An Icre of Scized Sardels

[Recycled from 07:18, 17 March 2005 and from 10 October 2005, and from 21 March 2009, with new links added on 28 February 2010]

When I have the time, I like to haul The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language up here to the lookout tower and pore over its pages. It's a truly monumental work, its twenty volumes containing some three-quarter of a million words. However, it does not accept just any word. From time to time, some dictionaries have included words based on handwriting errors, incorrect interpretation of a foreign phrase or other misunderstandings. These rejected words are listed in an appendix, from which this partial list was extracted:
Dog-ray: A type of sea life
Compearer: A person not a party to a lawsuit who wishes to oppose the suit, and is approved by the judge to take part.
Exidemic: Synonym for epidemic (but doesn’t it sound like it might mean something beyond a mere epidemic?
Galverly: Energetically.
Goffish: Silly.
Gosting: The rose madder herb [John's suggested alternate definition: a color like unto rose madder].
Graduction: Marking with graduations.
Grout: Wild apple.
Guay: An unbridled horse.
Habenry: Some sort of decoration of the roof or eaves of a house.
Herebote: A military messenger.
Icre: A group of ten [John's observation: potentially a very useful word].
Investive: Enclosing.
Minutal: Diminutive.
Momblishness: Mumbling.
Munity: Freedom.
Phantomnation: An immaterial apparition.
Quadrune: A type of sandstone.
Sardel: A precious stone, apparently salmon-colored [John's suggested definition: a color close to salmon, somewhere between orange and pink].
Scize: To cut or penetrate.
Tendsome: Requiring much attention.
At the end of the appendix was a further list of rejected words with no definitions or explanations appended, including: abacot, cluttish, cone and key, congrument, cookmate, counterset, eposculation, lastery, papescent, segnotic, tip-cheese and topinch.
Naturally, I responded to this list of words which do not exist with a hearty, “Oh, yeah?”
I was instantly fascinated by the idea of rejected words, and resolved to start using them whenever a convenient opportunity arises, and I invite my readers to do the same.
If we all start using words like “gosting” and “munity”, just once in awhile, soon they’ll be getting hits on Google, being included in dictionaries, and will have been brought to life and legitimacy at last.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "You can do this, if you have nothing better to do."\\

Blood and Embroidery

It was clearly a day for needles: donating blood at Stoker's Vitaworld in the morning, meeting with a crafting group in the evening to work on our sweaters.

Well, okay, there wasn't any needle business I can think of in between, but I doubt they would have added to the experience if they had.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Stick with it."\\

"Ignitor" is Not a Pokemon

I suppose it's a perfectly proper Latinate form for a loanword into English, but it seems wrong. Shouldn't it be "igniter"?

It definitely shouldn't be this hard to replace, or have to be replaced so often (every year or two years since we bought the dern thing). Still, it could be worse.

And today, for the first time ever, it was me replacing it instead of Kathe. Made me feel very accomplished, once I was done snarling and cussing and then done feeling guilty over making such a fuss over getting such a simple job done.*

* Kathe made me feel much better by admitting that the reason she usually changes the glowbar while I am out of the house is so she can get her own cussing and snarling done while I'm not there to hear it.

Oh, and I also just put myself laboriously through the process of checking my bank balance over the phone and double-checking it online, processes so extremely elementary that the bank doesn't even have a tutorial for it. But I managed to pull it off anyhow. And as a bonus, I confirmed that it really does hold a whole $125 more than I thought it did -- bills I thought were going to have to be deferred can be paid on time!

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Take life's little victories where you find them."\\

Thursday Noon Concert

Kathe and I just went to the weekly concert up at the Memorial Union, on the OSU campus. We used to go there all the time with our kids, when they were little. We saw many small children running around, and some small children who were enjoying the music very much.

//The magic Eight-Ball says, "Sometimes you have to walk away from downtown to go downtown together."\\