Ff: Free Booting

Definition

To act as a plunderer,

Cocktail Party Banter

His wife left him because he was such a freebooter, he loafed, he squandered her money, he was such a bum.

Literary Context

Moby Dick I-LXVII by Melville, Herman

Now, gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well-nigh as large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far manilla; this lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our America, had yet been nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly connected with the open ocean.

Audio Visual

Hunt for Words

I found this word in the Essay "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" by Thomas Sewall... the sentence the word was found in was: "Local feuding clans and freebooting marauders kept this region in an uproar, even when there were no military hostilities between the English and Scottish kingdoms."pg 5  I liked the way it sounded and wanted to use it in future writing.

Ss: Shilly-shallied

Derain: Shows a Good "Shilly-Shally"

Definition

To procrastinate.
To be unable to come to a decision.
To spend time on insignificant things.  Dawdle.

Cocktail Party Banter

I just shilly-shallied all day. It was incredibly nice, not to be tied down to my agenda.

Literary Context

Cool breeze-maybe
just a shillyshallying show
That'll ruin everything.*

Audio Visual

*Kerouac, Jack and Regina Weinreich. Book of Haikus. New York: Penguin Poets, 2003. pg5

Senryù

 Definition 

like Haiku but concerned with human foibles.(Wikipedia) 


"Senryu, like haiku, are usually one to three lines in length but whilst haiku focuses on nature and the world around us, senryu homes in on human nature and the way our human minds function within our many environments. Senryu may or may not include aspects of the natural world, but if they do, they do so with an emphasis on the way we as human beings perceive those aspects and how they interact with our own psychology. In this way, senryu are often, though not always, humorous and are frequently complemented by a sharp, sometimes wicked wit. (From Prune Juice)" 

Differences between Haiku and Senryu

Haiku	Senryu
Seasonal Reference	No Seasonal Reference
Haiku is Haiku	Synru is playful using simile, metaphor, and personification

Kerouac, Jack and Regina Weinreich. Book of Haikus. New York: Penguin Poets, 2003.

Cocktail Party Banter

What do you do Frank?
I write Senryu for a literary magazine on the internet.
So in other words you are one of those Burma Bums?

Audio Visual

Links

Haiku in the Internet Era: The Atlantic Magazine
Haiku Society of America 

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

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

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

:

Ll: Lacuna

Lacuna a Fictionl Marve Comics
Superhero and member of
X-Statix

Generally, a lacuna is a gap. The term may refer to:

• Lacuna (manuscripts), a missing section of text
• Lacuna (music), an extended silence in a piece of music
• Lacuna (linguistics), a lexical gap in a language
• Lacuna (law), the lack of a law or legal source addressing a situation
• Lacuna model, a tool for unlocking culture differences or missing "gaps" in text
• Lacunar amnesia, in psychology, amnesia about a specific event

This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia® - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the Wikipedia® encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free 

2. Cocktail Party Banter: :"Now, that is a lacuna worth looking into!"

3. Literary Context: :  The young Pelletir didn't realize at the time that the novel was part of a trilogy, but his ignorance or lapse or bibliographical lacuna, attributable only to this extreme youth,  did nothing to diminish the wonder and admiration that the novel stirred in him." page 3 of 2666 by Robert Bolano.

4.  The Hunt for Words: found the word Lacuna in the book 2666 by Robert Bolano  and found it simply delightful.  It was such a short word but such a powerful one at that.

5.  Audio/Visual:

Aa: Aleatory

Definitionadj.1. Dependent on chance, luck, or an uncertain outcome: an aleatory contract between an oil prospector and a landowner.

2. Of or characterized by gambling: aleatory contests.

Coktail Party Banter: The player was so aleatory in his attempts to woo the girl that he failed half the time.  But the other half, he played the part of cuckold.

Literary Context: A complex play of themes and variations underscores a narrative that on its surface, appears so aleatory, following the rituals and routines of everyday life.
An Autumn Afternoon by Russell, Catherine / Cineaste


The Hunt for Words:  Found the Word while reading John Gardner's On Moral Fiction.  A great read by the way.


Audio Visiual:

Pp: Phrenology

Following the materialist notions of mental functions originating in the brain, phrenologists believed that human conduct could best be understood in neurological rather than abstract terms.  Wikipedia Article on Phrenology. 
Word in Context:
"People talk a lot of guff about American magic, but I assure you are quit up to the international standard.  In Zurich, they still teach Phrenology, if you can believe it." Lev Gross Magician page 39.

Use at Your Next Cocktail Party
According to Phrenology, the size of Greg's head made him capable of much intellectual pursuits.

Pp: Ptomaine

n. A basic nitrogenous organic compound produced by bacterial putrefaction of protein. [Italian ptomaina, from Greek ptma, corpse, from piptein, pt-, to fall; see pet- in Indo-European roots.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

IN Context:

Why, Windrips just something nasty that's been vomited up.   Plenty others still left fermenting in the stomach-quack economists with every sort of ptomaine. 

pg 109 Sinclair lewis It Can't Happen Here

Mm: Mannishness: Mannishness

Mannish \Man"nish\, a. [Man + -ish: cf. AS. mennisc, menisc.]

1. Resembling a human being in form or nature; human.
      --Chaucer.
      [1913 Webster]

            But yet it was a figure
            Most like to mannish creature.        --Gower.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Resembling, suitable to, or characteristic of, a man,
      manlike, masculine. --Chaucer.
      [1913 Webster]

            A woman impudent and mannish grown.   --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. Fond of men; -- said of a woman. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
      [1913 Webster] -- Man"nish*ly,adv. -- Man"nish*ness,
      n.
      [1913 Webster]See also:
Man"nish*ly Man"nish*ness 

Source: The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

In Context:

Christian Louboutin The distinctions between boyishness and mannishness, and between masculine masquerade and masculine costume, are crucial. Nowhere does Liscombe describe herself or her friends as manly (or as interested in parodying men); but this is not to say that she is unaware of the “styling” adopted by Christian Louboutin Trottinette Boots Suede Black 15 mannish women. This insight is recorded during her travels to Boston when she describes some patrons at a YWCA cafeteria: This was a group of ladies who apparently were not in Boston for any W.M.S. convention. They talked and laughed loudly and smoked incessantly and they didn’t smoke like blase sophisticated women, you know, two little puffs and then a gentle strike on the side of the saucer, or a cautious finger removing the ash, but they blew the smoke with a sharp blast through the nose and did their talking with cigarette dangling from lower lip. And I bet they told good jokes too! (1934b, 28) I have Christian Louboutin Trottinette ankle boots Brown 14 made the point that Liscombe understood the line separating decent women from “loose” ones. Frida’s sexual display and Gertrude’s cigarettes (and flirting and makeup) signal “cheap” women; but the YWCA ladies’ dangling smokes, along with their loud voices and other “sharp” mannerisms, mark them as mannish. After Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 “queer moment,” masculine, cigarettesmoking women such as those Liscombe describes during this 1934 trip are often associated with lesbianism (Oosterhuis 2000, 66; Behling 2001, 3; Doan 2001, 1078). Since divergence from the social norm is noticed, Gertrude, Frida, and the YWCA Christian Louboutin Tall Platform Boots Black 13 are objects of fascination in a culture that leaves little room to deviate. Perhaps that is why Liscombe has coded language for her university crushes and why she continues to go off with her female friends for “twilight moments” across Sydney’s Harbour to “the rock” near Crawley’s Creek, or into the backwoods off the Highland Trail where there is more privacy for a sartorial aesthetic that would not stigmatize the group as mannish or as lesbian. Ella Liscombe’s story is a remarkable combination of self-invention and selfknowledge. She manages to live the life she wants.

Audio/Video

Mm: mellifluous

adj.

1. Flowing with sweetness or honey.

2. Smooth and sweet: "polite and cordial, with a mellifluous, well-educated voice" (H.W. Crocker III).

---

[Middle English, from Late Latin mellifluus : Latin mel, mell-, honey; see melit- in Indo-European roots + Latin -fluus, flowing; see bhleu- in Indo-European roots.]

In context: Ezra Pound (from Gaudier-Brzeska, 1916)
When I find people ridiculing the new arts, or making fun of the clumsy odd terms that we use in trying to talk of them amongst ourselves; when they laugh at our talking about the "ice-block quality" in Picasso, I think it is only because they do not know what thought is like, and they are familiar only with argument and gibe and opinion. That is to say, they can only enjoy what they have been brought up to consider enjoyable, or what some essayist has talked about in mellifluous phrases. They think only "the shells of thought," as de Gourmont calls them; the thoughts that have been already thought out by others.

So in this context the words mellifluous phrases means, phrases that are pleasant, phrases that make good dinner party conversation, words that have spoken by others and are well accepted.  



 

Jj: Jig

n. Offensive Slang

Used as a disparaging term for a Black person.

n.

1.

a. Any of various lively dances in triple time.

b. The music for such a dance. Also called gigue.

2. A joke or trick. Used chiefly in the phrase The jig is up.

3. A typically metal fishing lure with one or more hooks, usually deployed with a jiggling motion on or near the bottom.

4. An apparatus for cleaning or separating crushed ore by agitation in water.

5. A device for guiding a tool or for holding machine work in place.

v. jigged, jig·ging, jigs

v.intr.

1. To dance or play a jig.

2. To move or bob up and down jerkily and rapidly.

3. To operate a jig.

v.tr.

1. To bob or jerk (something) up and down or to and fro.

2. To machine (an object) with the aid of a jig.

3. To separate or clean (ore) by shaking a jig.

Esculent

adj.

Suitable for eating; edible.

---

[Latin sculentus, from sca, food, from edere, s-, to eat; see ed- in Indo-European roots.]

From on the Road by Jack Kerouac:

There were seafood places out there where the buns were hot, and the baskets were good enough to eat too; where the menus themselves were soft with foody 
esculence as though dipped in hot broths roasted dry and good enough to eat too. 

Bb: Bereft

adj. 1. a. Deprived of something: They are bereft of their dignity. b. Lacking something needed or expected: "Today's graduates seem keenly aware that the future is bereft of conventional expectations" (Bruce Weber). 2. Suffering the death of a loved one; bereaved: the bereft parents.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

He scoffed at them as adventures, mountebanks, sideshow riffraff, dime museum freaks; he assailed their showy titles with measureless derision; he said they were back-alley barbers disguised as nobilities, peanut peddlers masquerading as gentlemen, organ-grinders bereft of their brother monkey.

Pudd'n'head Wilson by Twain, Mark

Pp: Permaculture

n. A system of perennial agriculture emphasizing the use of renewable natural resources and the enrichment of local ecosystems. [perma(nent) + (agri)culture.] perma·cultur·ist, perma·cultur·al·ist n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Bb: Bro Date

Two individuals, guys or gals, on a date but no ramance possible at all. Just friends.

Or as the Urban Dictionary says:

A social gathering between two straight men.

I was on my bro date with my BFF yesterday

CURMUDGEON: (noun)
one who abhors disingenuity and hypocrisy, and has the temerity to say so, often recasting unpleasant facts in a droll manner.

A Special Thanks to the Dick Martens - Curmudgeon in Residence

Cc:Curmudgeon

cur·mudg·eon (kr-mjn)

n.

An ill-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions.

---

[Origin unknown.]

---

cur·mudgeon·ly adj.

cur·mudgeon·ry n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Word in Context:
And the prince or nobleman must be a very stingy curmudgeon, to be sure, if, at least, when his own dinner was over, he would not bid them welcome to the broken victuals from the table.Tanglewood Tales by Hawthorne, Nathaniel



I can't hide, no
On the mantle
I'm not sad
Until I'm home

It's the season
I'm all reason
I have seen
All I have grown

Sheared at the seams
Cheat on me
And not seen
At the seams

I'm a lender
I'm a planter
I put something
In the garden

In the handle
On the mantle
I met Santa
I met God

I'm a lady
Can you save me?
It's the sulfur
I have grown

'Tis the season
I'm all reason
I have fleas
So run on home