I know it as well as my own name, which at my advanced age I'm also not sure of sometimes. It means fostering or provoking further inquiry or research and possibly it's derived from some fellow of historical significance

Instigating?

Pook thanks but no. The word might be used, for instance, to describe a novel explanation for a commonplace phenomenon and stated in such a way as to stimulate one's thinking

Well, I know it couldn't be "pique"...

The worst part of your request for me is find a commonplace phenomenen.

this probly isn't it, but it sure fits the bill:

galvanize, fr. the name of Luigi Galvani

-joe (I'm shocked) friday

How does one find out what the topic of discussion is here?

If you're talking about this particular thread, your guess is as good as anyone else's. And I include dalehileman in that anyone else.

Why don't you try this Dale?


I've always wanted to do that.

So far I've tried with regard to Buckminster Fuller and Leonardo da Vinci, unsuccessfully, hardly exhausting all conceivable possibilites.

Hilarious! Dale is sending everyone out into the desert without food, drink or travalling map.
I think ' galvanize ' a pretty good word.

Darn, discrete faint messages are no longer possible. It shows in black print in the Active Topics list.

I've always wanted to do that.

In this hotbed of mutual recrimination we call the Internet, at 78rpm, and while these things used to bother me before I turned in my credentials as a prescriptivist, Laverne also agrees with me, and she is much smarter than I, that I must be a really terrible person. But seriously folks, I have been collecting dahilistic formulae now for a dictionary of same, and although I remain the world's most resoundingly unpublished lexicographer, forgive me for bubbling this back up, I won't make it a habit, but why is it that a drive drive drive drive is?

Thank you for that, I have ensconced it amongst my faves

Luke the topic is a word I can't recall, and I need it to describe my theory on the speed of light

http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=247068

Fal: To the contrary, my question was very explicit

Hydra: Oh you can believe it was the first thing I did. Very unsuccessful as usual, OneLook's Reverse Dictionary is not very sophisticated and at length I gave up, but thank you anyhow

Bran: Yes "galvanize" come close but there's a better word

zm: Why, I'm flattered

Okay, dale, since you completely ignored me, I'll never reply to another of your posts.

Oh, goodness! Priceless!

Dale, though my adress is indeed Galvani, your notice of the word 'galvanize' should be adressed to stuwm.
(I only brought in the desert)

two, oh don't desert me, I need all the support I can get, but thank you for the contribution. "pique" implies a sort of negative connotation whereas the word I'm looking for is more encouraging

Okay, I forgive you.. :0) But I disagree about "pique". I was aiming at "piquing ones interest", which has no negative connotations at all. In fact, to me it's positive. The other use of pique was demonstrated by me in my last post... ;0)

yes, and in a fit of absolute pique, it is I who will be ignoring dahil forthwith and forever, for ascribing 'galvanize' to the wrong scribe, and moreover for not recognizing three(3) strokes of galvanic genius, 3) zmjezhd's stimulating post, which at first blush I thought had been written by dahil his own self, 2) Hydra's inciteful and inflammatorily dahilistic suggestion to use the execrable reverse dictionary, and 1) my own fomentary and momentary (but not momentous (or memorous)) suggestion, which predictably (and I did) was wrong, even though backed up with a fellow of historical significance.

*I would like to acknowledge the following fellows of less (fewer?) than historical portent: Dr I. F. 'Izzy' Stimulous; Mr Serge Foment; Johnny B. Goad; and, least of all, Ms Ann Thropic

Yes I think I understand what you're getting at - something that piques interest in a thing that everyone thinks has been done to death in other ways, stimulating their imagination and galvanizing them to investigate by looking at it in a way that involves a paradigm shift in thinking. The word is... the word is... um... dunno.

Continuing on, I did not find gauss to be verbed.

you mean to say that you can degauss something but you can't gauss it?

-joe (what an ane and descript language) friday

There was no malice behind my jest. Just a bit of chummy badinage.

And FWIW, I was sure "galvanize", having satisfied all dale's conditions, was a winner.


But the search goes on...

Nah, galvanize doesn't fit all the requirements. Galvanize just means to stimulate or goad into action, like giving someone an electric shock. The word dhman is looking for is more reflective and passive, and contains more along the lines of provoking enquiry by opening up new doors in the mind to step through or demonstrating how there are possibilities to explore that have been overlooked. Do I understand you right Dale?

You could trawl through this list of eponyms Dale.

two: Point well taken as that usage had slipped my ancient mind

Pook you most certainly do understand and you have defined the concept much more elegantly than I

Hydra: Bandiage and whimsy are most important in this atmosphere of collective dysfunctional internecine altercation

Thank you most kindly for that link which I have afforded a place of honor in my List of Faves

morph: Isn't "continuing on" redundant or something or were you merely entertaining a wisp of whimsy

Is that the same as a 'whim-o-the-wisp'?

That's it!!! He wants "flibbertigibbetify"!!! Right, Dale?

Let's by all means divert this epic quest off on a redundancy tangent. There might even be a beneficial result. Absent a stimulator device that can gently zap the tip-of-the-tongue area of the brain (hopefully without producing coprolalia), shifting attention to another subject may the best that can be done, allowing the recalcitrant memory bit ample room and opportunity to make a revelatory visit.

I have a need to keep my wispy circuits optimized, lest whimsy render me wistful.

I'm frequently reminded that nothing dredges the verbal channel like nonsense words—or phrases—or clauses—or sentences …

Anyone for whist?

I have been searching high and low for a word that describes the following notion or experience:

It seems that when one learns a new word or concept, one suddenly becomes more aware of its existence. ie. one begins to hear it or read it more often.

What word exists in the English language that describes this recognition of new learned concepts that we previously filtered out?

Kai good question and deserves a thread of ts own but in the meantime can anyone come up with the one I've been trying to remember--thanks all

gosh dale, were you afraid we'd forgotten? oh, wait.. I'm supposed to be ignoring you.

never mind.

tsuwm, don't they have a word over at word origins for what Kai is talking about? I seem to recall you mentioning it.

that would be diegogarcity; thanx for the nudzh, Hydra.

-joe (diegogarcity happens for me all the time) friday

edit: the SW article referenced was titled Diego Garcia, in Granta issue 73, no longer available online (but see post in Miscellany).

^ That's the boy.