POP QUIZ, vocabulary

Words and phrases seen online since ... the last time.

People actually used these words to communicate. I think. Maybe they used the words to elevate themselves from all the people they know would have to look them up. To lord over their readers. To sneakily demand some authoritah. Maybe they actually do use these words conversationally while their sister stands nearby saying, "There he goes again. I wish he would stop doing that." Maybe they were being a bell end. Maybe they were just having fun. Maybe they were trying to impress their professor.

In my old Webster dictionary used before the internet was invented, I'd put a dot by a word that I looked up. I still have that dictionary and it's loaded with dots. Nearly every page has a dot. It's surprisingly heavily dotted, words children should know, in different colors by different pens. It's a bit distressing that some words have two or three dots and each time that happened I'd go,"What's wrong with me? Why doesn't this word sink in? All of those multiple dotted words are negative in some way. Negative in a way that I don't want to be by using them. One part of my brain is trying to learn while another subroutine is running behind that going, "Don't learn that." Trying to keep me in line.

And now it's happening with these online words. I lost the text page working on this sublist while making it. It hadn't been saved so this sublist disappeared. I had to start over. I used one of the words to find it and saw the word "pillock" looked up multiple times. It's already in the final list. A couple of times. I know what it is about pillock that makes it so hard to learn. It's a stupid word that behind my back, my brain told my other brain not to learn. It's a complicated psychology.  I guess. Another way of saying that is my soul doesn't want me to use or even know this word. Or else my brain would grab it an hold onto it forever.  Others are hardly worth knowing. Others might be useful sometime to pry open a recalcitranat uncooperative crossword corner.

Short list, only 43.

* aigrette A tufted crest or head-plumes of the egret used for adorning a headdres. Also any similar ornament in gems.

* allocute: A formal statement made to the court by the defendant who has been found guilty prior to being sentenced. It is part of the criminal procedure in some jurisdictions using common law.

* amerce: To punish by a fine imposed arbitrarily at the discretion of the court

* antanzen: Dancing around a victim to trap him/her.

* aposematism: An adaptation that warns off potential predators; especially such a warning coloration.

It's so predictable that the first fat girl (or "girl") who walks out here has the predictable aposematistic hair coloration, this one with a sort of low-level radioactive green 'doo.

* blivit:  a fat assed ugly women. Most blivits do not take very good care of their personal hygiene or themselves. Many blivits tend to be obese slobs, and make no effort to improve their personal appearance.

* bonze: A buddhist monk especially in China, Japan, o nearby countries.

Trump’s very unpredictability doesn’t just frighten the Beltway bonzes and chin-pullers, it also terrifies his opponents.

* cackleberry: egg

clue: cackleberry producer, answer: hen.

* chambray: a lightweight clothing fabric with colored warp and white weft.

* condign: deserved, appropriate.

We note your reservations, but the law under PDJT will be applied equally and in a condign manner to all criminals, including former first lady Hilly and the usurper Obongo.

* croft: A small enclosed field or pasture near a house. 2. A small farm, especially a tenant farm.

* demesne: Law Possession and use of one's own land. Manorial land retained for the private use of a feudal lord. The grounds belonging to a mansion or country house.

For example, she endeavored to transform her Chappaqua house through the simple expedient of shipping tens of thousands of dollars of government property from Washington, D.C. to her New York demesne.

* dirigistes, dirigisme: Any economy in which the government exerts a strong directive influence, often with substantial, but not all, of the characteristics of a centrally planned economy.

* duodenum: The first section of the small intestine.

* entrepôt: transshipment port is a port, city, or trading post where merchandise may be imported, stored or traded, usually to be exported again.

Her deft handling of the emergency in Libya, resulting not only in the murder of Colonel Gaddafi, the descent of Libya into near anarchy and an entrepôt for terrorist activity, and the attack on our diplomatic enclave in Benghazi, a planned terrorist attack that left our ambassador and three other Americans dead but which she dismissed as a “spontaneous uprising” sparked by an anti-Islamic internet video.

* geosmin: distinctly earthy smell of dying off microorganisms in the soil associated with rain. Strongest when it's been raining for longer period of time.

* hickory shampoo: A technique typically used by law enforcement wherein the wooden baton - traditionally made of wood from the hickory tree - is applied on or about the head and shoulders of a deserving miscreant resisting arrest or otherwise needing a lesson.

* hybristophilia: The attraction to prisoners, also known as "Bonnie and Clyde syndrome", sexual attraction to people who have committed some sort of "outrage". The term is usually associated with fans of notorious criminals.

* immiscible: incapable of mixing or attaining homogeneity.

... the first to create nanoscale particles composed of up to eight distinct elements generally known to be immiscible, or incapable of being mixed or blended together.

* in mediis rebus: in the midst of things

In medias res: into the heart of the matter

* incel: involuntarily celibate.

* Lebensunwertes Leben: Life unworthy of life. A Nazi designation for the segments of the populace.

* locus classicus: A passage that has become a standard for the elucidation of a word or subject.

Levis, T-shirts, and sneakers became the hip American uniform, a way of superficially equalizing the unequal. Contrived informality radiated the veneer of class solidarity. Multimillionaires like Bruce Springsteen and Bono appear indistinguishable from welders on the street. The locus classicus is perhaps Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg.

* maquiladoras: Special economic zones in Mexico where goods are produced at low prices from raw materials sourced from other countries that are re-importing them.

* masque: Was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, involving music and dancing, singing and acting in which the architectural framing and costumes might be designed by a renowned architect to present a deferentia lallegory flattering to the patron.

Poe, The Masque of the Red Death

* maunder: To talk incoherently or aimlessly. To move or act aimlessly or vaguely; wander.

I am really sick of her medicated maundering but it is a needed reminder of how awful the hag is.

* nekulturny: Adj, In Russia and countries formerly part of the Soviet Union: uncultured; boorish.

* parti-pris: n. An inclination for or against something or someone that affects judgment; prejudice or bias.

French, literally, side taken

dictionary example: the longer a president is dead, the better we are able to evaluate without parti pris his political achievements

found used as adjective: Essentially the ‘proof’ had been rigged by parti-pris activist scientists at the EPA – who were permitted to keep their data and methodology secret so that they could not be found wanting in independent experiments.

* Persphinctery: Neologism based on perfunctory, talking out of one's ass. [Zuckerberg] Persphinctery statements are part of the fare (from the NYT interview):“Privacy issues have always been incredibly important to people. One of our biggest responsibilities is to protect data.” But we quickly get to the misrepresentations.

* Petrichor: the smell when raindrops come into contact with the ground caused by oils from plants that accumulate over dry periods, that settle into soils or onto pavement and released into the atmosphere by rainfal disturbance.

* pillock: Noun for Idiot, fool. Originally a slang term for the penis but fairly inoffensive now its this meaning has been forgotten. Derog.

... lanky lying pillock James Comey has hit the interview circuit and the more he opens his cake-hole, the more he embarrasses himself.

* rip-rap, riprap: A loose assemblage of broken stones erected in water or on soft ground as a foundation.

* Sandcutter, Sand Cutter: According to A Book of Nicknames, by John Goff, published in 1892, Arizonans were sometimes referred to as "Sand Cutters" by people from outside the state, but it is not clear how this nickname for the people of Arizona came to be.

As death flutters around the back-yard deck of Senator John McCain, it’s sad to read reports that the scrappy Sandcutter regrets picking Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate and wishes he had instead picked Senator Jos. Lieberman.

* scupper: An opening in the side walls of an open-air structure, for purposes of draining water.There are two main kinds of scuppers: Ships have scuppers at deck level, to allow for ocean or rainwater drain off. Buildings with railed rooftops can construct scuppers to let rainwater drain off, instead of pooling within the railing of the roof.

* seigneury:1 a : the territory under the government of a feudal lord
b : a landed estate held in Canada by feudal tenure until 1854
2 : the manor house of a Canadian seigneur

* sellcot: neologism, based on boycott, refuse to sell to. Springfield Armory decided to sellcot the 2nd-Amendment hostile Dick's

* smoke-wagon: A six-gun (Westerns) or a sidearm.
"Go on! Skin that smoke wagon..." (Wyatt Earp in the movie Tombstone)
by

skin that smoke-wagon. Use the gun. (?)

* spit-take: A comic technique or reaction in which someone spits a beverage out of his or her mouth when he or she reacts to a statement.

I did a spit-take on Jeb’s use of “Republican in basically name only.”

* suppurate: To form or discharge pus. Ew, gross.

As the parallel investigations and diluvian leaking have unfolded, the anti-Trump Resistance has received a series of gradually suppurating mortal wounds.

* swivet: A state of extreme agitation.

Kanye West may just be trolling us all, but he sure has the Left in a total swivet.

* Theory glasses: Designed in collaboration with Theory, L'Amy America with a  modern aesthetic. Not overdesigned, the look is clean and minimal. The frames feature both richly hued and beautifully translucent acetate, artisan-brushed metal surfaces.

* Thucydides: Greek historian noted for the unprecedented objectivity and thoroughness of his critical history of the Peloponnesian War.

*  tout à l’égout: everything in the sewer