As promised, the prayer for pisspots. I first heard the mockery in Tom Holloway’s grim drama, Don’t Say The Words, and wasn’t sure if the parody was original.
Turns out a jokey T-shirt company, and 500 other places around the net, carry the spoof. Minor variations exist around the traps but Tom nails the best […]
Like I say, addictive.
Where I should be finalising a book proposal, preparing for a freelance seminar, polishing a script, making puzzles and every other task known to a beleaguered writer, I’m Googling EQUIP and ALOFT to register 613 hits.
And then LITHE and KORMA for 558.
FETED and PRAWN gives you 505.
Just a few more than VELDT […]
Warning – this can get addictive.
Just enter two familiar five-letter words into your local Google engine, and see if you can register a minimum of hits. (Yes, I may have too much time on my hands this afternoon….)
But leaving aside Welsh violins, Inuit snow and Pashtu sweetmeats, just opt for common vocab, and only […]
Hit a phonetic wall this morning.
Bitten by a puzzle idea, I’ve spent the last while converting people like Harry Kewell and Kelly Slater into hair-reek-yule and care-lease-later respectively.
Some names, like songwriter Joe Camilleri, are ripe for the mangling. I mean joke-camel-leery almost sounds like a Page 3 headline.
But most other names defy the treatment. […]
A book of CHINGLISH came across my desk this week – Chinese signs and dishes fumbled in translation. Prime spotter and editor is Oliver Lutz Radtke, his team of snappers gathering such gems as Keep Your Legs, (appearing on an escalator) and Man and Wife Lung Slice (an eerie menu).
Here’s another small Chinglish chunk […]
Stashed away in the top drawer is my dog-eared puzzle diary, milling with ideas for crosswords, Wordwits, theme lists, anagrams and all the other verbal quirks.
Over the weekend, thumbing the book for a few ideas, I came across six words, listed together as if they belong to the one set. But what set? If there […]
If you think Hitler’s plan to annex Poland was anti-Semantic, then these malapropisms are for you:
“Did you manage to see the 16th chapel in Rome?”
“No, but I did see some geishas in Rotorua.”
“Department stores rely on excavators to get from floor to floor.”
“I was so hungry I gouged myself.”
“Global warming is a political hotdog.”
“The tutor […]
Some people collect teaspoons. Other plump for fridge magnets. Me? I can’t resist a good malapropism.
Over the years, riding in trains, eavesdropping kids, scouring newsprint, I’ve gathered a fair swag of these verbal mangles, where one word is meant for another.
Few of us are immune. Blushingly I recall a first date a year out […]
Hapax legomena (the plural) are words that appear only once. Literally the Greek phrase means ‘once said’ and may label half the Joycean cookery that appear in Finnegan’s Wake, such as:
Pranjapansies
Reinworms
Diffpair
Troterella
Lemonsized
Caith
Rewritemen
And that’s only page 59…
Rather than cite Finnegan folderol, or once-only utterances in The Bible, and other sources, the Mac Dictionary goes for the plainspoken […]
Perhaps provoking more questions than meeting answers, here are the definitions for last week’s mystery words, as provided by this land’s eminent lexicon, the Macquarie 3rd Edition. And I quote:
imparipinnate: pinnate with a terminal leaflet
rupture wort: any of several small herbs of the genus Herniaria, as the glabrous rupture wort formerly used to cure ruptures
Poisson’s […]