A form of storage for clothing which requires no hangers, drawers, doors or effort. Simply drop on the floor and you have a floordrobe.Don't you love the Urban Dictionary?
We have a very stylish colonial-style his and hers walk-on floordrobe at home.
The other day, I was reading a blog, and I ran across the word "doink." A long time ago -- and I mean in the 1970s -- I made it a personal rule to look up words I don't know in the dictionary. The only reason I adopted this rule was that I was sick of not knowing a word, not bothering to look it up, and then seeing it again. I found that very annoying. If I still didn't bother looking it up, I'd invariably see it again. It was eerie the way a word I had no memory of seeing before would turn up a second time within a day or so. If such eerie things were going to happen, I at least wanted to be prepared. Best to look up the word now.
Admittedly, there are words that you can look up, even look up repeatedly, and still not know the next time you run into it. Like, the other day, in a social situation, somebody used the word "recondite" in conversation. I know what you're thinking: Althouse, you are getting yourself into the wrong social situations.
But, so, anyway, I looked up "doink" in the Urban Dictionary. It seems to be one of those all-purpose slang words that mean what all slang words seem to mean: a stupid person/sexual intercourse/a sound effect. I didn't feel particularly enlightened, but it did set me to looking up how many slang words ended in "oink." It turns out there's one for almost every letter of the alphabet.
The most popular one seems to be "yoink": "An exclamation that, when uttered in conjunction with taking an object, immediately transfers ownership from the original owner to the person using the word regardless of previous property rights."
There's an "oink" word that I remember from childhood, but it is not shown in the Urban Dictionary as having the meaning we used for it, so I'm not going to tell you which one it was or what it meant to us. Things from childhood are so embarrassing.
When I look up a word in the dictionary, I think of my grandfather, my mother's father, Howard Beatty. Here's the picture I have of him, framed, hanging just above the stand where I keep my big, unabridged dictionary.
He was an editor at the Ann Arbor News. And that's what he's doing in this picture: editing the Ann Arbor News. It must be some time in the 1930s or 40s. One thing about Grandpa Beatty was: He liked to read the dictionary.
He also had a superpower: the ability to open up any book and find a typo. There's no slang word for that, as far as I know.
But maybe that's why you ought to want to read dictionaries -- including the Urban Dictionary. It's one thing to look up words you run across. But there are some words you're not hearing or seeing, that are just waiting to be activated by somebody like you. Some lexophile.
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27 comments:
A long time ago -- and I mean in the 1970s -- I made it a personal rule to look up words I don't know in the dictionary.
The modern equivalent is looking up song lyrics on the Internet to catch that one line in the Dylan song you're not sure about.
Neither is reflective of a mind at ease with itself. I'm all for continuous improvement in the workplace, but in my own head entropy drools.
Isn't not remembering what "recondite" means enough of a reminder to get you to remember what it means?
I love Urban Dictionary! I use it to understand what my kids are saying. LOL My fave (and the most overused) is "pwned."
My own floordrobing I can handle but when I walk into a room floordrobed by another the shower score from Psycho goes off in my head.
Ann
Great picture. It looks like there isn't much electric light in that office.
Can you read any of the titles on the books behind your grandfather in the piture?
Just curious. It might give a clue as to the date.
I must be related to your grandfather. I have the ability to spot a typo on a page I haven't even read yet. My eye goes right to it. I find as many typos that way as I do by line-by-line editing.
I always figured this was proof I was an idiot savant.
Here's where I file the words I look up.
Ann:
You have his nose? Not literally of course.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irWR7F0x2uU
posted by Ann Althouse at 12:00 PM
Your grandfather probably would have noticed a problem here.
One of the books behind him is the Michiganensian, the yearbook of the University of Michigan. The year is probably on the spine. Good luck making it out!
Douglas: That's really cool!
Steven: It's a word I dislike. It's ugly. I feel hostile to it and believe that anyone who is using it is being hostile to me.
Peter: I was just listening to "Visions of Johanna" today and realizing I never knew the word after "she's delicate and seems like." Apparently, the correct answer is "the mirror," but I'd always thought it was veneer and listening to it today I felt sure it was Vermeer. I can't stand the pronunciation "meer" for "mirror."
galvanized: If your kids say "pwned," how did you know how to spell it right?
Lee: You can click on the picture to get to the largest size, which is as large as what I have. The big book behind him says "Michigan" something. I know it's Michigan thought.
John: The ability to spot flaws was selected for in evolution I suppose. Being able to see that something is not exactly right must have saved our ancestors.
al: I don't know. I could just as well be my father's.
It looks like "Michiganensian." I think its a year book, because it says "19" at the top, and another illegible number at the bottom.
LOL MySpace! ;)
The Ed-Op he's spell checking, proabably about those hep cat bobby soxers on the Diag who wanted us out of our illegal occupation of German-administered Paris...
Thank you Douglas! I tried to do this on a Google Homepage notepad widget and on Opera's note function, but this is far better.
This post reminded me of my 19th birthday, when I asked for the biggest dictionary anyone could find. I got funny looks from the fam, but I also got my dictionary.
Lugubriously, I've only cracked it a few times thanks to the Internets.
To those I've exposed to wordie, you're welcome. I love it. I'm the kind of guy that sees a word, looks it up, then promptly forgets it. I tried keeping a text file on my computer of words I looked up, but wordie is so much easier since it gives you links to eight sources. What more could you want?
Ann
Thanks for the reminder that the pic could be blown up. I think that the date on the book is 1934. When I looked at the blown up photo I noticed the ink stains on the ends of his fingers. Rolled up sleeves and ink stained fingers. A real newspaper man.
Fantastic picture.
Another thanks for the Wordie link, Douglas. I had been writing them down in notebooks, but the notebooks have other things in them too. Who wants to flip through an entire notebook of unrelated material just to look back at a few words?
I do really enjoy Wordie, but I've been keeping my dictionary site for three years and I have all my other lists on my computer so I don't really need a third place (computer first, brain second.) The longest list is "words I didn't know that can be found in a mainstream dictionary." Like armscye cofferdam, and turgor.
"He also had a superpower: the ability to open up any book and find a typo. There's no slang word for that, as far as I know."
My wife and I have the same ability...she believes that the Amish are secretly in control of the printing business.
-kd
I believe the word for sexual intercourse to be boink, not doink.
Paul: I think about 10 of the "oink" words mean sexual intercourse.
The most popular one is "yoink" because it was invented on The Simpsons (along with, for example, "d'oh").
In true Althousian fashion, a reflection of the photographer can be seen, in silhouette, in front of the window. (It looks like "1934" to me, too.)
Jacob, how very cromulent of you.
Meh,
-kd
Longtime listener; first time caller.
He also had a superpower: the ability to open up any book and find a typo. There's no slang word for that, as far as I know.
I don't know any terms for that specific power, but my friends and i call those collective abilities "stuporpowers" - seemingly superhuman feats that are almost totally worthless in the long run. One friend is deathly accurate with non-lethal weapons - if one can be said to be deathly accurate at that point; another can hit anything he wants with a thrown object as long as he's not paying attention. I tend to turn off streetlights. Like i said...when the world needs superheroes, we'll be pretty worthless...but we're fun at parties.
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