30 March 2013

Easter 2013





Ms. Lanny-yap's perennial favorite

27 March 2013

Words And Phrases We Need To Resurrect

A "polar bear plunger"
experiences "curglaff."
Source
Snoutfair - a person with a handsome countenance.
The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten by Jeffrey Kacirk. 

Pussyvan - a flurry, temper.
The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten by Jeffrey Kacirk. 

Wonder-wench - a sweetheart.
The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten by Jeffrey Kacirk. 

Lunting - walking while smoking a pipe. 
John Mactaggart’s Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824.

California widow - a married woman whose husband is away from her for any extended period. 
John Farmer’s Americanisms Old and New, 1889. 

Groak - to silently watch someone while they are eating, hoping to be invited to join them. www.ObsoleteWord.Blogspot.com

Jirble - to pour out (a liquid) with an unsteady hand: as, he jirbles out a dram. 
www.Wordnik.com

Curglaff - the shock felt in bathing when one first plunges into the cold water. 
John Jamieson’s Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808. 

Spermologer - picker-up of trivia, of current news, a gossip monger, what we would today call a columnist. 
The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten by Jeffrey Kacirk.

Tyromancy - divining by the coagulation of cheese. 
The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten by Jeffrey Kacirk. 

Beef-witted - having an inactive brain, thought to be from eating too much beef. 
John Phin’s Shakespeare Cyclopaedia and Glossary, 1902. 

Queerplungers - cheats who throw themselves into the water in order that they may be taken up by their accomplices, who carry them to one of the houses appointed by the Humane Society for the recovery of drowned persons, where they are rewarded by the society with a guinea each, and the supposed drowned person, pretending he was driven to that extremity by great necessity, is also frequently sent away with a contribution in his pocket. 
The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten by Jeffrey Kacirk. 

Englishable - that which may be rendered into English. 
John Ogilvie’s Comprehensive English Dictionary, 1865.

Resistentialism - the seemingly spiteful behavior shown by inanimate objects. 
www.ObsoleteWord.Blogspot.com 

Bookwright - a writer of books; an author; a term of slight contempt. 
Daniel Lyons’s Dictionary of the English Language, 1897. 

Soda-squirt - one who works at a soda fountain in New Mexico. 
Elsie Warnock’s Dialect Speech in California and New Mexico, 1919.

With squirrel - pregnant. 
Vance Randolph’s Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech, 1953.

Zafty - a person very easily imposed upon. 
Maj. B. Lowsley’s A Glossary of Berkshire Words and Phrases, 1888.

I must be bacon-witted.

Death and Taxes

Bedtime Bandit


YouTube

From the mom who posted this video:
This is what our 2 yr old does at night. He picks the lock to his sister's room and takes her stuff ... We caught it on video.
Via Gawker

20 March 2013

Over One Million Gun Deaths In U.S. Since John Lennon Was Shot



Via Brooklyn Mutt

19 March 2013

NOVA | Becoming Human, Episode One


YouTube

Where did we come from? What makes us human? This three-part series investigates dramatic new discoveries that are transforming the picture of how we became human. The first program explores fresh clues about our earliest ancestors in Africa, including the stunningly complete fossil nicknamed 'Lucy's Child'. These three million-year-old bones from Ethiopia reveal humanity's oldest and most telltale trait: upright walking rather than a big brain.

18 March 2013

Monkey Monday | Chimp Chooses Human Porn

Photo by Pablo Herreros
Gina [the chimpanzee is] a resident of the Seville Zoo in Spain. To enliven Gina's nights, officials apparently decided to install a television, protected behind glass, and gave her a remote control so she could change the channels herself. 

... “The surprise was when they found that within a few days, Gina was not only using the remote control perfectly well, but that she also used to choose the porn channel for entertainment ... ” [primatologist Pablo] Herreros wrote. “Although a small study estimated that porn films are only watched for about 12 minutes on average, the truth is that human and non-human primates possess an intense sexual life.”
NY Daily News

14 March 2013

Amazon | Catch & Release Spider Thingee

The perfect gadget for kids who want to catch and study insects or for anyone who needs to get rid of a bug without touching or killing it. Plastic, long-handled tool has fiber-optic bristles that open and close with a squeeze of the trigger. It's designed to trap and remove spiders, moths, bees and other insects from a safe distance quickly, cleanly and without harm. At about 26" long, you'll be able to grab bugs hiding in hard-to-reach places.
Only $9.99

For tomB