October 2018 – Dictionary Flip

Yellow or red card?

24/10/2018

We return to normal flippin’ with a word I reckon we can cover pretty quickly.

referee (noun)

Who likes a referee, really? Unless it’s someone you’ve put down on your CV, it’s usually a person whose decisions can make it or break it for the individual or team you’re cheering on and they are ALWAYS biased against your peeps! Or so it seems.

Of course, a referee is not simply a sports related thing; it’s a person who is charged with the responsibility of settling a matter or overseeing that the rules are upheld in such a way that an outcome is achieved fairly. Kind of a mini-judge, just without the gavel or robes.

At the end of the argument, the game, the case, someone wins but it usually isn’t the referee – either one or both of the participants will resent the referee. In saying that, though, if both parties are unhappy, a referee has usually done a good job. At least, an objective and fair one, because everybody’s equally happy. Yay! Compromise.

So, I conclude that a referee can be defined as:

1.) A person to whom something is directed, especially for decision or settlement; arbitrator; umpire; universally hated; drinks every night but with two glasses set out to simulate friendship.

Self-promotion time

19/10/2018

Today’s post is an aberration from the usual nonsense and word talk. Not that there won’t still be nonsense, but I’m also going to promote a book I’ve just self-published on Kindle eBooks, so if you’re not interested, skip this one and come back later! I will not hold it against you because seriously, this is whole ‘talking about myself’ is not sitting well with me.

False modesty, you say? I dunno, maybe. All I know is that I’ve put on reasonably fast-paced music to ensure I get through this semi-pumped up and without running away in fear. (For reference, it’s the album Ghost Notes by Veruca Salt.)

Firstly, let’s get through the nervous babbling. (If you want to check out the book without my commentary, have a look at “Amber’s Other Works“.)

The Nervous Babbling:

Okay, so for a while now I’ve wanted to be an author but I’ve always flitted from idea to idea, project to daydream, poetry to prose. I rarely finished things, unless they were short stories I really got into and powered through. Anyone can write- and honestly, if you want to write, you should, it can be as fun or cathartic as your pen takes you that day- but finishing a story is the hard part. You start out fresh and excited for the story you’ve embarked upon, then you hit the hard slog and other shiny new ideas start parading themselves tantalisingly right next to you and it takes discipline not to chase after them and the high of a fresh plot.

All this blathering is just to set the scene. Bear with me.

I started this book, now called At This Place, back in 2009. I finished it in 2013, with a break where I got writer’s block and dropped the thing for quite a while. This book caused me a lot of pain throughout the writing process, like, there was proper blood, sweat and tears if you count the fact that I was also dealing with mental health crap that’s really only improved a heap over the last couple of years (a tale for another time). I think for a while there, I equated finishing the book with fixing myself and that I couldn’t fail despite believing that I would.

It didn’t fix me. But I did finish it.

What I’m saying is, I’m insanely proud of the fact that I actually saw this book through. I have mixed feelings on the story itself and know that, being older and having developed a lot since then, I would make different choices with it. However, in saying that, I couldn’t work out a way to change it without having to scrap the damn thing. And I like the characters as they are.

God, I’m really selling it, aren’t I?

A few of my colleagues read the story and one in particular encouraged me to publish it. It’s taken me pretty much five years to get the confidence to do that, but I’m in a place now where I’m happy to try to spread these ol’ wings. With all my self-doubt, I’m still proud enough of the book to put it out there. Also, I designed the cover and I’m super chuffed with it, take a look:

At This Place

Discussion about the actual book:

It’s a contemporary romance revolving around two sets of couples, the second-time-around would-be lovers, Robert and Laura, and their respective adult sons, Jonathon and Cameron.

Set in England in 2009 (funny that), High Court judge Robert Beresford meets Laura Laythrop, a member of the Exeter City Council, in the course of renovating an old country manor. While Robert and Laura navigate an immediate attraction to each other in the midst of the baggage of their pasts, Cameron meets Jonathon in less than salubrious circumstances at Cambridge University and form an instant loathing. Only, Jonathon is super hot and Cameron is rather endearing, if rude, and maybe Jonathan isn’t quite that opposed to this idiot and maybe Cameron kind of likes that prat and, well… bother.

That description is not terrible. Huh.

Basically, it’s a tale of emotionally repressed people falling for other emotionally repressed people and the troubles that arise accordingly.

While nothing is, like, majorly explicit, there is some graphic content (both sexual and violent), so if that’s not your cup of tea, y’know. Go make an actual cup of tea? I recommend Rooibos/red bush tea, that is currently my jam.

The book can be found here on Amazon.

Conclusion:

Sorry that I went on for so long but if you got this far, kudos. If you do have a gander at Amazon and read the free sample of the book or heck, even buy it, know that I will be very nervous, very happy and thoroughly want you to enjoy it. If you do read any of At This Place, let me know what you think – criticism, constructive or not, is encouraged.

Anyway, I’ve rabbited on enough.

We will resume normal procedure here at Dictionary Flip shortly. Thank you for your attention and please take a Christmas ham before you go.

Guys, stop gushing about geezers

11/10/2018

Good [insert your time of day so this greeting is personalised]! How about them sports, huh? Okay, enough chitchat.

Today I want to talk about a word that is a bugbear of mine as I dislike all iterations in regards to how it’s said. This is a targeted attack, I’ll grant that, but it deserves it.

geyser (noun) (ugh)

1. A hot spring which intermittently sends up fountain-like jets of water and steam into the air.

Or, my preferred, more alliterative interpretation:
2. Giant gushy gust of wet.

The Macquarie Dictionary says that geyser can be pronounced either as ‘geez-ah’ or ‘guys-ah’. I’ve been raised in the former way to say it, so in my head, a geyser always spits out a bunch of elderly men before it moves onto the steaming hot water.

As a child, I said ‘geh-sher’, because I didn’t know what to do with the ‘y’ and apparently had a ball of cotton wool in my mouth. Child-Amber did have some interesting views on how to pronounce words, other candidates of note being ‘vehement’, ‘gambol’ and ‘anaesthetist’. To be fair, anaethetist wasn’t pronounced so much as I used to go, “Anehthththssssthththssthth,” until my Mum was forced to slap me back into reality. As an adult, I’ve switched to anesthesiologist because the introduction of more consonants is a godsend to someone with an occasional lisp.

Back to geysers. I think it’s a hard word to say and offer up a new one in its place:

wetjet

It’s fun! It’s splashy! It can’t be misconstrued! Picture it: “Old Faithful is one of Yellowstone National Park’s most famous wetjets.”

The Comic Sans burns, doesn't it? Perfect.

Feel free to leave a comment telling me that I’m totally right about this and continue to build up my ego. I mean, I know I’m right- even destroying one of my own photos of Old Faithful with ComicSans and dinky text placements doesn’t shake my conviction in this matter.

Ultimately, if you have a word whose pronunciation has always bothered you, it’s okay. I feel your pain and I will campaign on your behalf – unless I disagree with you, of course. Then I’ll probably just sit back with a cup of tea while you’re burned at the stake by Grammar Nazis. I’m fickle, alright?

Side note, apparently a wetjet is actually a brand of mop. Righto. It’s still better then geyser.

Prairie dogs in cotton smocks

10/10/2018

There are no oddly attired prairie dogs below, unfortunately. But I did see some recently!

And it is with that pronouncement that I advise I was on holiday in America just a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed it thoroughly. And I suppose I should really put a picture of a prairie dog in here so that this post isn’t just a total waste of your time. I’m not here to clickbait anyone, not badly anyway. That reminds me, have you heard about the one simple way to get a six pack and grow a second head? Scientists are outraged!

Prairie Dog: Zen Level 120 Et tu, human.

So the States were fun. Saw some amazing places and a load of natural beauty, and we stayed out of politics as much as possible. I traveled with my Mum and we went in a bus tour, so there was much driving around Southern California, Utah, Nevada, North Dakota, frigging a whole bunch of states. As a person with little to no sense of direction and/or ability to retain where I am or have been, I’m still having a whole heap of difficulty understanding where the heck we went to. But still.

I’ll probably randomly make reference to the USA in other posts to make myself seem well traveled and cultured (I totes am), but for now, let us talk of a word that I shall flip through and find now as I am criminally under prepared, as usual.

Aha, let’s make a massive

blunder (noun)

A gross or stupid mistake.
To move or act blindly, stupidly, or without direction or steady guidance.

Blunder is one of those interesting words that has a sort of onomatopoeia to it. It sounds clumsy, it sounds like a word that’s tripped its way into your kitchen, broken three wine glasses and your entire drawer of crockery right before landing face first on the floor.

Let’s do an experiment with what is expected to be delicate or graceful and chuck a blunder in: “The ballerina blundered across the stage, pirouetting unsteadily as the other dancers fled.”

I editorialised a little, but as soon as I wrote about a ‘blundering ballerina’ I could only picture the ballerina ripping across the floor like a drunken hurricane. ‘Blunder’ forces you to think unwieldy, ignorant things almost because the word itself is dorkily blunt upon your tongue.

Having performed a quick Google search (we spare no expense here at Dictionary Flip), ‘blunder’ is a Middle English word that first arose in the 14th century and likely has a Scandinavian/Old Norse origin, possibly the word blunda, which meant to shut one’s eyes. Huh. I’d have laid money on a Germanic origin, possibly an old German folklore of a troll that moved sluggishly and once erred by stepping on a princess, causing her knight errant to kill the troll in revenge.

Guess I made a bit of a blunder in my thinking there. But that’s it for the moment, I have to go shove my dog off my lap now, he’s too bloody hot.

Dictionary Flip

Month: October 2018