I’m sitting at my desk, writing. Looking out the window, I can tell you, it’s not pretty out there. Not that we got much snow, mind you. It’s that the wind is whipping around, knocking over trash bins, picking up garbage and recyclables and tossing them around the neighborhood. It’s not pretty and I suspect, when it’s all over and done with, I’ll be picking up trash from other people’s homes.
Source: mississauga.com
Yup, today is garbage pickup day. I tried to bring my stuff out to the end of the street, but then brought it all back in. I hadn’t left my barrel out for more than a minute when the wind knocked it over and began tossing around its contents. Even with my back to the wind, my hood up, I was being tossed around like a baby chicken. Enough of that shit, I thought as I brought it all back in, closed the door and poured a cup of coffee.
Ah, coffee! Just what I need to write. Back to the novel. It’s coming along nicely.
“What kind of meshuggener would apply the small plates concept to Jewish comfort food, which is all about abundance and appetite?” — Tracey Macleod, The Independent(United Kingdom), 16 Dec. 2011
“Whoever decided to remake The Producers in 2005 was a meshuggener. There will certainly not be a remake of The Frisco Kid, a film from 1979—[Gene] Wilder plays a rabbi who rides into trouble in the Wild West. Don’t go there!” — David Robson, The Jewish Chronicle Online, 1 Sept. 2016
Source: thebetzalelgallery.com
Did You Know?
From bagel and chutzpah to shtick and yenta, Yiddish has given English many a colorful term over the years. Meshuggener is another example of what happens when English interprets that rich Jewish language. Meshuggener comes from the Yiddish meshugener, which in turn derives from meshuge, an adjective that is synonymous with crazy or foolish. English speakers have used the adjective form, meshuga or meshugge, to mean “foolish” since the late 1800s; we’ve dubbed foolish folk meshuggeners since at least 1900.
My Take
Alright, I admit it. It was hard finding images related to today’s word without insulting someone. So, please forgive me. I selected what I thought were safe images. They include artwork, cartoons, and a safe banner image.
Source: newhopeinternationalministries
I will admit, as someone who grew up in the New York City metropolitan area, I was introduced to the term early in my life. I have always thought of it as slang, so seeing in in Merriam-Webster’s word of the day shook me up a bit.
I grew up with people who used to insult or ridicule a person or group. That’s not my style. Personally, I have never used the word, except as an exercise in using it in a sentence. I probably won’t ever.
I hope you like the images I chose, as well as the sexy bonus pic you will get if you share this post via Twitter.
I love learning the different contexts of these words of the day. Do you? Please share your comments. I’m sure we would all like to read them.
Have a great day.
Brought to you by Merriam-Webster, Word of the Day.
1 : playing lightly on or over a surface :flickering
2 : softly bright or radiant
3 : marked by lightness or brilliance especially of expression
Examples
“It’s an early May morning and the air is cool and still and filled with lambent light.” — Christopher Norment, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 May 2015
“There’s nothing like the swell of a powerful pipe organ in the right room. You can feel the lowest pedal notes in your stomach, or the lambent whisper of the tiniest pipes, with their delicate, shimmering sound.” — T. R. Goldman, The Washington Post, 31 July 2016
Did You Know?
Fire is frequently associated with lapping or licking imagery: flames are often described as “tongues” that “lick.” Lambent, which first appeared in English in the 17th century, is a part of this tradition, coming from lambens, the present participle of the Latin verb lambere, meaning “to lick.” In its earliest uses, lambent meant “playing lightly over a surface,” “gliding over,” or “flickering.” These uses were usually applied to flames or light, and by way of that association, the term eventually came to describe things with a radiant or brilliant glow, as Alexander Pope used it in his 1717 poem “Eloisa to Abelard”: “Those smiling eyes, attemp’ring ev’ry ray, Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day.”
My Take
Source: unknown
Whoo hoo! As soon as I saw today’s word and its definition, I knew just what two images I would use. I already had them in my inventory. Of course, I searched for others, just in case. So, I hope you like my selections. One, of course, can only be seen by Tweeting this post from one of the Twitter buttons on my page.
I found so many relates to the word, that once again, I had to filter my selections. After all, I am not publishing a photo gallery, just a commentary about a term that is part of the English language.
Source: michellino.com
Feel free to travel the same path as I did in researching the word. I found a particularly interesting piece of artwork that had me spellbound. I found an MP4 of the perfect representation of the word but at 8+mb in size, a bit too daunting for this article. Once again, I found several companies and products incorporating the word. Since I felt one was interestingly enough without promoting a company, I included it in today’s article.
When I think of the word, one of the first things that came to mind was my first book, ‘The Taste of Honey.’ Yep, I’m back to that. Why not? There is a relate to the word in the book, which you’ll have to read if you want to find out. The cover photo is a hint. ‘The Taste of Honey’ is available right here on my website, or at Amazon.com, BN.com or your favorite eBook retailer. It is also available in paperback from Createspace.com.
Licensed from Adam Radosavljevic
“Light playing softly over her skin, marked by lightness and brilliance, her lambert expression depicted the heat of arousal building in her lips.” Sounds to me like an erotica novel. Shall I go on?
I had fun looking for images related to this word. I hope you like the ones I chose, as well as the sexy bonus pic you will get if you share this post via Twitter.
I love learning the different contexts of these words of the day. Don’t you? Please share your comments. I’m sure we would all like to read them.
Have a great day.
Brought to you by Merriam-Webster, Word of the Day.
“Time and again he has shifted, shaded or obfuscated his policy positions—piling on new ideas, which sometimes didn’t fit with the old.” — David Fahrenthold and Katie Zezima, The Washington Post, 23 Apr. 2016
“It was the trademark of San Francisco psychedelia to never put the year on a concert poster, and to obfuscate important details.” — Sam Whiting, The San Francisco Chronicle, 14 Oct. 2016
Source: wordinfo.info
Did You Know?
To obfuscate something means to make it so that it isn’t clear or transparent, much like dirty water makes it hard to see to the bottom of a pond. The verb shares its ob-root (meaning “over, completely”) with obscure, another word that can refer to the act of concealing something or making it more difficult to see or understand. The rest of obfuscate comes from Latin fuscus, which means “dark brown” and is distantly related to our word dusk.
My Take
Obfuscate, I like this word. If one knows its meaning, it’s easy to use in common language. I can even see me using it in my novels. Any of my plots can darken obscure, confuse or evade the real action. While my writing is explicit, I like to hide undercurrents of thoughts, beliefs or opinions into my scenes.
Take for example my book, ‘The Taste of Honey.’
Did you know that while most of the characters are not spiritual at all, the title character is very much so. She believes in life after death, and she believes in a higher power. None of the other characters do. In essence, the characters in the world I created in these books has lost all touch with religion, spirituality and the idea of life after death.
Not to obfuscate the plot but Honey intends to help her community in life and after. She believes that a higher power will allow her, through ritualistic means, to literally live on after her death and help her family and friends to overcome adversity and thrive for eternity.
Source: highexistence.com
For the rest of the characters, their paths through life are clear and well known. They have no concept of life after death. Little by little, Honey is changing that, so that the main character, Mona, questions herself, her life and her role within the community. Her path becomes unclear as she tries to resolve the conflict of her upbringing with the ideals of her best friend, Honey.
‘The Taste of Honey’ is available right here on my website, or at Amazon.com, BN.com or your favorite eBook retailer. It is also available in paperback from Createspace.com.
I had fun looking for images related to this word. I hope you like the ones I chose, as well as the sexy bonus pic you will get if you share this post via Twitter.
I love learning the different contexts of these words of the day. Don’t you? Please share your comments. I’m sure we would all like to read them.
Have a great day.
Brought to you by Merriam-Webster, Word of the Day.
“I have not, however, been a fan of the Broadway singer … in the past, and her jejune performances here—complete with some tap dancing that belied the lyrics of ‘I Got Rhythm’—did not convert me.” — Anne Midgette, The Washington Post, 22 Sept. 2015
“He complains about wasting his talent ‘writing songs for frogs’ (he is a composer of jejune melodies for a children’s television show called Mr. Bungee’s Lily Pad).” — Nancy Chen, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 21 Oct. 2016
Did You Know?
Starved for excitement? You won’t get it from something jejune. That term derives from the Latin jejunus, which means “empty of food,” “meager,” or “hungry.” Back in the 1600s, English speakers used jejune in senses very similar to those of its Latin parent, lamenting “jejune appetites” and “jejune morsels.” Something that is meager rarely satisfies, and before long jejune was being used not only for meager meals or hunger, but for things wanting in intellectual or emotional substance. The word most likely gained its “childish” sense when people confused it with the look-alike French word jeune, which means “young.”
My Take
Source: imagict.com
Well, mark my words. Finding images for this word was tough. After all, who wants to photograph dull, uninteresting subjects. I know that I don’t. So, I hope you’ll forgive me on what I did choose.
After searching for uninteresting images, I tried to find images related to ‘lacking nutritive value.’ It seems that the search engine totally ignored the word ‘lacking’ and display hundreds of highly nutritious foods. Even a burger and fries has some level of nutritive value. I wanted something that had zero value. The closest I could find was straw, which we as humans cannot digest but cattle can.
Source: phocabulary.com
Lastly, I moved on to ‘juvenile.’ There I found lots but few that interested me. Apparently, they were jejune to me.
When it came time to search for my bonus image, I struggled once again. Therefore, I decided to find an antonym for the word. No problem there, except for filtering out millions of images. So, I included the term ‘jejune’ that from that, I found this one. You can see it by retweeting this post by clicking on my Twitter button.
Today’s word was an exercise in patience and perseverance. I won’t mind if you don’t read all the way through this post. After all, it is jejune.
Have a great day.
Brought to you by Merriam-Webster, Word of the Day.
Yesterday I wrote to you to let you know that I’m still here, and doing more than just posting my ‘Words of the Day’. Those posts are courtesy of Merriam-Webster, but instead of just reposting posts, I add my thoughts and my takes on the word. I try to find interesting imagery and commentary to support the term. Sometimes, I’ll just say, “I don’t know” and leave it at that. Sometimes, I’ll admit, that I never heard of the word before, or doubt that I will ever use it.
Woman in words 2 by JuanOsborne
What I do find interesting, many words are already a part of my vocabulary or ones where I knew the meaning but not the word itself. Take for example, ‘triptych’. Since I was a young child, I knew of the style and structure of what the term referenced. After all, I grew up with artwork all around my home. Now I know its name. You can be sure that I will find the opportunity to use it.
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Which brings me to the extra that I make available in these posts. If you share the post on Twitter, by clicking my Twitter button, you’ll receive a special, sexier image that I added for my Twitter followers. Try it and you’ll be helping me in the process.
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Source: lifehacker.com.au
On a different topic, I wrote about the publicizing of my posts to the various media outlets. Most of the time, my posts make it to my social media sites. Most of the time, my posts do not make it to my email subscribers. While I’m still upset by the situation, there is little I can do about it for the time being. All I can do is keep on nagging customer service.
Which brings me to their customer service, which I find is supportive and helpful, but their processes and background systems are extremely poor. I’ve worked help desk jobs before. Never in my career as an IT engineer had I ever worked with a system where an email by a customer, referencing their support ticket number would push that communication to the bottom of the queue. Any subsequent emails would push it back down once again. The only way of getting serviced is to send the mail and wait 48-72 business hours before a response.
Yet, I may have uncovered new data which may help the situation but if I try to communicate it to support, my message gets pushed down to the end of the queue. Frustrating to say the least.
Okay, I know I’m ranting, but if you’re interested in knowing who this vendor is, please send me a note.
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I have verified that sending my posts later in the day has a greater level of success of those posts reaching my audience. So, it appears that I’ll have to shift the times I publish to later in the day. Apologies to you early risers or those from Europe and Asia. Rest assured; you’ll be able to read them when you wake up the next day.
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No change on the concussion front, except my doctor has prescribed a new med which could take upwards of a month to determine whether it affects me or not. The nerve block barely made a dent so I’m hoping this has better success.
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On top of it all, I just realized that my site is being attacked, probably with a denial of service attack, at least that is how it appears to me. On the phone right now with my hosting company. Wish me luck.
Per their recommendation, I am implementing tighter security on my site, which I probably should have done months ago. Who knew?
Update: I had to hold off publishing this post until the DOS attack resolved. I think it’s over now. The site appears to be behaving normally once again. Here’s to crossing my fingers.
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I wrote a lot yesterday, finding an opportunity to take the novel from true first person perspective to include action from the antagonists. Soon, I’ll start writing more about this new novel.
Now, it’s time to get back to work. The novel is knocking on the inside of my skull, like a cat, demanding to open the door so it can be let out.
Thanks for reading. Have a great day and a better tomorrow.
p.s. I’ve included a bonus picture when you retweet this post using one of my Twitter buttons.
: something given or received for something else; also: a deal arranging such an exchange
Examples
“PA officials say they have no evidence [the employees] engaged in a quid quo pro, in which they green-light the PA’s purchase of wasteful insurance policies in return for the gifts or considerations, but rather suspect they turned a blind eye to their responsibilities.” — Philip Messing, The New York Post, 26 July 2013
“On the face of it, Canada’s agreement to enter into talks on an extradition treaty looks a lot like a quid pro quo for the welcome release of Kevin Garratt, the Canadian missionary imprisoned on trumped-up espionage charges.” — The Toronto Star, 23 Sept. 2016
Did You Know?
In the early 16th century, a quid pro quo was something obtained from an apothecary. That’s because when quid pro quo (New Latin for “something for something”) was first used in English, it referred to the process of substituting one medicine for another—whether intentionally (and sometimes fraudulently) or accidentally. The meaning of the phrase was quickly extended, however, and within several decades it was being used for more general equivalent exchanges. These days, it often occurs in legal contexts.
My Take
For me, this is a common word, one in the forefront of my vocabulary. However, it is not a word that I commonly use. A paradox you say?
Source: hrdailyadvisor.blr.com
Every job I’ve had since the nineties has sent me to workplace training. Usually, this training occurs within the first month of my employment. It’s a mandatory training and most often included several hours on workplace harassment. A big topic of this training is ‘Quid Pro Quo.’
It happens everywhere, but here in the U.S., it is frowned on between co-workers. Not that it doesn’t happen. It does, but when advances are not wanted or are hostile in nature, the consequences are significant.
Source: amazon.com
Say, for example; a boss intends to sleep with a subordinate. In compensation for nights of sex, the boss promotes or gives a raise to the subordinate. That is ‘Quid Pro Quo.’
The same goes for this situation outside the workplace. A guy buys a beautiful girl a drink at a bar. After several drinks or even dinner, he might expect to take her home and have sex with her. Even if she willingly goes with him, it’s ‘Quid Pro Quo.’
How about a lobbyist in Washington D.C. passing a bribe to an official in exchange for a favor. ‘Quid Pro Quo.’ Or how about this situation. A shop owner pays protection to a mob or gang in exchange for peace of mind that their store won’t be vandalized. How about when you give a friend a case of beer to help you pack up your stuff and move it to a new home? You’re catching on. ‘Quid Pro Quo.’
Source: Quid Pro Quo by soul71 found on DeviantArt.com
I had fun looking for images related to this word. Literally, everyone seems to know about it, and there were many interesting pics that I had to filter. I hope you like the ones I chose, as well as the sexy bonus pic you will get if you share this post via Twitter.
I love learning the different contexts of these words of the day. Don’t you? Please share your comments. I’m sure we would all like to read them.
Have a great day.
A sexy bonus picture is available by sharing this post on Twitter. My gift to you for sharing.
Brought to you by Merriam-Webster, Word of the Day.
: to give a contrived, falsely impressive, or hokey quality to — usually used with up
Examples
“It’s okay that everybody looks great, though certain scenes seem hoked up. A black cat crossing the path of a motorcade about to explode feels more like Hollywood moviemaking than truth telling….” — D.J. Palladino, The Santa Barbara Independent, 10 Jan. 2013
“‘Concussion’ has the sober, patient earnestness of a lawyer preparing a major case—it’s a dramatization of true events and occasionally hoked up in the finest Hollywood tradition, but it wants to stir you into being convinced instead of the other way around.” — Ty Burr, The Boston Globe, 25 Dec. 2015
Source: unknown
Did You Know?
Hoke is a back-formation of hokum, which was probably created as a blend of hocus-pocusand bunkum. Hokum is a word for the theatrical devices used to evoke a desired audience response. The verb hoke appeared in the early 20th century and originally used (as it still can be today) when actors performed in an exaggerated or overly sentimental way. Today, it’s used adjectivally in the form hoked-up, as in “hoked-up dialogue.” We coined the related word hokey soon after hoke to describe things that are corny or phony.
My Take on Hoke
Source: starnostar.com
Well, this is a first. I could not find an appropriate image that represented the definition of the word ‘hoke.’ Oh, sure, I found lots of images connected to the term, but nothing related to its definition.
Many people are named ‘Hoke’ including Playboy model Heather Marie Hoke and a host of other people. (BTW, if you share this post via Twitter, you’ll be treated to a nude photo of her.) I found various buildings named ‘hoke,’ product after product and even many state counties all around the U.S. But nothing specifically related to the meaning of the word.
So, I had to expand my search, using words related to the term. I came up with several stage performances are either contrived or outrageous. So, I included one of Madonna spanking Amy Schumer on stage. If you haven’t seen either of these women in person or attended one of their live performances, I urge you to do so. I’ve them both live and on stage, and I had a great time each time I’ve seen them.
I love learning the different contexts of these words of the day. Don’t you? Please share your comments. I’m sure we would all like to read them.
Source: opteks.site
A sexy bonus picture is available by sharing this post on Twitter. My gift to you for sharing.
Brought to you by Merriam-Webster, Word of the Day.
I know lately, all you have heard from me are my ‘Word of the Day’ posts. I didn’t mean for this to go on so long, my not sharing with you what is going on.
These last many months have been very strange for me. As you may recall, or not and that’s okay too, I suffered a severe concussion at work. That was in mid-July, and I’ve been out of work since then, as I’m still dealing with the after-effects. Now, mostly it’s the headaches and occasional short-term memory issue.
Then, in mid-August, my website began running into problems, which are still going today. It’s mid-November, and the vendor involved still hasn’t fixed it.
Source: lifehacker.com.au
Apparently, I’m not alone with this problem, but I still had to involve my web hosting company and spend hundreds of hours on triaging the problem. Eventually, the company relented and reported that their email administrators had discovered a ‘race’ condition between their mail servers which affected me. I think that the servers are either overloaded or undersized. My tests seem to support that my posts that go out late in the day have a better chance of being delivered to my email subscribers than those that go out earlier in the day. That’s right. Not everyone is getting their mail sent to them. I received this note from them early this morning.
“I’ve let our developers know about this so they can investigate further.”
It’s the same problem that surfaced back in August, and they’re still dicking around with investigating the problem?
Another consequence of my concussion was that for a long time, I was unable to use my computers. Looking at the screen gave me severe headaches. While the headaches remain, I can now look at computer screens without making them worse.
I also suffered from cognitive thinking and short-term memory issues. What really disturbed me was that my continuous stream of creative thinking that was a part of my entire life … disappeared. For months, the imagery that was so much a part of me was gone. I felt like I lost a lover, a friend, a companion, and … well … me.
I tried to encourage its return by editing my first draft of ‘Lucky Bitch’, the third book in my Mona Bendarova Series. That went okay for a while until I discovered that I had to rewrite the ending. I noticed that I had written much of the material included in the last couple of chapters in the first third of the book. What the fuck? I reached out to my beta readers asking for some help, which they graciously gave. However, without a creative stream of thoughts, I couldn’t rewrite the ending, so I put it aside for the time being. Shit. It’s going to be a full year since I published the second book in the series, ‘Broken Steele’. Shit, but I know that there is nothing I can do about it.
So, I kept working on restarting my creative stream. I’m happy to say, about three weeks ago, the creative stream suddenly flared back with a passion. In an instant, a fully formed idea for a new novel, from start to finish, flashed into my mind, demanding release.
Since then, I have been writing up a storm. I’m consumed with trying to get the novel out of my soul and down in print. Every day since late October, I write. Sometimes, only a few thousands of words get written down but often, I get ten thousand or more out. I’ve haven’t checked recently, but I think I’m over 100k words right now and still going.
It’s wonderful to have the stream back. My live-in girlfriend is at times upset with me as I bury myself in my office and write. In the afternoons and evenings, I’ll sit with her. She controls the TV remote while I pick up my laptop and write. She understands but still feels ignored. It’s a delicate balance but the consuming need to express myself outweighs the need to help her feel comfortable. Later that evening, I will put the laptop down and fully dedicate my time to her.
So, I hope to have this new novel out by the end of the year, but we’ll see. It will need severe editing, as I don’t trust my mind right now to keep all of the characters and timings straight. Automatic spell and grammar checking are fantastic, but there are many things they cannot catch.
One thing I have noticed as I write, sometimes I’ll think of a word I intend to write only to look up at the screen and see an entirely different word. Huh? How did I think ‘dog’ and write ‘dolphin’ or ‘plane?’ Yes, it happens, and I can’t seem to correct it. Perhaps my physical therapy which starts next week will help with that. Frankly, I think just writing will ultimately solve that. I just hope that I don’t pass on an incongruous thought to you in my writing. And if I do, I trust that you’ll forgive me.
I had fun looking for images related to my issues. I hope you like the ones I chose, as well as the sexy bonus pic you will get if you share this post via Twitter.
Right now, I need to get back to my novel. Parts of it are still up there in that noggin of mine, demanding a release from its captivity inside my skull. You’ll forgive me if I stop now and return to my novel.
This is Richard Verry, writing to you from my home office. Thanks for caring. I appreciate all of the kind words people have sent to me over these past several months.
1 a : a wooden shoe worn in various European countries
b : a strap across the instep in a shoe especially of the sandal type; also: a shoe having a sabot strap
2 : a thrust-transmitting carrier that positions a missile in a gun barrel or launching tube and that prevents the escape of gas ahead of the missile
3 : a dealing box designed to hold several decks of playing cards
Examples
“The spin imparted by rifling lets slugs separate cleanly from the sabot, makes them fly true, and allows them to expand.” — Phil Bourjaily, Field & Stream, November 2014
“The man is a venerable but unprepossessing figure; he rests his hands on a cane, he has sabots on his feet, wears cinched gaiters over his trousers and has two medals on his greatcoat.” — Michael Prodger, The New Statesman, 17 June 2015
Did You Know?
The term sabot may have first been introduced into English in a 1607 translation from French: “wooden shoes,” readers were informed, are “properly called sabots.” The gun-related sense appeared in the mid-1800s with the invention of a wooden gizmo that kept gun shells from shifting in the gun barrel. Apparently, someone thought the device resembled a wooden shoe and named it sabot (with later generations of this device carrying on the name). Another kind of French sabot—a metal “shoe” used to secure rails to railway ties—is said to be the origin of the word sabotage, from workers destroying the sabots during a French railway strike in the early 1900s. The word sabot is probably related to savate, a Middle French word for an old shoe.
Source: Paramount Studios
My Take
Hey, I know this word! I learned about it in the 1991 movie ‘Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.’ In it, Lt. Valeris, a Vulcan officer assigned to the Starship Enterprise teaches the crew the origin of the word ‘sabotage.’
In the scene, Lt. Valeris informs everyone that 400 hundred years earlier on Earth, workers would throw their wooden shoes, called sabots, into the machinery to stop them from working. My morning research on both sabot and sabotage found numerous instances that support her comment to the crew.
Source: Dal Negro
Of course, Lt. Valeris turns out to be one of the conspirators in the film. It wasn’t a great movie, but it did have a great message, one that Star Trek founder Gene Roddenberry would approve.
I did learn something more about the word. I’ve watched James Bond play baccarat film after film, passing the ‘shoe’ from player to dealer. I never knew the accurate term for the ‘shoe’ was ‘sabot.’ I also found references to arms, from everything from bullets to missiles, that use the term.
Source: no.pornpicture.org
The term ‘Clogs’ also derives from ‘sabot.’ Apparently, many of today’s women’s shoes are modern versions of sabots. I never knew that either.
I love learning the different contexts of these words of the day. Don’t you? Please share your comments. I’m sure we would all like to read them.
My sexy bonus picture, available if you share this post by clicking one of the twitter buttons, is especially pertinent to today’s word. My gift to you for sharing.
Brought to you by Merriam-Webster, Word of the Day.
