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Posts Tagged ‘etymology’

Winter Sale In June

by Bunk Five Hawks X ( 80 Comments › )
Filed under Food and Drink, History, Humor, Open thread at June 28th, 2011 - 11:00 pm


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Noun
*zīmà
f

1. winter
2. beverage that sucks donkeys

Declension of Proto-Slavic/zima Singular Dual Plural
Nominative *zima *zimě *zimy
Accusative *zimǫ *zimě *zimy
Genitive *zimy *zimu *zimъ
Locative *zimě *zimu *zimaхъ
Dative *zimě *zimama *zimamъ
Instrumental *zimоjǫ *zimama *zimami
Vocative *zimо *zimě *zimy

 

There you go. The etymology of “Zima,” the alcoholic drink of douchebags.

To be  honest, I admit that I tried Zima exactly twice in the early 90s, before I poured out the rest of the bottle and grabbed a can of Bud, just to stave off any latent woosification that could have crippled my rep.

If you’ve never experienced that awful alcopop, there’s one bottle in the back of the rec room refrigerator that was left behind after one of Mongoose’s liquor cabinet raids last year. We’re going to turn off the power for 5 minutes tonight, and anybody that wants to make off with it is encouraged to do so (DADT) on
The Overnight Open Thread.

I Double Black Dog Dare You

by Bunk Five Hawks X ( 191 Comments › )
Filed under Humor, Open thread at April 30th, 2011 - 11:00 pm


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Is there anything more annoying than a picture of a dork on a step stool holding a Papier-mâché turtle? Yep. Just click on the image – I dare you. Actually, I was about to double dare you, but then I wondered about the origin of the phrase, and found this:

Chapman’s Dictionary of American Slang mentions it and dates it carefully as being current at least as far back as the 1940s. Many subscribers to this newsletter have long memories, so I’ve no doubt that they could take it back further without much effort. Jonathon Green, in the Cassell Dictionary of Slang, says it’s nineteenth century. He’s certainly right, since it’s listed in a book of 1896, The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought by Alexander F Chamberlain.

Mr Chamberlain also mentions several other forms. As well as the immemorial I dare you, he gives I dog dare you, I double dog dare you, I black dog dare you, and the ultimate challenge that must surely have been impossible to pass up without appearing totally chicken, I double black dog dare you.

And after reading that, I double black dog dare you to stick around, because it’s time for The Overnight Open Thread.

 

Steam Powered Flying Breasts

by Bunk Five Hawks X ( 69 Comments › )
Filed under Art, History, Humor, Open thread at April 20th, 2011 - 11:00 pm


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This makes perfect sense on some level that none of us are aware of. (The Little Green Fartballs are a nice appropriate touch, given the history of this blog.)

Here’s a bit of trivia: The name manatee is an English corruption of “manatí”  from the language of the Taíno, a pre-Columbian people of the Caribbean.

Manatí” means “breast” in Taíno, hence the titillating title of this episode of The Overnight Open Thread.

Rockin’ Raoul

by Bunk Five Hawks X ( 113 Comments › )
Filed under Academia, Blogmocracy, Humor, Open thread at April 14th, 2011 - 11:00 pm


[via]

flounce (v.)

1540s, “to dash, plunge, flop,” perhaps from Scandinavian (cf. dialectal Swed. flunsa “to plunge,” Norw. flunsa “to hurry,” but first record of these is 200 years later than the English word), said to be of imitative origin. Spelling likely influenced by bounce. Notions of “anger, impatience” began to adhere to the word 18c. Related: Flounced; flouncing. As a noun, from 1580s as a motion.

So there you go– etymology at its best. It’s just another benefit to all readers of The Blogmocracy on The Overnight Open Thread. 

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