Up early. I did a lot of puttering before the cleaner came, then more carrying around: garbage, soil, plant pot, radiant heater, etc. No mail yet—because it’s Saturday. I do a lot of puttering, painfully, just so I can stay here in my last (?) home. I took a Tylenol, first in over a week, so I can get through the day. I’ll be back.
I can sit a while and do a grocery order. It takes quite a while but I’m on my way to a blog. I hope.
Yes!
I found a small clipping , the end of a review of a book, Say the Word, that the reviewer called a “verbal haberdashery”. He ends with a challenge: “the first reader to supply approximate meanings of (he lists five words) will receive a copy (of the book). I saved the list but I didn’t order the book. I’m going to see if I can find any of the words now.
bovaric I’m guessing this is related to Mme Bovary. I found somethiing:
bovarysme
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Bovarysme is a term derived from Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857), coined by Jules de Gaultier in his 1892 essay on Flaubert's novel, "Le Bovarysme, la psychologie dans l’œuvre de Flaubert". It denotes a tendency towards escapist daydreaming in which the dreamer imagines themself to be a hero or heroine in a romance, whilst ignoring the everyday realities of the situation. The eponymous Madame Bovary is an example of this.
gripple Boy, did I find this one! It’s in Wiktionary, Merriam-Webster, Colllins Engllish, Wordnik, Dictionary,com, Urban Dictionary (painful nipple gripples!) and Your Dictionary. Gripple is commonly an adjective, but gripples, the noun, are wirejoiners, used to repair fences. There is so much information about them, with pictures and explanations, that it boggles the mind. It told me more than I want to know. You can see for yourself.
But as an adjective it means greedy and grasping. Very useful.
pinkster ˈnoun, US dialect Whitsuntide. ORIGIN mid 18th century: from Dutch, ‘Pentecost’, from celebrations in areas of former Dutch influence, such as New York.
pliskie Merriam-Webster wins. You will notice my laptop dictionary hasn’t coped very well with these words. So feast on this,the last one (plural pliskies): practial joke, trick. ETYMOLOGY of obscure origin. FIRST KNOWN USE 1706, in the meaning defined here.
That took longer than I expected. It’s almost tomorrow, in six minutes.
Good night