Word of the Week
Created | Updated Feb 21, 2010
In the dim dark recesses of h2g2 history before we moved lock, stock and barrel to our new BBC home there used to be a front page feature The h2g2 Word of the Day. It was a way to highlight some of the lesser occurring or largely obscurer words in the English language. Sadly this feature was discontinued.
Until now...
Word for the Week
This week's word was suggested only last week - so it proves I read your new ideas - by world traveller 11. The definitions he gave for this were:
Dutching
v. 1. To apply muslin to a theatrical flat1
2. An alkali chemical treatment used to neutralise acid in cocoa and produce cocoa powder with a milder taste that mixes more easily in water.
The first definition is new to h2g2 however the second has been used in the article on Chocolate so no doubt some of you are salivating already.
From the Archive
All that talk about chocolate may be getting my fellow chocaholics on
site in the mood for a lot of the cocoa-based nectar. So you may want to
melt some down and serve it in our word from the archives for this
week.
There is no record on h2g2 of who recommended this word for use, though its only reference on site does indicate that it must have been used on 16 August 2000.
Jorum
n. A large serving bowl or dish for drinks.
As I did say above this word has a sole use in h2g2 on Ashley Stewart-Noble's homepage. Ashley must have been in charge of Word of the Day at the time as there was an ongoing conversation about words of the day on his personal space. The old researchers went straight to the italic in control of the fault. I'm rather embarrassed to say that the only researcher who actually mentioned the word jorum on 16 August that year was Demon Drawer, although this column is not meant to be a pat on the back for me. It just shows how long I have actively been looking out for Word of the Day. J au-æmne commented that on
Ashley's return to work there was no Word of the Day. I ran off to check. It must have appeared later that day and I used it to offer Ashley a jorum of whatever he was drinking over at the F and F.
How can you contribute?
- Go and check out words in the archive to
avoid duplication. - Check out the discussion threads and nominate a word that you feel was overlooked before discontinuation.
- Suggest a new word or your forgotten word in the word of the week archive conversation.
