- OCTOPODES (octopus)
- RHINOCEROTES (rhinoceros)
- CLIMACES (climax)
- CHRYSALIDES (chrysalis)
- CYCLOPES (cyclops)
- ONERA (onus)
- STADIA (stadium)
- ENEMATA (enema)
Well maybe I like pretentious pluralisation.
Obscure Color Words
- albicant: whitish; becoming white
- amaranthine: immortal; undying; deep purple-red colour
- aubergine: eggplant; a dark purple colour
- azure: light or sky blue; the heraldic colour blue
- celadon: pale green; pale green glazed pottery
- cerulean: sky-blue; dark blue; sea-green
- chartreuse: yellow-green colour
- cinnabar: red crystalline mercuric sulfide pigment; deep red or scarlet colour
- citrine: dark greenish-yellow
- eburnean: of or like ivory; ivory-coloured
- erythraean: reddish colour
- flavescent: yellowish or turning yellow
- greige: of a grey-beige colour
- haematic: blood coloured
- heliotrope: purplish hue; purplish-flowered plant; ancient sundial; signalling mirror
- hoary: pale silver-grey colour; grey with age
- isabelline: greyish yellow
- jacinthe: orange colour
- kermes: brilliant red colour; a red dye derived from insects
- lovat: grey-green; blue-green
- madder: red dye made from brazil wood; a reddish or red-orange colour
- mauve: light bluish purple
- mazarine: rich blue or reddish-blue colour
- russet: reddish brown
- sable: black; dark; of a black colour in heraldry
- saffron: orange-yellow
- sarcoline: flesh-coloured
- smaragdine: emerald green
- tilleul: pale yellowish-green
- titian: red-gold, reddish brown
- vermilion: bright red
- virid: green
- viridian: chrome green
- xanthic: yellow
- zinnober: chrome green
pronunciation | “smUl-tron-‘stel-A
question | what is yours? I’m curious!
(via angrydumpling)
What does English sound like to foreign ears?
We’ve all heard examples of fake Chinese or German from speakers who lack familiarity with either language. While typically cringe-worthy, these examples do raise interesting questions regarding our own language. What does English sound like to non-English speakers? After more than 40 years, Adriano Celentano’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol” remains one of the most illuminating examples.
The entire song is nonsense verse, neither English nor Italian, but the sounds are meant to resemble English. Linguist Mark Liberman wrote an interesting post about this sort of thing over at Language Log discussing yaourter, the French word for an attempt to speak or sing in a foreign language that one doesn’t know all that well. This often involves trying to sing a foreign song with nonsense or random words filling in the blanks. Liberman shares this wonderful quote from a random Internet user:
Just for the story, in France, when we don’t speak English and we want to imitate the sound, we call it “yaourter”(to yoghourt), the imitation sounds like a very nasal language, kind of like a baby crying. It mostly imitates the “cowboy” accent.
jesus christ this is actually reALLY FRUSTRATING IT SOUNDS LIKE ENGLISH BUT IT DOESNT MAKE WORDS
EVERYTIME I HEAR THIS SONG I DIE LAUGHING
Wow it’s awesome ;u;
I looked for this kind of stuff for many an hour last year.I saw this months ago, and yet, it is still so bizarre and strangely uncanny.
GOD I JUST— I CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF THIS NONSENSE. They have the pacing and general swing of American English down perfectly.
(Source: blogs.howstuffworks.com)
British Library, Add 49622, f. 190v. The Gorleston Psalter. 1310-1324
The first recorded instance of “quack”.
(via kotaline)
kenopsia
n. the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet—a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds—an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs.
ngl whenever i see those “english doesn’t have a word for ______” posts, I idly wonder if they’ve simply missed an equivalent word because it’s obscure.
(via angrydumpling)
People cannot help it!
I would also like to add that the term illiterate is mean and hateful. People cannot help that they don’t have a father!
(via kotaline)
