h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Balloon is a favourite word as it just seems to fit and describe what it is.I also like elbow just for the way it sounds.I also quite like juicy.

Hi,

I had someone asked me the meaning of the word
"obsfucate"
I'm not sure if it is a word if it has been made up. The guy thought it could mean 'side stepping the issue.' It sound like a great word, and I realise it not a requirement for it to be real on here but he wanted to know if it is real so he can use it.

thank you

Moondancer

The OED defines 'obfuscate' as follows :-

1 - obscure or confuse (a mind, topic, etc)

2 - stupefy, bewilder

'Side-stepping the issue' is close, but not quite correct because, as I think the above definitions suggest, 'obfuscate' is really about going out of one's way to mislead someone on a question, not just to avoid it.

You're welcome,

Lear

"Frottage". It sounds even better if you roll the 'r'.

I woke up one morning several years ago with the word on the brain; I don't know where I'd heard it. Eventually curiosity got the better of me and I looked it up. It is the technical term for brass rubbing, but also means the rubbing of one's clothed body against another person's for the purpose of sexual gratification. Knowing this I'm even more bemused as to where I could have heard it, as I don't generally involve myself with either. And never both at the same time.

Anyway, my wife and I have adopted the word to mean "hobby" - again I can't recall why. I think Humpty Dumpty in "Alice Through the Looking Glass" made reference to words meaning precisely what he intended them to mean. So in our house, Frottage means Hobby. I am sitting in our Frottage Room now where we do our hobbies. I have the PC at my end, Julie has the sewing machine at hers. We have a sign on the door that says "Frottage Room" and has a brass-rubbing hung above it that we did in Wales. It's a sort of in-joke, twisting the meaning back on itself. Intrestingly, the brass rubbing depicts a group of nuns who are so closely huddled together that they could well be frotting each other, bringing the third meaning into play.

Gooday JHP,

Yes, frottage is a wonderful word, but I think you perhaps need to be a virgin teenager desperate for sexual adventure to fully translate the theory to the practise. Not that I would remember that far back.

And it is wonderful to see someone finally giving appropriate recognition to THE guru of the spoken word, Humpty Dumpty. No-one before or since has formulated such concise and definitive criteria. Humpty said "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." Alice was not entirely convinced and queried Humpty's pronouncement, saying "The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things." To which Humpty responded "The question is which is to be the master - that's all."

Walter

Some of my favorite words, strung together, are "The check is in the mail" and "Do have another piece of chocolate cake".

For single words, I like: Libidious, liquid, serpentine, and words that sounds like what they are (there's a word for THAT, but I forget)like splat, squash, plop.



Lillith the newbie

"Hello everyone. There's a word I like & one I don't know the meaning ... & a neighbor, with obsessive compuslive disorder says it repeatedly. The neighbor repeats;"toma." I 'bout had him cured of that when he sees the phrase (in the news paper): Do you know your TOMA? The word I'm fond of is: Hoo-doo. It's a type of rock formation, like you see in the S.W. USA.
I think the type of word one likes may be directly related to the early stmuli we each were given as well as the types of music we each enjoy.
There's a rythem words have that are all there own, in the way words flow together."

Humpty Dumpty is a false guru, forget him people. Nobody can make words mean precisely what they are intended to mean, because the relationship between words and the things we use them to describe is purely arbitrary - there is no necessary connection at all there.

Onomatopoeia is sometimes cited as an exception, but I don't think it really counts because for a word to be truly onomatopoeic the same sound would have to be used in every language. I suspect this would be very rare, if such a thing exists at all. For example, my Concise OED gives 'cuckoo' and 'sizzle' as examples, but who *says* a cuckoo makes a 'cuckoo' noise, and who *says* sausages make a 'sizzling' sound? We could just as easily call that bird an 'oo-oo' or an 'uh-uh', if we're going by the noise that it actually makes...

Wibble.

No real meaning... just fun to say over and over...

Wibble Wibble Wibble



Wibble.

I agree, Wibble is a good one. I think you have to be careful where you say it though - meetings for example. People may think you're odd. Say it too frequently and it's only a short time before you might accidentally say "I'm a teapot, I'm a teapot, wibble wibble", and we all know what that means!

Drow!! Definitely drow!! That's also a word to be said over and over and over again... Drowdrowdrowdrowdrow...

Growlf is another fun one. Has to be said with the correct growling inflection on the 'wf' to get the full value.

Teapot, hmmm? hadn't thought of that one in a long time.

Teapot Teapot Teapot

Doesnt sound quite right. Sort of like you are trying for 'Toy Boat' and wibbling it up horribly.

I thought plinth was spelt with an 'i'. But you're right, it sounds too good not to say it as often as possible.
As with moose/mousse, stretching out the 'oo/ou' as long as the situation warrants.
My favourite made-up word is prandibs, which means sbidnarp backwards.
And satisfaction is a good word to live by (meaning 'making enough')

Gooday Lear,

Humpty Dumpty a false guru?!! Never. Anyone making such an assertion is either being mischievous, or has no sense of humour, or has no sense of proportion, or has misread what Humpty said. I'm sure that none of those could apply to you Lear, so I must have omitted at least one other, for which I apologise in advance.

Walter.

That's ok, don't worry about it...

Back to the words: here's two I forgot earlier:

Permafrost

Pemmican

Don't know why - just love them

I like "Lloches" but it doesn't count for obvious reasons.

Thingee. That's all I have to say. It's thingee. Period. No discussion.

"Hmm, I always spell it 'thingy', but I like your version better! Mind if I steal it from you? And does ANYbody know their TOMA?
I must find what it means." (my neighbor's sanity may depend on it! As a matter of fact, If I am unable to stop him saying, "toma,"
I may go a tad 'loonie-toons' my damnself! Er, that's the 'clinical' term.)

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