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Posted By: wwh New word - 03/09/02 12:52 AM
Keiva found a new word, "obrotund". In searching for it, I found a site about cans, and it used the word to describe the shape of a can. in looking further, I found a botanical term:
OBCORDATE: Inversely heart-shaped. The wider end and its deep notch at the top instead of the bottom. See Cordate to distinguish.

OBROTUND: Approaching a round form.

Posted By: wwh Re: New word - 03/09/02 08:08 PM
In latest TakeOurWord there was mentioned "metheglin" a honey based alcoholic beverage, famous in Wales.

Posted By: plutarch Obrotund/obcordate - 03/09/02 11:48 PM
What does an "obrotund" can look like, wwh? I assume the "ob" in "obcordate" is the same root as the "ob" in "obverse" but different from the root "obro" in "obrotund".

Posted By: wwh Re: bantling - 03/10/02 04:06 PM
In another thread, Stales posted a story about a prim female passing flatus noisily. This reminded me of a story Mark Twain wrote, after a newspaper editor had bemoaned the fact that none of his contemporaries could write like the Elizabethans. Mark Twain wrote "1601" in Elizabethan style, anonymously. Later he claimed it, and the author of the article expressed it this way:

"But Twain first claimed his bantling from the fog of anonymity in 1906,
in a letter addressed to Mr. Charles Orr, librarian of Case Library,
Cleveland. Said Clemens , in the course of his letter, dated July 30,
1906, from Dublin, New Hampshire:"

bant[ling 7bant4li%8
n.
5< Ger b9nkling, bastard < bank, a bench: cf. BASTARD6 [Archaic] a young child; brat: a term of contempt


Posted By: wwh Re: New word - 03/10/02 06:23 PM
In another thread about baby-sitters I was reminded of Brit term for live-in baby sitter = au pair.

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