A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1215

A.Word.A.Day

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AWADmail Issue 1215

A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day and Other Tidbits about Words and Language Sponsor’s Message: ONEUPMANSHIP 3.0 is more wicked smart money board game fun for the whole family. “The components are better. The mechanics are better. The game is just monumentally better in every way.” -- KamSandwich. A fabulous gift. Shop now.

From: Claudine Cellier (claudinewiley hotmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--gardyloo

In Mexico there is a similar expression: “Aguas!” literally, “waters”, but it means “watch out” and the origin is the same.

Claudine Cellier

From: George W Brock (gbrock illinois.edu)
Subject: gardyloo

I can remember when I was living in Chicago during the mid sixties. I was awakened in the middle of the night by two people directly below my bedroom window yelling at each other like two alley cats. It went on long enough for me to fill my dish pan and dump it out the window from three stories above them. I didn’t even think about the likelihood that they might do me bodily harm but it was summer time and it was actually refreshing to them and they thanked me even in the absence of a gardyloo, a word I didn’t know existed until today.

George W Brock, Champaign, Illinois

From: Susan Saunders (susansaunders2008 btinternet.com)
Subject: Gardyloo

The MV Gardyloo had predecessors: the English Bovril Boats, properly known as sludge vessels, which between 1887 and 1998 disposed of London’s solid waste at sea. They filled up at Beckton and Crossness, and dumped their loads at the appropriately named Black Deep, a deep part of the North Sea off Foulness. I remembered hearing about the Bovril Boats, but thank Wikipedia for the rest of the details. Bovril, by the way, is an excellent black condiment made from beef, used to spread on toast or as a flavouring for meat dishes.

Susan Saunders, Teddington, UK

From: Lennis Echterling (echterlg jmu.edu)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--gardyloo

We need our own version of the Nastiness Act to regulate the spewing of political lies!

Lennis Echterling, Harrisonburg, Virginia

From: Bruche Weinberger (bruchemonsey gmail.com)
Subject: Hallelujah

The word of the day being Hallelujah on Tue -- the same day Orthodox Jews were reciting Hallelujah in honor of the holiday of Sukkot -- is amazing.

Bruche Weinberger, Monsey, New York

From: Steve Benko (stevebenko1 gmail.com)
Subject: Hallelujah

Your image of a chipmunk praising God was an insult to the intelligence of rodents everywhere. Each morning I put a handful of peanuts out on my deck for a little chipmunk friend who is waiting there patiently for them. He stuffs as many as he can into his little cheeks and runs off with them, happy but under no silly illusion that I’m a deity.

Steve Benko, New York, New York

From: Laura Burns (laurab12 sbcglobal.net)
Subject: Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen’s estate denied use of his song “Hallelujah” at the 2020 Republican convention, but they used it anyway: CBS News.

Laura Burns, Galveston, Texas

From: Laura Knight (laura.knight telkomsa.net)
Subject: Dekko

Wonderful to see the word dekko today. We used to always say it when we were kids in England, perhaps because Mum and Dad were both in the Navy during the war, and Dad in India. I haven’t heard it for years and definitely not since I’ve been living in South Africa. Wonder if any of today’s youngsters (or even those not so young) would have any idea what it means?

Laura Knight, Cape Town, South Africa

From: Irit Shimrat (radicalirit gmail.com)
Subject: dekko

This reminds me pleasingly of my father using the Arabic-derived shufti, a synonym for today’s word. He picked it up as a WW2 soldier coming from Palestine. (He spoke no other Arabic, “just” Hebrew, Polish, Yiddish, and English, all fluently.)

Irit Shimrat, Vancouver, Canada

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From: Judith Judson (jjudson frontier.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--noli me tangere

The elder Sir Thomas Wyatt wrote the first great English sonnet about his hopeless love for Anne Boleyn. “Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind”. It concludes:

And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Of course, that fair neck was soon on the block, and Wyatt’s son, also Thomas, lost his head defying Queen Mary in the name of Anne’s daughter Elizabeth.

Judith Judson, Pittsford, New York

From: Henry M. Willis (hmw ssdslaw.com)
Subject: Noli Me Tangere

Noli Me Tángere is also the title of a famous novel by José Rizal, the Filipino writer and nationalist of the nineteenth century who was executed by the Spanish authorities for his connection to the fight for Philippine independence. It is hard to describe Rizal in a sentence, since he was accomplished in so many fields: he was not only a novelist, journalist and poet, but also a skilled painter and sculptor, a linguist who lectured (in German!) on the orthography and structure of the Tagalog language, and an ophthalmologist, a profession he took up because his mother was going blind.

That last detail also reveals something about the title Noli Me Tángere, which not only alludes to the oppressiveness of the Spanish colonial regime and the sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy, but was also a term at the time for cancers of the eyelid. Rizal made this connection explicit in his dedication addressed to the Filipino people, in which he referred to “a cancer of so malignant a character that the least touch irritates it and awakens in it the sharpest pains.”

Henry Willis, Los Angeles, California

From: Helen Le Vann (levann peak.org)
Subject: Noli me tangere

I prefer the more direct motto of Scotland: “Nemo me impune lacessit.” Touch me who dares!

Helen Le Vann, Toledo, Oregon

From: Alex McCrae (ajmccrae277 gmail.com)
Subject: hallelujah and gardyloo

When I discovered that “hallelujah” was one of this week’s words, Canadian Leonard Cohen’s haunting ballad, “Hallelujah”, came to mind, and then fond memories of Canuck k.d. Lang’s stellar version performed at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, BC. Of all the artists who’d covered his “Hallelujah”, Cohen revealed that k.d. Lang’s rendition, by far, touched him the most. Curiously, Cohen and Lang never performed it as a duo.

Harkening back to my key-background design days at Warner Bros. TV Animation, I couldn’t resist revisiting two of my fave characters, Wile E. Coyote and his archrival, the Road Runner (Beep! Beep!). Wile E.’s lot in life was trying to outwit and hopefully annihilate the Road Runner, by almost any means necessary, usually resorting to devices manufactured by Acme Corporation.

Alex McCrae, Van Nuys, California

Anagrams


	This week’s theme: Words with a bossy past Gardyloo Hallelujah Dekko Noli me tangere Lampoon	=	Howl “Look out!” Praises to Yahweh A “look-see” Plant: “Don’t handle me!” Satire, shrewd gags by J. Kimmel
			-Dharam Khalsa, Burlington, North Carolina (dharamkk2 gmail.com)
=	Sh... look out, beware, mind ”Glory to God’s will “ Hm...peek a lot Keep away, a landmine Those harsh jests	=	Beware the water nigh Joyous glory, happiness Take a look ”Don’t hold me, male!” damsel howls Skit
	-Shyamal Mukherji, Mumbai, India (mukherjis hotmail.com)		-Julian Lofts, Auckland, New Zealand (jalofts xtra.co.nz)

Make your own anagrams and animations.

Limericks

gardyloo

I offer this wise gardyloo
Exclusively only to you.
Don’t sit under that tree!
As you clearly must see,
That pigeon’s just waiting to poo.
-Rudy Landesman, New York, New York (ydur36 hotmail.com)

On hearing a loud gardyloo,
A Scotsman will know what to do.
He’ll get out of the way
Without a delay --
Exactly what I would do, too!
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

Be careful whom you elevate!
Four years is a long time to wait
To dispense with a clod
Whom you thought was a god
Gardyloo is the watchword of late!
-Bindy Bitterman, Chicago, Illinois (bindy eurekaevanston.com)

Watch out if you hear, “Gardyloo!”
From above there might be falling poo.
Anointed with pee,
You don’t want to be.
Stand clear. Be a real smarty, too.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

Said Bud Abbott, “It’s your party, Lou,
But here is a big gardyloo.
Something’s bound to go wrong
And I won’t play along
With hot peppers in Art Carney’s stew!”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

hallelujah

You say that you simply are dying
To go out with me, and you are sighing.
I can tell (hallelujah!)
By looking right through ya,
That you, for some reason, are lying.
-Rudy Landesman, New York, New York (ydur36 hotmail.com)

If there is a thing you must praise,
Then a glass for a toast you must raise.
And without any doubt,
“Hallelujah!” You shout.
Be joyous for all of your days.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

You don’t follow the rules, Donald, do ya?
So some governors now plan to sue ya.
I wish them success
And I must confess
If they win, I will shout “Hallelujah!”
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

“I won for my rose! Hallelujah!
It beat every mum and petunia!”
Said the flower show victor,
So thrilled that they’d picked her.
“You rigged it!” screamed Donald. “I’ll sue ya!”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

dekko

Not all the commercials we see
Are witless, you’ll have to agree.
Have you taken a dekko
At that clever green gecko,
Geico’s spokeslizard star on TV?
-Rudy Landesman, New York, New York (ydur36 hotmail.com)

Have a dekko at Trump’s new decor --
Now the White House has gold things galore!
One cannot deny
It looks like Versailles,
But I thought it was better before.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

“Let’s go look at that new guy tonight!”
“Nah, I’m too tired, plus I look a sight!”
“Oh, c’mon, just a dekko ...”
“Not when I’m a wreck-oh,
Stop bugging me.” “Please!” “Well, all right!”
-Bindy Bitterman, Chicago, Illinois (bindy eurekaevanston.com)

There once was a curious gecko,
Who heard a resounding, loud echo.
He said, I’ll be brave,
And check out that cave.
At least, I will give it a dekko.”
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“A scene I won’t paint,” said El Greco,
“Is Narcissus’s brush-off of Echo.
For she wasted away,
And I’m sad to this day
That he’d give her not one little dekko.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

noli me tangere

If noli me tangere’s said,
Forget about sharing a bed!
Since touching’s taboo
Then what can you do?
I’d find a new partner instead.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

There’s no room to be noli me tangere
At the annual Mardi Gras jamboree.
If resistant to touch
You won’t like it there much,
For the crowds rub together so clammily.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

lampoon

I’ve often lampooned and I’ve dissed
Donald Trump, and I will not desist.
But I’m now asking you:
What else must I do
To get on his enemies list?
-Rudy Landesman, New York, New York (ydur36 hotmail.com)

The Trump-as-a-baby balloon,
A limerick, or a cartoon:
These methods we choose
To transmit our views --
Our president we will lampoon!
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

It’s clear that King Trump’s a buffoon,
So his critics will oft him lampoon.
He constantly cries
To Nobel Peace Prize guys.
No wonder I think he’s a loon.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“Though my chrysalis phase you lampoon,
Just wait till I leave this cocoon,”
Said the Monarch. “When swarms
Of us exit our dorms,
With great beauty your trees we’ll festoon.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

Puns

“Those who smoke a ci-gardyloo-d themselves if they think it’s healthier than a cigarette,” said the ear, nose, and throat doctor.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“Has Ms. Berry gone to the restroom?” asked the movie director on location in Stockholm. “Hallelujah,” answered the star’s local assistant.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

The astronomer cried out, “Hallelujah!” When he first saw the comet through his telescope.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

For whale hunting at night, Captain Ahab devised a lantern attached to a spear. He called it a lampoon.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

Though wanted by the police and on the lampoon-ever passed a beehive without stealing more honey.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“That dekko cards is marked,” said Clint Eastwood before shooting the cheater.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

The Art Dekko movement produced beautiful engagement rings chosen by the likes of John Kennedy.
-Janice Power, Cleveland, Ohio (powerjanice782 gmail.com)

“Doctor say less pastry, more vitamin C,” said Oog. “So me no eat can-noli me tangere-ne guy now.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The mosque is too far from home, so let’s do this / Let’s make a weeping child laugh. -Nida Fazli, poet (12 Oct 1938-2016)

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