Funny, Interesting, Unusual English Words -- Like Sardoodledom

School was a funny thing for me, Tezrili. I was one of the ones (at least in my 11 to 16 secondary years) who could get good results when I wanted but often couldn't be bothered (my geography teacher in the 5th form wrote "he seems to have given up with this subject and that was true). I did not revise for any of my O'levels but at least came out with grades that were OK (A biology, B's in phyiscs, Chemistry, maths and English Language, C in French - something I don't think I was told the truth on - I seemed to get led to believe that if I passed it as a 4th former, they would let me drop it in the 5ths. Instead, I had to do a French with text intermediate exam).

Somtimes when I look back at my own failings I wonder why music went so wrong, a subject (at least in folk terms) I became interested (and liked singing with mum on the piano from very young days and later picked up some basic guitar on.- in later days, more mandolin and banjo and trying to play melody) was not something picked up on. I actaully became a drop out on that one in my O'Levels managing an "unclassified - not worth grading" In part, My mates Greeves Griffon was more interesting by far than going to an exam on the history's of Bartok (can't remember what), Mendelssohn (and it was the Hebrides) and Purcell (and Dido and Aneas). It's also true that to fit things in we were supposed to have gone to an extra lesson in luch time which I didn't. Further, it's true that I never learned to sight read (I know how it sholud work but don't get the timings) None the less, I still became (By rumour) "the only person he'd ever really wished would fail an exam". Maybe Mr Harris could have got more out of me? Or maybe I was impossible....
 
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boltardy said:
Here's one I got from a song (Maggie Lauder), a blatherskite. I'd say someone given to prattle.
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No one would ever accuse me of too much blather. :)

thigmotropic

growth or movement due to mechanical contact, as a plant tendril coiling around a string support

I’m thigmotropic. When I boy wants a hug, I coil my tendrils around him, and I hug him back.

Biology has such cool vocabulary.
 
Think many of us (including me) can blather at times.

I didn't know "thigmotropic" thanks for that one.

You, plant like, I hope you’re not a triffid!
 
triffid

The triffid is a fictitious, tall, mobile, prolific and highly venomous plant species, the titular antagonist in John Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids and Simon Clark's 2001 sequel The Night of the Triffids.

I have never used that word, but I have thought about that possibility. Last year in the health class Ms H talked about how teenage boys get the wrong idea. They might think that I want more than I do.

I never go anywhere by myself, so the likelihood of me attacked when by myself is really low. The more likely thing is boys at a dance or ball game. I know how to defend myself. An attacker might lose a finger.

To avoid that possibility the girls in my group try to include any boy who will behave. For example, we know all the names. Shy people get greeted, etc. At a dance no one sits alone. Or if necessay, shy people get a date. My boyfriend and I took shy students to the hello dance. So far everyone does behave.

Anyway, I try not to be Sampson's Dalilah. I try to be Ali Baba's Morgiana
 
TezriLi said:
Love how you are there for each other, the care you have for each other. Thoughtful!
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Mom includes the parents. She says that sometimes the apple falls close to the tree. Sometimes the guardians are grandparents. A boy lives in a group home. I'm impressed with the school. They have some success with behavior problems.

I'll be gone for three days. I don't know where we are going. I suppose if they told me they would need to shoot me. :confused:

I hope I will see my brothers and my sister in law. I really miss my brothers. They taught me to speak English. We played Trivial Pursuit. We made cards for me with words I needed to learn. I sat on my oldest brother's lap. After we played for a while my brother tickled me if I got the wrong answer. Soon he realized that I deliberately said the wrong answer so he would tickle me, and he reversed his tactic.

I earned my nickname, Diablita.
 
Ghid said:
Mom includes the parents. She says that sometimes the apple falls close to the tree. Sometimes the guardians are grandparents. A boy lives in a group home. I'm impressed with the school. They have some success with behavior problems.

I'll be gone for three days. I don't know where we are going. I suppose if they told me they would need to shoot me. :confused:

I hope I will see my brothers and my sister in law. I really miss my brothers. They taught me to speak English. We played Trivial Pursuit. We made cards for me with words I needed to learn. I sat on my oldest brother's lap. After we played for a while my brother tickled me if I got the wrong answer. Soon he realized that I deliberately said the wrong answer so he would tickle me, and he reversed his tactic.

I earned my nickname, Diablita.
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I, too, have great siblings, Ghid -- two of each gender. :) I hope you get to see your brothers. Say hello to them, if you see them, and say hello to your mother. Wow, am I glad you have these people and the rest of your family.
 
TezriLi said:
I, too, have great siblings, Ghid -- two of each gender. :) I hope you get to see your brothers. Say hello to them, if you see them, and say hello to your mother. Wow, am I glad you have these people and the rest of your family.
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Laurel and Hardy

I woke up in my own bed this morning, but I don't remember going to bed last night.

Over the holiday, my youngest brother and I watched the Laurel and Hardy CD’s. The movies extend from The Paper Hanger’s Helper, which may have been released in 1920 to Utopia, which could have been released in 1951.

Mud and Sand (1922) is from MGM. Laurel plays a successful Spanish Bullfighter. It is full of slapstick. Even my brother didn’t laugh.

Flying Deuces (1939) is from RKO. Hardy’s girlfriend turns down his marriage proposal, and due to his grief, they join the Foreign Legion. My brother laughed continually at the slapstick comedy. I didn’t think it was funny, but it was better than watching the airplane’s bulkhead.

God and I had a conversation. I hope that he was not insulted that I talked to him rather than watch L and H. I told him that I was ready to go, if he wanted me; but if he wanted the pilot, then he should please wait until we landed.

Flying Deuces had some famous lines:

I want to be alone, or phonetically, Ahee von to be ahlone, a line in a movie, but I don’t know who said it.

It is a far, far better thing I do … , which is a line at the end of A Tale of Two Cities.

During the movie, L and H did laundry with soapy water in a wooden tub. They scrubbed the clothes on a ribbed steel gadget, which my grandfather calls a scrub board. He says sixty years ago, some of our relatives used scrub boards to wash clothes. I remember seeing women use scrub boards in galvanized steel tubs, but I don’t remember when or where.

The Foreign Legion payed its soldiers three cents a day. L and H insist that they should get at least twenty-five cents a day. I need to remember that fact as an example of how modern banking destroys the value of money.

Jean Parker plays Hardy’s love interest. She played Beth in Little Women about which my great grandmother held a grudge. (Oye, for eighty years?) Her parents did not allow her to go see Little Women because she was too young. Her oldest brother had a car, and he took the older sisters to the movie theater in the next town.

Parker had pretty curls. I have tried to have curls, but they mostly disappear by the next day.

At that time, a movie theater’s admission cost ten cents, another example of how banks destroy money.

Utopia (1951) was from Hal Roach. Laurel inherits an island and a yacht . They use the yacht to go to the island. The movie is almost as crazy as Mud and Sand.

Laurel and Hardy must have made B-movies, less expensive movies marketed with more expensive movies as double features. For example, RKO might have distributed an expensive movie like the Disney’s Pinocchio with Flying Deuces. RKO owned both.

On another thread we talked about grammar and style. As an example of editing, I changed the last line from:

For example, an expensive movie like the Disney’s Pinocchio could have been marketed with marketed with Flying Deuces because both were RKO movies.

I’m not sure which is better, but in school I never use passive voice unless it is in a character’s dialogue. Around here we also lose points for ises and wases. And for ares? … aye matey, for ares, ye may get the black spot, or ye may walk the plank. :)
 
Way out West is my favourite of the Laurel and Hardy films.

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I don't know the finer points of grammar at all but on forums, my style usually (it can vary) attempts to be casual and informal. More like how I might talk to someone than worrying too much about the rules. I may however be formal enough within that to make it's clear that I'm quoting from somewhere. eg: from Wikipedia:

"James Henderson "Jimmy" Finlayson (27 August 1887 – 9 October 1953) was a Scottish actor who worked in both silent and sound comedies. Bald, with a fake moustache, Finlayson had many trademark comic mannerisms and is famous for his squinting, outraged, "double take and fade away" head reaction, and characteristic expression "d'ooooooh", and as the most famous comic foil of Laurel and Hardy."
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but that's just me and I'm not as consistent as I might be....

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Pirates hey? Have a tune:


The (traditional) tune is called the Trumpet Hornpipe.
 
Turkey

Hollywood jargon for bad move. As near as I can tell, no one has ever said that Utopia is a turkey. Maybe that is because it is so bad that it did not even make the bad movie list.

Way Out West, or at least parts of it, must be available on You Tube. When I have time, I'll watch it.
 
Ghid said:
...God and I had a conversation. I hope that he was not insulted that I talked to him rather than watch L and H. I told him that I was ready to go, if he wanted me; but if he wanted the pilot, then he should please wait until we landed.
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What brought you to this conversation with G-d? :)

Ghid said:
...I’m not sure which is better, but in school I never use passive voice unless it is in a character’s dialogue. Around here we also lose points for ises and wases. And for ares? … aye matey, for ares, ye may get the black spot, or ye may walk the plank. :)
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I always struggled with this.

@Ghid , just curious: have you ever seen Charles Chaplin in The Great Dictator? This is one of my favorites.
 
Cyndi Lauper

(born June 22, 1953) -- an American singer-songwriter, actress, and LGBT rights activist whose career has spanned across five decades

Ms Lauper may have been popular when Mom was my age, but until tonight, I had never heard of her.

Today, Mom had a house full of my friends and my friends’ mothers or guardians of various kinds. One of my friends has green and blue hair.

Mom says to her, “Oh, you’re going for the Cyndi Lauper look.” Lauper must have been famous for odd hair color.

My friend and I said a capella, “Who?” We must have sounded like owls at Hogwarts. Who? Who? However we sounded, the mothers and guardians roared with laughter. Ignorance is always so embarrassing. :ROFLMAO:
 
Ghid said:
Cyndi Lauper....:ROFLMAO:
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I remember Cyndi a bit -- mainly hearing my daughter talk about her -- but I think I may confuse her with another singer of that era. I may have seen her, but I don't remember. I should check this out a little....
 
TezriLi said:
What brought you to this conversation with G-d? :)

I always struggled with this.

@Ghid , just curious: have you ever seen Charles Chaplin in The Great Dictator? This is one of my favorites.
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Why did I talk to God? I had not thought about why, but God and I normally talk on Sunday during mass, and Mom and I did not go to mass on Sunday because we were not anywhere near a church, so maybe I just decided to get a leg up with the All Mighty. I know I expected to see my brothers, so maybe I just wanted to thank Him for that if He had anything to do with that.


I have never seen any of Chaplin's movies. Mom is a big fan of Richard Attenborough, who made the film biography of Chaplin. Attenborough is the cuddly grandfather in Jurassic Park. My brother loves to watch the raptor eat the lawyer. Lawyers always get such a bad rap :) tor. Oh I am so bad.
 
Almighty

Speaking of ignorance, I misspelled Almighty.

I had forgotten that the Bible refers to God as The Almighty. Any of the expressions, The Almighty, God Almighty, Lord Almighty, Almighty God, are more Protestant than Catholic, which must be the reason that when I see the word, Almighty, I don't recognize it as a word. Catholics don't very often read the Bible. Maybe the Church has placed the Bible on the banned list.
 
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