this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
352 points (98.6% liked)

Asklemmy

48300 readers
380 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Overmorrow refers to the day after tomorrow and I feel like it comes in quite handy for example.

(page 6) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Indubitably!

It means most certainly, beyond questioning.

And it's fun to say!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Ah, I grew up listening to Adventures In Odyssey and one character said that all the time. Beautiful word.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (7 children)

Grok

It means to know or understand, like "yeah man I can grok that."

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

Obstreperous - noisy or difficult to control (as in "the boy is cocky and obstreperous")

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Autodefenestration is one of my faves. The act of throwing yourself out of a window.

If you’re throwing someone or something out, then it’s just plain defenestration

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Avuncular - of or having the qualities of an uncle.

“His avuncular joke was both lazy and sexist”

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's the definition but not how it's ever used.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Salitter is my answer to this one every time.

The silence. The salitter drying from the earth. The mudstained shapes of flooded cities burned to the waterline. At a crossroads a ground set with dolmen stones where the spoken bones of oracles lay moldering. No sound but the wind.

Here, also.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Gormless - Lacking initiative, foolish

Copacetic - correct, orderly, good

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Übermorgen, the german word for overmorrow, is in abundant use in Germany. It's far from obsolete or obscure over here.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Same for overmogen in the Netherlands. And eergisteren for the day before yesterday.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Same for the Romanian "poimâine" (after tomorrow). We also have "alaltăieri" (the other yesterday). They are in use, quite common.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

Propreantepenultimate. Fifth to last.

  1. Ultimate
  2. Penultimate
  3. Antepenultimate
  4. Preantepenultimate
  5. Propreantepenultimate
[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I knew the first three, but not four and five. TIL

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I use penultimate all the time and most people have no idea what I mean! We need to bring back the Latin based words

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 90 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Interrobang.

It's this thing: ‽

More people should use the symbol because it looks cool and has a badass name, so for that you need to know what it's called.

Who's with me‽

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Only if you agree to stop calling them Hashtags and use their more-correct name of Octothorpes

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

I made AltGr + / type an interrobang so I'd always have access to it

[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago (2 children)

While I like the concept, I can't help but prefer '!?' or '?!'. There's more granularity of meaning, and I think it just looks nicer having two or more separate characters.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 63 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Interrobang sounds like something from a porno about police work.

“Did you question the suspect?”

“Yeah, Chief, we interrobanged him and got the info.”

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

Hey, it's me, your suspect. I've got more info, step it up with the interrobanging, will ya?

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 50 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Sonder (noun): the feeling one has on realizing that every other individual one sees has a life as full and real as one’s own, in which they are the central character and others, including oneself, have secondary or insignificant roles: In a state of sonder, each of us is at once a hero, a supporting cast member, and an extra in overlapping stories.

dictionary.com

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

That was lovely, thank you for that.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This one always makes me smile, because it's from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It's just some guy's blog in which he comes up with new words to express experiences and emotions that are difficult to describe, and that specific one has thoroughly broken containment

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Bought the book. It's the only dictionary I've enjoyed reading.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago

Duodenum.

Doo-odd-in-umm.

The duodenum is the first section of the small intestine in most higher vertebrates, including mammals

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

I have a double whammy: Nonplussed.

Bewildered; unsure how to respond or act. Double whammy because it does not mean not-plussed like many people seem to think.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Nonplussed...that takes me back.

I was educated in a private school for British ex-pats run by a very old and very posh couple. This was the early eighties and they were already in their seventies, so definitely from a different era. Because of this and because of the size of our school (my entire year consisted of nine kids) we ended up quite odd. Up until highschool we had a mild but "poshy" London accent and words like vexing, nonplussed, providential, etc., peppered our vocabulary. Then my family moved to Louisiana followed by Texas and that shit went right out.

Also, the word is aluminium. It is NOT aluminum!

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (8 children)

I'd settle for not seeing "should/could/would of" typed out anymore.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Shoulda hoped for something better.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 43 points 8 months ago (3 children)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 100 points 8 months ago (4 children)

perambulation is a good one. My morning walk isn't quite grand enough to be called a 'constitutional'; nor scenic and leisurely enough to be called a 'stroll'; nor yet social enough to be called a 'promenade'; 'perambulation' is just the ticket.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Oh I love to perambulate, sitting still is what I really hate

[–] [email protected] 50 points 8 months ago

I thought the morning constitutional was taking a shit.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago

And what a lovely paragraph about it. Thank you.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago

Brobdingnagian.

It's a very big word that means very big.

It comes from Gulliver's travels. The Brobdingnagians are giants, 12 times the height of humans. The word isn't limited to that scale, but it's definitely for things that are unusually large compared to us.

It's the literal opposite of Lilliputian, which is from the better known race from "Travels" that are 1/12 our size.

It's my absolute favorite word. Not just because it's a literary reference but it's fun to say. Brob ding nag ian. It just burbles off the tongue like a drunken stream stumbling among the rocks of its bed. And, it's a big word that means big, which is just fun wordplay. Like the phobia of big words, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, which was inevitable as soon as the idea of a phobia of big words was conceived.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›