Thanksgiving Special!

Ah, Thanksgiving. The holiday dedicated to eating, with a brutal history. I love spending time with my family, gaffing in a huge group. Staring at the immense Farrago on my plate. Of course, afterward, I always feel cloyed because I am so farctated.

Oh, sorry. Did none of that make sense? I guess I should tell you, huh...

Let's start in order, yeah?

To Gaff (pronounced Gaef) is actually to just talk in a loud, rude manner. Face it. We all know someone who gaffs all the time. For some, it's their Uncle or their Aunt, for some, it's their English teacher.....
You know, the Old English had a term, Gafspaec, meaning Blasphemous Speech, but it eventually turned into a place: The Halls of Blasphemous Speech, like High School.

A Farrago (accent on the first syllable). That's a fun word I'll be using more often. Why? Well, because it means "A Really Confusing Mixture." I mean, again, it applies to High School. Or Thanksgiving dinner.
But what's most interesting is where this word comes from. Far- is a Latin root meaning Grain. Now why is that relevant? Well in the 16th century, the Grains used to feed the animals was called, amazingly enough, Farrago. So when you think about it, that's what this modern version represents.

Another one I figure you would like to know over break is the word Cloy. It might have to do with Tryptophan in Turkey that you commonly hear about. I mean, it may have a connection. That's because Cloy means to become tired from excess of food. Aka Thanksgiving.

Now this has a pretty complicated story behind it. Cloy comes from Cloyen (To Hinder), which comes from Accloyen (To Fasten), which comes from Encloer (To Stop), which comes from Inclavere (To Nail). But here's the kicker. Inclavere means something along the lines of speeding up a horse by nailing horseshoes onto it. But if Cloy means to Hinder... Hmm...

Farctate is a synonym of Cloy.
And yeah. I'm tired

Some words.

It's still a bit early for Thanksgiving words, which will probably also be next week, but I'm still going to do one relating to food. Sue me.

Tarantism: Does it mean:
The Act of behaving like a Spider, or
The Glass in between the Liquids in the Glow Stick, or
The process of extracting Viruses from your computer?

Fun fact: It's none of those.
Tarantism is actually a pretty obscure word. You know how there are some things that you just think "Why is there a word for that?" That was basically my thought process when I found this word.
Have you ever been in public or out on the Ultimate Frisbee field or in the movie theater or in the car or on your bed or falling asleep or basically anywhere and you just wanted to break out some moves and shake it loose and dance and grind and pirouette and prance and gambol?
I hate to break it to you, but you've just been Tarantised. Oh yeah, it's an epidemic. Mainly an epidemic that causes you to want to burst out dancing!
What if everyone was affected by Tarantism?
This word comes around thanks to Europe: Southern Italy, actually. Down there, where they speak a dialect of "New Latin," some people have come up with this word. Probably because they come from the town of Taranto. (Not to be confused with Toronto, but I suppose they could be related...)
I mean, they obviously didn't create this word for this precise definition.
It actually has to do with the Wolf Spider. Yes, the humble, nightmare-inducing Lycosa Tarantula  would often bite people with a poison that caused erratic movements. So when there was a massive Lycosa infestation from the 14th to 17th centuries, it probably resembled a medieval Harlem Shake.
Now Tarantism is known as Sydenham's Chorea.


Degust: Could it mean:
To Burp after a meal, or
To Clean your toenails while watching TV?

Oh, and I guess it's also a Company in Italy...

Neither of those either... Come on, guys...
I hope you all Degust all your food in a couple weeks. I mean, that is the point of Thanksgiving, right? To eat, savoring every single bite? At least, that's what I'm going to do.
Any Spanish or Latin speaker can inform you that gustar, and its other forms, mean To Like or To Taste. Also, if they speak Latin, they can tell you that de- means off, or apart. So, yeah, I guess it would literally mean something along the lines of "To Taste something apart", or "To Enjoy every bite".

Autumny Words!

Immensikoff: 
Kevin: A relatively small sneeze.
Dad: Like Emancipation? A man's cough. A programming style.
Mom: A really small water sprite
Scotty: A giant Russian

You know, eventually, we will reach a day when we all bring our very important Immensikoffs to school. But, I mean, that's pretty logical. After all, we'd be pretty chilly without our fur-lined coats. Oh- I guess people don't have money to buy fancy coats anymore. Oh well.
Anyway, this word comes from a short story by Arthur Morrison called A Lucifo Match. In this magazine publishing, a young boy pick-pockets from the rich, mainly large opulent men wearing these Immensikoffs. It was written in 1909.

Immensikoff is a very Slavic word. It is relevant to Yiddish, German, and Russian:
The Yiddish are credited as the creators of the word, but mainly because they were jealous of all the wealthy Germans.
The German word Kopf means Head, and Immense means the same thing. So it was a slight nod towards the big-headed German money-lords.
Finally, they decided to insult the Russians, too. Because why not? Have you ever realized that many Russian names end in -kov. So did the Yiddish. Which is why they put -koff at the end of the word.

I can't find a video file anywhere on the interwebs, but a man named Arthur Lloyd wrote a song called Immensikoff, and it's exactly what it sounds like it would be about. A large rich man with a big coat.

Filemot:
Kevin: The possibility of being reincarnated as a chicken
Dad: A dry-fly used for brook trout in high mountain lakes in the early Autumn
Mom cheated because she lived in Denmark for a while so she speaks some French and asked me to spell it.
Scotty: A rather large argument about a relatively small matter

So do you want to know what this highly-pertinent word means? Of course you do! Why wouldn't you?! After all, it is autumn words! It's the best combination of things!
Filemot is simply the color of dead, decaying leaves. Also known as the color of this font. It's not quite the color of the radiant red or orange leaves, but it is the nice brown color. I actually think that this is my favorite color of brown. It's light, but not too light. The Goldilocks Brown.
Filemot, or if you prefer the French spelling, Feuillemorte comes, amazingly, from French! Yes! It comes from the roots Feuille- which is a Leaf and -Morte, meaning Death. So if this beautiful color of brown was a crayon, it would be called "Death Leaf".
See, whenever I research the roots, I try and figure out other words with the same roots. Morte- is pretty simple: Mortal, Immortal, etc. But when I came across Feuille-, I was really confused. But then it dawned on me. If that means Leaf, then Foliage must come from the same word, and possibly even Flower?

It's pretty interesting, really. This word was first used in Lewis Wallace's Christian novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in 1880. Just a fun fact.
"Each compartment crowded with labelled folios all filemot with age and use"