Monday, March 28, 2011

word games

The other day, when I saw the "third" rainbow, I looked it up, and the description described it as a "Tertiary Rainbow". Well, I always thought that "The Tertiary" was a term for a geological period 65 million to 2.6 million years ago. I had no idea what The word "tertiary" meant. I know, I know... I knew what "primary" meant, and knew what "secondary" meant, but I never really put "Tertiary" in context. Yeah. yeah, I knew what "quaternary" meant also, but the "tertiary" just got hung up in my brain somewhere. So, being a logical person, I thought that I would try to see how far up the sequential scale that priorities go. This is what I found:

(1)Primary, (2)Secondary, (3)Tertiary, (4)quaternary, (5)quinary, (6)senary, (7)septenary, (8)octonary, (9)nonary, (10)denary.
So, there is a word for ten but no word for (0)zeronary nor (11)elevenary.
But, words do exist for twelfth order (duodenary) and twentieth order (vigenary).

I guess that if you have priority that go higher than that, you are just plain out of luck, or you have to make up your own word.

More words to ponder:
1 A baby horse is called a colt, and a baby cow is called a calf. What is a baby pig called?
2-The study of mankind is called anthropology. What is the study of love called?
3-Does bimonthly mean twice a month, or once every two months.
4-What is the feminine equivalent of a Misogynist (a person who hates or dislikes women)?
5-What is the feminine equivalent of Fraternal?
6-What comes after Once, Twice, Thrice?




 













1- A baby pig
2- Erotology
3- Both
4 A misandrist
5- Sororal
6- Gotcha' Nothing comes after, that's all they made up. But, I would say fourice, fivice, sixice... great minds could go on forever like this.

24 comments:

Rose said...

A baby horse (boy) is a colt, (girl) is a filly... piggies are piglets...

Once, twice, three times a lady...

:)

Anonymous said...

Is there another word for synonym?

Oregon

Ernie Branscomb said...

"Is there another word for synonym?"

No, but my favorite trick is to use two words that everybody might understand, and it's just as easy. Like synonym would become equivalent word.

An even better word, (Metonym), one that is even less understood, it is a word that is used in place of a word that actually means something else. For instance saying pass the bottle, when you really mean pass the Whiskey Nobody really wants the bottle, but what's in it.

Or calling Judges a bench which might actually be a synonyn in some cases.

Ernie Branscomb said...

If you want to have some more fun, go to this list of Root Words

You will find out that synonyn means same word and metonym means change word.


List of suffixes here.

Gabby Haze said...

2-The study of mankind is called anthropology. What is the study of love called?

Sex.

It's a pretty good study.

Lavonne said...

Are you sure about bimonthly? I thought bi-monthly was every two months and semi-monthly was twice a month. The IRS says so, so it must be true, eh? Ha!

Anonymous said...

Lavonne You Canadians are all alike. You don't have an IRS.LOL
Semi monthly is every other month.

Oregon

Ernie Branscomb said...

Say this is tuesday.
If you say next Monday, do you mean the VERY next coming Monday? Or, do you mean the one after, two weeks from yesterday?

Robin Shelley said...

I suppose you can call a baby horse, cow & pig whatever you want... they are still a horse, a cow & a pig.
The answer to #4 is "Amanda" but you would have to know her to know this is so.

Anonymous said...

Bimonthly is every 2 months---semi monthly is twice a month. If your pay day was semi monthly you would get paid twice a month if it was every two weeks you would get paid every 14 days and if it was bimonthly you would get paid every 2 months. Elsie

\ said...

What is the study of love called?

Sex.


I don't know where you get your concepts from Gabby, that's really fucked up.

olmanriver said...

Gabby Haze, or the poser who capitalized his name-- as he rarely did, tried to play Charlie Weaver and it didn't work.
Enforcing cultural stereotypes like that, is, of course, repugnant to a pc poster like myself.
I will apologize for the recividist reprobate who said such things.

\ said...

re: pugnant,
So, Riv, maybe I missed the joke(?). Or the mistake or whatever it was. But I'm interested in various kinds of stereotyping, and what affect that has had on our culture. Sorry, I'm not all that familiar with those old character(s). I've seen Gabby in, I think, a Roy Rogers movie(?)once. And I've never seen Charlie in anything. So, please give me some wiggle room LOL, to research on youtube.

Do you somehow meld the Charlie Weaver persona together with Gabby Hay's -weave the hay, so to speak .... I read on wikipedia that CW (Arquette) was on a Roy Rogers tv show in the 60s. Is there some connection between the two? They have something in common? What would you call that character type?

And the stereotype of the toughguy who jumps in and out of bed with woman all the time, has no feelings, knows nothing of the agony of love ... how does that fit here?

okay i'm off to research some old Hollywood Squares episodes.

chalater,
s

\ said...

-with lots of women-

olmanriver said...

Let's let Charlie W be Charlie W:
"Q: Which of your five senses tends to diminish as you get older?
A: Charley Weaver: My sense of decency.

Q: Charley, you've just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during your first year?
A: Charley Weaver: Of course not, Peter. I'm too busy growing strawberries!

Q: According to Ann Landers, is there anything wrong with getting into the habit of kissing a lot of people?
A: Charley Weaver: It got me out of the army!"



Sometimes I feel like I am sitting in a corner square on the Hollywood Squares show of life, and like Charlie W, I have employed a "presumed residency in a nursing home, which he simply referred to as "out at The Home.""
...but he had better cornpone writers.

Unk John said...

Ah, yes, things are fine in Mt. Idie.

Paul Lynde was another good one for answers.

Q:"Paul, you just found out that your elephant is pregnant. How long will it be before the blessed event?"

A:Paul Lynde indignantly, "Who told you about my elephant!?"

Wordplay is great. I've read that there are four words in the English language that have no rhyme. I can only remember three of them. Does anyone here remember the fourth one?

I've also become quite fond of Hofstadter's self-referential sentences, like these::

Although this sentence begins with "because", it is false.

I had to translate this sentence into English because I could not read the original Sanskrit.

And the other day I saw a tee shirt that said:

"i" before "e" except after "c"...weird?

Maybe I have too much time on my hands.

\ said...

Suzy loves The Price is Right --another awesome tv series that was birthed in the creative 60s.

Smutmongerer said...

Now my grandmother thought Hollywood Squares was too smutty, but The Price is Right... now we are talking good family/consumer tv!

Charlie W had some good lines, but Paul Lynde was cutting edge for those times, lotsa snarky double entendres and smutty inferences. He may have made the show one of the "dirtiest" programs on tv at the time.
(aside from the opening scenes of Petticoat Junction)

Suzy, yes the 60's tv programming was pretty avante guard, compared to the 50's.

Some Lynde zingers:

"Peter Marshall: Paul, in what famous book will you read about a talking ass who wonders why it's being beaten?
Paul Lynde: I read it, "The Joy of Sex."

Peter Marshall: What is a pullet?
Paul Lynde: A little show of affection...

Peter Marshall: Nathan Hale, one of the heroes of the American Revolution, was hung. Why?
Paul Lynde: Heredity!

\ said...

Sometimes all I can say is, "Oh, oh, oh," and clap my hands as I smile at the special sliding crumb tray feature on my new toaster.

Unk John said...

Peter Marshall: "Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?"
Paul Lynde: "Because chiffon wrinkles too easily."

olmanriver said...

LOL! thanks for some real humor suzy, we have missed you.

olmanriver said...

Unk John, don't encourage me further... there are pages of Lynde's best material online, hard not to keep on commenting...

olmanriver said...

Bill Cullen was the host of Price is Right during the 50'-60's period. He was crippled from polio, but few knew because he would stay seated on TV and never walk onto the stage, like most game hosts.
He once hosted a different game show with Mel Brooks as a guest, and Mel related this most embarrassing moment in GQ last year:

"The week of October 17–21 in 1966 - that would make me about 40 - was a special celebrity week on Eye Guess. Bill Cullen was the host. The game was very similar to Concentration. I was teamed up with Julia Meade. Remember her? Actress, very pretty young lady, blonde... Okay, never mind. I don't think I won, but I did get the take-home game. Anyway, the show is over, and I start walking toward the podium to say good night to Bill, to thank him for having me on. He starts coming toward me cross-stage, and I don't know what he's doing. His feet are flopping. His hands are flying everywhere. He's doing this kind of wacky walk-of-the-unfortunates that Jerry Lewis used to do. So I figured, what the hell, I'll join him. I start doing, I dunno, this multiple-sclerosis walk, flapping my arms and doing the Milton Berle cross legs - my own Jerry Lewis impression... And Julia is whispering, "No! He's crippled, Mel!" I don't even hear her. Finally we meet in the middle, we hug, and he says to me, "You know, you're the only comic who's ever had the nerve to make fun of my crippled walk. Everyone's so careful, it makes me feel even worse." And I realize, Oh, my God, this guy is really crippled! It was my worst moment - and if you weren't me, probably the funniest thing that ever happened.[3]"

Can you imagine how badly you would feel? oh

Ernie Branscomb said...

OMR
Wow, does that make me flinch. I have a friend that has a "loose ankle" (for lack of a better term) He swings his leg wide to the side as his foot flops back to the ground, he lurches forward and swings his leg again as he walks. He moves very slow and deliberately. One day I sprained my ankle badly, and I was walking down the street in a rough imitation of my friend. I looked up and there he was. I turned four shades of purple and quickly pointed out that I wasn't mocking him, but I and just sprained my ankle. He got a big kick out of my embarrassment. (Fortunately)