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So bludge is what the more violent pimps or ponces do?
Given all the words the spellcheck doesn't know, how come it knows a word like Ponchartrain?
Bingley
Bingley
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>wag = to absent yourself from school unofficially
so if you don't have an aegrotat or an exeant, you wag it?
wlatsome = an old word for loathsome
Murder is ... wlatsom and abhominable to God. - Chaucer
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From Dickens's "Dombey and Son", chapter 22:
'My misfortunes all began in wagging, Sir; but what could I do, exceptin' wag?'
'Excepting what?' said Mr Carker.
'Wag, Sir. Wagging from school.'
'Do you mean pretending to go there, and not going?' said Mr Carker.
'Yes, Sir, that's wagging, Sir.'
Bingley
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Relevant to absolutely nothing before in this thread, but maybe someone here can help me. Where did Sylvester Stallone get the name Rambo for his character from? Is it related to the Japanese word rambo, or just a bizarre coincidence?
I'd been in Japan for over a year before I heard the phrase 'rambo unten', which I still think is most graphically - hence best - translated as 'rambo driving'!
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<so if you don't have an aegrotat or an exeant [sic. exeat], you wag it?>
thanks, tsuwm, and Bingley, Dickens and Dombey [sounds like a legal firm] for further elucidation on the art of 'wagging'.
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>exeant [sic, exeat]
where was me spellchecker on that one? <GRIN>
actually®, the OED has both spellings and our own spellchecker accepts only exeant!!
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>>Where did Sylvester Stallone get the name Rambo for his character from?
Well, folks, I get the stupidity award for the day (month?).
Went to about six websites, and guess where I was sent for the answer??
---------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Sep 14 00:03:05 EDT 1997
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--rambo
X-Bonus: The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love. -Hubert Humphrey
Ram.bo n. [From John Rambo, the hero of David Morrell's novel First Blood
( 1972) and a subsequent movie] An extremely aggressive person who feels
no qualms about defying rules, regulations, or the law in order to right
a perceived wrong.
Letters., Time, 05-26-1997, pp 12+.
"Ecuadorians expect to see Fujimori acting like a democratic
President, not the Rambo of Peru."
This week's theme: eponyms derived from works based on fiction.
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Jackie, you did better than I did searching the web - maybe because I looked generally and ended up with the film rather than the word.
Anyway, thanks for your research. I have now searched on Morrell and Rambo to come up with the following:
"The name Rambo came about when Morrell's wife brought in some apples for the author, at the time he was struggling to find a name for his character... the apples were a rare variety named "Rambo"! This seemed to fit perfectly and a modern day movie legend was born."
The Japanese / Chinese characters translate as 'chaos' and 'violence'. To think that Morrell stumbled on such an apposite name merely through an apple!
What is it about apples anyway? While we're at it I should mention that the Beatles called their recording company Apple because it is Ringo in Japanese. Add in Biblical references and the apple is clearly one significant fruit!
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the word "rambou" came up, by the way, in class yesterday. a student asked me if the buttons on american vending machines are big because americans hit them in a "rambou" way.
didn't really know how to answer that one!
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just heard this on bbc world news:
"...a three metre high tidal wave rolled down the river.."
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