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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
In a letter in today's Jakarta Post from an Australian commenting on Mr. Howard's re-election, I read:
It is a sobering thought which could drive us to drink.
As the letter was otherwise a humourless rant, I can't tell whether this was deliberate or not.
Bingley
Bingley
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Posts: 2,204 |
Now that's a solemn thought that can only make you laugh.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
It is a sobering thought which could drive us to drink.
Perhaps the author of the line was used to a state of inebriation and, fearing the imminent onset of sobriety, felt the need of a prophylactic drink.
Ænigma likes ineffective for inebriation and propitious(!) for prophylactic.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
When sophisticated use of spell checker might have been helpful:
In Friday PM CNN online:
The mailer also displayed some criminal
sophistication to cover, or "dry clean," his true
identity and intent, Fitzgerald said. For example, one letter misspelled the word
"penicillin" as "penicillin," he noted.
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
And an example from a book review in this week's edition of The Economist of a back formation that is new to me, at any rate:
"Mr. Buruma is very good at describing how, so often, emigres are revulsed by this obvious lack of sincerity."
Bingley
Bingley
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
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OED says - as a first definition - says revulsion is : "The drawing of blood from one part to another - as by counterirritation." (Hmmmm!)
Then notes it is also a "sudden or violent change of meaning"
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385 |
revulsion is : "The drawing of blood from one part to another - as by counterirritation."
Is that "counterirritation" or "counterirrigation", wow? They both seem to work.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
revulse is an obs. and rare verb, probably to be considered an inkhorn term of the 17th C. [L. revuls-, ppl. stem of revellere]
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
No word is so ugly that it will not appeal to some teenage group. When looking for things to post about "stales" there was a group proud of name "Stale Urine".
And searching "revulsion" yielded:
Requiems Of Revulsion: A Tribute To Carcass
$11.49 - $13.98
by Various Artists
Song List : Genital Grinder; Reek Of Putrefaction; Rotten To The Gore; ...
CD:$11.49-13.98
I was revulsed.
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
it was used in a less revulsive vein in medical texts:
1669 W. Simpson Hydrol. Chym. 78 This virulent acrimony+becomes by a retrograde motion revulsed into the veins. 1673 Harvey Anat. Exerc. ii. 123 To take away the blood+that it might be revulsed from the lungs.
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