Showing posts with label 3:XIII. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3:XIII. Show all posts

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Bletting

Meaning: I try not to borrow OED definitions too much, but sometimes they're too poetic to resist:
To become ‘sleepy,’ as an over-ripe pear, a special form of decay to which fleshy fruits are subject.
Some fruit - medlars, for example - are inedible until this process has completed.

Usefulness: 2 ("Despite reaching nominal adulthood at 18 or 21, most of us require several years of bletting before we reach full maturity. In some cases, decades.")

Logofascination: 2 (I always wonder who was the first to try that over-ripe fruit. The definitions and etymologies suggest that the French blet / blette / blettir which John Lindley referred to meant sleepy, but from what I can see it actually means over-ripe, or perhaps, originally, bruised.)

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Dromomania

Meaning: the urge to wander as a psychological condition; used figuratively to describe wanderlust. 

Usefulness: 2 (I prefer fernweh, which captures both the wandering spirit and the sharp pangs one experiences back home, without the suggestion of psychosis)

Logofascination: 1 (Thanks to dromos being Greek for course or running, it is part of a spectacularly diverse etymological family which includes the dromedary, palindrome, syndrome and hippodrome.)