Author: lfsaldenbirch

A Proofreading Day

lfsaldenbirch

Today, June 3, 2015, I made a proofreading run through all of the posts so far.  I checked spelling, formatting, grammar, syntax, logic.  I updated old posts which had incorrect numbers.  I fixed tags and added tags; for example, I made sure to add the tag “100K” to those entries which had been made before those outside of the Hundred Thousand were discovered.  It has been a delicious day of review and synthesis.

Now I will sleep on all these lovely words which I have gathered up as Smaug did his gold and let them work their way into my dreams and thoughts until they and their patterns are as known to me as every gleaming cup in the treasure-hoard.

Two classes of words remain unrecorded which were in the My Goodness post: compound words and those whose inflections as used in The Hobbit are actually within the Hundred Thousand.  As none of them are obsolete or archaic, or food words, or onomatopoeia, I will get to them when next I enter individual words.  Those three categories seem to be the best ones to move forward with to the next phase: Lexomics.

Also, bless them, the home servers for this blog seem to be at least four hours east of New Hampshire, as this post has been given a date stamp of June 4th.  We run on New Hampshire time at Signum University, however, so I’ll let my date notation of June 3d stand.

Smithereens

lfsaldenbirch , , , , ,

Not Scottish but Irish in origin, I gave it the Scottish tag temporarily as “from within the United Kingdom, but alien”.  It means, of course, “little smithers”, particles or atoms, and has not been observed as a singular in the wild.

  • 12.101 in a jumble of smithereens,

“smithereens, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.

“ˈsmithers, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.

Scrumptious

lfsaldenbirch , ,

From the word “scrimp” to meaning fastidious, to stylish, to a word of praise and, in food, deliciousness.  The adverb “scrumptiously” is attested from the 1800s.  I had rather wished that it was a word unique to Gollum, who uses it in an extraordinary blend of odd, alien, ridiculous, word-playful, and cannibalistically horrifying.

  • 05.048 Is it scrumptiously crunchable?

“scrumptious, adj.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.

“scrumptiously, adv.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.

Ruddy

lfsaldenbirch , , , ,

From the rare word “rud” meaning “red”, ruddy carries a goodly number of connotations which play together in this passage:

[12.013] and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gems and jewels, and silver red-stained in the ruddy light.

“Ruddy” has to do with blushing from shame and anger, robust good health, reddish skin, heat, vigour, the reddish glow of fire, and aridity which causes flora to wither – the power, malice, and desolation of Smaug.

  • 12.013 in the ruddy light.

“ruddy, adj., n., and adv.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.

Parch

lfsaldenbirch , , ,

“Parched” is among the Hundred Thousand, but our form “parchingly” is not (nor is “parch”, although “parching” is!).  “Parchingly” is a derivative form attested in the 1800s, and here’s our quotation:

1851   H. Melville Moby-Dick ci. 497   Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading.

I believe that Mr. Melville and I have different tastes.  Not only do I love myself a good logarithm table or a nice analysis of variance to while away the long winter nights, I find Mr. Melville himself a bit sere.  I may have written a few rash things in a high school English essay on the subject.

  • 08.046 that they were also parchingly thirsty,

Update 2016.06.28: I am adding the “food” tag, as the word is related to thirst and  nothing else.

“parching, adj.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.