I'm sure it would lift the spirits of the prisoner! Can you email me a postal address please?

Zzzzzz.

What's up, Imelda?

Well then, see you in Kyoto in summer 2010!

I had a wonderful, wonderful time. Now I'm getting ready for London, next week!
My statistician vulpine friend, what are the chances that we eventually meet someday while wandering across the planet?

Define barmy.

here's hoping Pro had as much fun in catalonia as I did in Edinburgh. They're downright barmy, these Scots people! But in the best possible way.

Tomorrow, it's on to Dublin, to see what Ireland's trendsetters are up to.

(Not!)

Though I will be catching up with a friend from high school I've not seen in 35 years. Exciting stuff.

over and out.

foxy

Have a safe trip! I'm going to Catalonia for the weekend.

Bon voyage! Just as well Scotland has strict laws against dioramas ;-)

Ooh, I've got an attack of the tummyfreeze.
preparing to leave for Edinburgh and assorted Irish destinations.

An antidote for firefox!

new entry for groddess if you're interested.

¡Hola, hideous 10-dollar broadminded pampas bunny!

Can you please have a look at my Frank O'Connor citation on skite? Now that madmouth has queried it I have a feeling it's a usage peculiar to Oireland. Perhaps something similar to bender? Worthless Word For The Day notes as one of skite's meanings:
orig. and chiefly Scot. a jollification, a spree, a binge; freq. in phrase on the skite.

Oh, the zine is out now too! Positive comments already on Marmalade Cat Humiliation. I was at a friend's house last night and he had photocopied the poem and stuck it on the fridge. Occasaionally he'd loook at it and say, "Beer. Maravilla. Beer maravilla." So if you can get me a postal address to identifythewordie@yours.com, 2 copies will be on their way. Plus the book :-)

*giggles*

*hopes sionnach goes on a hunt for more candy-pooping animals*

Haha! Fox Crescent's about a kilometre (sorry, imperial wimps) from the PO actually. Maybe someone at Google Maps is also plotting against you ... have you been followed recently by a lemur in a check surtout?

Just to ensure you now feel a right richard, I can tell you I bought a book to send you in return. It's a much-loved piece by one of my favourite writers, a gent who I think writes with the kind of verve that will keep you well-entertained. So where do I send it, Flash?

Forgive me for being obtuse, but I thought I had put my hand up and given you a postal address on your blog? Never mind, I'm happy the beasties have found a home. And yes, our friend Flickr.

You've been letting yourself go in Thpain, haven't you? It's time we had you back in training.

Thank you and Boris. Blasted be the Cat Humiliators.

I'd like to use 'Marmalade Cat Humiliation' in my wee poetry zine. Yours will be 2 copies and worldwide glory.

Pretty please with sheep on top.

I read it, and I will reply soon. Thank you!

Thank you Sionnach.

I was just reading about pillaloo and the song... "Tá an poc ar buile" (The billygoat (puck) is hopping mad!)

Big family get together tonight–so I'm going to ask my mum if she knows the song.

Lots of funny stuff to read here!

Don't worry about it. I thought you might be taking phony umbrage, but I couldn't tell how serious you were being, and my response ended up somewhat brusque. No hard feelings.

Opening my Boys' Own Compendium of Bowel-Challenged Beasties, I was immediately struck by the possibilities of a lard-arsed aardvark. Another part of me - don't ask - is fearful that you may have corrupted Donny Q's donkey, or even that your pouch envy may compromise a phascogale on Candy Camera.

But on the whole, as we near the climactic moment in what has been a triumph of dioramaturdy dramaturgy, I'm feeling sheepish.

I will upload pictures of my Broadway adventure to Flickr. Next time I'll rent a car in Marble Hill and just drive until the end of all Broadways. I hope there's free Wi-Fi over there.

Of course I like it! You can credit me "less anonymously" than this (my real name, linking to my wordpress blog, or both).
As I read on Blipper:
Thank you for

Speaking as Project Outreach Officer of International Diorama Appreciaters (POO-In-Diaper) I can let you know at this point that we are actively lobbying for the resources to continue the project next year. And as Madrid has turned out to be such a wonderful venue for our, ahem, fascinations, it would be a shame not to be able to build on the pioneering achievements there. But we may have to let the fewmets loose, as it were, elsewhere.

It's coming! And as daylight saving finishes tonight in Australia, it's coming an hour early!

Predictably I have a stake in the Mare Bilbium and the galaxy's first (think showpiece!) lunar bandicuterie. Our offer includes return of balls over the out-of-bounds markers and vulpine discounts at the 19th Hole (predicated on non-consumption of staff). Please consider. Despite your obvious engagement with the hoi-polloi-ole! at the Thriya in Sevilla.

Danke, sionnach. Toll, Du sprichst Deutsch. It is a long story. Been in Wales since 2000 - möchte aber umziehen. Vorher oder bald möchte ich nach Irland.
Hwyl fawr.

Zorrito, I'm glad that the growing multimedia empire of MOTP is not distracting you from your core business, i.e. plastic animals in poses of candied crapulence. It's important someone does this right, hence it is reassuring that your international network has been deployed in the area of logistical support.
But what is this mysterious xxxxx of which you speak? Tiger? Smurf? Aardv? Nixon? Sheep? Blair? Eagle? Wolof? Bilby??!!

P.S. How's Elsie? She's soooo talented. Have you tried feeding her white chocolate for that chequerboard effect?

Bilby, do you require a lozenge?

Moorcock?
Gestzumpenflock!
It's not even a salvador-dali-iconic-upturned-partie-smock!
Sacre medicins sans frontiers outpost do-gooder journal block!
Spuckety-blat! Tickety-mboom! Perhaps a hickory dickory sionnachery dok?

That photo ain't no moorcock; I can tell you that. ;-)

*gigglesnort* Excellent pose, sionnach!

¡ Wheeeeeeee !



I can fly!!!

It's going to be a moorcock, isn't it?!

I could go the Smurf, I really could.

Ssshhh! I worry that you may be getting Bilby's hopes up unrealistically.

OH MY GOD!! They have Barack Obama! *faints*

Wait a minute. It just dawned on me--sionnach, would you happen to be in the part of Spain where this is traditional?

Oh foxy boy... Would you happen to have any idea or indication of the date of that suit of armor in the Flickr photo you linked to on solleret? *curiouser*

Also, you may find this intriguing. Note that it is $79.95, but it is also sold out. ?! (Psst... Amazon has them for $24.98.)

And this page was obviously MADE for you.

It's getting closer! May we have a plump hint as to what kind of animal might star as this weekend's Feature Crapper?

Only 4 more sleeps until you know what.

I can tell you St Paddy's Day this year is a cracker, begorrah! Here's to the Irish me fine fecal carnageatron compositor!

Oh dear.

The famous four come together! And here I was stuck on the other side of the world with my autograph book lying idle!

Sionnach, please, ensure that the Down Under tour dates for the Engelbeart Pooperdump, Ying-Pong-Tiddle-I-Splot, Spoorky the Pig and Happy Shit living statues exhibition are uploaded soon.

Things may be getting a little out of hand:

I left a comment on MOTP. Indeed, it were inspiring! What with Easter eggs back on the shelves, might be time to dust off the penguin costume and practice my waddling.

From the caterpillar brows of Nixon
To the chic first family Obamas
I'll entrust a fox (but, pardon, not a vixen)
To be my Muse of Dioramas

Zorrito, it's hard to find a good bandicuterie these days *sobs*

Tan lindo, zorro. Gracias.

When you're done with the cows, how about grading the quiz?

I can make no promises. Usually Sunday evening (Madrid time) is a good time to check for diorama updates. But my friend Brad is visiting this week, and we do have a day-trip to Segovia planned for tomorrow. A lot may depend on how interesting the museo de brujería (museum of witchcraft) turns out to be.
Then there are today's mad cow photos to upload to Flickr (it was a 19-cow afternoon, so it could take a while).
But I will certainly try my best.

You know you're my go-to man for confectionery dioramas, don't you? Can't we have some kind of countdown clock until the next one appears?

Huzzahs and accolades on 15,000! No other fox in history has done so. I'll bet.

Congrats, S!

¡Wouldn't it tithle your grumlin-futtocks!

Congratulations on your sesquidecamillennial* accomplishment!
*I have no idea if this is a real word, but it seems right.

I think I can! I think I can!

I've got 15K in my sights. Yes I have.

¿You do?
¡Me too!

¡I love inverted palindromic punctuation!

Sionnach, I just read your Wilbur Chronicles. The first one was so hilarious and well written that I couldn't help but continue on to the next chapter and the next... This is both good and bad. Good since I laughed my little noggin off, but bad since I was supposed to be writing a paper on probabilistic modeling techniques, due tomorrow, ack! However, upon discovering that you are a statistician, I put all guilt aside and simply enjoyed the moment: after all, it was technically somewhat, sort of, slightly related, in a Wilbur kind of way :)

¡Paciencia, zorrito! It may take some time to summon the requisite landing craft ... all our crocodiles are currently deployed against a nasty outbreak of Swedish sunbathers along the north coast here. Meanwhile, remember the pre-arranged codes. Flower-pot on balcony: we meet in the car park. Calzoncillos on the tv antenna: do not disturb. A man walks past your window sportng a grey overcoat, woollen scarf and groaning umbrella: it's nasty outside, dress warm or stay the hell in.

Aquí en Nueva Amsterdam, el cielo está claro. Quebec, el pasado fin de semana, fue magnífico. ¡Hasta pronto!

Ah, www.wordie.es! Ole!

sionnach, before you leave, please add at least one contribution to Knuckle tattoos for posterity.

Thee you thoon, I hope. Have fun leaping and gamboling!

Bring me back a Dali. Please.

Madrid? Two months?! There's a chance I will visit Madrid in April! I'll be looking for red tails.

Have a thpectacular time, thionnach!

I will be taking a break from Wordie, starting in a couple of days, as I will be spending two months in Madrid, working on my Thpanish.

Sionnach enjoys: foreign languages, Gilbert and Sullivan, lemon meringue pie, teasing and being teased by bilby, Wordie and goodreads.com.
Sionnach is neutral about: walking on the beach, the Oscars, large chain bookstores.
Sionnach actively dislikes: sports metaphors, the Superbowl, rabid right-wing radio hosts, internet hostility.
Sionnach is saddened by: the suicide of David Foster Wallace, the overall tendency of internet debate to devolve into crass name-calling, Iceland's bankruptcy.
Sionnach is grateful for: Wordie and its many fine Wordizens. (Sionnach doesn't want to offend by singling anyone out, but feels obliged to give a shout-out to a certain wretched antipodean non-placental mammal with large leathery ears).
Sionnach is tired of: speaking in the third person.

You've been sucked into the cheese whirlpool!

Happiest b-day, s! :-)

Thank you. And I've taken the liberty of replying on my Gene Wolfe list. :-)

Thanks, Gary. Happy New Year to everyone on Wordie.

Two webpages which have provided material for many of my recent postings are:

omniglot.com

and

Speak Finnish like a restless native!

Thanks for the heads up on pusi... whatever it is. My words wot i misspell list is coming into its own (I knew it would). And happy new year to you!

Are you back from Rome, sionnach?

I am charmed by your confession of a "chaste intellectual crush"; no one else has ever done so and it has lifted my day.

I web-wandered over to your site and found myself reading the whole of the Wilbur chronicles: they deserve wider publication! Very funny (except for the twist in the tail.)

All of our nations' capitals? What a trip!

Sionnach will be back on Saturday after his visit to your nation's capital.

Yes. It's called "my older sister." ;->

Is there a name for the transparent strategy of buying for somebody else a present that, in fact, one craves for one's own self?

ɝ ǂ ʢ ɬ

ɲɟǃǃʎ

I should've known that, being a Capricorn.

Capricorn, actually.

That one's the sign for Libra, isn't it?

No; it was a snowman, silly!

♑

I hope that wasn't an emoticon *anxious*

Still testing:
☃
☄
★
☂
☓
☣
☑
≣

♈
☰
♂
☹

ũ
頧
©
♣
Ó
ȑ

Testing:

Watching my back:

Atheists in foxholes?

Thanks for the welcome, sionnach. I've enjoyed my time here immensely so far.

*Checks again, notices they are not distinct images in the osteology website, realizes sionnach actively looked for them, feels more admiration than ever*

Ha! I didn't notice that every single letter was a different image! Thank you for your nice thought. My dog would be happy.

Back, 'nach?

Sionnach, I see you still use the old Wordie... Don't you think it's time to upgrade?

(friendly slap on shoulder)

I'm about to take both GRE and subject test in biology. "Cry for me Brangelina" will soon have new entries.
How's life in Platyrrhinia?

Leave those marmosets alone.

Ah, Satan sees Natasha!

Hola, sionnach! How do you do that upside-down exclamation point? Or does it just come out that way for you because you're south of the equator? (are you?)

Lucky fox...

Oh of course. Indubitably.

Too early to say. All that our linguistico-meteorological investigations have been able to establish with certainty is that "la lluvia en Sevilla es una maravilla".

But I think that we all knew this already.

So, does the rain in Argentina fall mainly on the pampas?

Thanks, guys! You can, of course, track my progress on the blog.

A luego.

zorro.

Have a great time!

All I want is a nice keychain.

Bon voyage. Bring me back a puma. Please.

Ah, yes....who IS who? Hmmmm. Well, we've got some time to ponder, eh?

Yes, who is "who?"

Happy getaways, sionnach!

They have DSL in Buenos Aires, sionnach. Unlike California... ;-)

Edit: I don't "know-who"...

So true! Especially "you-know-who..."

Lucky you, sionnach! Safe travels and enjoy! We'll try to behave ourselves.

Oh, who am I kidding? We absolutely will not. :-D

Ciao!

I'm headed for Buenos Aires until the end of September, so will be taking a Wordie holiday. keep up the good work, folks!

11111 words! Cool, sionnach. Are you going to prune (judiciously) and add to keep your count at this?

one one one one one man went to mow
went to mow a meadow
one one one one one man and his dog, Spot,
went to mow a meadow

@Bilby:
Maybe I am and maybe I'm not. Why do you ask, pray tell?

Hi sionnach. Are you wearing a hat today?

I've found that, by judicious list-pruning, the excitement of 'crossing the 11K horizon' can be prolonged almost indefinitely. Kind of like backtracking west repeatedly to cross the international date line multiple times on the same day or something. Like that Dalek dude in the opera.

Stop adding words for a minute and enjoy the 11000th word!

Youtube is, of course, a volatile environment, but as of today, the most convenient link to episodes of the most awesomely brilliant BBC show, Q.I., is here:
entire collection of Q.I. shows to date, including pilot episode and outtakes .

I cannot recommend this show highly enough.

That's brilliant.

Bon!

Found somewhere on the interwebs:

During a recent tête-à-tête with one of my protegés, the discussion turned to the raison d’être for the renaissance of French culture. I am far from being a savant, and in my gaucherie made the faux-pas, with typical insouciance, of saying that bilingualism would never be a fait accompli without a complete exposé of the motives of the bourgeoisie. With much elan, my companion accused me of considering myself one of the elite, whereas in fact I was only a nouveau riche bon vivant, having no rapport with the working class. He quickly recovered his sang-froid and termed my cavalier statement a vile canard. He declared that for him this was a cause célébre, and affaire-d’honneur, and then gave me the choice of weapons, time, and place.

With the help of my valet, whom I appointed to be my aide, I selected épées, the rendezvous a plateau behind my chalet, and the time immediately after matins.

Details of the melee will be found in my memoirs. For now a resume will suffice. It was a complete debacle. Although this was my debut, I quickly rendered the poor boy hors de combat by administering a coup de grace par excellence.

To celebrate, I took my entourage to the restaurant in our town’s only hotel, operated by an absentee entrepreneur. As the buffet did not appeal we consulted the maître d’. On the advice of the chef he recommended from the à la carte menu, a deluxe repast of potage du jour, pâtés, crêpes, entrée of doré with légumes, and for dessert choice of soufflé, parfait, tarte à la mode, followed by café au lait. There was an unexpected divertissement during the meal. A clumsy garçon spilled some consomé on the crêpe de chine dress of one of my personnel, an au pair girl named True English (née French). With surprising nonchalance and the help of my masseur she removed the melange with a serviette. A propos of this I heard later that the management sent her a chic negligée, together with sincere regrets.

My spirit of largesse having been lubricated by an apéritif, a carafe of vin blanc and a liqueur, I conducted the whole ensemble to my garage and unaccustomed avoirdupois, the noble chariot transported us to a matinée at the local theatre. From our seats in the loges we enjoyed a unique programme presented by our corps de ballet with its limited repertoire. We were treated to an encore consisting of an electrifying routine of legerdemain, performed with considerable finesse by a versatile member of the troupe.

En route to our domicile the whole menage proclaimed that their esprit de corps was never better.

Hey sionnach: you might be interested to take a look at taxonomy of wordplay.

I will be taking a wordie break for a while. See you all in a few weeks.

OMG, arcadia, that clip was teh alsome. Thanks!!!

Ha, cute clip arcadia! I love oozy rat in a sanitary zoo. Story of my life, really.

:)

I hope this works:

God, Astor trots a dog.

Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
Was it Eliot's toilet I saw?
May a moody baby doom a yam?
Sis, ask Costner to not rent socks "as is".
Murder for a jar of red rum.

O Geronimo, no minor ego.
Drab as a fool, aloof as a bard.
Never odd or even.
Bar Arafat, a far Arab.
Cain: a monomaniac
Drat Saddam, a mad dastard.
Draw, O Caesar. Erase a coward.

God saw I was dog.
Go deliver a dare, vile dog!
Doc Note: I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.
Don't nod.
Dogma: I am God.

Don't nod.
Do geese see God?

Sionnach, heads up. I'm done reading The Danger Tree.

C_b, I'll trade you for a Tony Horwitz.

Okay, well... I'm done already! :)

c_b: I just read that Philbrick book a few months ago! And a fine book it is, too.

I might just possibly have come up with a book to match your voracious literary foraging - I just started William Gaddis's "The Recognitions". It may just need its very own list.

Sionnach, I'm apologizing in advance for entering lots of words from the book I just finished reading. Heads up!

Fennec foxes indeed. With 10% fewer chromosomes than your regular fox!

Oooohh!!! *overwhelmed with cuteness*

Those are fennec foxes, right?

for sionnach: my nickname as a child was: Diggle. My father gave it to me. Still, to this day (thank God) he calls me "Digg."

Why was Michelle Shocked?
Because she saw Gumby giving Mr Potatohead.

paulajane: I don't know any palindrome generators on the web. Most of the individual lines are in the book "Word Circus" by Richard Lederer. I just kind of mixed and matched more or less at random.

brilliant! you use wordsmith? another generator? love it...

Nurse, I spy gypsies, run!
Ah, Satan sees Natasha.
Won't lovers revolt now?
Niagara, O roar again.

May a banana nab a yam?
Ma is as selfless as I am.
A goy did yoga.
I prefer pi.
If I had a hi-fi.

Won't lovers revolt now?
A slut nixes sex in Tulsa.
Sex at noon taxes.
So many dynamos.
Niagara, O roar again.

Sit on a potato pan Otis!
Rise to vote sir!
Star comedy by Democrats.
Stab nail at ill Italian bats.

Please be advised that polite requests to Australians take the form: What the bloody hell are you up to?

From a marketing point of view, if we had 10,000 sionnachs on this site we would have a lotta hits.
No, no, no.
There's only one sionnach. I am yet to forgive him for googleganger but anyone who lists bandicoot must be essentially okay.

Good choice! I already have a candidate for my 10,000th in mind.

Me too, bilby. Congrats, s! :-)

And I thought sionnach was jogging ten kilometres! I was about to ask him how his calf-muscles were feeling.

Thanks, mollusque. Banzai was number 10,000.

Congratulations on completing your run, sionnach! Was endless number 10,000?

OK: Time to start my 10K run. Eat my dust, wordiez!

S., I sympathize with you, and so, especially, does my feline companion Aglaja, who misses her Gourmet Gold Tuna Paté, which my local supermarket stopped carrying a month or so ago, which is a problem because she and her sister Erazma are both quite selective when it comes to their dinner. I am glad you found my suggestion useful.

And, most important, I miss you here, sionny.

Mr. Sionnach, your wish is an order for us. But you're kindly requested to consider our vezzeggiativo as a form of appreciation and fondness towards you. I could, for example, complain that my name is never written in italic although, being a genus, it should deserve it.
All the best,
Prolagus sp. Pomel, 1853

(PS I like "pro", it sounds cute)

Thanks, rolig. I like the term retail evanescence a lot. Though I'm aware that the notion that I am being selectively targeted by this phenomenon ('it's always the brands I like that are discontinued') is paranoid, I will probably think of it mentally as targeted retail evanescence.

In fact, I can manage to get by just fine without the delicious Krispy Kranberry Krunch. But how can I be expected to maintain my impeccable silver sionnach coiffure when they take away my citrus mint shampoo, god damn it!

Sionnach, I think your cranberry crunch problem is part of the phenomenon we might call the Law of Vanishing Commodities, or more simply, retail evanescence.

Nobody is stocking crudberry crash cereal in your stupormarket of choice. Why don't you?

Yes, sion is brutal and abrupt, like a fox with its tail cut off.

Nobody is listing Protocol of the Spurned Consumer of Sion. Why don't you?

Because I don't like it, that's why. 'Spurned' seems inadequate to capture the wilful malevolence with which the manufacturing sector targets and eliminates the few simple pleasures I manage to eke out in this dystopian vale of tears...

{God forgive me for that last sentence. I mean, postmodern irony can be amusing in its own brittle fashion, but that my inability to find cranberry crunch cereal in the supermarket should be considered anything other than a totally first-world non-problem is clearly ludicrous}

But I would like to nip this abbreviation of sionnach as sion in the bud, if possible. Please don't make me vanish, only to be reincarnated as madra_rua

Protocol of the Spurned Consumer of Sion.

Sorry, sion, it was just an example :-) I could have cited Tantalus' torment as well, or the Labors of Hercules...

So I have to confess that the relevance of Ondine's curse is lost on me ....

Very interesting. Usually this kind of concept is named after a mythic character who experienced the same situation (the first that comes to my mind is Ondine's curse). I'm thinking. Thank you sion, I won't be able to study for the whole week.

I invite all Wordies to come up with an appropriate term for the following specific phenomenon:

The near-certainty that, in the rare instance when some particular brand of consumer product (cereal, shampoo, kitty litter, what-have-you..) actually catches my fancy to the extent that I make the effort to remember its name, within a maximum of six weeks it will be discontinued forever by the manufacturer and/or all stores on the West Coast will no longer distribute it.

I realise there is an element of paranoia in positing such a phenomenon, but the list of examples is a long one.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

I think I'll like Master and Margarita a lot more when I'm not ploughing through it for school, to be honest. I am, however, a fan of trying to incorporate "Not causing trouble, not touching anything, fixing the primus" into conversation as often as possible.

No problem! You know, Sardinia could become a quite saudade-melancholic list, and it could be a good idea to appease it!
By the way, thank you for your apologishy message and for the constant netiquette of the whole Wordie community!

Hi, sionnach. I wanted to thank you for your "Change One Letter" list, and for your rant on the word page for cremains, because both gave me a good laugh the other day when I needed them. Cheers!

Ha ha ha. Very good.

Elegy for Eliot : The Lovesong of A.G. Spitzer


Let us go then, you and I
While the evening is spread out against the sky
Like the Baghdad skyline behind Wolf Blitzer
Or a criminal taken down by A.G. Spitzer


In the room the women come and go
“I’m called an escort, not a ho.”


The corridors of power are lonely, late at night
The bad guys all day long you have to fight
You deserve a little reward – maybe a cookie?
Nope – even a hero needs some nookie.


In the room the women come and go
“Plastic works, a cheque, or cash to go.”


Temptation looms – a vision, out of reach.
The voice of conscience: “Don’t you eat that peach!”
Too late! Our hero reaches for his cheques.
Another politician laid low by the lure of sex.


In the room the women come and go
“Eliot? Oh yeah, huge ego and libido.”


I should have been a pair of ragged claws
scuttling across the shores of silent seas.
Instead my taste for high-priced whores
Has made of me the emperor of sleaze.

Wow! Congrats!

Jubilations are in order!

Wheeeeeee! 8888 words. Time for a break.

Whether you're a butterfly or a deep-sea diver,
The salt of the earth or a scheming conniver,
A mythical beast like a werewolf or wyvern,
You will amount to nothing unless you can make a nucular bomb out of paper clips just like McGyver.

Thank you, Sionnach! To celebrate, I made eleventy my 5555th word. (Is 1111 eleventy-eleven or one thousand eleventy-one?)

Congratulations yourself, on passing 8000 words!

Thank you, sionnach. I am having fun. I like to see how other people connect with words, too. This is such an interesting site. I have enjoyed your humor from day one.

thanks for the link to the Slovak idioms. Some of these are hilarious, and all serve as cautionary tales about mistranslation. I don't know Slovak (the language I work with primarily is Slovene, a third or fourth cousin), but I can figure some of these out. For examle "browsing banks" should be "surfing on the shore" ("surfovat" means "surf" or "browse the Internet"; "bank" in the sense of land bordering a body of water), and I think "flight" should be "years" ("let" means "flight", but "leta" means "years"), so you get something like "In years when it's especially hot, people go to the shore to surf."

Those last few words, barleychild, ballicatter and the others in that group...SPLENDID!

Well, all of my buffalo friends are strictly vegetarian :-)

But you're probably right - it doesn't fit the criteria, strictly speaking.

Back to the drawing board.

Am having challenges with 'vegetarian buffalo'. Am OK with 'buffalo wings' and thanks for the education. Does 'vegatarian buffalo' stand up as an expression in its own right?

I'll look to you to enter on the 'sweet tooth fairy' list. Hope that's OK.

Re spark plug ugly

My challenge was that plug-ugly is one word (hyphenated) and we do have plug uglies but while spark plug uglies is ok it doesn't have the same ring to it.

Then I found the following on wiki ...

Plug Ugly captains included John English and James Morgan.

So that makes it alright then.

Also as long as the expressions work as defined then the part of speech matters not.

I know I could have just said OK. I record the reasoning for posterity.

And I like 'spark plug ugly' a lot.

Keep them coming.

Sorry, sionnach, but you'll have to run 'vegetable buffalo wings' through me before I can comment. Maybe I'm in the wrong part of the world.

I actually had to look up Hedwig and the Angry Inch...this place is very educational. ;)

John. I always have the hardest time explaining in writing how words are pronounced, but here's my best shot.

sionnach: two syllables, with the stress on the second. It's as if you were going to say Sinead (as in Sinead O' Connor), but replaced 'ead' with 'ach' (rhymes with 'loch').

Clear as mud, right?

Sionnach, I've been wondering for a while now: how is your Wordie name pronounced?

Gee thanks, arcadia! Mostly my lyrical Irish whimsy is channeled through my male side.

I have to admit a certain grudging admiration for mi-vox's hypnotic little scripts. But I have no illusions - spambots, no matter how superficially charming, are not our friends.

You, sir (or madame, I haven't been paying attention) are a sardonic genius. But watch out, if he's smart, mi-vox might try to recruit you. I know I would. ^_^

c_b: No worries, thanks! The book in question, by the way, is called "Depraved and Insulting English" by Peter Novobatzky and Ammon Shea. It has joined Mrs Byrne's dictionary and Charles Harrington Elster's "There's a Word for It : a Grandiloquent Guide to Life" on my shelf of favorite word books.

Sionnach, I sincerely hope you do not feel hampered in adding new words by my squeamishness. Hope you're enjoying that book!

But it was a magical moment, wasn't it? ;-)

Thanks, rt & bilby. Fresh new words coming soon to lists near you.

Lovely! Congrats. Although I do hope you'll add more words at some point. They're always great ones, after all. :-)

Nice number of words! Divide it by 6 and build picket fences for your neighbours, yourself, and even those crinkly dudes across the road.

There's something really satisfying about seeing that I have listed 6666 words. It seems like a natural milestone. So much so that I am reluctant to add any more, lest I disturb the fearful symmetry of that delightful 6666.

Yes, this post is all about me. What can I say? I'm shallow like that.

Foxtrot is six letters in from a and uniform is six letter in from z. We're talkin' symmetry here! ;o)

By the way, I'm officially confused on the foxtrot clue - my answer was obtained by applying the same 13-letter shift along the alpha-bravo-charlie alphabet that takes you from tango to golf, which would map foxtrot to sierra, but apparently that's not what oroboros has in mind.

swollenostrich; I tend to associate defenestrations with Prague, because of the several such events that featured prominently in its history. A google search on the term "defenestration of Prague" should provide further information. It's unclear why the urge to throw people out of windows has apparently proven irresistible to citizens of Prague throughout history - maybe it has happened just as often in other cities, and was just better documented in Prague.

Um, no...no I'm not from there. Why?

Nar, it's an acronym, TGFW, so the correct answer is Whisky.
Thank god for Wordie :-)

Hmmmm. No, but I think you've got the context for the thing. Answer here when you're ready.

tango : golf :: foxtrot : sierra

sionnach:

tango : golf :: foxtrot : ?

(it's probably too easy for ya, but I like it!)

Sionnach, if that's what it takes, I'm in double the trouble!

Thanks, c_b. Tangible evidence of my misdirected energy. Not to mention incurable geekitude.

Congrats on your five-thousandth word, sionnach! Whoopeee!!

Thanks, oroboros.

Wonderful website, sionnach!

Hi! You are a coinventor of panvocalic. See my comment there.

thanks for the words! gedankenexperiment is wonderful. how could i have missed this!