标签: dictionary

I am quite fond of words. I enjoy the way they roll around my head and drip off my tongue. I was watching an episode of Law and Order on television the other day -- the original one with Sam Waterston playing Jack McCoy -- when Jack's boss dropped "the nattering nabobs of negativism" into the conversation and I thought "Oooh, I wish I'd said that!" (Hmmm, what was that Monty Python sketch in which someone says: "Shaw said that!"?)   All this goes to explain why I spend so much time on the Dictionary.com website, and also on its Thesaurus.com sister site. It's a rare day indeed that doesn’t see me visiting both sites to look up the meaning of a word, or its origin and history, or its synonyms and antonyms.   I've also signed up for Dictionary.com's "Word of the Day" email. Most of the time I know the words, but sometimes I'm completely stumped. Furthermore, every now and then my eyes deceive me and my mind substitutes another word for what I'm seeing.   Take the other day, for example, when the word of the day was "Formication." For some reason I read this as something completely different. However, it turns out that formication is the medical term for a sensation that resembles that of small insects crawling on (or under) the skin. I'm glad my 20-year old son hasn’t heard of this one -- he's a bit of a hypochondriac, and once the thought was in his head...   As an aside, a couple of years ago I purchased a copy of The Hypochondriac's Pocket Guide to Horrible Diseases You Probably Already Have , and every year I don't give it to my son for Christmas (LOL).   Even the definition of formication can be deceiving, because this word is derived from formica , which I now discover is the Latin word for "ant," but which I originally took to be a type of plastic tabletop.   Of course, rhyming words are now rattling around my noggin and strange phrases are popping into my mind -- things like "The isolation and desperation associated with the aberration of formication." Trust me; you wouldn’t want to live in my head.   Other recent "Words of the Day" have included spondulicks, magniloquent, and Pickwickian. I tell you, English is such a beautiful language that it brings a tear to my eye. I'm reminded of that line "Student of our sweet English tongue" from the poem To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence by James Elroy Flecker.   What's the most apposite word you can think of that rhymes with "formication"? What's your favorite English word? And do you know the only English word where the letter combination "ph" actually sounds like 'p' followed by 'h' and not 'f'?

Since we just recently entered a brand-spanking-new year, it perhaps behooves us to pause for a moment to contemplate the meaning of liff. What? No, I don’t mean the meaning of life. I'm talking about the book called The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd.   Actually, I hang my head in shame when I admit that I had never heard of this little beauty before, even though the original edition was published way back in the mists of time we used to call 1983. (That's more than 30 years ago -- eek! ) I'm a huge fan of Douglas Adams, so I have no idea how this little scamp (the book, not Douglas Adams) slipped under my radar. The first I knew of it was when my little bro' gave me a copy of the "new and unimproved" edition for Christmas. This is such a clever book. It's a dictionary of things for which there currently are no words. The really clever part is that, rather than creating new words from scratch, the authors simply assign new meanings to existing place-names. Opening the book at random, for example, we find the following: Alcoy adj. Wanting to be bullied into having another drink. Berriwillock n. An unknown workmate who writes "All the best" on your leaving card. Clakavoid n. The technical term for a single page of script from an Australian soap opera. Dungeness n. The uneasy feeling that the plastic handles of the overloaded supermarket carrier-bag you are carrying are getting steadily longer.   Many of these are laugh-out-loud funny. Also amusing is the fact that each reader will find different entries to be funnier (or not, as the case might be).   In fact, this book has turned out to be very educational, because I've found myself using Google Earth on my iPad to locate and "visit" many of the more unusual place names.   Also very poignant is the back-and-forth dialog between the authors in the prefaces to the various editions. For example, the preface to the 1988 reprint reads as follows:   Did you get the preface I faxed you from New Zealand? -- Douglas Adams, Zaire, 1988   This is followed by the preface to the 1989 reprint, which reads as follows:   No. -- John Lloyd, Lambeth, 1989   Douglas Adams was born in 1952 -- just five years before yours truly. In addition to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , he also wrote such classics as Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul . He passed away from a heart attack in 2001 at only 49 years of age.   Like so many other people, Douglas Adams was cut down before his time. The scary thing is that any of us could shrug off this mortal coil at any time. All I can say as we stand at the beginning of this new year is that life is very, very precious, and that we should all do our best to make the most of it and to help others make the most of it also. So let's all go forth and make the world a happier place!

In one of my recent blogs , I talked about a few cool apps for my iPad 2 that I'd run across in the app store ( NetFlix , Compass HD , ArtRage , Fluid Monkey , The Weather Channel , Google Earth , Digital Geiger Counter , Notes Plus , and GoSkyWatch Planetarium ). Note the 'HD' part of the Compass app. I'm seeing a lot of apps with this annotation but I don't know what it stands for. Does it indicate "High Definition"? If so, what does that mean in this context? Does it just stand for a higher definition than an equivalent app on an iPhone? Inquiring minds want to know (grin). Did you know that there are currently more than 90,000 apps for the iPad according to the App Store page on the Apple website? Personally I find this to be somewhat intimidating. If I evaluated one every two minutes without taking a break or sleeping, it would take me 125 days to go through them all. What this means in reality, of course, is that I am never going to know everything that's out there. I don't know why, but this makes me feel a little sad (unhappy face). But turn that frown upside down into a smile (happy face), because I'm having so much fun with the few handfuls of apps that I do have; speaking of which... Public Radio If I happen to be driving in my car between 9:00am and 10:00am on a Saturday morning, I rather enjoy listening to Car Talk with "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers" on the National Public Radio (NPR). A couple of Saturday's ago I was at home and decided to listen to the show, but my son had taken the radio into the shower with him (OK, into the bathroom if you want to be pedantic). "Hmmm," I thought. Then my eyes passed over my iPad sitting on the table and I decided to take a peak in the app store. And yes, there is a Public Radio app, which I immediately downloaded. This is really cool. First it allows you to select any public radio station in the country. And then, when you are listening to a program, if you miss a bit (because your wife comes in and starts waffling on about something or other ... to give a really crazy example), you can easily pause or rewind the program and pick up where you left off. Of course it may be that this is all "old hat" to you, but I've not spent a lot of time playing with Internet access to the radio or television, so a a newbie in this area I'm really impressed. Dictionary This is another app that's not got a lot of "bling" associated with it, but that is incredibly useful on occasion. When I'm writing articles and suchlike on my main computer, I'm always checking things out on www.Dictionary.com and its counterpart www.Thesaurus.com. Similarly, when I'm reading a book or watching TV, I often become interested in better understanding the meaning or origin of a word. So I was delighted to discover that there's a Dictionary app for the iPad. This includes nearly two million words, definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and audio pronunciation. Amazing! Angry Birds and Cave Bowling As I've mentioned before, I'm really not much of a computer games player. On the other hand, if you have an iPad and there are a bunch of free game apps out there, it seems silly not to at least take them for a spin (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). Thus it was that I downloaded two apps: Angry Birds and Cave Bowling . First I tried Angry Birds. The idea is that you have a sort of catapult that you use to hurl a bird into the air to knock over a structure. Using your finger you control the angle of the shot and the launch speed.   Angry Birds The result was a bit of a laugh, but it didn't really "Grab me by the short and curlies, swing me round the room, and leave me gasping for more," if you see what I mean. Maybe I just didn't try hard enough or work my way through a sufficient number of levels. Based on this experience, I left Cave Bowling on the back burner for a couple of days... If the truth be told, I might never have even powered the Cave Bowling app up. It was just that I was messing around with the iPad one day and I had a few minutes free and I saw this app and I thought "What the Heck" and I fired it up.   Cave Bowling In many ways this is similar to the Angry Birds app in that you control the launch speed and direction of a hurled object. In this case, however, you are a cave man throwing a bowling ball. The first level is trivial – I got in in a single throw. "Ha," I thought, "take that!" You immediately move on to the next level, which is just a tad harder. This unlocks the next level, which unlocks the next... and so it goes. When next I looked up, half an hour had slipped by without my noticing it, and I think I've only scratched the surface of all the possible levels. This really is rather addictive. Not something I'd do every day, perhaps, but I can certainly see myself whiling a few minutes away at an airport while waiting to board a plane. Maybe I'll take another look at Angry Birds ... Talking Tom I've saved the best to last ... at least for this blog (just wait until you see Part 3!). I started off with the free version of this app, but it didn't take long for me to want to upgrade to the full-up version so as to get more "goodies" (I think it cost $1.99 or $2.99 to upgrade, but I can't remember; whatever it was it was well worth it). This is just so clever. I'm speechless with admiration. There are so many nuances to this that I can't cover them here, so let's just stick to the main functionality. If you start talking to the cat he puts his paw to his ear while he's listening to you. When you stop talking he repeats what you said in a silly voice.   Talking Tom I know this doesn't sound like much, but it gets better. You can make a dog appear at the window or you can make the dog come in and blow up a paper bag behind the cat, causing it to leap into the air. In fact there's a whole bunch of things you can do. The best thing is that you can click the video icon and record a little skit with the dog and cat doing things, including the cat talking (playing back the silly version of your recoded voice). When you've finished recording, you can save the video and play it and/or you can email it to someone. I saw a review where someone said that he had found that using Tom to convey his message was a particularly good way to get out of the doghouse (pun intended) if he'd done something to upset his wife. By some strange quirk of fate I almost immediately found myself in just such a position (with my wife, not his, you understand), so I used Talking Tom to send my wife a message. Believe it or not, she sent a really nice email back... addressed to Tom... they now have a real "email buddy" thing going. It's a funny old world...  

In my blog a few days ago , I discussed a few cool apps for my iPad 2 that I'd run across in the app store ( NetFlix , Compass HD , ArtRage , Fluid Monkey , The Weather Channel , Google Earth , Digital Geiger Counter , Notes Plus , and GoSkyWatch Planetarium ). Note the 'HD' part of the Compass app. I'm seeing a lot of apps with this annotation but I don't know what it stands for. Does it indicate "High Definition"? If so, what does that mean in this context? Does it just stand for a higher definition than an equivalent app on an iPhone? Inquiring minds want to know (grin). Did you know that there are currently more than 90,000 apps for the iPad according to the App Store page on the Apple website? Personally I find this to be somewhat intimidating. If I evaluated one every two minutes without taking a break or sleeping, it would take me 125 days to go through them all. What this means in reality, of course, is that I am never going to know everything that's out there. I don't know why, but this makes me feel a little sad (unhappy face). But turn that frown upside down into a smile (happy face), because I'm having so much fun with the few handfuls of apps that I do have; speaking of which... Public Radio If I happen to be driving in my car between 9:00am and 10:00am on a Saturday morning, I rather enjoy listening to Car Talk with "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers" on the National Public Radio (NPR). A couple of Saturday's ago I was at home and decided to listen to the show, but my son had taken the radio into the shower with him (OK, into the bathroom if you want to be pedantic). "Hmmm," I thought. Then my eyes passed over my iPad sitting on the table and I decided to take a peak in the app store. And yes, there is a Public Radio app, which I immediately downloaded. This is really cool. First it allows you to select any public radio station in the country. And then, when you are listening to a program, if you miss a bit (because your wife comes in and starts waffling on about something or other ... to give a really crazy example), you can easily pause or rewind the program and pick up where you left off. Of course it may be that this is all "old hat" to you, but I've not spent a lot of time playing with Internet access to the radio or television, so a a newbie in this area I'm really impressed. Dictionary This is another app that's not got a lot of "bling" associated with it, but that is incredibly useful on occasion. When I'm writing articles and suchlike on my main computer, I'm always checking things out on www.Dictionary.com and its counterpart www.Thesaurus.com. Similarly, when I'm reading a book or watching TV, I often become interested in better understanding the meaning or origin of a word. So I was delighted to discover that there's a Dictionary app for the iPad. This includes nearly two million words, definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and audio pronunciation. Amazing! Angry Birds and Cave Bowling As I've mentioned before, I'm really not much of a computer games player. On the other hand, if you have an iPad and there are a bunch of free game apps out there, it seems silly not to at least take them for a spin (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). Thus it was that I downloaded two apps: Angry Birds and Cave Bowling . First I tried Angry Birds. The idea is that you have a sort of catapult that you use to hurl a bird into the air to knock over a structure. Using your finger you control the angle of the shot and the launch speed.   Angry Birds The result was a bit of a laugh, but it didn't really "Grab me by the short and curlies, swing me round the room, and leave me gasping for more," if you see what I mean. Maybe I just didn't try hard enough or work my way through a sufficient number of levels. Based on this experience, I left Cave Bowling on the back burner for a couple of days... If the truth be told, I might never have even powered the Cave Bowling app up. It was just that I was messing around with the iPad one day and I had a few minutes free and I saw this app and I thought "What the Heck" and I fired it up.   Cave Bowling In many ways this is similar to the Angry Birds app in that you control the launch speed and direction of a hurled object. In this case, however, you are a cave man throwing a bowling ball. The first level is trivial – I got in in a single throw. "Ha," I thought, "take that!" You immediately move on to the next level, which is just a tad harder. This unlocks the next level, which unlocks the next... and so it goes. When next I looked up, half an hour had slipped by without my noticing it, and I think I've only scratched the surface of all the possible levels. This really is rather addictive. Not something I'd do every day, perhaps, but I can certainly see myself whiling a few minutes away at an airport while waiting to board a plane. Maybe I'll take another look at Angry Birds ... Talking Tom I've saved the best to last ... at least for this blog (just wait until you see Part 3!). I started off with the free version of this app, but it didn't take long for me to want to upgrade to the full-up version so as to get more "goodies" (I think it cost $1.99 or $2.99 to upgrade, but I can't remember; whatever it was it was well worth it). This is just so clever. I'm speechless with admiration. There are so many nuances to this that I can't cover them here, so let's just stick to the main functionality. If you start talking to the cat he puts his paw to his ear while he's listening to you. When you stop talking he repeats what you said in a silly voice.   Talking Tom I know this doesn't sound like much, but it gets better. You can make a dog appear at the window or you can make the dog come in and blow up a paper bag behind the cat, causing it to leap into the air. In fact there's a whole bunch of things you can do. The best thing is that you can click the video icon and record a little skit with the dog and cat doing things, including the cat talking (playing back the silly version of your recoded voice). When you've finished recording, you can save the video and play it and/or you can email it to someone. I saw a review where someone said that he had found that using Tom to convey his message was a particularly good way to get out of the doghouse (pun intended) if he'd done something to upset his wife. By some strange quirk of fate I almost immediately found myself in just such a position (with my wife, not his, you understand), so I used Talking Tom to send my wife a message. Believe it or not, she sent a really nice email back... addressed to Tom... they now have a real "email buddy" thing going. It's a funny old world...