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While looking for some hogwash words I found tyromancy. The
"-mancy" portion suggests divination, fortune telling, but what with?
I will post again with the answer later in the day. And does anyone else have any other surprising -mancy examples? Or practice any -mancies themselves?
and yes, I do know the limerick about the nancy boy in Khartoum
Rod
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well, a tyro is a novice or a beginner... so, divination with newbies' entrails?
I'm amazed with how many of these there are; here's a couple that I've collected [wonders if there's a word for collecting 'mancies']:
cartomancy - fortune-telling by the use of playing cards
ichthyomancy - fortunetelling with fish offal
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Tyromancy might be predicting how long you will live if you have Firestone/Bridgestone tires.
Or it might refer to predictions made by novice occultists.
Tyromancy - divination by patterns formed in coagulating cheese. Or maybe by bad dreams allegedly caused by eating too much welsh rabbit.
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Tyromancy - divination by patterns formed in coagulating cheese it was blue cheese!
Congrats Dr. Bill. What happens if you eat some of the cheese cos you got hungry waiting for it to coagulate? Does it affect the fortune telling? "I'm sorry - you were going to marry a beautiful princess, but my friend here just ate her." Sounds like a hovel scene from Monty Python.
Rod
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old hand
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Necromancy - communication with the dead for purposes of divining the future
...and will someone PM me this limerick? I feel so out of the loop...
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Maxomancy: The ability to consistently divine the incorrect answers in Hogwash games. 
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...and will someone PM me this limerick? I feel so out of the loop...
I also.
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Yo, tambien. (Me, too.)
consuelo
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Oh, Jeez-o-peas would ya look at that. I'm a journeymancy now.
consuelo
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xeromancy: marriage  and congrats, consuelo!!!
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Yes, congratulations, consuelo. Maxomancy (alt. def.): the sudden and overwhelming urge to worship a Quordlepleen.
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Now, Maxie, I didn't specify that it was you, did I?
I might just happen to know of one or two other Quordlepleens...what's that, Zaphod?
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bibliomancy: fortunetelling by random Bible-passage picking.
aeromancy: fortunelling by air or wind; weather forecasting.
ophiomancy: fortunetelling with snakes.
mazomancy: fortunetelling by a nursing baby (Greek mazos = breast; see mazophilous).
xenomancy: fortunetelling by studying the first stranger who appears.
More to follow.
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axinomancy - divination by means of an axe-head
makes me want to aks how it is executed
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capnomancy - divination by smoke
"they asked me how I knew
my true love was true..."
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Perhaps you will all grant me clemency for adding that Clemancy as a woman's name made its rounds a few hundred years ago.
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if you're going to be like that, I'm going to throw out aldermancy.
*<8^)
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Pooh-Bah
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makes me want to aks how it is executed
and Lizzie Borden day was just this past Saturday ...
Lizzie Borden took an axe
Gave her father forty whacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave her mother forty-one
And she divined: that if you are a wealthy, prominent Victorian maiden who hires as defense counsel the former Governor of the state who appointed to the bench one of the judges presiding at your trial, you will be acquitted.
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aquitted by a court of law-- but forever found guilty in the court of public opinion!
Like a modern day case of bloody murder.. Just goes to show you there is nothing new under the sun!-- only there is no little ditty about OJ yet.
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Dear Sparteye: Axinomancy could not have told Lizzie Borden who her judges would be. And she did not need to divine her choice of defense counsel. I didn't know until I looked at encyclopedia just now that her real mother died when she was age 2. Maybe her stepmother was out of Grimm's fairy tales. I wonder what bearing her father's will had on the disposition of his estate, and if Lizzie knew what was in the will.
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rabdomanzia (= rabdomancy, I suppose)
This is not fortune telling, but has the same kind of root. In fact, there are people that pretend to be able to guess where the water is in the underground, by walking and holding in their hands a Y-shaped stick: when the stick "moves", it should be a good place to drill a well.
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aleuromancy, Divination by means of flour. chiromancy, Palmistry Alphitomancy, Divination using a leaf of barley. Tasseomancy, The art of reading tea leaves. Lecanomancy, Divination by throwing stones into water Critomancy, divination using cakes Dactylomancy, divination with rings Molybdomancy, divination by dropping metal into water Omphalomancy, divination by the navel The only word I know for what a water witch does is dowsing, but rabdomancy is: Divination by means of rods or wands. I learn something new every day...thanks! here is a website with a bunch of detailed information about all the different -mancies: http://www.paralumun.com/tasseomancy.htm
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...not to be confused with ailuromancy, divination by slinging of cats. <g>
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<Critomancy, divination using cakes>
of flour? of soap?
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not to be confused with ailuromancy, divination by slinging of cats.
..and ayleuromancy???
Rod
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...ascending to godhood by number of posts?
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>and ayleuromancy?
that would fall into the bailiwick of Faldage and ASp.
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" rabdomanzia (= rabdomancy, I suppose)
This is not fortune telling, but has the same kind of root. In fact, there are people that pretend to be
able to guess where the water is in the underground, by walking and holding in their hands aY-shaped
stick: when the stick "moves", it should be a good place to drill a well."
Rhabdomancy
Amazing what some people will believe. A long time ago the Boston Herald columnist Bill Cunningham had a friend who was such an accomplished "dowser" that he was able to locate a place to dig a well in Bermuda by pointing his dowsing rod at a map of Bermuda Now, that's a remarkable skill.
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Critomancy is an ancient form of divination of cakes. The paste of cakes which were offered in sacrifice were divinated. Omens were drawn from the flour spread upon them after being strewn upon sacrifices.
I would guess that these were edible cakes, but I'm not sure.
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Critomancy is an ancient form of divination of cakes. The paste of cakes which were offered in sacrifice were divinated. Omens were drawn from the flour spread upon them after being strewn upon sacrifices.
I would guess that these were edible cakes, but I'm not sure.
I, for one, have never seen a ceremonial offering of soap to the gods... Oh Great and Powerful Stink God! Bathe thyself and be clean!
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I, for one, have never seen a ceremonial offering of soap to the gods.
But cleanliness is next to godliness, and order is heaven's first law.
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Re: and order is heaven's first law.
and truly gifted minds can find order where lesser minds only see disorder..
really, i am not a slob, this place is not a mess-- you're just to dumb to see that!
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The ability to divine the incoherencies of vast alias empires on discussion boards! [the-any-emoticon-will-do-e]
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mavomancy ~ The ability to divine the incoherencies of vast alias empires on discussion boards! [the-any-emoticon-will-do-e]okay ~ i wasn't going to get involved in this (think pot/kettle/black), but it seems only fair to point out that mav has repeatedly denied a connection to anyone but archie, who was cleverly constructed to give us a good laugh (successfully, i might add). perhaps my thinking is vastly different than that of the rest of you, but to belabor this point seems a bit confrontational. that being said, and as mav alluded to in a recent post... there's one person aBoard who i *personally know to be a huge beatles fan, a frequent poster at VH1.com, and a riddler..... our very own W'ON!! so now who needs to fess up??
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caradea,
any truth to the rumor that you are, in reality®, carmen sandeigo?
-joe friday, g.p.*
*gnome de plume
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*ahem* ~ i *did preface my comments with an admission that my own domicile is perhaps silicacious.
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cephalomancy: fortunetelling by boiling an ass head
cromnyomancy: fortunetelling with onions
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My great-grandfather (Welsh, mother's side) was a "water witch", but called himself a "diviner", as many do.
I would bet that a survey of water witches would reveal that "diviner" is the current "politically correct" term. :)
The farmers for whom he found wells probably didn't care whether it was magic or science. His skill at finding wells was not questioned- perhaps the whole bit with the forked branch of a fruit tree was a way of "explaining" a natural gift or a scheme for hiding skill and knowledge, who knows?
He never charged for his work- I believe this is traditional for "the real thing", whatever the scientific explanation for the ability may be. As I type this, my wife says in her country it is taken for granted that a water witch (bajalicar) doesn't charge, and dowsing is accepted as a normal thing. "Bajalica" in Slovene is a forked branch-
perhaps if a water witch was called a "brancher" in English, he'd have less trouble in these modern cynical times. Then again, that might limit his ability to finding branch water, which any whiskey-drinking cowboy can do fine all by their lonesome. :)
At any rate, if "anagramancy" isn't a "real" word, it should be! What's the widely practiced dark art of reading the future in a bottle of hooch? Alchomancy?
And hi, this is my first post, this is a wonderful forum!
-CB
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Dear Cameron: Welcome to the board! Hope you will have many more posts for us to enjoy!
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In reply to:
Welcome Aboard, Cameron, and thanks for the added background on water-divining. I had to read your profile twice, as the first time I misread it as saying that your mother was an American before there was a USA. I was going to ask you for her secret to such outstanding longevity. Please do stay around, I can promise that you will not regret it.
Apricot brandy, one glass in the morning...
Yip, my English, or American I should say, needs to be dry-docked! This forum will surely be good for running repairs, though. Glad to be here.
-CB
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Hi, Cameron, and welcome! We have another member who lives where you do. I've just sent her a private message, to let her know that she is missed and to tell her you're here. Hope she resurfaces soon. Gee--I started to ask "What's in your hod?", but realized how utterly lascivious that sounds!
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how utterly lascivious
Were you referring to the recent thread discussing Hooters (the restaurant, of course), or to the previous posting of "mazomancy" in this thread?
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Were you referring to the recent thread discussing Hooters (the restaurant, of course), or to the previous posting of "mazomancy" in this thread?Neither, Keive--just the word. again!
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Thanks for the welcome, Jackie, wwh and Max!
Jackie, listing "Hodcarrier" as my occupation is a reference to a Roald Dahl short story. I've never heard of anything but bricks or coal in a hod, but there may be other hods- it certainly sounds like a word that has a broader meaning, or at least once was more in use.
Is "osteomancy" too tame? I always pictured it involving the casting of small bones onto the ground and reading the patterns, and as an ancestor to dice throwing, but I can imagine far more gruesome methods of practicing osteomancy.
Phsychomancy, anthropomancy and spatulomancy, in ascending order of "no, thanks, you go ahead, I'll wait in the car..." value.
-CB
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My great-grandfather (Welsh, mother's side) was a "water witch", but called himself a "diviner", as many do.
bletonism: the alleged ability to perceive an underground water supply.
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Is "osteomancy" too tame? I always pictured it involving the casting of small bones onto the ground and reading the patterns, and as an ancestor to dice throwing...
astragalomancy: fortunetelling using dice.
cleromancy: fortunetelling with dice.
Haven't found dem bones yet.
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If you predict the future by hearing it from the horse's mouth, would that be hippostomamancy?  It's all Greek to me, as it should be...in fact, although I have read "osteomancy" (kooky girlfriends and their kooky books), the word "ossomancy" seems more pure. Word gurus, please pass judgment! (Make sure to include the disclaimer "No animals were injured, disembowled, dismembered, decapitated, boiled or otherwise harmed in the making of this wise judgement") -CB
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http://phrontistery.50megs.com/divine.html Here is a URL to a very large number of "mancys" They do include "ossomancy" .
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