Gg: Goat Track

Definition

A golf course under terrible condition.

Cocktail Party Banter

My buddy and I picked a local course, but finding it was a goat track we were pissed and felt ripped off. So we decided to play in the farmer's field: Cow Chip Bingo.

Audio Visual: No Good Videos to Show But Here's an Idea of the Word

The word was used by one of my customers at the Deli.  So this goes out to: Shelton Smith.

Soteriology

Definition

Religious Doctrines of Salvation.

Cc: Couvade

Definition

a custom in some cultures in accordance with which when a child is born the father takes to bed as if bearing the child and submits himself to fasting, purification, or taboos.

Cocktail Party Banter

"Did you hear about Nancy's husband, who has decided to do a couvade at the birth of their child; and Nancy is pissed."

Tahrir Square

Coordinates: 30.044422°N 31.235696°E
"Everyone around the globe now associates Tahrir Square with freedom and revolution, we really wanted to do something that celebrates what happened here, and this seems like a great way to do it."(Link to the Story)

Ff: Fabulism

“Fabulism” or “Magical Realism.”

As a reaction against the demands of mainstream verisimilar fiction, writers of “fabulism” or “magical realism” have sought to reinvent or reinvigorate or reconceive traditional realism by infusing it with the characteristics of older forms such as the fable (hence the name), the tale, the legend, the myth, as well as allegory and parable.

Events or characters in such works are not expected to obey or conform to the conventions of realism: carpets may fly, animals may talk, etc.

Works in this mode tend toward the ornate, the Gothic, the subjective, the dream-like, the surreal. In Jose Saramago’s novel Blindness, for example, a mysterious illness causes everyone in the world to go blind within a matter of days.

Some other characteristics:

• emphasis on idea or theme
• settings in other times, places, but not necessarily "historical"
• exoticism: the extraordinary over the ordinary, the unusual over the usual.

Some seminal works and examples:

• Garcia-Marquez's story A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.
• Robert Olen Butler’s “Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot.”
• Angela Carter’s “The Werewolf.”
• T.C. Boyle’s “Descent of Man.”
• A.S. Byatt’s “The Thing in the Forest.”
• Ursula LeGuin’s “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas.”
• Isak Dinesen’s “The Blue Stones.”
• Charles Johnson, “Menagerie.”
• Jose Saramago "Death with Interruptions"

Quoted from:

 http://faculty.smu.edu/cwsmith/Isms_for_Craft.htm
Link to New Dead Family

Cc: Creche

Definition

1. A representation of the Nativity.
2. A Day Nursery.

Cocktail Party Banter

Literary Context

Indeed I once knew a lady who half-humorously suggested that the cave was a creche, in which the babies were put to be specially safe, and that the coloured animals were drawn on the walls to amuse them

Audio Visual

Aa: Ameliorated

Definition:

to become better

Cocktail Party Banter

Hopefully the Earth's climate will ameliorate and global warming will be a thing of the past.

Literary Context

These newcomers did not migrate into Europe in the strict sense of the word, but rather, as century by century the climate ameliorated, they followed the food and plants to which they were accustomed, as these spread into new realms that opened up to them. Wells, H.G. Outline of History. St. Clair Shores: Scholarly Press, 1974. pg 68

Words in Common

ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms

Verb	1.	ameliorate - to make better; "The editor improved the manuscript with his changes" improve, meliorate, amend, better alleviate, relieve, palliate, assuage - provide physical relief, as from pain; "This pill will relieve your headaches" aid, help - improve the condition of; "These pills will help the patient" revitalize, regenerate - restore strength; "This food revitalized the patient" alter, change, modify - cause to change; make different; cause a transformation; "The advent of the automobile may have altered the growth pattern of the city"; "The discussion has changed my thinking about the issue" enrich - make better or improve in quality; "The experience enriched her understanding"; "enriched foods" build up, develop - change the use of and make available or usable; "develop land"; "The country developed its natural resources"; "The remote areas of the country were gradually built up" ameliorate, improve, meliorate, better - get better; "The weather improved toward evening" turn around - improve dramatically; "The new strategy turned around sales"; "The tutor turned around my son's performance in math" help - improve; change for the better; "New slipcovers will help the old living room furniture" upgrade - to improve what was old or outdated; "I've upgraded my computer so I can run better software"; "The company upgraded their personnel" condition - put into a better state; "he conditions old cars" emend - make improvements or corrections to; "the text was emended in the second edition" iron out, put right, straighten out - settle or put right; "we need to iron out our disagreements" enhance - make better or more attractive; "This sauce will enhance the flavor of the meat" fix, furbish up, mend, repair, bushel, doctor, touch on, restore - restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken; "She repaired her TV set"; "Repair my shoes please" reform - make changes for improvement in order to remove abuse and injustices; "reform a political system" reform - improve by alteration or correction of errors or defects and put into a better condition; "reform the health system in this country" beautify, fancify, prettify, embellish - make more beautiful build - improve the cleansing action of; "build detergents" perfect, hone - make perfect or complete; "perfect your French in Paris!" fine-tune, refine, polish, down - improve or perfect by pruning or polishing; "refine one's style of writing" distill, make pure, purify, sublimate - remove impurities from, increase the concentration of, and separate through the process of distillation; "purify the water" fructify - make productive or fruitful; "The earth that he fructified" lift, raise - invigorate or heighten; "lift my spirits"; "lift his ego" advance - develop further; "We are advancing technology every day" upgrade - give better travel conditions to; "The airline upgraded me when I arrived late and Coach Class was full" educate - give an education to; "We must educate our youngsters better"
	2.	ameliorate - get better; "The weather improved toward evening" improve, meliorate, better convalesce, recover, recuperate - get over an illness or shock; "The patient is recuperating" heal - get healthy again; "The wound is healing slowly" change state, turn - undergo a transformation or a change of position or action; "We turned from Socialism to Capitalism"; "The people turned against the President when he stole the election" see the light, straighten out, reform - change for the better; "The lazy student promised to reform"; "the habitual cheater finally saw the light" surge - see one's performance improve; "He levelled the score and then surged ahead" turn around, pick up - improve significantly; go from bad to good; "Her performance in school picked up" ameliorate, improve, meliorate, amend, better - to make better; "The editor improved the manuscript with his changes" bounce back, get well, get over - improve in health; "He got well fast" heal, mend - heal or recover; "My broken leg is mending" fructify - become productive or fruitful; "The seeds fructified" upgrade - get better travel conditions; "I upgraded to First Class when Coach Class was overbooked"

Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2008 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

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Audio Visual

Gg: Galoot

Definition

N. slang-person who is lazy, or uncouth.

Cocktail Party Banter

"He is such a big galoot in his slothful way of laying his hands in the dip, and lazying off to sleep, as the men played football on the screen.

Literary Context

"Now you Eastern galoots won't believe anything against the yellow devils," he suddenly flamed out with an appearance of earnestness not altogether convincing, "but I tell you that Chink was the perversest scoundrel outside San Francisco.

Can Such Things Be? by Bierce, Ambrose View in context

Audio/Visual

Pp: Penumbra

Salvador Dali, Sewing Machine with Umbrella
Oil on Canvas
Courtesy of the Stratton Foundation

Definition

A partial shadow between regions.
The grayish outer spot of a region.
"It is because the critics are not detched they do not see this detachment, it is because they are not looking at things in a dry light that they cannot see the difference between black and white."#
#Chesterton, G. The Everlasting Man. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993. 

Cocktail Party Banter

When you are in the midst of things it is often to be at a penumbra of things.

Literary Context

Slowly the penumbra, the shadow of a shadow, crept on over the bright surface, and as it crept I heard deep gasps of fear rising from the multitude around.

King Solomon's Mines by Haggard, Rider H. View in context

Audio Visual

Ww:Wobblies

Definition

A person who has radical ideas or opinions.

Cocktail Party Banter

Darling, don't hang out with any Wobblies in Berkley California.

Audio Visual

IN Other Words

Noun	1.	Wobbly - a member of the Industrial Workers of the World radical - a person who has radical ideas or opinions
Adj.	1.	wobbly - inclined to shake as from weakness or defect; "a rickety table"; "a wobbly chair with shaky legs"; "the ladder felt a little wobbly"; "the bridge still stands though one of the arches is wonky" rickety, shaky, wonky unstable - lacking stability or fixity or firmness; "unstable political conditions"; "the tower proved to be unstable in the high wind"; "an unstable world economy"

Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2008 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

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wobbly

adjective

1. unstable, shaky, unsafe, uneven, teetering, unbalanced, tottering, rickety, unsteady, wonky (Brit. slang) I was sitting on a wobbly plastic chair.

2. unsteady, weak, unstable, shaky, quivery, all of a quiver (informal) His legs felt wobbly after the long flight.

3. shaky, unsteady, tremulous `I want to go home,' she said in a wobbly voice.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Aa: Angle of Repose

Defined

The angle of repose is the minimum angle made by the inclined plane with the horizontal surface such that the body lying on the inclined plane is just at the verge of sliding down along the inclined plane. (from Wikipedia Article)

Cocktail Party Banter

He fell forward, like a dead weight, until the coach caught him at the angle of repose.

Literary Context

showed in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novelAngle of Repose (1971).

Wallace Stegner by Teisch, Jessica /Bookmarks

Audio Visual

Hh: Homage

Definition

(N)Special Honor Bestowed on a person, place, or thing.
(Vb Tr) Archaic/Poetic-to play homage to.

Cocktail Party Banter

We played homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs by watching all of the Tarzan Movies yesterday, man that's a lot of movies.

Literary Context:

These days past, when sending Your Excellency my plays, that had appeared in print before being shown on the stage, I said, if I remember well, that Don Quixote was putting on his spurs to go and render homage to Your Excellency.

Don Quixote by Cervantes, Miguel View in context

Now the councillors and the captains of the People of the Axe konzaed to him whom they named the Slaughterer, doing homage to him as chief and holder of the axe, and also they did homage to the axe itself.

Nada The Lily by Haggard, Rider H.  View in Context

Search for Words

Homage said Om agggg... see the Free Dictionary.
I thought I should look it up so that I did not say it wrong, currently I am reading Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell.

Audio/Visual

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Cc: Curry

Defined

Curry: To carry favor by flattery.

Word Origin

The word comes from  to curry a fallow-colored horse, be hypocritical (from the fallow horse as a medieval symbol of deceit).]

Cocktail Party Banter

"He tried to curry my favor by bringing me a bouquet of dandelions."

Literary Context

I dare say he was lying-deserters, for obvious reasons, often try to curry favor.

Hunt for Words

Found the word in Homage to Catalonia, I thought hmmm I think I know this word, but I can't tell for certain... let me look it up... I also thought why is this word used when it sounds so much like Curries the Indian Spicy Food.

Audio Visual