Flocculent

Hello,

This week’s word is flocculent which I came across in “The Voyage of the Beagle” by Charles Darwin (I was reading it for my 501 Books Challenge) when he wrote “the flocculent web of the gossamer spider”.

It means to have a fluffy or woolly appearance and there’s a pronunciation available here.

I had a touch of the old flocculents about my brain yesterday in the aftermath of my birthday, and perhaps one lemoncello too many.

But today I’m ready to tackle a new flocculent activity. The Irish Premature Babies Charity are looking for crafters to knit or crochet hat, socks, cardigans for premature babies in super soft yarn in time for International Prematurity Day (November 17th) and my knitting group are taking part. We’re called The D Knitters and you’ll find us and details of the request on Ravelry. I just need to pick up some baby yarn, as I don’t have any in my big bag of wool.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

 

Frills and furbelows

Hello,

Today’s word is furbelow (pronunciation here), mainly because I like how convoluted it sounds and partly because I came upon it in an unusual context while reading last night.

But what does it mean? It’s a fairly old word, first usage recorded in 1702, originating in French. It is a frill or flounce, usually on women’s clothing and can be used to describe something as being excessively ornamented. I imagine Rococo art would be filled with furbelows, for example.

Apparently Aunt Marilla says in the famous girl’s book “Anne of Green Gables” by L.M. Montgomery “those dresses are good, sensible, serviceable dresses, without any frills or furbelows about them, and they’re all you’ll get this summer”. Poor Anne. Having just completed sewing a rather furbelowed summer skirt, I really feel for the poor kid.

However, furbelows are not confined to the sewing world. No, because I found them under the sea in my bedtime reading. In it, a marine biologist was researching a large kelp Saccorihiza in Lough Ine, a tidal lake in South West Ireland. The common name for this seaweed, which grows up to three metres (twelve feet), was furbelows. Look at them here and see why.

I love that its roots, which grab onto a rock as an anchor are called “holdfasts”.

I wonder would Aunt Marilla have approved of this determined aquatic furbelow?

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

Garlic, onions, and leeks, oh my!

Hello,

Regular readers will have noticed my absence last week. We had a family celebration and then visited Disneyland Paris for a few happy days, so I took the week off from wordfooling.

This week’s words should be familiar to most of you. They’re all members of the allium family of plants – garlic, onion and leeks. Not particularly interesting words to say or hear, I admit. They’re on my mind because I need to harvest the leeks from my garden later today.

However they do have something quirky about them – eating them will rush you toward moral depravity! Not because of your bad breath, but because they incite to anger and excessive licentiousness. This is according to such varied sources as Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” and Budha.

I shall never look at the humble leek in quite the same light again.

But it won’t stop me eating them.

So until next time, eat alliums with care and happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

 

Grollicking

Hello,

This week’s word is the verb grollick. It describes the process of gutting game like rabbits or deer after hunting. A somewhat gruesome and messy task, but what a great word.

It has a real rhyme and rhythm to it. I can’t help feeling that you would feel grollicked after a rollicking night on the booze. Surely there’s a poet out there somewhere who can use grollick, rollick and cholic in a verse?

Until next week, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

 

 

The Meaning of Quainte

Hello,

It fascinates me how the meaning of a word can change over time. Nice used to mean exact, but is more commonly used to mean pleasant these days, for example. One such word is quaint or quainte. I came across it when reading “The Canterbury Tales” (written in old English) and the glossary said the meaning was “strange” which certainly wasn’t the meaning I knew.

My dictionary tells me that quaint (pronunciation here) is an adjecctive which means “interestingly old-fashioned or odd, curious, whimsical”. Miriam Webster’s online dictionary adds that something quaint is marked by elegant design or is pleasingly unusual.

Perhaps one person’s “strange” is another person’s “pleasingly unusual”?

I certainly encountered plenty of quaintness on my writing retreat to Salterbridge Gatelodge in Cappoquin, Co. Waterford last weekend. It’s a Landmark Trust Ireland property. They restore pieces of unusual architecture which are in danger of disappearing and then rent them out. The rent, and donations, pay for the next restoration project.

I love the idea, having previously stayed in their romantic castle for two, Anne’s Grove, complete with turret stairs and open fire.

Grace at Salterbridge

Salterbridge was the perfect place to hole up and write – there was even an antique writing desk. And it’s not every house that has a hexangonal room in it – I call that quaint.

Even better, it gave me an excuse to drop into The Yarn Room in Ashford on my drive down. I spent a very happy hour in the company of Stephanie there finding lovely yarn, fabric, and ribbons for various crafty projects.

But they do have very quaint birds on very quaint trees in that part of the country…

Quaint birds on a quaint tree

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

“Embiggens is a perfectly cromulent word”

Hello,

This week I’ve two words both created by the popular cartoon “The Simpsons”.

Embiggens – verb meaning to make larger

Cromulent – adjective meaning plausible or legitimate. Now used to indicate the exact opposite. So if you say a word is cromulent, you mean that it’s not cromulent. If you see what I mean?

The dialogue of the episode in question is quoted at Urban Dictionary and will probably make things clearer than I can here. Or you can listen to the word embiggens in context on uTube (there’s sound on this link). Or, and I highly recommend it, check out Cracked’s article about the top phrases and words given to us by the Simpsons. It will improve your Monday, honest.

Next week’s blog about perfectly cromulent words will be posted on Tuesday, rather than on my regular Monday slot, as I’m off on a writing retreat this weekend, returning late on Monday.

Until next week, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

Are you having a grum Monday?

Hello,

this week’s word is grum which means a mixture of glum and surly. You can also suffer from grumness and behave in a grumly manner. It’s defined by Webster as being a probable blend of grim and glum, which seems likely.

Apparently the word appeared in Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary, but the word died out of everyday usage during the 19th century.

I rather wish it hadn’t, it sounds right and certainly describes some Mondays I’ve experienced in my time.

I was delighted to find, when researching grum, that there’s another fool for words who likes it, Mark Forsyth over at the Inky Fool. It’s always fun to encounter other word fools.

Until next time, happy reading writing and word fooling,

Grace