Nor the name of a new miracle drug guaranteed to line your digestive tract with a durable and pliable coating in your choice of designer colors. This strange word showed up in my Page-A-Day Trivia Calendar a couple of days back.

A zyzzyx is a small wasp that gets its name from the sound it makes while flying. From my in-depth research, I also discovered that this little bugger must be indigenous to Chile. Most of the information I found was written in a Chilean dialect of Spanish, so I learned to make use of the Google translator. It did a good enough job that I could kinda, sorta decipher what it was trying to tell me.

Wikipedia has this to say:

Zyzzyx is a monospecific genus of sand wasp, containing a brightly-colored, medium-sized species, Z. chilensis, named after the sound they make while flying. They were first studied in detail by H. Janvier (a.k.a. Claude-Joseph) in 1928, more than 100 years after they were first described.

They are primarily predators on flies, but have been observed to consume skippers.

So, next time you are in Chile and a smallish wasp buzzes you looking for flies while making a sound like zizz-zix, you can confidently point to it and say, “Wasp.”

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If you know where Lemniscus is, raise your hand. Wrong. None of us has been there either … yet. And acutually, lemniscus is not a place, but the root origin of lemniscate, the name of the symbol for infinity. Yeah, you know the one … it looks like the number eight (8) fallen over on its side, thusly: . Lemniscus is the Latin root meaning ribbon.

Did you learn something new today? You are welcome. So did I…

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transmogrification
noun, the act of changing into a different form or appearance (especially a fantastic or grotesque one)

Try slipping that one into a casual conversation with friends and watch them scatter…

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vexillology

 

vex·il·lol·o·gy (věk’se-lŏl’e-jē)
n. The study of flags.
vex·il’lo·log’i·cal adj., vex’il·lol’o·gist n.

Vexillogolists perform scholarly studies and investigations of flags, producing papers with titles such as A Review of the Changing Proportions of Rectangular Flags Since Midieval Times and Some Suggestions for the Future. (Can’t you just imagine how exciting a read that would be!) The word did not appear until the late 1950s when it was coined by these focused practioners. The word is derived from vexillium, the Latin term for a square flag or banner in the ancient Roman cavalry.

NOTE: Not related to the word vex, meaning to annoy, harass, or piss-off, which has roots in the Latin vexare.

[Credits to Merriam Webster’s 365 New Word Calendar

from pageaday.com, June 14, 2007.]

 

 

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syllepsis n.

1. the use of a word in the same grammatical relation to two adjacent words in the context with one literal and the other metaphorical

2. the use of a word or expression to perform two syntactic functions, esp. to modify two or more words of which at least one does not agree in number, case, or gender

Huh? Say what?

Some of the best examples of the use of syllepses can be drawn from one of the most prolific users, Charles Dickens. Two of his usages to demonstrate:

She went home in a flood of tears and a sedan chair.

All the girls were in tears and white muslin.

The next time you are in a boring meeting and a blue funk, try constructing a syllepsis or three of your own. It’s easy. I just did one. Did you catch it?

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ei·det·ic (ī-dět’ĭk) - adj.
Of, relating to, or marked by extraordinarily detailed and vivid recall of visual images.

I am reminded of the old joke that he/she has a photographic memory, but does not have film in the camera. Funny how women tend to remember so many details of things. Many I’ve known can tell you in minute detail what they wore for their sixteenth birthday party 30 or 40 years ago, or when their spouse proposed to them, or what their spouse wore to dinner on the second night of their honeymoon. As for me, I can’t remember what color shirt I have on without looking. What was she wearing on our wedding day? Hold on, there must be some pictures around here somewhere…

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…Or possibly a bigtime copout…

an·ti·no·mi·an Pronunciation[an-ti-noh-mee-uhn]
–noun

1. A person who maintains that Christians are freed from the moral law by virtue of grace as set forth in the gospel.

2. An adherent of antinomianism.

-adj.

1. Of or relating to the doctrine of antinomianism.
2. Opposed to or denying the fixed meaning or universal applicability of moral law.

[Origin: 1635–45; < ML Antinom(ī) name of sect (pl. of Antinomus opponent of (the moral) law < Gk antí anti- + nómos law) + -ian]

 

 Have you ever know anyone like that? Someone who felt free from moral law. Someone who used their god as a shield. Someone who feels knows that they are so blessed by the grace of god that they can do whatever the hell they please. After all, there is no firm meaning of moral law, only what they want it to be at any given moment. One of my peers many years ago got born again. He sat in my office and told me face to face that he no longer had to be concerned about making mistakes because he could not make mistakes. He had put everything into the hands of the lord who guided his every move, every decision. He assumed no responsibility for his own life. He tried, unsuccessfully, to recruit me and save my soul. I invited him to go talk it through over a pitcher of beer. Incensed, he stalked out of my office, muttering to himself that he had met the devil face to face, or something.

 

That is a very dangerous person. Especially if such afflicted person was also in a very important and powerful job, like head dude of a country or something. Of course, that would never happen…

I do not know if that is proper application and usage of the word antinomian, but it seems to fit.

Thanks to Delights for the Ingenious for leaving this word, new to me, lying out in plain view where I could find it.

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Those who have read these mutterings for more than a short time know that I have a somewhat lustful fascination with the language, especially the words that we shove together in random and chaotic ways to constitute our sometimes bizarre English language. If there had been a lucrative job market awaiting me, I might have chosen to forego life as an engineer to pursue an exciting career as an etymologist. That sounds somewhat similar but differs in spelling from entomologist, a dude who gets off studying bugs. As a kid, I did that too, having one of the largest insect collections known to exist on my block.

My fascination with words spills ink on these pages in several ways, not the least of which is the category of Weird Words, which can be found somewhere down there in the sidebar. When I encounter a word that is new or only vaguely familiar, out comes my original model palm device, the trusty 3×5 card and Pentel mechanical pencil. There the words reside, etched in graphite on bleached papyrus, until I find time to check them out. There is one blog that has a sidebar that gets me all excited and sweaty (not what you’re thinking…). Jeremy Freese has a list that he calls enunciation candy — some of his favorite words to hear or say. I would be envious of Jeremy, but he is a Harvard professor, fer gawd’s sake. As such, in keeping with the natural order of things, it is more appropriate that I, a mere mortal, cower in awe and admiration than to covet or emulate. I would wager yesterday’s PBJ from my leftover lunch bag that Jeremy even knows how and when to use every one of those words. But I digress… Go read Jeremy’s weblog - he is a hoot…

So yester morning I’m sitting here in BlogCentral, sipping the java, prying the eyelids from their nocturnal down and closed position, minding my own business and reading the morning updates to your several thousand blogs. Without warning, the Weird Word klaxon sounded, my eyelids popped open, the slouch let go of my back, I leaned into the monitor and stared at the word in front of me — one that had never passed this way before.

entelechy

Aha! A quick check found that Jeremy didn’t have this one on his list. Grab another cup o joe and get to work. Dictionary.com sez:

en·tel·e·chy /ɛnˈtɛləki/ - [en-tel-uh-kee] –noun, plural -chies.

1.	a realization or actuality as opposed to a potentiality.

2.	(in vitalist philosophy) a vital agent or force directing growth and life.

 

 

---

[Origin: 1595–1605; < LL entelechīa < Gk entelécheia, equiv. to en- en-² + tél(os) goal + éch(ein) to have + -eia -y³]

—Related forms

en·te·lech·i·al /ˌɛntəˈlɛkiəl/ [en-tuh-lek-ee-uhl] - adjective

 

Also shown there is the American Heritage Dictionary definition:

 

en·tel·e·chy (ěn-těl’ĭ-kē) n. pl. en·tel·e·chies

1. In the philosophy of Aristotle, the condition of a thing whose essence is fully realized; actuality.
2. In some philosophical systems, a vital force that directs an organism toward self-fulfillment.

Damn! This is good stuff! Aristotle, yet. Wonder if Jackie knew about this. Jeremy, go sit in Harvard Square and contemplate self-actualization and the Aristotelian order of things. May the force be with you in all that you do…

 

For anyone still awake and wondering what dark alley I explored to find this word, it was at a blog of Alaskan origin, named of course, entelechy. One of the tag lines under the blog title is :: an expression of unity ::, which is certainly something we could use more of these days. Go check it out. And don’t forget to pay a visit to Jeremy. Tell him Winston said Hey…

 

 

[Hat tip to amba for the link to Maria at entelechy.]

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