Word of the Week
Created | Updated Jul 10, 2003
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 of the Week
You guys really do read this column, although I'm
waiting to turn up at a meet and have everyone try
and use one of the words featured in this column to
throw me off. Well it didn't happen the other weekend
in London. But what has happened is that another
researcher, this time tonsil
revenge, has actually suggested a word for me
to use which means I don't have to trawl through the
archives myself for an ancient suggestion. Which is
copacetic to me, for that is indeed this weeks
word.
Copacetic
adj. Very satisfactory or acceptable; fine.
Amazingly all the dictionary references I looked up
to check the meaning list this quote from the writer
John O'Hara 'You had to be a good judge of what a
man was like, and the English was copacetic'. As a Pennsylvanian with a book in several top 100s for the 20th Century I'm surprised Jimi X hasn't written about him yet.
Talking of the Guide, this word has yet to appear in
any Entry! However Bels has used it instead of the OK smiley while asking Danny
B to sub a Uni project in April this year. It
may have been on Bels' word-a-day toilet paper at
some point this year and it has also cropped up being used
in the Peer Review of Talent
Agencies, during discussions on GK Chesterton and
discussing updates to the edited guidelines
twice!!
Maybe GTBacchaus has the
same toilet paper as he used it in his journal in January
this year, just after Bels first starting using it.
However the true reason Bels started using it was
that Lentilla used it to
him when he was subbing her article on Big Bend National Park, Texas,
USA.
However its first uses on the Guide were in 2000
when it appeared in conversation at that font of
culture The Cafe, and also
in a list of Neesey-3PO's
favourite words.
From the Archive
The archive word this week keeps us on a similar
thread.
Lekker
adj. Good or pleasant.
It actually has appeared in a couple of unedited
Entries. One by subsemi on
8th May 2000 says how tres lekker it was seeing their first
solar elipse, that's about all the article says
though. Jelo uses it in
their introduction of 16th March 2001 finishing with
have a lekker time - surfs up and must still be
catching that wave as nothing has been posted
since.
It has been used numerous times in conversations on
site but the one that caught my eye while researching
this article was posted on 27th March 2001 by a certain
ShazzPRME who said to Eternity then known as Infinity
Hi Infinity. Just dropped by to say hi! Lekker... it
comes from the Dutch of course... which I'm trying to
learn at the moment.
But to finish a little poetry by Shazz's other half
TowelMaster, that is if the
Dutch passes the censor:
Als het eens Whisky zou regenen
en de zee mij vissen bracht
Dan bleef ik lekker in bed
Dag zowel als nacht...
1!
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.
And the sea would bring me fish
Then I'd enjoy staying in bed,
Day as well as night.
