My new favourite word

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"Chinesing". Isn't it great?

― Mark Casarotto, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I know you're all dying to know what it means - it's when in animation, rather than having decipherable writing as part of the animation, you draw it as gobbledigook which looks like writing but is actually just squiggles and lines.

― Markx, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

pah! it's not as good as "syncretic" which i looked up the other day. it sounds like a horrible flaky skin disease but IN FACT means the synthesis of two formerly separate belief systems.

― katie, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That's a lovely word Mark, well done. I am still trying to remember what 'vague syncretic thought' means. Preferably in relation to my Psychology A level. Why can't I remember this? Is Chinesing a bit like in pictures you draw a few bricks and it gives the idea of bricks and somehow looks better than if you drew every single brick?

― alix, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

so would that mean then that the "words" spoken by the teachers in the Charlie Brown cartoons are the spoken form of Chinesing? i.e. random sounds that sound like talking but make no sense.

― chris, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That's the kind of thing I was suggesting Ned might like in place of boring old lyrics!

― Nick, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well Chinesing in Dutch (Chinezen) = smoking heroin. Fact.

― Omar, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That's the kind of thing I was suggesting Ned might like in place of boring old lyrics!

Heaven on a stick.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You'd rather have heaven on a stick than boring old lyrics?

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought it was called "Greeking". In the page layout program QuarkXPress, if you view a document at less than a certain magnification, the program makes the text a blur, or "Greeks" it. At least that's what Quark calls it.

― Sean, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Quark's quite a nice word. Wasn't there a psedo-cheese called that?

― Jonnie, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hmmm. We call the process of replacing all the UI strings in a string table with gibberish Greeking as well. This makes it easier to track down any rogue built in strings in an application before we send the string tables off for translation.

― RickyT, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

rick that are GEEKING not greeking, heheheheh :):)

― katie, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

THWACK!

― RickyT, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

in quark it's also called greeking if you replace a *picture* with grey (eg for speed of movement round the page)

Quark = a brand of Euro cream cheese, no? My sistah uses it a lot to cook with, or used to.

― mark s, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

rick's worst fault is his swift and irrationlly violent response to bad puns from housmates.

― katie, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You'd rather have heaven on a stick than boring old lyrics?

I think anyone would want a Morningstar Farms Veggie Corn Dog over boring old lyrics. Duh!

"Greeking"? What's this? Smashing plates on the floor while trying to seduce sultry blondes with toast and jam?

― Brian MacDonald, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There's a Greek guy in my class called Evangelos. I WANT HIS NAME.

― Graham, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Positron is my favourite word.

― james, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

what is it with people called graham and other people's names. My cousin graham inisits on bveing called something else (I can't think what right now), why do you covet the names of others?

― Ed, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I like "bus". It means good.

― ALly, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Here is a bad literature anecdote. At the end of a chapter of Ulysses it says 'what is the word known to all men?' (or 'the word known to all men'). Anyway there was so much speculation about, what is this word? There was a sort of speck on the manuscript underneath and some people thought that was significant. Eventually it was found that Joyce had intended the word to be 'Love.' One critic suggested the word was 'synteresis' (I forgot how to spell it) meaning 'unity of man.' Ellman, the editor of a version of Ulysses, said, 'that sounds more like the word known to no men.'

― maryann, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Bicycles used to be called velocipedes, dandy horses, or boneshakers.

― Maria, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My favourite words are:

lantern

skinking (as in "skinking around someplace")

laissez-faire

slipstream

sleeve

reservoir

― rainy, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

chi chi. oh and the phrase Pure Merino Wool

― Menelaus Darcy, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

statscock. (ducks for the tomato-throwing from sean, ally and others)

― di, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

potpourri, and swarthy. Salacious

― Menelaus Darcy, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

L words like lithe, lull, lacquer, luminous.

― bnw, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

wahine

― Menelaus Darcy, Saturday, 3 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

surly. curmudgeon.

― di, Saturday, 3 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

badabing

― Menelaus Darcy, Saturday, 3 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Scattershot

― Vinnie, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I wish Jimmy Barnes hadn't ruined the word "barnstorming" for me.

― elizabeth anne marjorie, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

BLATHER (an appropriate choice)

― David Raposa, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

three weeks pass...

Microfiche.

(As in what the new Lollies single might as well be on, as I haf had to tramp all the way down to this Library to use one of their eccentric Heath-Robinson contraptions they have to play such relics, what I am too young to have owned or even remember)

― Graham, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

what I am too young to have owned

Errm Graham, they were never really aimed at the domestic consumer durables market..

Microfiche are indeed an anachronism, but microfilms rock. And as for microdots..

― Nick, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(I meant vinyl)

― Graham, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

heh, i got a DECK recently and have been buying all sorts of lovely lovely slabs of wax to play on the deck. so my new favourite word is tarwater... mmmmmmmmmmmm.

― katie, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Since I woke yesterday after 40 minutes of sleep I awoke with the word "Shitehawks" ringing in my head. Now I can't stop using it.

Damn the old Melody Makers and their creative swearing, I know it came from there somewhere.

― Nicole, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

thereminting = the art of playing a theremin

novelising = the art of writing a novel

― james, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

bunkum = word used to deflate the enthusiasm of people who go on endlessly about the forthcoming Lord of the Rings movie. (Questioner"Are you going to go and see Lord of the Rings?" Me "No, it's a load of bunkum.")

― Jonnie, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

via ILE, bobbins/bobbin.

via crappy job, slitter (some assembly line piece)

also I like 'scritch'.

some nice words on this hard-boiled crime fic glossary

― cuspidorian, Sunday, 9 March 2003 06:28 (twenty-two years ago)

nine months pass...

organismic is a word, apparently.

― MarkH (MarkH), Sunday, 21 December 2003 13:46 (twenty-one years ago)

hard-boiled crime fic glossary > Should contain burking,my new favourite word

― nathalie (nathalie), Sunday, 21 December 2003 14:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I used the word 'organismic' numerous times in a paper published in a psychology journal. I was always misspelling it.

My favourite word is 'eldritch'.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Sunday, 21 December 2003 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

The hebrew word, 'Nedar', is a good word. It means a vow to God.

― ejecting disaster, Monday, 22 December 2003 13:06 (twenty-one years ago)

For a while in the summer of 2001 my favorites were BLOWTORCH and SCOREBOARD. I like big bold two-syllable compounds a lot.

Right now my favorite is COCKFIRE and I made it up myself. Cockfire!! I never get to use any of my favorite words enough though.

― TOMBOT, Monday, 22 December 2003 13:12 (twenty-one years ago)

pheunomoultramicroscopisilicovolcaniconesis.

It's a lung disease caused by breathing silicon dust. This is spelling from memory, so excuse me if its a little out.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Monday, 22 December 2003 13:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Lilo!

― Sarah (starry), Monday, 22 December 2003 13:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Today I like the word "bathos." In the past, I have had affinities for the phrases "poison arrow" and "invisible touch," (even though I've never heard the Genesis album of that name). My fake record label is called Invisible Crutch.

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 22 December 2003 14:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Diastole. It means the space between heartbeats when teh chambers of the heart fill with blood ready for pumping, i.e. the most important bit. Which is when nothing is happening. I like its Zen quality.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 22 December 2003 14:06 (twenty-one years ago)

five months pass...

Merriam-Webster's top ten favorite words for 2004 (from thousands of votes on their web site, http://www.m-w.com/info/favorite.htm)

1. defenestration
2. serendipity
3. onomatopoeia
4. discombobulate
5. plethora
6. callipygian
7. juxtapose
8. persnickety
9. kerfuffle
10. flibbertigibbet

Had I know about this earlier, I would have voted for "trousers."

― Ernest P. (ernestp), Sunday, 6 June 2004 02:13 (twenty years ago)

blimp is a spectacular word. it's very satisfying to think of the sound.

― Maria (Maria), Sunday, 6 June 2004 02:22 (twenty years ago)

I think Johnney meant "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconeosis." The word appeared in a newspaper article in spring 1988 (the article was about how it was the longest word ever, natch), and it's been rattling around my brain ever since.

― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 6 June 2004 05:36 (twenty years ago)

three years pass...

slux

― roxymuzak, Thursday, 18 October 2007 03:41 (seventeen years ago)

nine months pass...

venery

― Michael White, Thursday, 7 August 2008 16:45 (sixteen years ago)

two years pass...

Enschede

― nakhtar donetsk (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 8 December 2010 02:33 (fourteen years ago)

pah! it's not as good as "syncretic" which i looked up the other day. it sounds like a horrible flaky skin disease but IN FACT means the synthesis of two formerly separate belief systems.

― katie, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (9 years ago)

philipe du clare used this word on the guardian weekly football podcast the other day fwiw

― best poster with ten-letter single-word username (acoleuthic), Wednesday, 8 December 2010 02:46 (fourteen years ago)

eight years pass...

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

fear of the number 66

― Trϵϵship, Tuesday, 11 June 2019 21:21 (five years ago)

*666

― Trϵϵship, Tuesday, 11 June 2019 21:21 (five years ago)

how can we trust you didn’t also muck up the spelling

― estela, Tuesday, 11 June 2019 22:55 (five years ago)

I checked on this thread to see what you wrote, estela, and sure enough, i got a healthy chuckle out of it.

― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Wednesday, 12 June 2019 01:05 (five years ago)

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