|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
zzxjoanw - see point #4, above
epicaricacy - Novobatzky, in Depraved English, breaks it down this way: epi (upon) + chara (joy) + kakon (evil) {"..[this] book lacks authentic quotations or etymology, incredulous readers must rely on the bibliography of dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other resources from which the words were selected." - Library Journal}
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Here's from Google searching: "*NOTE: The Music-Lovers Encyclopedia by Rupert Hughes (all editions from 1914 to 1956) has this entry: zzxjoanw (shaw) Maori. 1. Drum. 2. Fife. 3. Conclusion. According to Philip Cohen in Word Ways (Nov. 1976), there are several problems with this entry, notably the fact that it's an impossible Maori word, both in spelling and pronunciation. Cohen suspects that Hughes made up the word as a joke. In his book, Earth, David Brin has a Maori character playing a zzxjoanw. Asked about this, Brin said that he'd gotten the word from Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary [Dan Tilque]. Anne Woodley, who is from New Zealand, agrees that ZZXJOANW is not a Maori word. She writes, "There are no Z, X or J in the Maori language - also the the phonetics aren't right for the Maori, or indeed any Pacific Island language, all of which come from the same family." ...That's pretty much what you all have been saying all along. And I don't think you understand what I've been saying...and this is it: Could there be the possibility that Mrs. B, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, could have been correct? Could she have been privy to information we don't have? I'm just looking at possibilities in the face of apparent impossibility. I'm definitely not saying she was categorically correct, come hell or high water. I'm a lot more interested in why someone who was looking for and cataloguing 'preposterous' words would have included this one, no matter how preposterous it appears to be on the surface. Rather than throw the baby out with the bath water, I'd like to know how this baby got into her lexicon. What was her source? And I'm not smoking anything, for the record. 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>I'm a lot more interested in why someone who was looking for and cataloguing 'preposterous' words would have included this one...
you should also consider the possibility, ridiculous as it might seem to you knowing Josefa as you do, that it was just a joke, it being the last word and being, according to some testimony here, just about as preposterous as you can get. also, in *conclusion, the third definition seems odd somehow--why do you suppose that she chose to disinclude that?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
You know, tsuwm, I could just kiss you for no other reason than you use words like disinclude.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742 |
>Could there be the possibility that Mrs. B, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, could have been correct? Could she have been privy to information we don't have?
If you want it monosyllabic - No.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>I could just kiss you...  now don't you go using your gypsy wiles on me! <scrambling and cross-threading like mad>
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Ha!!!!!! tsuwm, your 'blush' has made me laugh outright tonight!
Back to Mrs. B. We need to examine her probable purpose in proposing her lexicon. She read a lot of dictionaries--and she compiled a preposterous bunch from her bigger bunch. I don't believe she was offering a lexicon of bona fide words, but one of often preposterous words.
And, tsuwm and dxb, the faux-Maori word was such a terrific choice, as tsuwm has very perceptibly noted, as the final word. And it is, as tsuwm has also suggested, an ironic final entry in that she chose not to include the third definition 'conclusion.' Mrs. B. was a wit in her own way.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
You will note, presumably, that sjm and I, fellow New Zealanders, both agree without any conditions whatever that Mrs Byrne was full of it.
Period.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742 |
>You will note, presumably, that sjm and I, fellow New Zealanders, both agree without any conditions whatever that Mrs Byrne was full of it.
Welcome to Ragnarok.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
I think you and fellow New Zealanders are without a sense of humor in Mrs. B's case--unless, that is, being 'full of it' is not pejorative.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
Well, WiseacreWord, you're not wrong ...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
If one were predisposed to find words listed in only one word reference--without using Mrs. B at all as one of the references--it would be a hard task, to say the least. This, of course, wasn't Mrs. B's purpose. I'm just saying.
Anyhow, the only word I know off the top of my head that I've seen in only one reference was ferrophiliac, although I know I've looked up some words here on AWAD that weren't in any reference I could put my hands on. Ferrophiliac will not be found in any dictionary that I know of to date; however, it will be found in The Random House Word Finder--or a title similar to that. I don't have the book here at the moment. You can google ferrophiliac, but you won't come up with any definition that approximates the one given in Random House [not dictionary, but word finder or whatever its actual name]. The connection to Mrs. B? Well, hardly any other than in this Random House book there are no footnotes to where the editor, now deceased, found his entries either. Many entries are common words--he wasn't going after the unusual and preposterous--but he doesn't note any individual references for where he found words. Too bad. I'd really like to know where he found ferrophiliac, but he's gone, same as Mrs. B. I will add his name here later today.
Edit: The correct title is Random House Word Menu, Stephen Glaier, editor
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,070 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,070 Likes: 2 |
"Ferrophiliac"? Isn't that the guy who went around the world in eighty days, last name first?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 48
newbie
|
|
newbie
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 48 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
Is it possible that Mrs. B. (or her husband) slipped in a totally fallacious entry to catch out plagiarists, as I'm told some other reference works do?
Bingley
Bingley
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Fascinating theory, Bingley. Do you have any firsthand citations we could take a look at? The longer I live the curioser and curioser the world becomes...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
Re: Fascinating theory, Bingley. Do you have any firsthand citations we could take a look at? The longer I live the curioser and curioser the world becomes
i know map makers (cartographer's!) do that... my old address, one Beechknoll Avenue in Queens, was one that was shorter, longer, bent, through, and other wise usually wrong on most maps! (it was only 1 block long, and in reality, was a dead end, not a through street. because of hills, the streets on either side had bends (so some properites had very deep lots, they were actually steep hillsides) so sometimes it bend to match the street on the right, and sometime it was shown straight, and sometimes shown to match the street to the left (where North was top of page, and left and right relative) it was sort of fun, checking out maps to see how it was drawn!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
I first heard it said about "Wbo's Who" quite some time ago, and the article said that other reference books do the same but I forget which ones.
Bingley
Bingley
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Dag-gone it, dag-GONE it! I skip a thread for a couple days, and an ol' Windbag, I mean, Windwords 'r somebody, moves right into my territory! Well, it would serve you right if you caught his cold; I'll wait 'till he's back to health, to claim my turn! 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
The crawl can be explained without invoking pleasure at all. Once it gets started it is self perpetuating.
True, but "pleasure" doesn't necessarily explain why the lead car in the crawl slows down to look. Morbid curiosity or gawkination could explain the attraction.
As a matter of fact, cars slow down passing anything parked on the shoulder, even if there is no sign of an accident or injury.
You could make a better case for epicaricacy in the popularity of blood sports such as bear-baiting. But in that case it would not be epicaricacy, but epibearicacy.
Did the common man lose his taste for public hangings (a popular public spectacle before the turn of the last century) or did we outlaw such amusements because an increasingly educated population became embarrassed at the depravity of ordinary citizens?
We may have scotched the snake of epicaricacy, but we have not killed it. Does it still lurk in the fascination of professional boxing and extreme fighting, high-speed car racing with inevitable accidents and inevitable fatalities, predictable violence in sports like hockey?
Are we really less epicaricatic today than we were a hundred years ago when mom and dad took the family out to picnic at a public hanging? [A scary thought.]
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
"we really less epicaricatic today than we were a hundred years ago when mom and dad took the family out to picnic at a public hanging? [A scary thought.]"
Dear Wordminstrel: "epicaricraticic" won't fly. One of the early dictionaries gives spelling "epicarikaky" so your
adjective is cacky. You know where I got this.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
cars slow down passing anything parked on the shoulder
Which only makes sense from a safe driving perspective. Ya never know when some dang fool idjit's gonna pop that driver side door open on ya.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
It's a safety issue, isn't it? I mean slowing down on a motorway/freeway when there are people on the side of the road simply ensures their continued health. I was slowed down by a breakdown the other day - a boat trailer with a flat tyre. The cop and the car driver were sitting on the armco barrier chatting while waiting, presumably, for the RAC or the AA. The cop's vehicle was parked on the hard shoulder with cones out and his blue lights flashing. I have no problem with that. Killing people, even at a two-lane remove, is no part of my agenda!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
Morbid curiosity or gawkination could explain the attraction.I believe it does... and in these parts we call 'em "gapers blocks". The traffic could be moving 55mph or 25mph and people will still slow down to 10mph... It's clearly a combination of all four... safety, gawkers, the initial "wanna slow down to help" urge, and being stuck behind all of the above. ...predictable violence in sports like hockey?In this case, "predictable" only because it is allowed, unlike US "football" where it is "counted on" and other than US *football where us US's count on the fans to take up the slack . ... maybe competitive sports start as a catharcism(sp?)... and if there ain't no violence to "relieve the need" coming from the sport itself, it serves to boil to the surface and erupt the tension into action from the gawkers. 'Morbid curiosity' are just other words for 'genetic predisposition'???
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
"epicaricraticic" won't fly. One of the early dictionaries gives spelling "epicarikaky" so your
adjective is cacky.
I didn't get "epicaricatic" out of any dictionary, wwh. I got it from our own Capfka - 2nd post in this thread:
"The traffic on the M6 moved past the accident scene at an epicaricatic crawl ..."
An "epicaricatic crawl" sounds pretty good to me even if it is not recognized in any dictionary.
If we can have a 'peripatetic crawl' (aka as a "pub crawl"), why not an "epicaricatic crawl"?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
the worthless word for the day is: epicaricacy
/ep"-i-kar-ik'-i-see/?
taking pleasure in others' misfortune: schadenfreude
this word, as defined in Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of
Unusual... Words, has caused a lot of discussion
recently on a couple of forums that discuss these
sorts of things. where in the world did she find
this English word for a concept that isn't supposed
to have a word in English? this question has yet to be
answered in full, but I can quote you this from Nathan
Bailey's An Universal Etymological English Dictionary,
which is a very olde dictionary indeed (1721):
Epicharikaky - from the Greek words or roots for
"upon", "joy", and "evil": "A Joy at the Misfortunes
of others".
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
the worthless word for the day is:you mean we're not all wwftd subscribers?
formerly known as etaoin...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 87
journeyman
|
|
journeyman
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 87 |
Well, I subscribe to wwftd. And it shows up in my inbox more times a week than AWAD does. So, kudos to tsuwm and his email server (or whatever esoteric computer stuff sends the email out every day without fail). And I'm really not complaining about AWAD being unreliable - after all, I come to read here almost every weekday and can easily look for the day's word if I've missed it. Usually necessary in order to get the gist of some threads!
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -Ursula K. Le Guin, author (1929- )
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Now that's odd, vanguard. I get them both, heel-to-toe as it were, every morning, by the time I log on. Anyone else having trouble with AWAD delivery?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Nope, but I was subscribing to Oxford word for the day for a while and I'd swear there were more than seven in a week. They used to come in threes sometimes!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
info.com produced this remarkable little article: http://www.foodandwine.net/reviews/243.htmWarning: It's a review of a bar but if you scroll all the way down to the bottom you'll note that Mr Tullio drops the word epicaricacy in as though it were a commonly understood word that everybody knows. Could it be that the word is suddenly, before our very eyes, being resurrected from the dustbin of linguistic lassitude?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Ha! Mr Tullio may be translating. Anybody looked up epicaricacía or similar? I would, but I got a baseball game to go to.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
thanks Faldage; another prize for the "spotting obscure words" section!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Hey. I didn't feel like scouting out epicaricacy in the article, so I decided to google the article so I could highlight epicaricacy. Problem is, google didn't find it.
Here's how I googled it:
"Food and Wine Net" [plus] epicaricacy
Google told me, "No go."
Why? What did I do wrong? Why didn't the article come up?
I'm going to try googling it other ways, but why didn't the above take me to the article? Are the google search engines tiring out?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
try: foodandwine +epicaricacy
the only place "food and wine net" appears on the page is in a graphic, which won't show up in a search.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
just as a curiosity and fwiw, googling 'epicaricacy' turns up this thread but not that *other site.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Thanks, tsuwm, for explaining that. I should have figured it out about the graphics, but it's good to have that little bit of info filed away.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
here's someone else who evidently fell for the zzxjoanw "hoax" (see last link, below): http://www.mindbodyspirit.com.au/auth/b/bowlerpeter.htm"There are many words to learn and be amused. The first word is "abecedarian." The last word is "zzxjoanw." He recomends this word for Scrabble." (from an amazon review) [should you get this combination of letters (with a blank), a one in a googol chance, it could be successfully challenged anywhere in Known Space.] the author, Peter Bowler, should have known better, as he is evidently an aussie. this is still the best, last word on zzxjoanw: http://wordways.com/ghost.htm
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
>he author, Peter Bowler, should have known better, as he is evidently an aussie.
Perché? It simply means he knows as much about Zild as most Aussies.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Merriam-Webster cites the ghost word DORD (along with PHANTOMNATION) in their Web 3 definition of the term "ghost word.
Wow--what a great concept: a phantom nation! <grin>
|
|
|
|
|
