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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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When reading it is a pleasure to encounter the lesser used definitions of common words. A couple of my favorites are... [definitions courtesy of Meriam-Webster]
(1) Traffic The commercial exchange of goods; trade. Illegal or improper commercial activity: drug traffic on city streets. Mr. Jones was sent to jail for trafficking in narcotics.
(2) Fell transitive verb: to cut, knock, or bring down: KILL The lumberjack felled the tree with a few strokes of his axe.
[The adjective form, meaning "all at once also or with a single concentrated effort," as in in one fell swoop is another interesting use of "fell." Yet another use of "fell" is to mean "FIERCE, CRUEL, TERRIBLE b : SINISTER, MALEVOLENT (a fell purpose) c : very destructive : DEADLY (a fell disease)." This use of "fell" has a different etymology from the first definition, and is related to the word "felon."]
(3) Terrible: exciting extreme alarm or intense fear; TERRIFYING: formidable in nature; AWESOME a terrible responsibility.
I wonder if anyone else has words of this ilk that they enjoy coming across?
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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
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Habit a particular costume or dress.. obs., now, except as a nun's habit. but used in the first bit of text i posted (thank, in part to My dear Mr. Bingley) in the small feast thread.
and
truck to exchange, or barter, (and payment, or even vegetable (ie, a truck farm)) or dealings, I'll have no truck with the likes of him!
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
``Non amo te, Zabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.''
by Martial which Tom Brown translated to
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell
The reason why I cannot tell,
But this I know, I know full well,
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.
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Joined: Aug 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Pooh-Bah
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OP
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
Well the past tense of to fall would be the use I encounter more often, but I don't consider to fell to be completely obscure either. As you said, you live in and around logging, so you encounter the phoneme in a different setting there. I am more likely to hear "my grandmother fell three times this month" than "we felled a great spruce tree the other day."
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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My dictionary says "fall" as a transitive is Dialectical
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 200
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 200 |
I do not like thee,¹ Dr. Fell
The reason why I cannot tell,
But this I know, I know full well,
I do not like thee,¹ Dr. Fell.
¹[I recall that as "love thee".]
In response, dr. bill:
A doctor fell into a well
And broke his collarbone.
Moral: Doctor, mind the sick
And leave the well alone.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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How some things change. I can remember hearing in the twenties a joke about a psychiatrist writing a letter to parents of a of a young lady telling them "she needed more social intercourse". His secretary got him into hot water by typing that as "sexual intercourse". Now that last word is not used for anything else.Imagine trying to tell that joke now.
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Pooh-Bah
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OP
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
In reply to:
How some things change. I can remember hearing in the twenties a joke about a psychiatrist writing a letter to parents of a of a young lady telling them "she needed more social intercourse". His secretary got him into hot water by typing that as "sexual intercourse". Now that last word is not used for anything else.Imagine trying to tell that joke now.
No doubt when the girl's father read that he ejaculated "Good lord!" ejaculate: to utter suddenly and vehemently
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Joined: Nov 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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And what, may I ask, is wrong with ejaculating during social intercourse? It's jest nacheral!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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