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stranger
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I had a calendar that had a word a day. One of the words was for the act of looking in people's windows. What is that word? For the life of me, I cannot remember. There is also a word for the act of looking at one's navel in contemplation. Please help! Thank you.
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addict
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addict
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a word for the act of looking at one's navel in contemplationomphalaskepsis is the word you are looking for. It comes from Greek omphalos (navel), and skepsis (examination). Apparently, the practice of omphalaskepsis is supposed to help meditation and give you a deeper understanding of life, divinity and what-not. The first time I heard this was in a yoga-like meditation class, but it still seems an odd thing to me, since in Spain someone who sits around all day "looking at his/her bellybutton" is a world-class lazybones... 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear vicrine: perhaps "scoptomania" might fit. And of course the phrase "Peeping Tom" is related.Also "keyhole peeping."
P.S. Couldn't find "scoptomania", though I did find "scoptophobia". Grandiloquent Dictionary gives "scotolagnia" meaning the pleasure derived from compulsive peeping.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Welcome "aBoard", vicrine. Now this is an interesting question (the window bit, I mean - personally speaking, I've been unable to gaze at my own navel for quite some time ) Whilst I'm certain there wwill be some sesquipedalian word or phrase, round these parts, we call it "nosey-parkering!". Incidentally, there is a well developed etiquette, among people who live in terraced houses that have no front garden, to do with if, when and how one may gaze in through your neighbours front windows!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Incidentally, there is a well developed etiquette, among people who live in terraced houses that have no front garden, to do with if, when and how one may gaze in through your neighbours front windows!Details, please? 
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Pooh-Bah
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There are regional variations, of course, but, broadly speaking, it is condsidered the height of bad manners to peer into anyone's front window as you walk past. (You have to realise that the window looking onto the street is the "front parlour", the posh bit of the house where one does one's entertaining. Day to day living is done in the kitchen, and friends and neighbours, in many communities, don't knock on your front door - they come round to the kitchen door.) Exceptions are members of the family (including those who don't live in that house, like married daughters and sons, their spouses and off-spring, gandma, grandad, aunties and uncles etc etc ad nauseum.) Very close friends may be allowed to do so, if they were about to call but suspect that you have "company", in which case they may peek to check whether this is the case. They may then make a decision on whther it polite or not to knock at your front door. For instance, if it is an old mutual friend, it just might be permissable to call in to add to the party, although in many communities you would, even as a close friend, wait to be invited. When you move into such a community as an outsider (an off-comer") you find out about such niceties pretty fast, if you wish to be accepted at the end of twenty-five years! As I say, this is a broad generalisation, (and I do not doubt that a number of people reading this will say -"'e don't know what 'e's bletherin' abaht.") Also, this is a style of life which is tending to disappear, although slowly, because England has a large stock of such terraces, most of which are still in very good repair, and make very good, cheap first-time-buyers homes. However the community spirit that went with this type of accomodation no longer exists, except in small pockets - the working and living conditions that engendered it have gone, thank goodness, although one mourns the loss of the emotional and practical support that it brought.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Guess a lot of the manners Olde England were brought to New England. Peeking into windows is greatly frowned upon ... whether you are just walking by or about to knock on the door and want to check for some reason ... the one exception is at Christmas time when people place their trees in window and leave the curtains drawn for all and sundry to enjoy.
Those who have homes fronting directly on the street usually keep front curtains/blinds drawn. And the friends-use-back-door tradition holds here.
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Carpal Tunnel
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The people who do not want you to be able to see in should, as wow says, use curtains . Or maybe tinted or one-way silvered panes. I was amused when my sister-in-law got upset that I had no curtains in my bedroom. The nearest neighbor was almost a mile away. I needed more light than curtains would permit. I want to be able to see out well enough that I would invest in the one-way panes. I am glad that I need not submit to the tyranny of mean spirited neighbors.
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Carpal Tunnel
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the height of bad mannersInteresting then, RhubarbCommando, that Alfred Hitchcock, an Englishman, should come up with the concept for his great film Rear Window (James Stewart/Grace Kelly), the all-time classic Peeping-Tom flick if there ever was one! And welcome to the board, vicrine! Thanks for the interesting thread!
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