Word talk – Page 2 – Dictionary Flip

Gone to seed

27/08/2018

A couple of weeks back, I got proud of myself that I’d managed to do weekly updates, what, twice in a row. Lo, said I, how productive and consistent! Be this the new routine? Then my head swelled an unseemly amount and I preened for a while.

Hence, when I was then unable to post for a while, I was forcibly reminded of the whole ‘pride comes before a fall’ thing. But no matter! Today I shall flip through the dictionary and bring forth a new word to delight myself and you with. Without further ado…

tamarind (noun)

Woohoo? I mean, it’s not even those cool little monkeys. The addition of one stupid letter at the end and all the years I spent watching David Attenborough documentaries building up for this moment… wasted.

Wait, I have to share something before I go on. It’s not a tamarind or a tamarin, but it is an animal and therefore I can eke out the slightest connection.

Marcus, please, there are people watching.

It’s a photo of couple of African Painted Dogs I saw at the zoo last year. One was so clumsy and flopping around everywhere, and his friend was just like, “What are you doing?” Silly Dog was trying to scratch himself or something (unsuccessfully), while the rest of the pack snoozed.

Anyway, back to the actual word of the day.

So tamarinds are both trees and the fruit thereof. The dictionary states that it’s, “The fruit of a large tropical tree, Tamarindus indica,a pod containing seeds enclosed in a juicy acid pulp that is used in food and beverages.” Apparently the tree itself is also useful and nice for its shade, wood and fragrant flowers.

Tamarinds look like this, in case you were wondering and didn’t want to google it yourself for fear of alerting the government of your interest in this plant. (Understandable.)

Photo by Malcolm Smith on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/malcolm-smith/)

Now, this is something really special that I want to tell you – an age old recipe for tamarinds handed down through generations in my family and made up by me a few seconds ago.

Step 1: Get some food, anything you’d like to use as a base. Bread, avocado, bubblegum. Go wild.
Step 2: Add one to two tamarind pods, shells still intact, on top of your food.
Step 3: Walk away and let someone else who knows what they’re doing into the kitchen.

And there you have it!

(of the bowels) to operate

29/07/2018

The title of this post reflects where my finger landed in the definition of today’s word. I’m thankful that there are so many meanings to this one that I don’t have to concentrate on that bit.

Without further ado, let’s move on.

move (intransitive verb)

Firstly, let’s tackle ‘intransitive verb’. Is it a doing word that’s imbibed intravenously? Is it just kind of shy, and that’s why it comes off a little cold and aloof? IT’S ALL OF THESE THINGS! Haha, no it’s not.

I’m sitting here with my dog on my lap and chuckling at my own jokes. This is the absolute epitome of high achievement.

I’m not Googling it because that would be a sign of weakness and I’ve got a dictionary at hand – an object with all the answers, literally the only object you would need on a desert island, if that desert island’s sand was made of Scrabble tiles and you had to string them together to form food-words. That sounds like the perfect subject for a fever dream, to be honest.

So an intransitive verb is, “a verb that is never accompanied by a direct object, as come, sit, lie, etc.”, or, “a verb occurring without a direct object, as drinks in the sentence he drinks only when thirsty“.

Here are some example sentences using the word of the day:
“The body on the floor moved slightly, enough to catch her eye.”
“Maggots moved across the rotting flesh, their fat white bodies searching for new mouth holds to latch upon.”
“Screaming, she moved out of the room with some alacrity.”

You get the drift. The ‘move’ part is not related to an object in the sentences. Full disclosure, I understand it right now but in a day, I will be confused again, so I really need to try and drum this into my skull.

Move can become a transitive verb in some of its incarnations, i.e. to change the place/position of something; to set or keep in motion, shake or stir; to prompt action, et cetera, et cetera. But think about it next time you move your shoulders back. Your action is both correcting your posture and a transitive verb when the Narrator in your life runs its commentary. Bonus!

I’m getting a headache.

Running through the definitions of move, let’s stick to the first one. Thus:

move (intransitive verb)

1. to change place or position; pass from one place or situation to another.

What I like about the above is the dichotomy of thoughts I had about it. You could be moving a step to the right; you could be moving halfway across the world. You could be moving to a better place or even just something banal – the move from work to home, the relieved sigh that moves from your lips to the air around you as you step across the threshold. It could be a move to a worse scenario than the one you were just in. Say hello to my little friend? Keep the tommy gun, mate, there’s a sniper rifle trained on me now.

The saying that popped into my head was out of the frying pan and into the fire. I guess that’s a sign of my perspective on things.

Whatever your next move is, I hope it’s a good one. Carry a fire extinguisher with you at all times and stay out of kitchens; that should keep you safe.

Curly hurdy gurdy

22/07/2018

I didn’t even have to lift a finger to get the word for today. No flipping, no nothing. How quickly I’ve sold out.

Recently, I’ve got pretty obsessed with The Cranberries, the Irish rock band from the ’90s whose lead singer died earlier this year. Yet again, I’ve missed the boat on something BUT this word was used to describe Dolores O’Riordan’s voice in a review I read and it fits so well.

Side note: as soon as I like something, music especially, I immediately look up reviews to validate my opinions because I cannot do so without external influence. Who wants to be an individual with fully formed views and thoughts? Sounds like too much hard work.

Wow, I don’t update for a few weeks and suddenly it’s logorrhoea all around. Onto the word!

curlicue (noun)

According to Macquarie here, a curlicue, also spelled as curlycue, is a “fantastic curl or twist”.

…

It’s astonishing sometimes how a dictionary entry strips the magic of the word back to something quite stark or possibly about Shirley Temple’s hair.

Anyway, with the sound of Cordell ringing in my ears, I implore you to picture a feather-light voice twisting high in a modified yodel, the filigree patterns of a wrought iron gate, the tight green spiral of unfurled fern fronds when you read this neat little word.

Have you paid your pound of flesh yet?

08/06/2018

fine (noun)

To be honest, flipping onto this word randomly was a bit… off-putting, at first. My Dad died on Tuesday, and seeing ‘fine’ come up felt almost like the universe was like, “So… are you?”

Universe, remember: This is a purely business relationship, we’re not friends, I am just here for the chance to exist and eat cheese. Honestly. So nosy.

Anyway, then I realised that this wasn’t fine as in, “Yeah, I’m doing okay,” or, “Isn’t the weather just lovely!” This was the mean fine, the nasty fine, the fine you don’t want to come up against in a dark alley with no change on you. Because this fine… it ain’t playing.

You owe this fine. You owe it big time.

Definition:

“You were supposed to be watching it.”
“I was! I just, my eyelids, they were really heavy and they fell shut for a moment, I pushed them right back up but it… it was already gone.”
“Uh huh.”
“I swear- ”
“Sure. You know what the penalty is.”
“I know. Here, take it.” (glumly pulls out a fistful of cash)
“Oh sorry, mate, did I forget to mention we changed our definition of ‘money’ the other day?”
“P-pardon?”
“Yeah, cash is so last year.”
(nervous laugh) “So you take, um, credit now?”
“Something like that.”

OR

1. A sum of money exacted as a penalty for an offence or dereliction.

Dictionary Flip

Category: Word talk

tamarind (noun)

move (intransitive verb)

move (intransitive verb)

curlicue (noun)

fine (noun)

Definition:

OR