So I've been busy. It's not that I haven't been thinking. Just short of writing time. Backlog of thoughts and emotions. Coming in to the end zone. Soon. I hope soon. I have my last assignment for my screenwriting course and it's a doozy, a test of character and experience as well as of writing. Still reading, but not much. But I do have a few words I can look up and share while I wait for more time to write.
Did you know that it takes more time to to write than to write?
You probably knew that.
The first few are from a book with a vocabulary dating from earlier times in England. I'm not sure how the online Dictionary is going to react.
swingle |ˈswɪŋg(ə)l| noun 1 a wooden tool for beating flax and removing the woody parts from it. 2 the swinging part of a flail.verb [ with obj. ]beat (flax) with a swingle. I found a group of bare-armed women under the trees swingling flax. ORIGIN Middle English: from Middle Dutch swinghel, from the base of the verb swing.
souse |saʊs| verb [with obj.] soak in or drench with liquid: the chips were well soused with vinegar.noun1 [ mass noun ] liquid used for pickling. he liked to make salt-fish souse.• N. Amer. & W. Indian food, especially a pig's head, in pickle. 2 informal a drunkard. he's a roaring souse.• dated a period of heavy drinking. ORIGIN late Middle English (as a noun denoting pickled meat): from Old French sous ‘pickle’, of Germanic origin; related to salt.
lappet |ˈlapɪt| noun 1 a fold or hanging piece of flesh in some animals.• a loose or overlapping part of a garment. 2 (also lappet moth)a brownish moth, the hairy caterpillars of which have fleshy lappets along each side of the body.●Gastropacha quercifolia and other species in the family Lasiocampidae. DERIVATIVESlappeted adjective ORIGIN late Middle English (denoting a lobe of the ear, liver, etc.): diminutive of lap1.
creance |ˈkriːəns| noun Falconry a long fine cord attached to a hawk's leash to prevent escape during training. ORIGIN late 15th cent.: from French créance ‘faith’, also denoting a cord to retain a bird of peu de créance (‘of little faith’ i.e. which cannot yet be relied upon).
chirography |kʌɪˈrɒgrəfi| noun [ mass noun ] handwriting, especially as distinct from typography. DERIVATIVES chirographic adjective
SO MUCH FOR 16TH CENTURY ENGLAND. there were a number I couldn't find. I'm still going, though.
megatherium |ˌmɛgəˈθɪərɪəm |noun (pl.megatheriums or megatheria) an extinct giant ground sloth of the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs in America, reaching a height of 5 m (16 ft) when standing erect.●Genus Megatherium, family Megatheriidae. ORIGIN modern Latin, from Greek mega thērion ‘great animal’.
NOW WHERE DID I COME ACROSS THAT?
oneiric |ə(ʊ)ˈnʌɪrɪk| adjective formal, relating to dreams or dreaming. ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from Greek oneiros ‘dream’ + -ic.
leishmaniasis |ˌliːʃməˈnʌɪəsɪs| noun [ mass noun ] a tropical and subtropical disease caused by leishmania and transmitted by the bite of sandflies. It affects either the skin or the internal organs.
rastaquoere-- NOPE
tropism |ˈtrəʊpɪz(ə)m, ˈtrɒp-|noun [ mass noun ] Biology the turning of all or part of an organism in a particular direction in response to an external stimulus. ORIGIN late 19th cent.: from Greek tropos ‘turning’ (from trepein ‘to turn’) + -ism.
appanage |ˈap(ə)nɪdʒ| (also apanage )noun historical provision made for the maintenance of the younger children of kings and princes, consisting of a gift of land, an official position, or money.• archaic a benefit or right belonging to someone; a perquisite: the appanages of her rank. ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from French, based on medieval Latin appanare ‘provide with the means of subsistence’, from ad- ‘to’ + panis ‘bread’.
paralalia I guess it's related to parallax |ˈparəlaks|noun [ mass noun[ ]the effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions, e.g. through the viewfinder and the lens of a camera. [ as modifier ] :what you see in the viewfinder won't be quite what you get in the photograph because of parallax error.• [ count noun ] the angular amount of parallax in a particular case, especially that of a star viewed from different points in the earth's orbit. he succeeded in measuring the parallax of the star 61 Cygni .DERIVATIVESparallactic |-ˈlaktɪk| adjective ORIGIN late 16th cent. (also in the general sense ‘fact of seeing wrongly’): from French parallax, from Greek parallaxes ‘a change’, from parallassein ‘to alternate’, based onallassein ‘to exchange’ (from allos ‘other’). (THIS WOULD BE USEFUL WITH AN iPHONE)
aleatory |ˈeɪlɪət(ə)ri, ˈal-| (also aleatoric |ˌeɪlɪəˈtɒrɪk, ˌal-| )adjective: depending on the throw of a die or on chance; random.• relating to or denoting music or other forms of art involving elements of random choice (sometimes using statistical or computer techniques) during their composition, production, or performance. aleatory music. a photograph can capture the aleatory chaos of modern urban life. ORIGIN late 17th cent.: from Latin aleatorius, from aleator ‘dice player’, from alea ‘die’, + -y1.
There. Thank you. I have lots to say but I must be patient. You too.
Don't go away. I won't either.