I wrote this down a couple days ago with a note to myself to add it to the list. I can’t recall where I encountered the word though. It was probably another word from Revelation Space, but skipping back through the last dozen pages or so I haven’t found it.… Read the rest
Prosody, or more properly Prosody IM is the name of an open source Jabber/XMPP server which was recommended to me as a replacement for the Jabber server I use. My current server isn’t connecting properly to my StatusNet installation at status.smscotten.com. When I searched for information about it, I found a number of search results that were clearly not related to instant messaging software. … Read the rest
Came across this while I was looking up the definition of Carapace. I’d always assumed it was pronounced with a soft ch sound and a short i. In actuality it’s a hard ch and a long i. Instead of rhyming with kitten, it rhymes with Titan.… Read the rest
Yet another word gleaned from Alastair Reynolds’s Revelation Space.… Read the rest
Rebecca mentioned it being her new favorite word in her comment about my last vocabulary entry. Darned if I knew what it meant, so I looked it up. And that’s my criterion for adding words to this list: if I have to look it up, I add it. … Read the rest
I guess I’d always assumed that would be heaved. I came across this in Alastair Reynolds’s Revelation Space.… Read the rest
I came across moribund in Thomas Cleary’s introduction to the Shambhala edition of The Art Of War. I’ve picked up the meaning by context and realized I had only the vaguest sense of its actual meaning. In usage it describes dysfunctional organizations, dull speakers, and political careers after a scandal. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t really know what it meant beyond it being a word associated with failure. Of course, that’s … Read the rest
Yeah, «bright and shining» for a pretentious nincompoop in love with his thesaurus. In this case, Alan Dean Foster, who wrote the [novelization of the movie *Star Trek*]([canonical-url:2010/01/02/set-phasers-weak] ‘Set phasers on weak’), where I found this word. Even worse than his use of this word where «radiant» would have worked was the context in which it was used. «Refulgent hopes». Are you kidding me? I used to like Alan Dean Foster, but now I … Read the rest
I cringe almost every time I see this phrase, and especially hate «just so happens». It almost always indicates the writer attempting to congratulate her or himself on inventing something unexpected for the reader. It’s very much like the false modesty of the supermodel saying, «oh, this old thing?» about the designer gown she wears.
The phrase, if used at all, should be used for genuine coincidence or serendipity: «The lack of the correct allen wrench was all that stood in the way … Read the rest
Heck, I know what vertigo is, but I didn’t make the connection when I saw the word vertiginous applied equally to Kandinsky’s early painting and Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture. The context didn’t give me quite enough to go on, so I looked it up. And that’s the rule: when I look up a word it goes here. … Read the rest