I have long despised bananas. Maybe ‘despised’ is too harsh, but I certainly was not fond them. Before July I only ate maybe four bananas a year, just whenever I got a potassium-deficiency-induced craving. Since being diagnosed with diverticulitis, I have changed my diet significantly for the better, and eat 1-2 bananas a day. But …
Category: words
Sep 03
Give it a lick and a promise
I first heard this idiom last year some time from a woman at work. At first I thought it meant something vaguely dirty, so I figured I better look it up. It simply means to do a hasty job, or to do a job with the most minimal effort. It’s funny that I first heard …
Sep 01
yeoman’s job
To do a great job and/or perform a loyal service. “He did a real yeoman’s job on that patio.” UPDATE: ‘yeoman’ is pronounced YO-mun, not YEE-O-MAN.
Aug 23
usufruct
YOOS-uh-fruct. n., the right to enjoy the use of another’s property, apart from wasting or destroying it. “It was the bridegroom’s duty and interest to see that the dowry was duly paid. He enjoyed the usufruct of it during his life, and not unfrequently it was employed….” –Archibald Sayce, Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs. It is an …
Aug 16
cacoethes
[KAK-o-EETH-eez] n. an irresistible urge to do something inadvisable. I had never heard this word until reading Jim Shooter’s excellent blog.
Jun 03
muckworm
Any wormlike insect larva that lives and grows in manure. A miser “This was, methinks too high a compliment to pass upon Nabal, to call him the man that liveth. David knew better things, that in God’s favour is life, not in the world’s smiles; and by the rough answer he was well enough served, for …
May 30
Saturday Morning Pajama Day at Walmart
My wife coined this phrase. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.
