Category: Words ad infinitum

Every generation has it's own collection of fashionable sayings which tend to be overused. Through this overuse, their scope gets expanded to include a wide range of meaning, way beyond the initial definition.

I cannot count the number of times a day I hear people repeating the words "cool" and "awesome", as if the world around us is an absolutely amazing place. Awesome.

In my days we used to say "groovy" and "neat" once in awhile as our words of choice. Repeat: once in awhile, not all of the time like now. Some people I know say "cool" at least a hundred times an hour. I don't think I ever used "groovy" more than a few times in a whole day.

I'm sure that my parents couldn't figure it out although my peers and I were connected by these sayings. Cool.

In the same vein, I can kind of figure out what "cool" means, because it's similar to how "groovy" sounds. However, "awesome" is way off the board to me and too easily exaggerated these days.

Here, I brought you some donuts for breakfast. Awesome. Let's sit down together and discuss things in more detail. Cool.

I wonder what kind of newfangled lingo the next generation will come up with in order to embellish life's meanings even more.

Supreme self-confidence, temerity, an unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger or opposition, nerve, gall.

(I never knew that).

The Panopticon is a type of prison which is designed such that the observer can see what all of the prisoners are doing without the prisoners being able to know whether or not they are being observed, thus conveying a "sentiment of an invisible omniscience."

So there you are in a prison who knows where worrying whether or not someone is watching but trying to carry on business as usual. Is this possible? Probably.

Not that life is a prison not exactly at least but you never know. People may be watching or not, and who cares about some invisible omniscience, unless of course you are religious and wondering if things will turn out better than you expected.

No prison is permanent. You are the one and only one watching yourself, not being observed by others, only being observed by yourself.

Maybe we might think that we are in prison, but in reality we are not.

Breaking out of this so-called self-imposed imaginary prison is not such a big deal, probably because it is pretty much a mental thing, Close your eyes and open them again, and everything returns back to normal.

Or so one hopes...

The ability to write concise and clear text that conveys your intentions without the slightest doubt is an art which should not be underestimated in today's society.

The eyes scan the page from left to right, top to bottom, they blink a couple times and then that sentence wrapped up in words is registered in the brain like a wedged thought which dissolves in an instant but never disappears.

They say that technical people are lousy writers, because one needs to be flexible and creative, but I tend to disagree.

You see, the technical folks are excellent at structuring things and providing a solid argument based on facts rather than appearances.

Sure the emotional element is just as important if not more important in getting your point across, but it is the balanced combination of these two sides of the coin that provides insight and convincing concepts.

For once and for all, let us please abandon the senseless jargon of corporations and express our webified thoughts from our hearts and souls.

Resurrect Your Writing, Redeem Your Soul

There is no way on earth that I am going to let this author bore me to death. That was more than likely his original purpose when he decided to start writing this book in the first place.

--- There he is that bugger sitting over in the corner laughing that evil laugh of his, wondering to himself how many poor souls he will fool, suck into his book and never let go. ---

I will beat him at his own game no matter what. Only two more short chapters to go, and I will have finished the book at last. Every few days a page or two, struggling to move my eyes from left to right, from the top of the page to the bottom and then on over to the following page. The book itself is actually not that thick at all, only a little over two hundred and fifty pages.

--- Each chapter is short enough to survive, as each and every step through the quagmire is attempted and completed with out-of-breath success. ---

I have made it this far and there is no giving up now. Each time I can flip the next page over there is an extreme sense of relief, senseless survival, temporary comfort in knowing that slowly but surely I am winning this unfair contest. Not an easy task that is for sure, but I will show him.

--- Even though he passed away a few years ago (1997), meaning just another death in the nuclear age. ---

Sometimes you go through life hearing a certain word or term being used and you have never understood what it means because you have either been too lazy to look it up in the dictionary or you have felt too embarrassed to ask the person what it means.

Such has been the case for me with the word dovetail. I have heard it used on occasion but never understood what it was. Hard to believe for someone like myself with a university degree.

Today I was watching a television interview with some mid-east political expert and he was explaining how everything was "dovetailing" so nicely in favor of Bush and the war with Iraq for which he was preparing. Obviously in this context it means "to connect or combine precisely or harmoniously" and at least that much made sense.

So this time around I decided to look it up in the dictionary and I found the following definitions:

"A joint formed by inserting a projecting wedge-shaped member into a correspondingly shaped cutout member; A fan-shaped tenon that forms a tight interlocking joint when fitted into a corresponding mortise."

Just in case this is the first time for you also, I have created this blog entry so that you too can impress your friends and relatives with your new found knowledge. Pushing you along further on the road to learning all there is to know in the world.

pan-GLOSS-ee-un (adjective) : marked by the view that all is for the best in this best of possible worlds : excessively optimistic.

"Sarah is a cheerful young woman with a Panglossian habit of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses."

Does this remind you a little of the following? "Gibberations galore from a regular down-to-earth kind of guy who is constantly pursuing a balanced life in the best of all possible worlds..." The motto and driving force behind this future-famous weblog.

An interesting activity is to analyze the searches that have been made on one's homepage in the last couple months. I have been an avid user of atomz which provides one with monthly reports. Here is an overview:

a summary of eva luna
angela
angela's ashes
besancon
besançon
bhagavan
child
crome yellow
eva luna
gish
immobilier
ivy
lennart web page
maarten buried in sand
map
marlies
mayday
neuromancer
norbert wiener
orris
pedo
pictures of catherine de medici
pictures of people buried in the sand
riding
snow falling on cedars
timeline
your business address

So tell me, can one find any secret messages in this mysterious list which has been generated by droplets of humanity all over the place?

horn·swog·gle (hôrnswgl)
tr.v. Chiefly Northern & Western U.S. horn·swog·gled, horn·swog·gling, horn·swog·gles To bamboozle; deceive.

Click here in order to hear for yourself the official pronunciation.

[Origin unknown.]
Our Living Language We do not know the origin of hornswoggle. We do know that it belongs to a group of "fancified" words that were particularly popular in the American West in the 19th century. Hornswoggle is one of the earliest, first appearing around 1829. It is possible that these words were invented to poke fun at the more "sophisticated" East. Some other words of this ilk are absquatulate, also first appearing in the 1820s, skedaddle, first attested in 1861 in Missouri, and discombobulate, first recorded in 1916.

The Hornswoggle Problem describes how various philosophers have proposed setting conscious experience apart from all other problems of the mind as "the most difficult problem.

Alright, so it is time to do something really useful again. After the tremendous response from my previous entry, I am even more inspired to pursue yet another quantum leap in awareness. Let's go folks.

Here is everything I could find about the word Gibberish, which is an "official" word that gets as close as one can get to the title of this blog without getting caught.

Definitions:

1. Unintelligible or nonsensical talk or writing.


2. Highly technical or esoteric language.
3. Rapid chatter like that of monkeys.
4. Unnecessarily pretentious or vague language.
5. Rapid and inarticulate talk; unintelligible language; unmeaning words; jargon.

Synonyms:

Nonsense, gibberish; jargon, jabber, mere words, hocus-pocus, fustian, rant, bombast, balderdash, palaver, flummery, verbiage, babble, baverdage, baragouin, platitude, niaiserie; inanity; flapdoodle; rigmarole, rodomontade; truism; nugae canorae; twaddle, twattle, fudge, trash; poppy-cock [U.S.]; stuff, stuff and nonsense; bosh, rubbish, moonshine, wish-wash, fiddle-faddle; absurdity; vagueness (unintelligibility)...

Related:

1. Gibber.
2. Gibbered.
3. Gibbering.
4. Gibbers.

Extracting the most essential terms from above which appeal to me the most, the best of all possible summaries for my blog is: "highly technical, esoteric, rapid monkey chatter."

Ayone else out there who would like to take a stab at an even better and more creative description?

jejune
jih-JUNE (adjective)
1: lacking nutritive value
2: devoid of significance or interest: dull
3: juvenile, puerile

"I read several favorable reviews of this play," said Joan during intermission, "but so far I'm finding it rather jejune."

No one in their right mind ever uses the word jejune, or do they? There is a famous Woody Allen film in which parody is made of this funny-sounding word. Who out there has ever used jejune seriously and not caused laughter? Another question. Who can tell me the name of the film to which I am referring? Not that I am offering a prize or lots of money, but just curious how many serious fellow bloggers out there dare to take the challenge.

Hangup - "A hangup, also called a hang, is a condition that sometimes occurs when computer programs conflict or do not run properly. The computer seems paralyzed. Clicking the mouse has no effect, regardless of where the arrow or cursor is placed. Sometimes a hangup will resolve itself. In some instances, the loading of a large amount of data (for example, downloading a complex Web page) can appear as a hangup. If you see an hourglass symbol, you should wait a couple of minutes before concluding that the system is hung up. But if the pointer appears and you cannot get a response by clicking on anything or by striking various keys on the keyboard, you will have to terminate the application or reboot the computer. Pressing CTRL, ALT, and DEL at the same time (the so-called three-finger salute) will usually allow you to exit the program in question. If this does not work, you can deliver the three-finger salute twice in rapid succession, and the computer should reboot. This is called a warm boot. You will lose all data in memory in this case. Sometimes even this does not work. In the extreme, it will be necessary to power-down the computer and then power-up again (a cold boot). This is a last resort, because it will cause the operating system to shut down improperly, and this action can produce hard-drive errors." I have taken the liberty to snatch this from the whatis website, a fine place for just about every definition you would ever need.