#49

soi-disant \swah-dee-ZAHN\, adjective:
Self-styled; so-called.

The study exposes most varieties of 'human resource management' as a complete waste ofttimes promoted by soi-disant gurus and self-serving consultants with an eye for a quick buck.
-- "Support for an old-fashioned view", Independent, May 12, 1994

The troupe, soi-disant egalitarians, mostly turn out to be royal phonies.
-- Craig Offman, "Whiz Kid", Time, February 1, 1999


Soi-disant comes from the French, from soi, "oneself" + disant, "saying," present participle of dire, "to say."

#48

flummery \FLUHM-uh-ree\, noun:
1. A name given to various sweet dishes made with milk, eggs, flour, etc.
2. Empty compliment; unsubstantial talk or writing; mumbo jumbo; nonsense.

He had become disturbed by the number of listeners phoning in with such flummery as tales of self-styled clairvoyants' uncannily correct forecasts.
-- Suzanne Seixas, "One Man's Finances", Money, September 1, 1986

One reason there is so much flummery in the global warming debate is that the weather in the Northeast United States, where the opinion-makers live, has a disproportionate effect on whether greenhouse concerns are taken seriously.
-- Gregg Easterbrook, "Warming Up", New Republic, November 8, 1999

It is Dr. August's claim that he receives inspiration from spirits, that through his music the departed can speak to those they left behind. Although this is sometimes unabashed flummery, there are moments when Fitz seems to make a real connection with those who have crossed over.
-- Paul Quarrington, "Psychic Hotline", New York Times, September 3, 2000


Flummery comes from Welsh llymru, a soft, sour oatmeal food.

#47

idiotarod
The daily commute to school, work, home, etc.
After five, time to commence the idiotarod sled race to home.

#46

abscond \ab-SKOND\, intransitive verb:
To depart secretly; to steal away and hide oneself -- used especially of persons who withdraw to avoid arrest or prosecution.

The criminal is not concerned with influencing or affecting public opinion: he simply wants to abscond with his money or accomplish his mercenary task in the quickest and easiest way possible so that he may reap his reward and enjoy the fruits of his labours.
-- Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism

Pearl, now an orphan (her father having absconded shortly after her conception), has been taken to live with her great-aunt Margaret in the north of England.
-- Zoe Heller, Everything You Know


Abscond comes from Latin abscondere, "to conceal," from ab-, abs-, "away" + condere, "to put, to place."

#45

purblind \PUR-blynd\, adjective:
1. Having greatly reduced vision.
2. Lacking in insight or discernment.

Add to this that the work seems unsure of its audience, providing no footnotes or exact references, but concluding with a bizarre parade of bibliographical essays running to 59 pages; that it gives the date only about once every 100 pages (and then not always the right date...) and leaves us feeling as if we were wandering purblind in some deep cave.
-- James R. Kincaid, "The Sum Of His Oddities", New York Times, January 13, 1991

Those changes, whose pressing necessity by the end of the 1980s was surely evident to all but the most purblind, would have taken place in any case.
-- Bryan Gould, "Mandy", New Statesman, January 29, 1999

But something is fundamentally wrong at Leeds, something that even the most ardent supporters -- and other purblind apologists -- must surely come to recognise.
-- Kevin Mitchell, "How Leeds lost it", The Observer, March 10, 2002

On and on the weary litany of purblind negativity proceeds.
-- Eric Evans, "The Theory Man.", History Today, June 1997


Purblind derives from Middle English pur blind, wholly blind, from pur, pure + blind. In time it came to mean something less than wholly blind.

#44

quotidian \kwoh-TID-ee-uhn\, adjective:
1. Occurring or returning daily; as, a quotidian fever.
2. Of an everyday character; ordinary; commonplace.

Erasmus thought More's career as a lawyer was a waste of a fine mind, but it was precisely the human insights More derived from his life in the quotidian world that gave him a moral depth Erasmus lacked.
-- "More man than saint", Irish Times, April 4, 1998

She also had a sense of fun that was often drummed out under the dull, quotidian beats of suburban life.
-- Meg Wolitzer, Surrender, Dorothy


Quotidian is from Latin quotidianus, from quotidie, "daily," from quotus, "how many, as many, so many" + dies, "day."

#43

agglomeration \uh-glom-uh-RAY-shuhn\, noun:
1. The act or process of collecting in a mass; a heaping together.
2. A jumbled cluster or mass of usually varied elements.

Female biologists such as Lynn Margulis have suggested that symbiosis is the origin of complex life and that, if artificial intelligence comes about, it will do so by an agglomeration and binding up of functions, rather than through some Frankensteinian hauling down of a single power switch.
-- Roz Kaveney, "The Eight Technologies of Otherness", New Statesman, January 9, 1998

Upon closer inspection, it revealed itself to be an agglomeration of differently shaped and colored prescription eyeglasses, inserted into a thin wall built in front of a window.
-- Susan Harris, "Jean Shin at Frederieke Taylor", Art in America, October, 2004

On flat farmland outside the town of Paulding, Ohio, sits an agglomeration of storage tanks, conveyors and long, rotating kilns that burn 60,000 tons of hazardous waste a year.
-- David Bowermaster, "The cement makers' long sweet ride", U.S. News & World Report, July 19, 1993


Agglomeration is the noun form of agglomerate, "to gather into a ball or mass," which derives from the past participle of Latin agglomerare, "to mass together; to heap up," from ad- + glomerare, "to form into a ball," from glomus, glomer-, "ball."

#42

bricked

To render your computer useless, as useless as a brick.

Usually the result of tampering with the insides and doing irreversible damage. Bricking your hardware leaves you with a new paperweight. Can be the end effect of a faulty flash or firmware update, a modification (mod) gone bad or being struck by lighting, to name a few.

He managed to get his new iMac bricked while trying to boot WinXP on it.

I tried to change graphics cards while my computer was running but I only managed to get my machine bricked.

#41

idee fixe \ee-day-FEEKS\, noun:
An idea that dominates the mind; a fixed idea; an obsession.

The reality of obsession -- its incessant return to the same few themes, scenarios and questions; its meticulous examination and re-examination of banal minutiae for hidden meanings that simply aren't there; the cancerous way an idee fixe usurps other, more interesting thoughts -- is that it is confining, not rebellious, and not fascinating but maddeningly dull.
-- Laura Miller, "The Streetwalkers of San Francisco", New York Times, August 20, 2000

It became an idee fixe that he stubbornly adhered to in spite of the plain evidence . . . that obviously contradicts it.
-- Edwin G. Pulleyblank, "Prosody or pharyngealization in old Chinese?", The Journal of the American Oriental Society, January 12, 1996

Getting back to the idee fixe, let me say that it's what produces strong men and madmen.
-- Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (translated by Gregory Rabassa)


Idee fixe is from the French idée, "idea" + fixe, "fixed."

#40

glabrous \GLAY-bruhs\, adjective:
Smooth; having a surface without hairs, projections, or any unevenness.

How much more powerful then will be the effect -- next week? next month? soon enough -- when Gore, resplendent, clean-shaven, glabrous in his glory, returns from the dead! Radiant! Reborn!
-- Lance Morrow, "Al Gore, and Other Famous Bearded Men", Time, August 16, 2001

We offered to the rebarbative Senator Patrick Leahy's demands on us amused resistance and the promise to buy the glabrous old boy a proper hairpiece.
-- R Emmett Tyrrell Jr., "Jumpin' Jim Jehoshaphat!", The American Spectator, July 1, 2001


Glabrous is from Latin glaber, "smooth, bald."



http://www.flickr.com/photos/diastema/

#39

Fo Surious

A phrase that means For Sure, or in other words, for serious.
Created by Matt Armijo and Alex Zinda of victorville, ca.

"Yo man that shit was crunk."
"Fo surious! I'm high as a motha!"

#38

badinage \bad-n-AHZH\, noun:
Light, playful talk; banter.

Ken was determined to put the cares of the world behind him and do what he loved best -- having a few celebrity friends round and enjoying an evening of anecdote and badinage over a bottle or two of vintage bubbly and some tasty cheese straws.
-- Bel Littlejohn, "My moustache man", The Guardian, March 24, 2000

The badinage was inconsequential, reduced to who knew whom and wasn't the weather glorious in St. Tropez, or the Bahamas, Hawaii, or Hong Kong?
-- Robert Ludlum, The Matarese Countdown


Badinage comes from French, from badiner, "to trifle, to joke," badin, "playful, jocular."



http://www.photoboxgallery.com/quinnell/4113834


P.S. go see Stardust.

#37

ichthyophobia (′ik·thē·ə′fo·bē·ə)
(psychology) An abnormal fear of fish.

#36

bailiwick \BAY-luh-wik\, noun:
1. A person's specific area of knowledge, authority, interest, skill, or work.
2. The office or district of a bailiff.

I'll give it a try, but this is not my bailiwick.
-- Sue Grafton, 'L' Is for Lawless

He "professed ignorance, as of something outside my bailiwick."
-- Marc Aronson, "Wharton and the House of Scribner: The Novelist as a Pain in the Neck", New York Times, January 2, 1994

Fund-raising was Cliff's bailiwick, anyway, and he seemed to have it in hand.
-- Curt Sampson, The Masters

Bailiwick comes from Middle English baillifwik, from baillif, "bailiff" (ultimately from Latin bajulus, "porter, carrier") + wik, "town," from Old English wic, from Latin vicus, "village."



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt8Q7Fsa_Vs