n. the epithet ‘jerk’ when pronounced with a non-rhotic accent; rhymes with ‘buck.’ Example: “Pahk the cah in the Hahvad Yahd, ya juhk.”
MadMania
Faith, Books, and Stuff
Category: words
We had been out of town for a couple of weeks due to a death in the family, and as we heard later, our daughter’s best friend took the absence kind of hard. Finally one day she sat down mopily and said: “I’m friendsick.”
My friend Wilkson always had a hard time with people misreading or mispronouncing his name: Wilkerson, Wilskerin, Wilkerins, Wilskerinson, etc. But I think I have come up with a clean, phonetic replacement: Wilxn. I realize there is a small chance it could be pronounced wilzn, but I’m willing to take my chances.
My friend Kay has written an article regarding donuts; I take exception to her spelling ‘doughnuts,’ but she is the one with the journalism degree and I am the one who dropped out of art school. Her site is kayhoflander.com, but here is a direct link to the article. Personally, I love donuts. It’s not […]
I was sending a text to my woman, and I was in the process of typing “nuh-uh.” I got as far as “nu-” and my Razr suggested this word: nugatory. I thought some funny programmer had inserted his favorite duuuuude-speak version of negatory, but I was wrong. It’s an adjective of Latin origin meaning “of no […]
v. remember imperfectly or incorrectly Brian used this word, and we didn’t think it was a real word. However, it seemed like a perfectly accurate and descriptive word and I fully intended to steal it. But when I checked the dictionary, it turned out it is a real word.
There are some questions that you are prepared for when you walk into a room. Furthermore, there are especially some questions you aren’t prepared for when you walk into a room at church. The asker of the aformentioned question was a boy about eight years old who was cleaning up the room with a couple […]
Unlike so much of American English, the proper pronunciation for those little bits of wax you color with as a child is phonetic: crayons. Not crowns.
n. Underhanded scheming or behavior; cheating. Yes, it’s a real word, and not just a Wizard Swear.
If you are a fan of Spaceman Spiff from the old Calvin & Hobbes comics, you know this word. It is one of those comic-book-sounding exclamations, akin to Great Scott! that you never hear anyone use in real life. You probably wouldn’t liken it to taking God’s name in vain, however the word actually dates to […]