Pauciloquent

Pauciloquent. If you are a person of few words, then this is the term for you. It refers to someone who doesn’t say much or who, when giving a speech, gives a very short one. This is a great way for you to tell people you are a person of few words, without having to say that whole long statement. Give this a try next time and see what happens.

This word is NOT me.  At all.  One of my employment evaluations described me like this, “Sami is a great person, she just uses TOO many words when talking.”

My year “word” blog challenge has actually helped me figure out how to pronounce words and guess at it before i actually look it up. I guessed correctly (pas sil e quent).  Just flows off the tongue.

My sisters and I, along with my mother were the exact opposite of pauciloquent.  We were chaotic, loud, boisterous, charismatic, and whatever else.  Dad always brought a book with him when we all met up.  He couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

I think I like the word so much because it reminds me of my dad.  He was a truckdriver and I used to go on the road with him every chance I could.  We didn’t say a whole lot.  However, what we did talk about, stays with me even today.

His dad was also quite pauciloquent. Strong and silent they were. Even though they didn’t say much, every word they said, you heard.  Each word had meaning and each word made an impression.

Despite his quiet nature, he had a great sense of humor and was a super loving guy. Anyways.  I miss him and my grandpa.  As quiet as he was, he was so funny.  Yup.  Miss ya dad.

Pauciloquent (adj) (rare)

paw-sil-o-kwent  — Uses few words in speech or conversation; laconic.

I love the way this one sounds. Mid 17th century; earliest use found in Thomas Blount (1618–1679), antiquary and lexicographer.

Example sentences

“I was trying to be friendly but he’s so pauciloquent it’s like pulling teeth.”

 

I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.

Mark Twain

The more you say, the less people remember.

Francois Fenelon

 

“The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.”
― George Burns

Be Brief: Lavender; aloysius; flammeus; chitwood; brad; raven; cavershamjj; nananoyz; padrepio; tammyb; andifnotnow

Wabbit

“I’m so good at sleeping that I can do it with my eyes closed.” — Anonymous

Wabbit. No, this isn’t referring to a wascally wabbit. It is a Scottish term for being exhausted. Next time you’re tired, try saying, “I’m pretty wabbit at the moment” and see just how many people look at you strange.

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”
― Ernest Hemingway

Perfect word for today!  It is true that I have always gone to bed early and I always wake up early.  Some stories my dad has told about me was that I was the easiest kid to take care of at bedtime.  Never fought going to bed.  This is a permanent part of my personality.

Last night I went to bed about 8:30 pm.  Yes, I usually go to bed this early.  I lay there for a bit and read or listen to some music.  However, I woke up at midnight and could not fall back asleep until about 3:30 am.  I got up and drank some sleepy-time tea, had a little snack, read a little.  Nothing worked.  I could not fall back asleep.  This is an anomaly for me.

I love a good night’s sleep because I wake up feeling so much better.  Everything from the day before has been washed away and I always feel like I have a fresh start to either continue with whatever I started or completely start over and just leave the messy day behind. So today, this was the best word inspiration I could have had. Enjoy!!

“Dear sleep, I’m sorry we broke up this morning. I want you back!” — Anonymous

“I already want to take a nap tomorrow.” — Anonymous

“I love to sleep. Do you? Isn’t it great? It really is the best of both worlds. You get to be alive and unconscious.” — Rita Rudner

“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Your eyes water when you yawn because you miss your bed and it makes you sad.” — Anonymous

Washington D.C.

“Happiness is waking up, looking at the clock and finding that you still have two hours left to sleep.” — Charles M. Schulz

“People say, ‘I’m going to sleep now,’ as if it were nothing. But it’s really a bizarre activity. ‘For the next several hours, while the sun is gone, I’m going to become unconscious, temporarily losing command over everything I know and understand. When the sun returns, I will resume my life.’

If you didn’t know what sleep was, and you had only seen it in a science fiction movie, you would think it was weird and tell all your friends about the movie you’d seen.

They had these people, you know? And they would walk around all day and be OK? And then, once a day, usually after dark, they would lie down on these special platforms and become unconscious. They would stop functioning almost completely, except deep in their minds they would have adventures and experiences that were completely impossible in real life. As they lay there, completely vulnerable to their enemies, their only movements were to occasionally shift from one position to another; or, if one of the ‘mind adventures’ got too real, they would sit up and scream and be glad they weren’t unconscious anymore. Then they would drink a lot of coffee.’

So, next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you’re in a science fiction movie. And whisper, ‘The creature is regenerating itself.”
― George Carlin

Sweet dreams:  kait; gail; raung; elena; neihtn; pensitivity; aaysid; masgautsen; caramel; Jane

Snickersnee

Snickersnee. While this word sounds like something funny or possibly cute, it is actually referring to a long, dangerous knife. It was first used in reference to cut-and-thrust fighting in the 1700s and is still occasionally used when referencing the knife, though it is becoming more and more obsolete.

\SNIK-er-snee\

noun
1. a knife, especially one used as a weapon.
Quotes
The commander of the sloop was hurrying about and giving a world of orders, which were not very strictly attended to, one man being busy in lighting his pipe, and another in sharpening his snicker-snee.
— Washington Irving, Bracebridge Hall, 1882
Origin
Snickersnee came to English in the late 1600s from the Dutch steken meaning “to stick” and snijden meaning “to cut.”

The only photo I can find that even remotely matches this word is from Nepal.  The women in Nepal were really the toughest I have seen around the world. You meet a Nepali woman on a hike and their look alone is compelling.

You pass them and realize what they are holding behind their back.

“blessed be
she
who is
both
furious
and
magnificent”
― Taylor Rhodes

No way we could pass without a closeup.  Though it is not long.. it is as dangerous as it looks and as you can imagine.

I seized him by his little pig-tail,
And on his knees fell he,
As he squirmed and struggled,
And gurgled and guggled,
I drew my snickersnee!

W. S. Gilbert

dangerous: words; brave; bohotea; ron; ennenbach; Lorne; lotte

Nemophilist

Nemophilist (n.) – Origin: Greek – Definition: A haunter of the woods; one who loves the forest and its beauty and solitude.

So many forests in so many countries with so many people with so little time. Park forests, mountain forests, island forests, animal forests.  I cannot say all of this better than the people I am quoting below.

“And into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.”

– John Muir

“Gold is a luxury. Trees are necessities. Man can live and thrive without gold, but we cannot survive without trees.”

– Paul Bamikole

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“I found far more answers in the woods than I ever did in the city.”

– Mary Davis

“In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me.”

– John Fowles

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
― Herman Hesse

forest: roth; michele; mark; sustainabilitea; becky; Mason; Eddie; paula; phillip; Ingrid; cherie; cepcarol; sandy; paul; sue; rebecca

Comeuppance

Comeuppance. This is definitely a word you probably heard your grandparents use at some point and it is used in many films set in the 1920s to the 1950s or 60s. This is a fun word and it should be used more than it is. It means that someone will get what they deserve or will “get their just deserts.”

In other words . . . . Karma’s a bitch.

I believe this.  With all of my heart, I believe this.  In my own world, this has been true. I feel like I have always been the recipient of Karma.  When I do bad, I get bad.  When I do good, I get good. I do not think this is an accident. I think it is an intentional payment for my actions.

My own opinion is that if I keep juggling, then all the balls will stay in the air and my comeuppance will never come down, however richly deserved. — Mark Lawrence

It is true that on my best days I am often a hot mess.  Or at least appear to others that I am a hot mess.  My communication style is frustrating to many, both up and down the hierarchical system in which I work.  I often annoy and frustrate the people around me.  I’ve even been anonymously told that I am not respected by many of my peers.  I move too quickly for most people to actually understand what I am doing.  My mind is chaotic so my actions sometimes appear chaotic.  I am a crack up.. or cracked up.

Even though I sometimes get my feelings hurt, I don’t look at these criticisms as completely negative attributes. My chaotic nature helps me to find great solutions.  I get things done.  I never leave things incomplete.  I do things correctly and I usually end up achieving more success than anyone ever expected.  I shoot for mediocrity and I achieve it every single time. I am sooo ok with this.

There are issues with this attitude and lifestyle for sure.  Well, where to start with the negative comeuppances that have come my way.  I am often misunderstood. Many of my bosses indicate that they never knew how hard their jobs were until I arrived.  Many colleagues, friends, and family are frustrated with my confusing communicatory delivery system.  My sense of humor can be annoying.  I have not risen as high as many of my colleagues.

I am often perceived as not caring.  Maybe it’s the fact that I often use phrases like “No, me importa!” or “मलाई मतलब छैन” or “je m’en fous” or 난 상관없어” (I don’t care)!!!

The truth is, I care deeply.  Very deeply. Just not about most of the things others care about.

The positive comeuppances for me have been that my work-life balance is awesome.  My aim for mediocrity has had me soaring through the tree limbs hardly ever impaling myself in the branches.  Though I fall often, I don’t fall far.  My crashes barely bruise me these days.  Every single downward trajectory has me finding ways to get back up.

“I long for the simplicity of theatre. I want lessons learned, comeuppances delivered, people sorted out, all before your bladder gets distractingly full. That’s what I want. What I know is what we all know, whether we’ll admit it or not: every attempt to impose the roundness of a well-made play on reality produces a disaster. Life just isn’t so, nor will it be made so.”
John M. Ford

As a matter of fact, I always get back up and live to quietly complain in my head about the naysayers and jerks.  I often believe, but am more-often proved wrong, that they too will receive every bit of comeuppance they deserve!

In the end, none of that matters, because the truth is … I am currently living in my just desserts …. and they taste just fine.   

“If you’re really a mean person you’re going to come back as a fly and eat poop.”- Kurt Cobain

Karma: brad; Luanne; Krish; rehan; Lydia; scott; lesley; over; nightpoet; kimli; weare; swati