Oh, Fudge!

Where to come down on the idea of cussin’ in one’s books? I’ve gotten away from it for the most part, mostly because I’m a Christian and try hard not to use it myself. But I’ve also sat through enough TV versions of films where the language is softened, and for the most part the [...]

WORD WATCH: Distraction Explosives

Commuting in to work this morning, I heard an interesting term. The announcer said that a hostage situation had been resolved when a SWAT team used “distraction explosives”. I smiled and “flashbang” spilled out of my lips. In other words, they used an M84 grenade on the hostage holder. Also known as a Flashbang. Relax. [...]

May Miscellania

There are so many things going on that warranted updates that I simply didn’t write about – as opposed to the salad days of this blog when each one would have warranted its own separate and lengthy essay. Anyway, here’s what’s been happening in the land of the Faust. Charlton Heston, R.I.P I’m supposing that [...]

Places We’ve All Been

Place #1: Hearing somebody use a word that you just knew was for the purpose of impressing others. Take heart! Via Brian at BBSpot comes The Pompous *ss Words Homepage, wherein editor Dan is striving to collect 100 words that people should never, ever, ever use. And yes, I sent him one of my pet [...]

Another Toothbrush Postmortem

This morning I had to run down to the iBook before leaving for work to type in an addition to something I wrote last night. Just a little something to make it better. While scraping the molars it also occurred to me that, while I referred to And/News as screwball noir, I’m not sure if [...]

Melisma

Here’s a new word for today: melisma. It’s when, during the act of singing, the singer turns one-note one-syllable into 37 notes on one syllable. Basically the musical equivalent of glurge. When you look the word up in a dictionary, you see a picture of Whitney Houston. To think… all these years I’d been calling [...]

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