this week on Realgoodwords: Names I can't pronounce!

Pim Techamuanvivit and Mireille Guiliano. Help anyone? I live in northern Minnesota and the toughest word we use is PASTY. We're talking about the meat & rutabega pocket made famous by the miners. Nothing twirly there if you get my drift.

What words can't you pronounce?

This week my authors Pim and Mir (as I like to call them) will talk about loving food and the art of work and savoir faire. Stay tuned.

Words for a new year

I was listening to KAXE's Morning Show today with Scott Hall and Kathy Dodge. They talked about having a Monday morning word of the day. A way to get yourself jump started on your week. Today I'm working on interviews I have coming up in the next week, and as always, I've stumbled across a word that I don't know - and definitely don't know the definition of....I thought I'd admit my lack of worldly word-knowing and get to the bottom of things. Here they are:

miscellarian - I'm reading about a scientist named Joseph Priestly*. You probably were like me and assumed that he was some long lost relative of Canadian actor Jason Priestly. So far I haven't found the connection. Anyway, he is described like this: a miscellarian who relied on conversational networks to feed his fascination with technology

I went to Dictionary.com where I often find the answers to my questions.... and oddly, this word was not found there. It asked me if I meant MISCELLANARIAN. Since I didn't know exactly what I meant, I decided to check out the meaning of THAT word.

Mis`cel*la*na"ri*an\, a. [See Miscellany.] Of or pertaining to miscellanies. --Shaftesbury. -- n. A writer of miscellanies.

I did a google search on the word Miscellarian - and found that an author named Russell Ash called himself a miscellarian - or a 'writer of this and that'. Good to know!

Has anyone out there used this word casually in conversation? Let us know! If you are a wordy person, check out Merriam Webster's Word of the Day, online.

*The book I'm reading is called "The Invention of Air - A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution and the Birth of America" by Steven Johnson.

Another word of the day

Someone (they shall remain nameless) said this to me today:

"She sounded rather taciturn".

I know I should know what taciturn means. I've read it, and in context, I get it. But for the life of me, in that sentence, I was flummoxed.

Main Entry: tac·i·turn
Definition: temperamentally disinclined to talk
Pronunciation:\ˈta-sə-ˌtərn\
Function: adjective:

Word of the day

parsimonious \par-suh-MOH-nee-uhs\, adjective: Sparing in expenditure; frugal to excess.

His mother became increasingly parsimonious over the years, and even if there were a good doctor around she did not like to pay one.-- Willard Sterne Randall, George Washington: A Life

Lehmann was famously parsimonious, and used postwar shortages as a cover for his economies.-- John Richardson, The Sorcerer's Apprentice

He was extremely parsimonious with his words, parceling them out softly in a deliberate monotone as if each were a precious gem never to be squandered.-- Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson, Crystal Fire

Parsimonious is the adjective form of parsimony, from Latin parsimonia, "thrift, parsimony," from parsus, past participle of parcere, "to spare, to be sparing, to economize."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for parsimonious

Have you ever used parsiminous? Can you even say it? I think I've read this word before, but never actually uttered it. Is this a word for our Northern Cheapskate?

Maybe we are all getting a little parsiminous about our persimmons. Or maybe not. At least I can say I learned something today.

Word of the Day

gustatory \GUS-tuh-tor-ee\, adjective:Of or pertaining to the sense of taste.

In a land of ice and chains and endemic suffering, caviar provided gustatory salvation from grief and black days, a sensual escape from temporal woes.-- Jeffrey Tayler, "The Caviar Thugs", The Atlantic, June 2001

feel free to drop it into your conversation.... I know I'll try.

The Power of Words

I thought it might be fun to have a "word of the day" today. Harmless, right? Educational, right? I went to dictionary.com and this was their word of the day:

portent \POR-tent\, noun:1. A sign of a coming event or calamity; an
omen.2. Prophetic or menacing significance.3. Something amazing; a marvel.

A comet that year was taken as a portent of some imminent but incalculable
change.-- Patrick Smith

So I was fine with PORTENT as our word of the day until I saw the word IMMINENT in the sample sentence. IMMINENT was the word I flubbed in 6th grade at the district wide spelling bee. I mean really, EMINENT is close enough to IMMINENT, isn't it? Sure I didn't get the glory of being the district wide champ, but I did get an Information Please 1981 almanac that has been really useful in my life. And a hamburger at McDonald's with one of my favorite teachers. Obviously I'm still a little touchy about it.