What new word did you learn today?

[Homer Potvin]

You can still find Catholic masses in Latin in my neck of the woods, though I doubt the sermons are such.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

As a member of various chorales, I've probably sung more masses and requiems in Latin than most people ever hear. I'm not even Christian, let alone Catholic.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Did you read a word today that gave you pause?

It doesn't have to be a new word to you, only a word that sparked your curiosity, your imagination, and demands to be answered.

Please share the word here, and tell us a little about the thought process it opened up in you.

Here's a guide to posts -

Today I read the word ____

____ is defined as _____

This word gave me pause because _____

 

[Louanne Learning]

Today I read the word evocation.

Evocation is defined as the act of bringing or recalling a feeling, memory, or image to the conscious mind.

This word gave me pause because it brought to mind how wondrously imagination relies on memory.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Today I read the word revelation.

Revelation is defined as a surprising and previously unknown fact, especially one that is made known in a dramatic way.

This word gave me pause because it seems very suited to the writer’s experience of creating a story. I know with me, as I go, I have those a-ha moments that bring character and plot into closer focus, and point to the direction in which I should go.

This word came to me from something I read in Anam Cara –

As an artist, the human person is permanently active in this revelation.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

As a member of various chorales, I've probably sung more masses and requiems in Latin than most people ever hear. I'm not even Christian, let alone Catholic.

Yes, and yes. I've had the same experience, and I'm not Christian either. (To be specific, the Mozart, Verdi, Dvořák, and Faure Requiems, as well as the Mozart Great Mass in C Minor, the Beethoven Mass in C Major and Missa Solemnis etc... and also Brahms's Die Deutsches Requiem, in German).

I simply enjoy the experience. And if it makes other people feel good too, why not?

 

[Louanne Learning]

transmogrify - to change or alter greatly and often with grotesque or humorous effect

 

[Heartlet Happer]

morlocks - imaginary beings originally from Wells' book Time Machine.

I knew the word from World of Warcraft, but did not remember the original introduction.

 

[JLT]

Our best beef gets exported. The best Aussie steaks I ever ate was overseas. Feels ironic, but I guess the money is in export over domestic sales.

I had a steak dinner in Sydney that was about the equal of the steak houses back in the US (which are now a vanishing species). The steak I had at the Outback Steakhouse here was, I felt, mediocre. (I remember a radio announcer on PBS thanking that company for being sponsors. He blew the endorsement, though, by calling it the Steakback Outhouse.)

Interesting. The scriptures in major religions (Q'ran, Bibles etc.) are so monolithic, that live literature is unable to use any part of it casually.

But people generally know the Bible in translation. Very few know Hebrew or Greek. And I'm told that the book of Matthew was first written in Aramaic and then translated into the Greek. But the King James Version of the Bible seems to be the default English translation.

You can still find Catholic masses in Latin in my neck of the woods, though I doubt the sermons are such.

When we were traveling in Europe, my mother would always catch a Sunday Mass at the local church. She found it comforting that the main parts were always in the Latin she was familiar with, regardless of the sermon.

 

[JLT]

As a member of various chorales, I've probably sung more masses and requiems in Latin than most people ever hear. I'm not even Christian, let alone Catholic.

The only song in Latin to crack the Top Twenty of British music was this a cappella version of "Gaudete" from Steeleye Span:

 

[Rath Darkblade]

morlocks - imaginary beings originally from Wells' book Time Machine.

I knew the word from World of Warcraft, but did not remember the original introduction.

Interesting. What are "morlocks" in WoW? I only know them from "The Time Machine".

I had a steak dinner in Sydney that was about the equal of the steak houses back in the US (which are now a vanishing species). The steak I had at the Outback Steakhouse here was, I felt, mediocre. (I remember a radio announcer on PBS thanking that company for being sponsors. He blew the endorsement, though, by calling it the Steakback Outhouse.)

Yep, the radio announcer flubbed it. If you want to be authentically Aussie, you'd have to call it the Steakback Dunny. (Redback optional). ;-P

 

[Louanne Learning]

Today I read the word paradoxical

Paradoxical is defined as seemingly absurd or self-contradictory.

This word gave me pause for a couple of reasons. Not only does it nicely sum up this human existence, but captures my writing experience of late!

 

[Heartlet Happer]

Interesting. What are "morlocks" in WoW? I only know them from "The Time Machine".

Oh. They are "murlocs" in WoW. Dangerous monsters that look like fish with hands walking upright. They usually have spears and tridents.

 

[Louanne Learning]

lol, we're consolidating! Just noticed another couple of threads amalgamated!!

Anyhow, here's my new word -

quiddity​

whatever makes something the type that it is - its "essence"

 

[defaux]

This likely isn't new for many here, and while I understood the concept it articulates, putting a name to it is new for me.

prosody​

noun
1. the study of poetic metre and of the art of versification, including rhyme, stanzaic forms, and the quantity and stress of syllables

 

[Rath Darkblade]

lol, we're consolidating! Just noticed another couple of threads amalgamated!!

Anyhow, here's my new word -

quiddity​

whatever makes something the type that it is - its "essence"

I ... *concentrates hard* ... think I've heard that word before, possibly in a Gilbert and Sullivan context. *googles* Ah, yes! It's in one of the chorus scenes from "Yeomen of the Guard", where Jack Point and Elsie Maynard enter, pursued by a crowd eager to hear a joke and see a show -- otherwise, they threaten to throw Jack and Elsie into the Thames. In part, the chorus sings:

Banish your timidity,
And with all rapidity
Give us quip and quiddity —
Willy-nilly, O!

(from "Here's a Man of Jollity!", Gilbert and Sullivan Archive). Thanks, Louanne. I'd heard the word before, but thought it was something in Middle English that I wasn't aware of.

And while we're sharing words, here's one:

Caravanserai. This was a roadside inn, typically spaced a day's journey (30–40 km) apart along the trade routes of the Silk Road. Caravanserais were usually surrounded by stone walls, and provided lodging, food, and security for merchants, pilgrims, and their animals. In so doing, they enabled commercial and and cultural exchange across central and east Asia, North Africa, and southeastern Europe. (They were, in effect, the original Motorway Service Stations). It's possible that caravanserais started operating as long ago as the 8th or 9th century BC, and continued to do so right up to the end of World War 1.

Many caravanserais are still used today, although they have now been repurposed into boutique hotels, museums, restaurants, or shopping centers.

 

[Stuart Dren]

Breakfront. Saw it in prose all alone (but at least with usage context i.e. plates were stored in the breakfront). I thought it was referring to something more specific.

break·front

/ˈbrākˌfrənt/
https://www.google.com/search?sca_e...2ahUKEwiI0eHA44WTAxVOCDQIHZdnOBkQ3eEDegQILRAN
noun

1. a piece of furniture having the line of its front broken by a curve or angle.
   "a breakfront bookcase"

 

[CatrionaGrace]

A revisited word that I haven't had reason to think of, much less use, in decades:

Glochid: the tiny, hair-like barbed thorns that cover the skin of prickly pear fruit (tunas )

 

[JLT]

Caravanserai. This was a roadside inn, typically spaced a day's journey (30–40 km) apart along the trade routes of the Silk Road.

Which, not coincidentally, was the spacing of the California missions established by the Catholic Church in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were designed to be a day's travel apart by foot.

 

[Louanne Learning]

fucktion - what someone hanging on by a thread does