Weird Smells???

So any avid reader of my blog may remember that around this time last year, I made a post on Petrichor.  You can find that here.  But if you're lazy and don't want to read it, (which you should read it because it's awesome) Petrichor means the smell of Rain on dry ground. Zeus Blood.

Anyway, so this week, and a year in the future, I am doing the word Incendimus, which means an entirely different thing.  Have you ever made a fire in a metal fireplace after a long summer and the fire just smells SO AMAZING?!  Yeah. That would be Incendimus. 

Incendimus, simply, is the smell of Hot Metal, whether it's a stove, kettle, fireplace, welding, etc.  It's also the smell of, like previously stated, the first fire (in the fireplace) of the cold season.

Personally, I love this smell.  Whenever Fall comes around, the Petrichor and Incendimus just overwhelm me. I love the smell of fall, I guess. The smell of rot and decay of leave is just so... Mmm...

The word Incendimus comes from the Latin roots, Incendimus, meaning Fire, and Mustus, meaning New or Fresh.  And I looked everywhere to find when it was first used, and it turns out, it was created by the same guys who created Petrichor. I.J. Bear and R.G. Thomas, 2 Australian publishers, used this made-up word in an Article in 1965.

*I totally made this word up.Happy October!!!                            

I make this post for the Irony and the Wishful Thinking

I'd like to take a moment to point out that this whole post is in regard to the fires that have devastated California and now this post is just really ironic and odd.
Your three new words this week for you to learn and use from now on are Antediluvian, Stillicide, and Hyetal.

Antediluvian: (adj.)
Mom: Before the age of Copepods
Jessie: Resembling an item from the Elizabethan Era
Dad: A fishing knot
Kimmy: Paranoid that people don't care about your interests
Kevin: Prior to the invention of shampoo.

If you're any good with taking apart words into their roots, you may have already figured out that part of this word, Ante-, comes from the Latin word for "Before."  You might also recognize the term Diluvian, which means "Flood."  And that's true.  You may also know this word if you have read and studied Biblical stories, like that of Noah's Ark.  Yes, Antediluvian means "Before the Deluge," or, in layman's terms, "Before the Flood."
This word is often used to refer to the world before the Great Flood took place. Antediluvian Earth was a planet of grass, trees, animals, sinful humans, more animals, some more vegetation, and a lot of sin-ridden people.  But the word Antediluvian can also be a noun, in reference to any object before the destruction by water.  For example, the dinosaurs, because they were far extinct before the Flood, were Antediluvians.  Humans, at one point, were all Antediluvians. 
Now, all of us... We are all Postediluvians. (Did you like that? I made up my own word!)   We all live after the time of the Great Flood.

Stillicide: (n.)
Mom: The act of killing authors
Jessie: One of those plant killers
Dad: Drinking whiskey and you set the still to the side.
Kimmy: Slang for distilling apple cider
Kevin: Pigeon Murder

You probably saw this word and immediately thought, "Wait! -Icide! I know that root! It comes from the same word as Suicide, Pesticide, etc.!"  There's also a 100% possibility that you were wrong.  Stillicide is a very funny word in that sense. Because it has nothing to do with anything related to killing.  In fact, the word Stillicide is a Latin based word, coming from the roots Stilla and caedere. Stilla refers to a drop of something, mainly water.  Caedere comes from the verb meaning To Fall.  The combination of the two, Stillicide, literally means "Falling Water."  I guess that works as a definition, but the real phrase means something more than that. Let me paint you a picture. Close your eyes. (And read this at the same time):

   You sit in your room waiting for this terrible drought to end. As you look out the window, you see storm clouds a'brewing. You gasp. It starts to bucket down rain as it approaches your house.  You start to hear the pitter-patter of rain on your roof as you watch it trickling down your window. You close your eyes and listen to the rain overflow the gutters.  Yes. Listen to that Stillicide.

Wow. That was refreshing. Think of how calm you are... Now, think about the fact that we unfortunately never use this word. WHY IS THAT?! Is it because we don't have a time to ever use it? Poet Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) would like to disagree. He made an effort to use many uncommon words in his poems. For example, in his beautiful poem Friends Beyond, he writes:

In the muted, measured note 

Of a ripple under archways, or a lone cave’s stillicide

I highly suggest this poem. It's amazing.

Hyetal: (adj.)
Mom: A bone found in the throat
Jessie: Like the screeching noise an old woman makes when her cat is stuck in the tree, like a hyena
Dad: A nymph fly, used in the morning to match the morning hatch.  (3 guesses as to who the fisherman is in the family...)
Kimmy: Hungry for one's own child
Kevin: Fashionably destructive.

Hyetal. Now there's a word I could get used to saying.  Pronounced Hi-ET-al, this word is simply a substitute for the word Rainy. But this word is basically never used!  In fact, the last time it was recorded in the Oxford Dictionary was in 1864. 150 years ago. So there's basically no background information on it...
The word Hyetal comes from the Greek word Huetos or Hyei.  Huetos is the noun, "Rain" while Hyei means "It is raining."  Other words using these roots include a Hyetal Chart, Heitology, and Heitograph. 

Also, if you're looking for another word meaning Rainy, I suggest the word Pluviose. It's a cool word.

Jentacular and Omphaloskepsis

You know, every so often, when I come across words, I'll choose them because they either have a really great definition or they have a wonderful spelling (Or they're fun to say).  This week, both words happen to fit 2 or 3 of those categories: Jentacular and Omphaloskepsis.

Jentacular:  This is a wonderful word that you can believe that I will be using so much more often, now that I know that it exists. But what does it mean?  Well, it doesn't mean any of the following:
Dad: The Jerking of the Lure through the water during fishing
Mom: The opposite of Jocular, so "Morose and downtrodden"
Jessie: Someone who is spectacular, like me, and likes magenta.
My old buddy Matt Gaylord, who I was talking to on Facebook:  A Clog in a certain artery

Okay, so they were pretty wrong.  Because you know what Jentacular means? It means "Of, or relating to, Breakfast."  ISN'T IT USEFUL!?  It provides a nice alternative to breakfast than just the word "breakfasty."  Speaking of Breakfast, do you ever stop and realize that it means to take a Break from a Fasting?  Like, when you sleep, you're basically fasting. (Unless you sleepwalk into the kitchen.)
Anyway, Jentacular comes from the Latin word Jentaculum! Imagine that! It was first recorded in a receipt book by John Murray in 1820. It read, "To Valetudinarians and others, the following method of making coffee for breakfast is earnestly recommended, as a most wholesome and pleasant Jentacular breakfast."  Again. To replace "Breakfasty"

To go along with this word, Prandium can be used instead of the word Lunch, just as Cena can be used as an alternate to Dinner.

Omphaloskepsis:  So this was the word that fits all of the categories. It's fun to pronounce and spell, and it has the best meaning.
Dad: The inability to program in an object-oriented language
Mom: Someone who critiques word blogs.
Jessie: (She only got close because she's heard it before but not all of it:) Being unsure if belly buttons are real or not?
Matt: When ghosts sexually reproduce
Again, not really, except for Jessie.  Now, let's see... What is the simplest way to explain this word?

Wait-- Really? That's actually a thing? Is there actually a word for contemplating one's navel?
Oh, yes. Yes there is. There's a word for everything.

Now, this word in particular, Omphaloskepsis, It was actually invented by author Aldous Huxley, (Brave New World) in his novel, Those Barren Leaves.  "A word meaning contemplation of the navel, Omphaloskepsis would be of use only to a deipnosophist. It has no more business appearing here than has deipnosophist."  That's it.  It was made by an esteemed author... about studying your belly button.

Omphaloskepsis comes from the Greek roots omphalos-, meaning "Navel, Boss, or Hub," and -skepsis, meaning "To look at, observe"


And that's it. Those are the only two words you need to know this whole week.  Jentacular and Omphaloskepsis. Use them, enjoy them, love them.

What in the name of heck is a Skeuomorph?

Yeah, yeah. I know what you're thinking.  "Josh, what is this word, and how do I even pronounce it?"  Well that is a very good question.  But just as a brief intermission, care to see what my family said when I asked them what a Skeuomorph is?

Dad: "A dry fly used for bass fishing"
Mom: "Something that twists itself inside out to change its shape."
Jessie: "A shape that is a series of lines that are arrayed."

Okay, so at least Jessie and Mom got the whole "shape" thing right. But oddly enough, Dad gave a really good example of a Skeuomorph.
See, a Skeuomorph is an unnecessary decoration on an object.  For example, the blue dye in jeans.  It doesn't need to be there, because the fabric used for jeans is originally white or tan.  But since we always associate Jeans with Blue, clothing companies unnecessarily use blue dye to make us feel better.

So, why was a Dry Fly a good example of a Skeuomorph?  (I don't know much about fly-fishing, but I do know this much.) The Fly does not have to have the colors it does. Many bass are not color-blind, per se, but they do have a terrible sense for color.  They see more color than dogs, who only see in Black and White, but bass see in very muted shades of colors.  So in this picture, there is no absolute need to have it all these colors.  In this case, it's more of a selling strategy, the company knowing that fishermen will go for the more brightly-colored flies.



The word Skeuomorph comes from the roots skeu-, meaning vessel or implement, and -morph, meaning shape, form, or structure.  The word was first used by Charles Sutton in his Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, in 1883.  It was not defined in the book, so I don't know how it got the meaning it has today.

You encounter Skeuomorphs every day, without even realizing it.  Think about it-- when you use your cell phone, what does the icon for the Phone/Dialer look like? It most likely looks like a retro, 90's telephone.  And the Mail? It looks like an envelope, even with how hackneyed they are these days.  App developers purposefully create their icons to look like representations of things, even though it's completely unnecessary.

So there you go. Skeuomorph. Use it whenever possible. It's a great word.