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what this place needs is more threads. <g> accordingly, here are three more nonce(?) words to toss around:
bebeloglyphic - relating to profane, unholy writing?
the words themselves sank down into the ink crimped paper and perversely seemed to have an existence only on the other side of the page: a bebeloglyphic of revolt and refusal, backwards in dead black. Theroux, Darconville's Cat, p. 302.
nikhedonia - the pleasure derived from anticipating success [according to various word lists, unfound in any *real sourece]
megalonisus - a tendency to exaggerate [according to Mrs. Bryne, uia*rs]
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megalonisus - a tendency to exaggerate [according to Mrs. Bryne, uia*rs]I'm probably about to display my ignorance of literature and science fiction at the same time, but here goes.... I had no idea who Mrs Bryne was or what uia*rs stands for. I'm still none the wiser on the latter, but Mrs Bryne (Josepha Heifetz) wrote a Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words (Secaucus, New Jersey: University Books 1974) although it's apparently out of print, tsuwm and his friends having bought up all available stock. She even has her own Word of the Day at http://www.textstore.co.il/mrsbyrne/mrsbyrne.htmThe rest of you probably already knew, but Megalon is a monster featuring in one of the Godzilla movies. You can check out the handsome creature here: http://www.parlorcity.com/awinterrowd/kaiju/gallery/megalon.htmlSo tsuwm's given definition for megalonisus sounds reasonable, although I have a problem with the suffix. "-isus" just doesn't look right to me. If it were a disease then it would be megalonitis. After all that, I've had no success finding any reference to back up the definition, but I have been in transports of delight to hitherto unexplored parts of the Internet.
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old hand
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megalonisus: this is a greco-latin compound word, probably of recent date: megalos (greek, well known) = big, and nisus, less well known, latin, striving, see http:// www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/lexindex?lookup=nisus&type=begin&options=Sort+Results+Alphabetically&lang=la#nisus#1 . "Nikhedonia" appears to me an even more blatantly modern construct from nikao (greek, I win) and hedonia (greek, pleasure). I should not be surprised if it turned out to be created by a German (given the order of the component words)..
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Whoa, Marty and wsieber, I bow to your: a.)wisdom and b.)
resourcefulness. Scrape, scrape! (Marty, I hadn't a clue either about those things.)
tsuwm, one thought: babeloglyphic would make more sense to me.
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> I'm still none the wiser on the latter [uia*rs]
marty, I apologize for the obfuscation... this was either meant to be an abbrev. for the previously used :unfound in any *real source: or was the unexplained introduction of a new acronym: uninformed ignorant anti-intellectualism *really sucks. 8-)
thank you for the Mrs. Byrne link, which nicely complements having her as a reference on my bookshelf. <g> she may be out of print, but I still see her from time to time at book stores. it's an interesting little dictionary, but the claim that "incredible as it may seem, every entry in this book, even the most ludicrous, has been accepted as a formal or legitimate English word by at least one major dictionary" seems incredible (megalonisus and nikhedonia are in her dictionary).
one other note about the Mrs. Byrne link: calling it a "Word of the Day" is certainly a misnomer, since it seems to be a "word of the load" ... [try reloading it]
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one other note about the Mrs. Byrne link: calling it a "Word of the Day" is certainly a misnomer, since it seems to be a "word of the load" ... [try reloading it]
Actually it's more like "Word on Demand" - just keep hitting the "More" button below the Word of the Day until your patience wears thin, your brain numbs or your finger stiffens up.
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>> here are three more nonce(?) words to toss around<<
Nonce is a wonderful word--and while I have seen it currently defined as "one time" (or to define a word that has a single one time use), it has for years meant more than that to me... It is a word I learned so early, that it seems as if i always knew it.
Shakespeare spoke of the three Nonces--(in macbeth, i think). In Celtic myth, the three nonces are swans, who carry yesterday, today and tomorrow on their backs....
None of the three know of each other, each sees only their view... they are not burdened, since yesterday, today and tomorrow are ephemeral.
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there is a distinction to be made here about "nonce words"; while they are coined for a special occasion and single use, they often take on a life of their own and many are absorbed into our language (e.g., gerrymander, many Lewis Carrol inventions). but there is another term for a single known usage of a word: hapax legomenon [Gk, something said only once].
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Dear Helen,
Thank you for the swan myth--lovely--, and welcome.
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Pooh-Bah
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There is yet another meaning for "nonce" - unfortunately. I almost feel that I should not bring it in to this thread, especially knowing Jackie's predilection for swans - and I agree that Helen's definition is far pleasanter than mine.
But in the interests of completeness, to produce as near as possible a full rotundity of nuance and meaning, I have to tell you that "nonce" is prison cant for someone who is "doing time" for a sexual offence. They are people who are universally abhorred by the rest of the inhabitants of the prison - staff and cons alike. They are frequently assaulted and very often have to be segregated for their own safety. The worst cases are removed to separate wings of the jail, or even to separate jails.
I have no idea at all where or why the term acquired that meaning.
The term has spilled out of jail, and I have occasionally heard it used - in the same context - in civilian life.
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