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Post by mossie on Oct 9, 2019 19:03:55 GMT
Eejit
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Post by lagatta on Oct 9, 2019 19:52:08 GMT
As opposed to the older Ijut?
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 9, 2019 21:56:15 GMT
I was going to put egregious as a good candidate for this thread. But all of the news lately about the Trump call to Ukraine and other of his shenanigans have made the word fairly commonplace, as least in the newspapers I read.
Unrelated: I looked up egregious to make sure I was spelling it correctly. The definition popup on google includes this nugget at the end: Tip - Similar-sounding words egregious is sometimes confused with gregarious
Surely not?!
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Post by lagatta on Oct 9, 2019 23:57:45 GMT
Odd, the meaning is utterly diffent, not a shade of meaning.
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Post by questa on Oct 10, 2019 0:46:34 GMT
Wazzock. Barnpot. Lickspittle. Lickspittle...what a satisfying amount of contemptuous venom one can deliver in this word! "You lickspittling toad"
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 10, 2019 11:59:54 GMT
I was thinking about how I have become inured to the small minds around me and how they would not understand the word if I used it.
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Post by patricklondon on Oct 10, 2019 17:04:38 GMT
I looked up egregious to make sure I was spelling it correctly. The definition popup on google includes this nugget at the end: Tip - Similar-sounding words egregious is sometimes confused with gregariousSurely not?! Of course, some people can be egregiously gregarious. I tend to find their company rebarbative.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 10, 2019 17:30:57 GMT
You sent me to the dictionary! Now I know that your excellent word does not mean someone who needs a haircut.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 10, 2019 18:03:03 GMT
That one is quite common in French.
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Post by questa on Oct 11, 2019 6:31:16 GMT
You sent me to the dictionary! Now I know that your excellent word does not mean someone who needs a haircut. Not even if one's beard was repellent?
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 11, 2019 17:04:18 GMT
That was my first thought, Questa, particularly since I don't like beards. I went with haircut as being more universal. Inclusive, that's me!
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Post by whatagain on Oct 11, 2019 18:05:19 GMT
What is funny is when people say they use complicated English words. Like obsequious. Which comes from the french obséquieux. Not too common but still quite used. Same for gregarious which is in the very common n idiom of. ´ instinct grégaire ´ Sometimes frenchspeaking are using complex words without knowing it. A little like me Jourdain speaking in prose.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 11, 2019 18:11:25 GMT
Actually, as my English deteriorates from insufficient use, I have noticed that more and more often I use rarer English words which are closer to French. For example, I tend to say "ameliorate" rather than "improve."
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Post by onlyMark on Oct 11, 2019 19:56:00 GMT
.......late 15c., "prompt to serve, meekly compliant with the will or wishes of another, dutiful," from Latin obsequiosus "compliant, obedient," from obsequium "compliance, dutiful service," from obsequi "to accommodate oneself to the will of another......
.....1660s, "disposed to live in flocks" (of animals), from Latin gregarius "pertaining to a flock; of the herd, of the common sort....
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Post by fumobici on Oct 11, 2019 20:07:12 GMT
Actually, as my English deteriorates from insufficient use, I have noticed that more and more often I use rarer English words which are closer to French. For example, I tend to say "ameliorate" rather than "improve." It's similar coming from the other direction too. We tend to glom onto words from our first language when there are similar words in the language we are learning with similar meanings. It makes you sound like one of those weird speaking foreigners to the locals who have better words, or as I prefer to think of it, a charming cosmopolotan eccentricity. This--and by this I mean only nine days--is the longest I've ever gone without speaking English since--well since when I could speak it. Feels good so far. The farmer next door is having me over for dinner tomorrow night and his daughter and son-in-law, who now live in England and speak English, are visiting, so I'll probably break my duck then. Almost none of the locals here speak but the most rudimentary English--a few words. It's a perfect immersion experience.
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Post by mickthecactus on Oct 11, 2019 20:17:41 GMT
Glom??
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Post by fumobici on Oct 11, 2019 21:51:22 GMT
— phrasal verb with glom verb uk /ɡlɒm/ us /ɡlɑːm/ US informal. to become very interested in something such as a new idea or fashion or in someone: Retailers are glomming onto a new fashion among teens for outsize clothes. This guy glommed onto me at Tasha's party and wouldn't take no for an answer. GLOM ONTO STH/SB | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 11, 2019 22:17:23 GMT
What is funny is when people say they use complicated English words. Like obsequious. Which comes from the french obséquieux. Whatagain, a good 29%+ of English comes from French, although it's not always possible to figure out which words entered from Latin, and which from French. fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_du_français_sur_l%27anglais
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 15, 2019 6:16:17 GMT
He relished ... unusual words: kenosis (emptying), tessera (completing), askesis (diminishing) and clinamen (swerving).From today's NYTime's obituary on Harold Bloom: www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/books/harold-bloom-dead.htmlBut, but, but ~ how do any of those words mean what the sentence says they mean??? For one thing, they're all nouns, not verbs.
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Post by bjd on Oct 15, 2019 6:28:54 GMT
I thought tessera were the little bits of coloured stone used in mosaics?
That all reminds me of a book I once read by one of the Theroux, Alexander I believe, Darconville's Cat. Drove me nuts because I had the impression he spent his time using the dictionary to find every archaic word he could and put it in the book. "Look how clever I am using all these big words you will have to look up." After a few pages of looking up words only to discover that they were archaic and no longer used, I stopped. I remember nothing about the book either except that I got rid of it.
I like your "charming cosmopolitan eccentricity", Fumobici. I realized yesterday how much Italian I have lost (not that I was fluent but could get by) in the train yesterday. There was a family speaking loudly nearby and at first I thought they were Spanish. Only after a few sentences did I realize they were speaking Italian.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 10, 2019 19:28:03 GMT
Since it came up again in the news today, I noticed what fine and elegant words dismember and dismemberment are to refer to something that is really horrible.
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Post by lagatta on Nov 10, 2019 21:11:18 GMT
Yet remember has nothing to do with restoring lost members (in the sense of limbs). Reverso context is a useful tool: context.reverso.net/traduzione/italiano-inglese/gregge A gregge is simply a flock or herd. I've heard it more to refer to groups of ovines than bovines; it is also used metaphorically for humans in the sense of blind followers. tessera (tesserae?) also simply refer to potsherds. For example, Testaccio in Rome is a hill composed of (deliberately) smashed up amphorae and other classical rubbish.
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Post by questa on Nov 11, 2019 3:35:38 GMT
I read (and might have the wrong poet) that when W B Yeats consulted his doctor he was very sick. Doctor told him he was dying of arterio-sclerosis.
Yeats rolled the word around in his mouth." arterio-sclerosis ye say? 'tis a fine word...a man could die happy with arterio-sclerosis...beautiful word.I don't want to die with the croup"
*Now called athero-sclerosis.
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Post by whatagain on Nov 12, 2019 17:01:11 GMT
Instinct grégaire is still pretty much used over here. Or so I think. I used lackadaisical this week. Got some blank faces. 😂
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 17, 2019 16:11:16 GMT
I managed to use the word "smidgeon" in a letter that I wrote today.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 17, 2019 16:38:40 GMT
I looked up the French translation of smidgeon, and there is no French word for it. In France we use the North African word chouïa instead.
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Post by patricklondon on Nov 17, 2019 17:49:46 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 17, 2019 17:54:21 GMT
Definitely too precious, although it could be used for certain nuances, just like "un brin" or "une pincée." (but that corresponds to "a tad" or "a pinch" so completely different words).
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Post by whatagain on Nov 17, 2019 18:20:36 GMT
Un soupçon de lait dans mon thé je vous prie. And the next time you say encore une rawette ´ (Some more - in Walloon I think).
I like to absolve. Not common at all in french outside of the church and with a nice grammar. Je t' absous. Nous vous absolvons.
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Post by bjd on Nov 17, 2019 18:59:58 GMT
I managed to use the word "smidgeon" in a letter that I wrote today. I had it in a crossword puzzle this morning and thought it was spelled without the o. Ha, just looked it up and it should be spelled smidgen. With an o it's an alternative form.
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