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"

Halloween Special!

Well, I guess it's Halloween this week, so y;know, I may as well do a blog with some spooky words. I mean, words can't really be that spooky, but I don't even care. They're great.

This first one, you might recognize. The second one is less common and you probably haven't heard it before. *sips Starbucks and rewraps scarf as I take a picture with my Poloroid while listening to total Indie Music*

Kafkaesque is actually a pretty well-known word. It is a term coined by Frederick Karl, biographer of Franz Kafka, a Czech author. Kafka wrote stories and plays in the early 1900s until he died at age 41.  Kafka's stories would often be set in a dystopian and convoluted scenario.
Karl describes Kafkaesque as "a surreal pattern in which all your control patterns, plans, behavior, all begin to fall to pieces." How I understand this, Kafkaesque is something that is just terrifying beyond belief. Something so unbelievable, yet possible, so there's always that fear and paranoia of something bad happening. I mean, that's just how I perceive it.
Take this comic off to the right, for example. It's a giant bug. And that's pretty terrifying in and of itself. And it feels like it's part of this horrifying story where bad things happen, like ginormous bugs crawling all around and now I'm never going to sleep again...

Now, I'm willing to bet that some people have heard this next word before, but I haven't, and I like it.
Let's move to a scene that does 2 things:
Puts you all in a super spooked mood
and shows why I shouldn't be in the Creative Writing class:

Okay, so you're sitting outside. It's Halloween. You know, pretty dark and all that. There are a couple bats, because those are spooky. Suddenly, you feel a gust of air over your head, and you see a broom. There's a witch. Spooky stuff. You see her fly off, and hear a guffaw come from the same direction...

You're really spooked now, right? You should be. I have goosebumps. I'm scared.
But yeah. Guffaw. Have you heard it? Maybe.

Simply, (and because there's no special story behind it or anything, so anything I write will be simple), a Guffaw is a laugh or a cackle. 
You know how a witch might cackle in the night? Think of that. Except replace the word Cackle with Guffaw.

The problem with me telling you this word is that there is no backstory behind it. It's probably an onomotopoetic word, meaning that it got its name by the sound a Guffaw makes. A kind of "ckhufffffawwwawwawaww" sound.

Gamp and Roscid

I got some nice Autumn-y words for you this evening. They're pretty cool. Sorry if I don't have much information on these. Most of them are really old, so there is not much I know about them or can find online.

Roscid:
Jessie: A Rose mixed with an orchid
Kevin: An Overly Sarcastic Comment
Dad: A repulsive smell of horse manure
Mom: The bright red color of a rooster comb

One of the words I found this week is something that is simultaneously Autumnal and Vernal.  This word, Roscid, means a light rain, a mist, or a dew.  Depending on how well you know Shakespeare, if you have memorized Timon of Athens, you may remember this line: "My words neither aspersed or inspersed with the flore or the rore of eloquence"  But that's not the same word!  Well, yeah. Actually, rore is a brother-word of Roscid, meaning that they come from the same root and mean exactly the same thing. But they're different words.  
These words come from the Latin word ros, which means dew.  Now, have you ever tried this Italian drink called "Rosolio"? Do you care to guess where it comes from?  This drink also comes from Ros-, along with -sol-, meaning Sun. So really, this drink is made from Sun Rays of Dew. Which actually makes perfect sense, considering that it's made from the sundew plant, shown below.


Ros- has no relation to the word Rose.

Gamp: 
Kevin: Underwater Sex
Dad: The Lint found in a dryer
Mom: A gay gallivant

Now, if you read my blog last year, which you probably didn't, you might remember the Victorian Slang post I made. And that would come in handy now, because a Gamp is the same exact thing as a Rain-Napper. Now, if you are unfamiliar with the term, a Gamp is a really old-time (and slightly current) way to say Umbrella.

What a nice sign I found at the
fair this year...

I'm really excited to teach you the history of this word. Because it's 100% wonderful and 100% really quick to describe.
So Charles Dickens, famous author and all that, wrote a book called Martin Chuzzlewit. And in this novel, he described a character; an old woman carrying around a large cloth umbrella. And her name?  Mrs. Gamp. 
So we can all thank Charles Dickens for this great new way to say Umbrella.
By the way, if you want some more words for Umbrella:
In Britain, they often call them Brollies, which is just a variation of Brellie, a shortened version of Umbrella.
And other English Speakers in Europe will often call their umbrellas "Oil-Skins"



I was going to do two more, but I have 3 more assignments to do tonight, so I'll either edit this tomorrow when I get time or do these other two in a couple weeks.

Charrette and Orkusuga

My blog is very wonderful and very relevant to me this week. Please appreciate it.

Charrette:
Ma: The pattern that water makes in dry soil.
Pa: A wet long kiss.
Sis: An antioxidant found in charcoal.
Bro: Extremely fancy carrots.
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I'm really tired. And I have a lot of work to do. And a lot of homework. And I really don't want to spend time doing my blog right now. I guess I'm just going through a Charrette and will be for a while.
Yeah. A Charrette is a period of lots and lots and lots of difficult work. So I really wasn't kidding when I said that I'm going through a Charrette. 
Oddly enough, the word Charrette comes from 19th century France. And guess the origin of the word. Go ahead. Guess.

Give up?
The word Charrette comes from the word Chariot. "¿And what does the word chariot have to do anything with lots of difficult work?" you ask. Well that is also what I asked myself, and then Google.
It's a great story...
It all began at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in France. There were some sketch-artist professors that had assigned drawings for their students. And then these professors would ride around campus on their chariots searching for their students so that they could collect their assignments. Often, these students would jump on the back of the chariots in order to finish their drawings before they had to turn them in.
So there ya go. That is how we get Charrette from Chariot.

Orkusuga:
Ma: Making music with water.
Pa: A vegetable root used in Indian Cuisine.
Sis: When orca play musical instruments and play the tubas.
Bro: A variety of underwater sea-lettuce that hunt in packs.

*************************************************

Technically, this word describes a person, but I find it usable with a thing, namely homework.

Orkusuga is used to describe a person (or thing) that is energy-sucking, exasperating, exhausting, etc. Except that when it's used for a person, it means "someone who requires so much attention and emotional maintenance that they sap away the energy from the people that offer them help.

Yeah. We all know one. Somebody that, when you try to help them, they just need so much attention that you're just soduifhszdlxiughvlsduixfvgl. You know?

There is literally no background information on Orkusuga. I was so desperate to find something that I actually got to page 3 on Google. That's pretty desperate.

The only info on it that I could find is that it's Icelandic.

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!!!