journalizing

journalizing - definition of journalizing by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.: exactly what it sounds like.



'via Blog this'

Chiaroscuro

From Chiaroscuro - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Chiaroscuro (English pronunciation: /kiˌɑːrəˈskjʊəroʊ/; Italian: [kjarosˈkuːro]; Italian for light-dark) in art is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. Chiaroscuro also is a technical term used by artists and art historians for using contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects, such as the human body.^[1] Similar effects in the lighting of cinema and photography also are often called chiaroscuro.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_in_a_Lifetime_(Talking_Heads_song):

Talking Heads' performance of Once in a Lifetime in their concert film Stop Making Sense is notable for its almost 4-minute long, unbroken chiaroscuro shot of Byrne performing the song.

'via Blog this'

Zeitgeber

From Zeitgeber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

A zeitgeber is any external or environmental cue that entrains, or synchronizes, an organism's biological rhythms to the earth's 24-hour light/dark cycle and 12 month cycle.

Example sentence: "Light is the dominant zeitgeber but other external cues are important, such as social routines."



'via Blog this'

klieg light

From A.Word.A.Day -- klieg light:

klieg light (kleeg lyt) noun
1. A carbon-arc lamp for producing light, used in moviemaking.
2. The center of public attention. 

"And on this night, Billups and Hamilton were twin klieg lights at a shopping mall opening, and Kobe was a 25-watt bulb." Mitch Albom; Pistons Proving Team Might be Better Than Hall of Famers; Kansas City Star (Missouri); Jun 11, 2004.

'via Blog this'

Ceylon

From British Ceylon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "British Ceylon (Sinhala: Britanya Lankava), known contemporaneously as Ceylon, was a British Crown colony between 1815 and 1948. "



See also: the song "Ceylon" from the musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood.



'via Blog this'

Portmanteau

portmanteau - a word that, like “Thanksgivukkah,” is created by running together truncated parts of two separate words.

From Why Thanksgivukkah Is a Portmanteau — and What That Means – Forward.com:

Whatever languages are spoken 77,000 years from now (unless we’re all communicating by brain chip long before that), portmanteau words will probably still exist in them. That’s a word that, like “Thanksgivukkah,” is created by running together truncated parts of two separate words. Sometimes these fusion words are mere jokes or curiosities, like “Thanksgivukkah” or “tiglon,” which is a cross between a tiger and a lion. (Personally, I’ve never encountered a tiglon, but if you ever do, that’s what you should call it.) In quite a few cases, however, they have entered our everyday vocabulary. Consider “smog,” “brunch,” “cheeseburger,” “newscast,” “motel” and other words that we no longer even think of as artificial creations. Others, like “guesstimate” or “stagflation,” though their artificiality is still felt, are now used regularly, too. 

A portmanteau was, in its last, 19th-century incarnation, a leather suitcase that opened into two separate compartments. (The term is, fittingly, a portmanteau word itself, coming from French porter, to carry, and manteau, a coat; the original portmanteau was a French adjutant who carried an officer’s cloak or bag.) It was first compared with two fused words by Lewis Carroll in “Through the Looking Glass”(1872), his sequel to “Alice in Wonderland.” There, Alice is engrossed in conversation with Humpty Dumpty, whom she asks to explain Carroll’s immortal nonsense poem “The Jabberwocky.” After she recites its first lines of “’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; / All mimsy were the borogoves, / And the mome raths outgrabe,” the narrative proceeds: 

“That’s enough to begin with,” Humpty Dumpty interrupted. “There are plenty of hard words there. ‘Brillig’ means five o’clock in the afternoon — the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.” 

“That’ll do very well,” said Alice. “And slithy?” 

“Well, slithy means lithe and slimy…. You see, it’s like a portmanteau — two meanings packed into one word.”

'via Blog this'

Desiderata

Yes, it is what it sounds like:



Desiderata | Define Desiderata at Dictionary.com:

de·sid·er·a·ta [dih-sid-uh-rey-tuh, -rah-, -zid-] 

plural noun, things wanted or needed; the plural of desideratum: 

“Happily-ever-after” and “eternal love” appear to be the desiderata of the current generation; to whom “fat chance” say those of us who are older, wiser, and more curmudgeonly. 

Synonyms: essentials, necessities, requisites, sine qua nons. 

de·sid·er·a·tum [dih-sid-uh-rey-tuhm, -rah-, -zid-]

noun, something wanted or needed.

'via Blog this'

zoochory, qindars, xylogen

• zoochory - (biology) The dispersal of seeds, spores, or fruit by animals.
• qindars - alternative spelling for qintars; (plural: qindarka or qintars) An Albanian coin equal to one hundredth of a lek.
• xylogen - Nascent wood; wood cells in a forming state.

"He says he will likely return to the world of competitive Scrabble, where winning words can transcend anything a Toastmasters grammarian might present as the Word of the Day. For skeptics, Adams offers a handful of high-octane words that he's encountered in tournament play: lazulis, zoochory, qabalah, qindars, and xylogen." (Toastmasters Magazine, "What's in a Word?" by Patrick Mott)

Defenestration

 Defenestration:

 According to Merriam-Webster

1:  a throwing of a person or thing out of a window

2:  a usually swift dismissal or expulsion (as from a political party or office) 

 In a sentence,

Carol was still mourning the defenestration of her poor cat, Whiskers, done in by a disgruntled hobo, when she herself was defenestrated from her position on the city council.

Prima facie

Prima facie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Prima facie (/ˈpraɪmə ˈfeɪʃɨ.iː/, /ˈfeɪʃə/, or /ˈfeɪʃiː/;[1] from Latin: prīmā faciē) is a Latin expression meaning on its first encounter, first blush, or at first sight. "



From http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-does-it-mean-for-something-to-be.html:

If you follow that route, one of the most commonly advanced examples of metaphysical necessity is… the existence of God! Since that is prima facie (I love it when I get to write that!) ludicrous — or it should be at the dawn of the 21st century — we will ignore it and proceed otherwise.

Not sure about the claim, but the vocabulary is good!

 

'via Blog this'

Samizdat

Samizdat:

a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader. This grassroots practice to evade officially imposed censorship was fraught with danger as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials.Vladimir Bukovsky summarized it as, "I myself create it, edit it, censor it, publish it, distribute it, and get imprisoned for it."

From The Real Reason Nobody Reads Academics - Bloomberg View:

"Still, it would be better if academics didn’t have to blog, or know a blogger, to get their work in front of interested audiences. That would require a new model for disseminating academic work -- one that gets beyond the samizdat system used for working papers on the one hand, and the rigid journal publication system on the other."

'via Blog this'