Recently happened across two useful online glossaries, probably while editing a story:
MW10 says that inanition is (among other definitions) "the exhausted condition that results from lack of food and water."
Useful word!
Seems like the adjective form should be "inane" (as in: "I'm totally inane; I better have some dinner"), but although that comes from the same root (Latin "inanis," meaning "empty"), it doesn't mean the same thing.
Nice post from last month at HotCoffeeMississippi about various names for Islam forms of modest dress, including all the ones in the title of this entry.
The BBC provides a set of illustrations for some such terms, though it doesn't provide as much context or cultural information as the abovelinked entry.
According to Wikipedia, "terroir" is "the special characteristics that geography bestow[s] upon particular varieties" of wine, coffee, and tea, based on "the assumption that the land [where] the grapes [or whatever] are grown imparts a unique quality that is specific to that region."
In addition to the literal meaning, I like it as a metaphor for the characteristics (if any) bestowed by someone's homeland.
Video demo of a nifty project called Typeface 2 by Mary Huang. It analyzes the user's face and generates letters of a typeface based on things like the user opening and closing their mouth, or widening their eyes.
EDNOS turns out to be an acronym for Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.
Which isn't at all unusual in itself, but I'm kind of amused by the idea that someone can be diagnosed as having EDNOS.
(Eating disorders themselves are obviously no laughing matter. What I'm amused by is the phrasing.)
I was also amused by the Guardian's attempted acronym expansion. I first encountered the term in an article about orthorexia nervosa. (The article reads kind of like a parody, but it appears to be serious.) It says:
Until a few years ago, there were so few sufferers that doctors usually included them under the catch-all label of "Ednos"—eating disorders not otherwise recognised.
At which I thought, wait, shouldn't that be "Ednor"? But then Wikipedia cleared it up; I assume the article's author just got confused.
Turns out that quango, also spelled qango, is an acronym for "quasi non-governmental organization" or "quasi-autonomous NGO." Looks like the term is fairly common in the UK and elsewhere, but I don't think I had ever heard it before.
It's National Grammar Day!
Apparently created by the folks who brought us the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG).
The National Grammar Day site initially looked annoyingly prescriptivist to me, but their Top Ten Grammar Myths suggests that they're more flexible than I had given them credit for.
An assortment of real-life British punny names, with more in the comments following the article. Including a couple that are so British I didn't get them. It took me a while to figure out that Dawn Hobbs probably sounds like "doorknobs" in some British accents, for example.
As noted in my main blog, I've been clearing out my spam mailbox lately.
Here are some of my favorite subject lines from spam messages I've seen recently. I'm especially amused by some of the creative euphemisms that spammers come up with for "penis," but I've mostly left those out of this entry, except for a couple I particularly liked.
- You can't rent a big friend in your underwear but you can gain it forever.
- Barak Obama is a woman!
- Weeding invite [I'm pretty sure this was meant to say "Wedding invite," but I like the idea of sending out weeding invites.]
- Obama Proposes Trade of AIG Executives in Primitive Swaps
- Maybe Spam I am missing you [OR MAYBE NOT!]
- Smoking ruins! And if you desire to stay alive,ask us for our help. [Now I see that this is meant to be an anti-smoking ad, but on first reading I thought "ruins" was a noun.]
- No Jail Time For Man Arrested In Capptain America Costume
- Empower your pollinator
- Terrorists used cats! Iraq
Just saw this in a blog entry at alternet:
One of the lawyers handling the case for the defendants (that is, defending the constitutionality of Prop.
sent us a note recently[....]
Presumably, the blog software is set to automatically turn "8)" into a smiley icon. Cute idea, but perhaps a little overzealous.
I've seen this sort of thing happen elsewhere, in software that turns ":)" into a smiley icon. But a colon is much less likely than an 8 to appear just before a close-paren in ordinary English text.
Guest blogger Shmuel here again... the problem with getting behind in blogging is that you feel that after taking so long, you ought to write something really good, which of course takes more time and effort than you have in reserve, so you procrastinate, and then the post needs to be even better, and so on and so forth. (I have the same problem with e-mail.)
So let's keep it simple. Check out Priori Acute, a display face that's both cool and disturbing, with a 3-D effect that doesn't quite make sense in the real world.
(The other flavors of Priori are interesting as well, with eclectic mixtures of angular elements and fluid flourishes.)
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