• Café Life is the Colony's main hangout, watering hole and meeting point.

    This is a place where you'll meet and make writing friends, and indulge in stratospherically-elevated wit or barometrically low humour.

    Some Colonists pop in religiously every day before or after work. Others we see here less regularly, but all are equally welcome. Two important grounds rules…

    • Don't give offence
    • Don't take offence

    We now allow political discussion, but strongly suggest it takes place in the Steam Room, which is a private sub-forum within Café Life. It’s only accessible to Full Members.

    You can dismiss this notice by clicking the "x" box

Word here and there

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tom's House
  • Start date Start date
Invest in You. Get Full Membership now.
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Tom's House

Guest
I enjoy Paul Whybrow's posts for the things I learn — especially words that may be familiar but are new for me. I've been around a long time. As a young man I spent a lot of time browsing around in dictionaries, looking up this word or that and the etymologies that went along with them. But I find that I have lately grown unaccustomed to encountering brand-new (to me) words. So it is with delight that I learn that a clowder of cats is a group of them — if there really is any such thing. I had thought of cats as solitary beings, as in "like a one-eyed cat looking in a seafood store." I have also learned that among falcons there is one variety known as a kestrel, and that a dongle is computer-speak for an auxiliary device. Hoo-hah, Paul. Keep 'em coming!
 
I sometimes wonder if any intelligence I have is merely a repository of largely useless and obsolete information—the scrapings from the bottom of the oven!

On the subject of groups of cats, did you know that a congregation of kittens, born of one mother, is called a 'kindle'? This isn't the inspiration for the Kindle ereader, which comes from the old Norse word for setting something alight.

b4e159427afc21f7f3fcd5f561a36058.gif
 
Regardless of how you feel about American politics.. or politicians... or extremely pale holier than thou lego men... this editorial written by George Will is full of clever words and phrases:

Washington Post George Will Editorial

After it was published, the word 'oleaginous' became the most searched for word... must have been that day.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Further Articles from the Author Platform

Latest Articles By Litopians

  • The Shadow Durian
    As a lifelong foreigner, I’ve learnt that being open to new things smooths the path considerably. ...
  • Goodbye Eeyore, Hello Tigger
    Granny was churchy. She grew up in an era that saw living by the Bible as an important British chara ...
  • 21st Century Song of Summer
         It’s sobering to think that while summer is celebrated in some parts of the world with mus ...
  • Falcon Theory
    “So,” said Goethe to his friend Johann Peter Eckermann, “let us call it a Novelle, for what i ...
  • The Joy of Lit Mags
    While my first novel is tentatively making its way towards agents who already have too much to read, ...
  • Advertising and Social Media
    There has been much discussion in writing circles about how much a writer has to self-promote these ...
  • Future Abstract: Fights at Night
    SATIRE ALERT: The following abstract is entirely fictional and does not represent actual events or s ...
Back
Top