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#43010 10/10/01 01:19 PM
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US'ns treat fruitcake as a running joke. There is at least one comedian who has a gag about there being only one fruitcake in existence; it keeps getting sent from person to person as a Christmas present. Considering its ubiquity I would have to believe that there is a time machine involved, too.


#43011 10/10/01 02:37 PM
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I admit it. I like fruit cake ... but just one brand, made in Corsicana Texas. It can be found at :
http://www.collinstreetbakery.com/

It's more fruit than cake and if you ask them the nice folks will send you the directions for inserting brandy into the cake. (At least they used to, I have the instructions so haven't asked lately.) After the treatment it should be left awhile, so if your taste runs that way, order early, insert brandy and let it soak in for a week or two.
How could I resist a fruitcake made by a company that has two men named McNutt as officers?
One a year is enough, though, so resist any temptation to forward unwanted fruitcakes. Thank you very much!

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(Absinthe makes the YART grow fondue)

You really *are a looney, aren't you?

I had to look up "absinthe" ~ how intriguing that Atomica claims it is "now prohibited in many countries because of its toxicity". Do folks really drink the stuff? It sounds horrid.

I liked the word "pinnatifid", used to describe the feather-like structure of the "silvery silky leaves and numerous nodding flower heads" of the amarinthus plant. Of course, "pinnatifid" was helpfully defined by atomica as
"having a pinnate structure". As an aside, what's the term for 'using a word or root thereof in its own definition'? Seems to me like cheating and I find it annoying, unless accompanied by a subdefinition. Is "pinnate" a common word? I can't recall having heard it before, but it seems a lovely, useful little thing.


#43013 10/10/01 05:59 PM
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#43014 10/10/01 06:37 PM
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Well i *did LIU, acksherly, which is why i added the "feather-like" qualifier to the definition I quoted, lest anyone *else not know the word.

What I was trying to ask in my own inimatatiblyŠ* fumbling way wasn't "what does 'pinnate' mean" but rather "does everyone on the planet know this word except for me?".

But thanks for the link an' the purty pitchers

*wasn't that the word that of troy coined, which hyla commented on?

#43015 10/10/01 06:40 PM
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ENTRY: pet-
DEFINITION: Also pet- (oldest form *pet1-). To rush, fly. Variant *pte1-, contracted to *pt-.
Derivatives include feather, compete, perpetual, ptomaine, symptom, and hippopotamus
I went to bartlbys site, read the definition, and clicked on the green pet in etimology and lo! there appeared the hippopotomus!


#43016 10/10/01 07:10 PM
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I wouldn't worry about copyright violation on this one, ghost.


#43017 10/11/01 09:11 AM
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>"what does 'pinnate' mean" but rather "does everyone on the planet know this word except for me?"

Possibly, depends if you are into gardening or not. The short-hand is "grows like a pine tree", ie. spindly leaves sticking out not like a broad leaved deciduous tree.

Are they being mean again? I'll give those boys a good "seeing to".

By the way, is Maverick still spaced out on absinthe, I believe it did wonders for Van Gough!



#43018 10/11/01 01:45 PM
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The short-hand is "grows like a pine tree"

But it really means, looks like a feather.

There isn't a connection between pine and feather, is there? ICLIU


#43019 10/11/01 02:27 PM
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from the definition given already:
Resembling a feather; having parts or branches arranged on each side of a common axis: a polyp with a pinnate form; pinnate leaves.

Perhaps pine (not pine cone, pine tree) comes from pinnate, because the leaves branch out from the branch like a feather, the opposite would be like an oak tree, where the branches keep dividing.


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