Language & Grammar discussion

This one's easy. Pick a weird word. Mix the correct definition among three you make up. Trust other posters will guess without looking it up first (or else the great Schoolmarm in the Sky will rap their wrists).

I'll start:

UNGUENT

A.) a substance capable of reducing friction, heat, and wear when introduced as a film between solid surfaces.

B.) any of a very large superfamily of mostly minute hymenopterous insects parasitic in the larval state on the larvae or pupae of other insects.

C.) a soothing or healing salve.

D.) the film left in the wake of a snail.

C ....and I didn't cheat....I am the schoolmarm!!!

Try this one:
verbiage
a. a type of knot garden
b. the excessive and meaningless use of words
c. ancient and mostly defunct verbs
d. a woven arrangement of twigs

b

chiaroscuro

1. The new rose wine that everyone's talking about
2. A fine Cuban cigar
3. A small penthouse on a hotel, European usage
4. The use of light and dark to show form

c to yours, Donna

R

Ruth -- Without looking, I'd guess 4 (though exotic words like that are tricky).

As for anomie, I thought it came from Shakespeare. You know, Mercutio's "Queen Mab" speech from Romeo & Juliet. Then I realized I was confusing anomie for atomie, as seen here:

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

I knew something was amiss when Queen Mab's coach was drawn by a little team of despair.

Heehee on the anomic coach, NE.

And your guess of number 4 is right. It's not an exotic word in art. Comes from the Italian chiaro, which means light. Same root as our word clear. And the Italian oscuro, which means dark, same root as our word obscure.

Now isn't that fun?

Anomie had me stumped but I knew chiaroscuro because my mother uses it (she's a botanical artist - watercolours - and author).
Donna....you are so clever!!!!
Now I have to go away and think of another word to use...I might ask mum.

I am guessing 'd' because of electroplating??!!! Not plectrum or podium....and where the #@%&*# is Bishtal???

"Silver and Gold"! Channeling Burl Ives in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer!




ranula

a. immature turnip greens used in spring salad
b. a cyst formed under the tongue by a blocked gland duct
c. either of two low prostrate subshrubs of the honeysuckle family with opposite leaves and fragrant usu. pink flowers in pairs
d. Dracula's second-born son after he accidentally broke his father's blood bank

I think 'b' NE, because it is so gross!!!

If you in-cyst, "b" is correct! Runula is a blocked duct forming a cyst under the tongue.

Hahahaha!! You are on form NE!

Apothegm

a. infected phlegm around the voice box
b. a collection of remedies used by apothecaries
c. a type of fern, native to New Zealand
d. a short, witty and instructive saying

i'm guessing d as well?

Why does everyone keep posting my math grade?

D is de 1.

R

You is all d-lightful (and correct)!

I am currently d-lerious! This is fun!

saprophyte

a. a collector of sap from the Frangipani tree.
b. a plant living on dead or decaying organic matter.
c. a person who fights for the right to gather sap
d. a boring and irritating person.

It's probably 'b'....but it is tempting to think that it might be 'd' (as in the derivation for 'sap' as applied to a person).

2 for B-- yes indeed!

bada-bee!

this may be too easy

ectomorph

a. a floridian slug that sheds it's shell
b. a medical skeleton
c. a long limbed person lacking excess fat
d. a south american insect with skeletal markings

Hmmmn... let me C.

C....because it is what I have always aspired to be!!

That makes two of us, Deb. C.

scaphoid

a. complications of typhoid
b. connective tissue that forms a scar
c. a variety of scallion
d. to be shaped like a boat

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb?

Sorry, Ruth, but no.

oh i so want it to be
d. shaped like a boat

By gum, I think she's got it.

R

Yay! We have a winner :) Moe- consider your wish granted.

now ne
say something about a dingy or a sloop
a boston whaler?
i think not!
all that pie eating not withstanding

scaphoid this
scaphoid that

where oh where is that little scaphoid dog

i like this word!

As he strode through the room she couldn't help but notice he was looking a little scaphoid today.

hahaha-everyone is now a boat

sit your scaphoid butt down in that scaphoid chair

hah-this could be endless fun! :)

I'll take a ticket for whatever boat she's on...

a slooow boat to china
do they make those anymore
reminds me of the story...

Did you know that scaphoid is also a bone in the wrist? I wondered what you were all rabbitting on about, because of scaphoid fractures, so I looked it up to see if I was wrong (god forfend!) and I wasn't, and neither were you....2 meanings!

I've got to hand it to you, Deb, that's quick researching. And I love the old cliché, "It's all in the wrist" as well.

Maureen -- No boats to China this year. Tibet or not Tibet, that is the question...

oooohhh
can we possibly contain them all
i love by the way deb the god forfend
forfend is even better than scaphoid
do we have room on the boat?
ah well perhaps we can jettison one of the scaphoid meanings so as to make room

I don't think Maureen's on a boat, NE, but she's definitely on something.

Is there any left for the rest of us?

haha ruth
no chemical additives
just naturally nuts i am
i'm riding the i just got a job high today
i think
i was beginning to feel unemployable after several months of off and on job searching (over 70 resumes sent out to the ethers before i pulled down this latest interview and convinced them that they couldn't live without me processing their paperwork)

yah know-i'm one of those really organized administrative types in my profession (office manager) can you beleive people have been paying me for 15 plus years to run their small businesses! hahaha
and to see me at work you'd never know my brain is on the flying trapeze

Aha! Now you will have to conform....capital letters and full-stops!!!! And your inner trapeze artist will go nuts!!!

Dear Ms. Deborah,

If I begin to conform with the prevailing paradigm of punctuation, syntax, structure and style, I would be compelled to strategically implement said conforming to multiple platforms.
This would create a counter flow of intervening forces to occur that could possible occlude any further compliance in others thought processes to the exact nature of my dialectical purposes on not just this thread and forum, but across threads and forums on the goodreads site.
This could cause a negative inference as to my original intent and purposes of posting in a post modern sense, amusing and seemingly confusing missives set in an atypical style.
The resulting cognitive dissonance in the audience and particpants of the above mentioned threads and forums might lead to a total denigration of the existing construct in such a way as to cause a total systems failure and/or at the lower spectrum, the casting out of said poser.
I am assured that you would never propose that I risk such a measure because it would obviously impede the common good of said goodreads.
I do however, respectfully consider and yet still discount your suggestion. Please feel free to propose this stylistic revolution at a future date when the existing conditions have evolved and when the critical mass has been reached.

Yours in all due digital respect,

Ms. Maureen No Name, PA. DED, ETC.
cc/et al

I think I need to lie down.

R

Conform at WORK....not here....Ruth is already having conniptions at the thought!! So am I....please revert to type - we love you the way you are!!

Just be careful about the furniture...

Should that be..."of the furniture"?

...on the furniture, for all I care (as long as it doesn't break)!

lammergeier

a.) the wick of a vessel for burning oil
b.) a German pastry consisting of nuts, dates, and unsulphured apricots; often served at Lammastide.
c.) the largest European bird of prey resembling both eagles and vultures (range: Pyrenees to northern China)
d.) a viscous film (at 11) which forms on the eye's sclera when the eye becomes infected by conjunctival bacteria

Give us a clue?? Are they good to throw, for instance? Is it D?

A clue? Professor Plum did it in the conservatory with a wrench.

I think you are right Donna....and you could throw it in theory, although it would probably not taste as good as B.