Seen online and incorporated into working vocabulary, guaranteed to isolate you when busted out in front of family and friends. So then, rather useless. And yet people really did use them. Some are not bad, like virulent and vox populi and vraiment (really), and vuvuzela, while the others are hopelessly exclusive and if you use them in speech then you deserve to be punched, pow, right in the kisser.
* vade mecum: handbook or guide that is kept constantly at hand for consultation, A referential book such as a handbook or manual, a useful object, constantly carried on one’s person.
* valence: In chemistry, the valence or valency of an element is a measure of its combining power with other atoms when it forms chemical compounds or molecules. None of them have moral valence.
* Vance Kirkland: Denver artist, house burned. My friend bought this house, A woman’s Weber grill on her balcony of the highrise next door cast an ember that burned down the new portion he had just finished building.
* velleity: the lowest degree of volition, a slight wish or tendency : inclination.
* verkramptes: (in South Africa),(Government, Politics & Diplomacy,(during apartheid) an Afrikaner Nationalist who opposed any changes toward liberal trends in government policy, esp relating to racial questions. (as modifier) verkrampte politics Compare verligte
* Verrine: verrine, A confection, originally from France, made by layering ingredients in a small glass. It can be either sweet or savory, making a dessert or snack.
* vexillology: study of flags.
* viduity: Widowhood.
* vieux jeu: Old game, Old-fashioned; hackneyed, 'a joke that was vieux jeu even in my day’. All the other candidates in both parties were vieux jeu, passé.
* vig: Vigorish, or simply the vig, also known as juice, under-juice, the cut or the take, is the amount charged by a bookmaker, or bookie, for taking a bet from a gambler. In the United States, it also means the interest on a shark's loan. The term originates from the Russian word for winnings, выигрыш vyigrysh.
And if they can’t say it themselves, they’ll find someone who will, even if it’s a crude jerk from Queens who can’t make a point without raising his pinky like a Mafia goon explaining the vig to you after you’ve had a bad day at the track.
* vigneron: A person who cultivates grapes for winemaking.
A village friend, an upstanding citizen and vigneron who has carried a tiny utility knife in his pocket since God’s dog was a puppy, had it taken off him the other day by the police, who have charged him with carrying a weapon under the state of emergency.
* virgule: Solidus: a punctuation mark (/) used to separate related items of information. The sign "/" is a punctuation mark called a slash or forward slash in American English or stroke in UK English. .
* virtuosic: A virtuoso (from Italian virtuoso, late Latin virtuosus, Latin virtus meaning: skill, manliness, excellence) is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability at singing or playing a musical instrument. Requiring a high level of technical skill; something impressive and sometimes flamboyant, usually used to describe musical performance.
specific virtue in Ancient Rome. It carries connotations of valor, manliness, excellence, courage, character, and worth, perceived as masculine strengths (from Latin vir, "man"). It was thus a frequently stated virtue of Roman emperors, and was personified as a deity—Virtus.
* virulent: Extremely infectious, malignant, or poisonous. Used of a disease or toxin. Capable of causing disease by breaking down protective mechanisms of the host. Used of a pathogen. Bitterly hostile or antagonistic; hateful: virulent criticism. See Synonyms at poisonous. Intensely irritating, obnoxious, or harsh.
* Visegrad: a small castle town in Pest County, Hungary. It is north of Budapest on the right bank of the Danube in the Danube Bend. The remarks came ahead of a meeting between Angela Merkel and the heads of the Visegrad countries—Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland
* vitrified: rock glazed like pottery. Convert (something) into glass or a glasslike substance, typically by exposure to heat.
* vitrine: A glass display case. French, from vitre ‘glass pane.’
* Vocaloid: Singing voice synthesizer.
* vol-au-vents: (French for "windblown" to describe its lightness) is a small hollow case of puff pastry. A round opening is cut in the top and the pastry cut out for the opening is replaced as a lid after the case is filled. Vol-au-vents can accommodate various delicious fillings, such as mushrooms, prawns, fruit, or cheese, but they are almost always savory.
* Völkischer Beobachter: ("Völkisch Observer") was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP or Nazi Party) from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923. For twenty-five years it formed part of the official public face of the Nazi party.
* Vox clamantis in: deserto: voice in the wilderness. Dartmouth motto. Original Hebrew Masoretic text, “A voice crieth: in the wilderness clear a way for the Lord.” The voice is not in the wilderness, rather, a path be cleared through the wilderness. By engaging ourselves intellectually at college a path of knowledge must be cut through a wilderness of ignorance.
* Vox populi, vox: ei.: "the voice of the people is the voice of God."
[Do you see any verb in there? Any prepositional phrasing? Do you see any definite article? No, you do not. It says, voice people, voice god, and that’s ALL that it says. Make of it what you will]
* vraiment sympa: vraiment sympa.
The word sympa
In America, one can get by mastering only ten adjectives.
In Paris, one is enough.
Sympa that is. Sympa is the most useful adjective in Paris. Initially, sympa is short for sympathique. Is sympa something that is nice. People, places, moments, activities can all be sympa. Being fantastically non-committing, ‘sympa‘ grew to become tremendously popular an adjective. Non only can most things be sympa, they usually are. In Paris, there is really only one answer to the question “C’était comment ?”
Sympa!
Using it extensively, Parisians managed to empty the word of its very substance: the way it is said gives it its actual meaning. To decipher what a Parisian really thinks of something or someone, it is key to be attentive to the tone of the ‘sympa‘ he will most likely come up with as an answer. Tone and facial expression. Only then will you know a bit more about what the Parisian really thinks.
If sympa became such a popular adjective in Paris, it is because it sends out messages the Parisian is happy to convey about himself. Being short for something, sympa is vaguely colloquial. Making the Parisian seem vaguely laid back when using it. On top of this, sympa is a fantastic buffer against any form of enthusiasm. Sympa is nice but it is still very far from excellent, génial, exceptionnel, formidable or fantastique. It is just sympa. By saying something or someone is sympa, the Parisian gives it a good point. But not too good of a point either.
* vuvuzela: sometimes called a "lepatata" (its Setswana name) or a stadium horn, is a blowing horn, approximately one meter in length, commonly blown by fans at football matches in South Africa. They require some lip and lung strength to blow and emit a loud monotone like a foghorn or an elephant. A similar instrument (known as corneta in Brazil and Latin American countries) is used by football (soccer) fans in South America.
Vuvuzelas have been controversial, linked to permanent noise-induced hearing loss, potentiality spreading colds and flu germs on a greater scale than coughing or shouting, and injury to pets who generally have more sensitive hearing and are more likely to run away because of being terrified by the sound.
7 comments:
virgule: Typesetters, back when there were typesetters, called this a "shill." Presumably because the Brits used it before a number to indicate "shillings."
vox populi, vox dei: Latin does not use the definite or indefinite article. The verb "is" is implied, as in "mi casa, su casa," or "red sky at night, sailor's delight."
How odd. Neither does sign. In both cases, the "to be" verb in all its forms is inherent in the doing, and articles are dropped. In fact, it's actually quite silly when you show them, like you're speaking Shakespearian. Who knew? I've never had it pointed out that sign is so much like Latin. Yet hieroglyphics does include both those things in aching specificity for cases. And so do languages derived from Latin.
Last week when women dressed themselves up as vulvas and went about trumpeting their demands for equality - I thought they should be called vulvazelas.
But that sort of crudites seems more like something Troop would queef.
Just for that I am putting up an old queefing post Sixty.
That's interesting about ASL, Chip. I guess in sign, as in texting, you want to strip the language down as far as possible, to avoid wearing out your fingers.
In the 1960s a Latin translation of Winnie the Pooh was published, which, inexplicably, became a minor best-seller. The title should translate to Winnie Pu (or Vini Pu?). But the publishers, apparently afraid the lack of the definite article would freak out English readers, titled it Winnie Ille Pu ("Winnie That Pooh"), which would only make sense if you were pointing to one particular Pooh in a group of Poohs.
Not even half, but the first few words of the definition and it came to me (still a little sick, but The Blonde's got it now and it looks to be a long week).
It's not just stripping it though, it's actually ridiculously redundant. Say, if you show, "walking," they already "are" walking. Or the person already "is" walking. So to stick the "are" or the "is" into the display is showing English and not ASL. It's one of the more difficult things to let go of, coming from English. We tend to apply our English template over ASL and that's just plain ridiculous. Yet there are signs for "the" and "that" and "be" and "is." The deeper you go into the language then those signs are dropped as utterly superfluous. Just like the Latin. As you said, they're assumed, they're inherent.
So it's strange to a non-Latin knowing English speaker to see "voice people voice God" interpreted in English with "of the" stuck in there to comport with all our little curly cue serifs that in ASL strike listeners as ridiculously risibly Shakespearean.
It's how Geraldo used to make fun of the way that I talk. He'd add superfluous wording that doesn't even make any sense just to be overly ornamental and flowery then laugh his ass off at how ridiculous I am with extra words. He shaped me right up, through ridicule. Bastard. But it did force clarity. Unbelievable I put up with that crap for so long just to keep hanging on. But they were only having harmless fun at my expense, I suppose.
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