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Teytonon #232419 05/24/23 02:04 AM
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re: PRECOCIOUS - good point. Similarly - I suppose it's just about impossible to be tardy to the church service if you're PRELATE.

Some other prefixes lend themselves well to this kind of wordplay. I'm thinking of a chatboard where we came up with dozens (if not hundreds) of misreadings invoking DIS-, allegedly meaning "not." Or not.

DISASTER = remove a flower (or, if you're from Brooklyn, the flower at hand)
DISCOVER = your Frisbee is upside down

You get the idea.

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DAISY CUTTER

PRONUNCIATION: (DAY-zee kuht-uhr)

MEANING: noun:
1. In a ball game, a ball that moves close to the ground.
2. A horse that lifts its feet very little off the ground.
3. A bomb powerful enough to flatten a large area, such as a forest.

ETYMOLOGY: From daisy, from Old English dæges eage (day’s eye, referring to the flower closing at night) + cutter, from Middle English cutten. Earliest documented use: 1791.
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DAISY CURTER - she says even less than Donald

DARSY CUTTER - That would be Elizabeth ignoring her eventual swain in the first three-quarters of Pride and Prejudice

DAISY BUTTER - stupid goat keeps charging at the flowers, trying to hit them with its horns

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And PRELATE notwithstanding, I have to object to your declaration of No, not yet. If not now, when?

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SWAN SONG

PRONUNCIATION: (SWAN song)

MEANING: noun: A farewell or final performance, appearance, or accomplishment.

ETYMOLOGY: From the ancient belief that swans sang before dying. From Old English swan. Ultimately from the Indo-European root swen- (to sound), which also gave us sound, sonic, sonnet, sonata, and unison. Earliest documented use: 1596.
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SWAIN SONG - what Romeo sings to Juliet's balcony

SWANS OMG - very surprised to see the graceful white birds

SWAN'S O-NEG - he Ugly Duckling is a universal blood donor

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HAIRCUT

PRONUNCIATION: {HAIR-kuht)

MEANING: noun: A reduction in value.

ETYMOLOGY: From Old English hǣr + Middle English cutten. Earliest documented use: 1955.

NOTES: The term haircut is used metaphorically in many ways, such as when assessing the value of an asset pledged as collateral against a loan. For example, a bank might decide that an asset worth $1000 could take a 20% haircut and thus be used to secure a loan of at most $800. The term is also used for other reductions: a pay cut, a cut in benefits, a reduction in the repayment of a loan, etc.
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FAIRCUT - an equitable division

HAIR CUTE - that's a fetching new "do" you just got

"HA" IS CUT - all the humor has been removed from my production

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PICADILLY CIRCUS

PRONUNCIATION: (pik-uh-dil-ee SUHR-kuhs)

MEANING: noun: A place that is very busy, crowded, or noisy.

ETYMOLOGY: After Piccadilly Circus, a busy area in London where several roads meet. The area has tourist attractions, entertainment, shopping, and large illuminated ads. A circus here means a traffic roundabout, but what about Piccadilly? It’s named after a tailor who made a fortune selling piccadill/pickadill, a lace collar popular in the 16th and 17th centuries. The American equivalent of the term is Grand Central Station (a train station in New York City), though for look and feel Times Square (also in NYC) would be closer.
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PICK A DILLY CIRCUS - select a doozy

PISCADILLY CIRCUS - a compilation of tall tales and other unlikely yarns about the ones that got away

PICARD ILL; Y CIRCUS - Starship Captain is indisposed, and the club is is providing entertainmenet

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RUSTICLE

PRONUNCIATION: (RUHS-tuh/ti-kuhl)

MEANING: noun: An icicle-like formation of rust, as on an underwater shipwreck.

ETYMOLOGY: A blend of rust + icicle, coined by oceanographer Robert Ballard while describing such formations on the hull of the Titanic, the wreckage of which he discovered. Earliest documented use: 1986.
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RUSTICLEF - a musical symbol covered with Fe2O3

LUSTICLE - aphrodysiac

RESTICLE - what's left of my frozen sherbet on two sticks

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INFODEMIC

PRONUNCIATION: (in-fuh/foh-DEM-ik)

MEANING: noun: A glut of mostly unreliable, rapidly spreading information relating to an event, crisis, disease, etc.

ETYMOLOGY: A blend of information + epidemic, coined by the author and columnist David J. Rothkopf in a Washington Post column about the SARS epidemic. Earliest documented use: 2003.
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IN-LODE MIC - lets miners call the surface

INTO DE MIC - where the emcee wants his guests to speak

INFODERMiC - some kinds of knowledge really get under your skin

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INTERROBANG (or INTERABANG)

PRONUNCIATION: (in-TER-uh-bang)

MEANING: noun: A punctuation mark (‽) formed by a question mark (?) superimposed on an exclamation point (!).

ETYMOLOGY: Coined in the TYPEtalks Magazine in which the editor Martin K. Speckter (1915-1988), an advertising executive, selected the word interrobang from the suggestions sent by the readers. From interrogation point (question mark) + bang (slang for exclamation point). Earliest documented use: 1962.
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INTERROBONG - smoking pot makes you question everything

INTERIOBANG - keep your explosions inside you

INTER A GANG - when you lure the chasing hoodlums into an ambush and trigger an avalanche

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TULGEY

PRONUNCIATION: (TUHL-jee)

MEANING: adjective: Thick, dark, and scary.

ETYMOLOGY: Coined by Lewis Carroll in the poem “Jabberwocky” in the book Through the Looking-Glass, perhaps as a blend of tough/turgid + bulgy. Earliest documented use: 1871.
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THUL-GUY - native of the South Sandwich Isands

TULLEY - roaster and distributor of gourmet coffees

BULGEY - eating a bit too much, are we?

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