new words to bring back: aught and execrated. Check ’em out
Also noticed (yet another Peter Pan reference): Is it humourous when Captain Hook utters the generic “Curses!”? It’s seemingly polite profanity. It covers all swearing bases. It the meta-curse.
Saw a coyote today on the way to work. Definitely could have fetched him with Old Betsy.
This calls for an quotation of Mark Twain:
“Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the first prairie-dog villages, the first antelope, and the first wolf. If I remember rightly, this latter was the regular cayote (pronounced ky-o-te) of the farther deserts. And if it was, he was not a pretty creature or respectable either, for I got well acquainted with his race afterward, and can speak with confidence. The cayote is a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that forever sags down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all over. The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry.
He is always poor, out of luck and friendless. The meanest creatures despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. He is so spiritless and cowardly that even while his exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologizing for it.”
It’s dictionary time again!
infamous adj.
1. Having an exceedingly bad reputation; notorious.
2. Causing or deserving infamy; heinous: an infamous deed.
– Given the definition of infamous, why would you say “…come sample our infamous barbecued ribs…”?
decadent adj.
1. Being in a state of decline or decay.
2. Marked by or providing unrestrained gratification; self-indulgent.
– Given the definition of decadent, why would you say “…come taste our decadent desserts…”?
New words in “Bring it Back”.
B had his birthday party yesterday. He got from his grandma and grandpa a toy airplane with a piston engine that is powered by compressed air (“Air Hogs” brand). So we went outside and flew the plane. It is amazing how much power the tiny engine produces and surprising that nobody marketed this idea years ago. Of course the men wanted to know how the engine works and it’s a good thing it was made of clear plastic so you could observe the mechanics of the thing. The box says that the plane will fly up to 100′. However, it appears that they meant to say the plane flies up to 100′ after flying straight up 30′, looping the loop thrice, then slowing down enough to travel the 100′ in a straight line. It was an exciting time because one had no control over the toy. It landed upwind, downwind, in the road, on the roof of the house, and into the side of the house.
focus
Here’s the word of the day from dictionary.com:
blackguard BLAG-uhrd,
noun:
1. A rude or unscrupulous person; a scoundrel.
2. A person who uses foul or abusive language
adjective:
Scurrilous; abusive; low; worthless; vicious; as, “blackguard language.”
transitive verb:
To revile or abuse in scurrilous language.
Pronounced BLAG-uhrd not black guard, it’s yet another word that sounds like what it means. I have longed to use this word since I heard Michael Darling use it in the Disney version of Peter Pan but haven’t gotten any show to date. I suppose you want to be careful whom you label a blackguard.
Use it in a sentence: “Wednesday night, we won our first game in the city basketball tournament. One of the opposing forwards blackguarded L, but L brushed it off and owned him.”
Lately my emotions are all mixed up. That is, my water-works are subject to leaks. Peradventure the anomaly is caused by the gift of 3 sons and a wife about whom one may easily wax sentimental.
Example: I watched The Village again this past weekend and noticed at least one more major theme, namely the nature of fear and it’s relation to love. In the conversation between Ivy and Lucius on Ivy’s porch, Lucius says, “…the only time I feel fear is when I think of you and harm….” What an elegant expression of selfless love!
1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear…”
I don’t know anything about the Sprint PCS service. C has Virgin (on the Sprint network) but doesn’t use it enough to say if it’s good or bad. One friend says the service is poor. Another likes it.
No matter, I am compelled to declare that the advertisments featuring the black-coated man are tops. Whether on the radio or on television, that personage (along with the characters around him) busts my gut every time.
Interesting: that when you hear of a court case in the news, namely a case of sexual abuse, it is generally phrased as “touched him innapropriately.” It occurs to me that this word implies a subjective standard of what is appropriate. If the story were written “touched him wrongly” or “sexually abused him”, it would imply an objective standard of right and wrong.
Have you seen this man? 
