BFWF Returns!
on 2003-03-31 at 2:36 p.m.
Well, as promised, this week marks the reprise of a fan favorite, BFWF (Big Fucking Word Friday). As I told everyone in my invisible don interview, I am going to do one today and another on Friday. I will continue to do them on fridays, so you may consider this "back by popular demand." This is an attempt on my part to better my own vocabulary and to help others as well.
See the 1st BFWF installment.
See the 2nd BFWF installment.
See the 3rd BFWF installment.
Today we have four words:
#1 slugabed SLUHG-uh-bed, noun:
a person who stays in bed until a relatively late hour; one who indulges in lying abed; a sluggard.
example: ``Why Lambe, why Lady, fie you slugabed.'' --Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
#2ebullient i-BUL-yuhnt, adjective:
1: boiling up or over; hence,
2: joyously unrestrained; manifesting exhilaration or excitement, as of feeling; effervescing.
"He [Picasso] was this, he was that, he was the other--at one moment a poet, at the next an inspired buffoon; tender and romantic to the point of sentimentality, intellectual to the point of frigidity; now a cynic, now a compassionate man; ebullient in one painting, despairing in another; exquisitely refined, and deliberately brutal." --"Picasso--Symbol of a Conquest in Art"- New York Times, April 9, 1973
#3 Brobdingnagian rahb-ding-NAG-ee-uhn, adjective:
Colossal; of extraordinary height; gigantic. -- as a noun: a giant. [Often misspelt Brobdignagian.]
Clarification: From Brobdingnag, a country of giants in Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
Also used in describing some of the new multi-billion dollar hotels in Las Vegas.
#4 triskaidekaphobia ris-ky-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh, noun:
a morbid fear of the number 13
"Past disasters linked to the number 13 hardly help triskaidekaphobics overcome their affliction. The most famous is the Apollo 13 mission, launched on April 11, 1970 (the sum of 4, 11 and 70 equals 85 - which when added together comes to 13), from Pad 39 (three times 13) at 13:13 local time, and struck by an explosion on April 13."
--"It's just bad luck that the 13th is so often a Friday," Electronic Telegraph, September 8, 1996
Alot of you probably knew the last one, but it fascinates me how widespread that is. It is directly attributed to why hotels have no 13th floor, and why no NASA mission has ever since had the number 13 associated with it. Weird huh?
Recent Entries:
Prodigal Jonzo Returns - 2005-09-16
Sober - 2004-02-12
Long time, and Happy Anniversary - 2003-12-08
Getting you up to date... - 2003-11-21
Welcome Home Richard - 2003-11-12
