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331 wordies list
quixotic |
(adj): not sensible about practical matters; idealistic and unrealistic
(adj): vs. practical) -- (not practical; not workable or not given to practical matters
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Chasing one's tail seems like a quixotic activity.
I named my dog Quixote, and he IS quixotic.
I just recently saw this word the other day for the first time and I beamed with excitement when I realized it was related to Don Quixote.
I'm kind of surprised that this is the #2 most listed word here. What's so special about this word? It makes me think of an exotic quiz.
See quixotically.
Odd... I say that a lot too.
;)
"I just want to get drunk as fast as I can" said Don, quixotically.
-extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary, impractical, or impracticable.
-impulsive and often rashly unpredictable.
I can never remember what this damn word means
This word reminds me of one of those guys who hangs out at the bar everynight with his polyester shiny shirt and his gel'd up hair. It's used up, been had, and not as cool as it sounds.
It is "octopuses," definitely, not "octopi." The word octopus comes from Greek, not Latin, so the plural suffix -i is inappropriate.
As for the pronunciation of "quixotic," Charles Harrington Elster, author of The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations, sanctions only kwik-SAHT-ik. I will continue to say kwik-SAHT-ik in English and reserve the more Spanishy pronunciation for when I am speaking Spanish.
Matter of opinion, innit? I'd be more inclined to change the spelling.
I think the whole idea of borrowing foreign rules for modifying words along with foreign words is dumb. It's "octopusses", dammit!
Good point -- I see the word much more often than I hear it. In fact, I think I've only ever heard it spoken out loud in the context of debates over its pronunciation! Is there a synonym for "quixotic" that's more popular in conversation, or do people just not want to talk about tilting at windmills?
Possible counterexamples of that, seanahan, would be words like jungian (yoong-ee-uhn) or wagnerian (vahg-neer-ee-uhn). When it derives from someone's name, that pronunciation seems to stick, at least part of the time. But after reading the tidbit on wikipedia about the spelling and pronunciation of "Quixote", I see it's a little bit more nuanced anyhow (technically it's medieval Castilian, not Spanish). Bah! This is a good word, I'm going to leave it alone (stop picking at it, that is) for fear that people will stop using it. I see it written much more often than I hear it spoken, anyway.
There is a fundamental dichotomy here. The suffix "ic" is not Spanish at all. Therefore, adding "ic" to Quixote to create an adjective is not allowed. I'm not sure what the equivalent suffix would be in Spanish, but if you insist on being a stickler for pronunciation, then you should insist on using the Spanish suffix. To make an English adjective, it makes sense to change the pronunciation.
I pronounce it "kee-ho-tik". I'm takin' it back!
I've never heard anyone pronounce it as anything other than "quicks-ot-ic".
I heard someone (who I thought aught to have known better) pronounce it as an English word recently. I'd never heard it that way before. It made my eyes cross.
So true, billifer. As counterintuitive as it may sometimes seem, we should just chalk it up to idiosyncrasy(if that word wasn't previously used to describe words or language, it now is). And then the inconsistency's something to appreciate, I suppose.
I totally know where you're coming from, Valse. You're being neither persnickety nor pedantic. Unfortunately, English — especially when adapting foreign words and names — is one big miasma of bafflegab.
I still spell "fish" as ghoti1 and "potato" as ghoughphtheightteeau.
I feel like this word should be pronounced kee-ho-tik (it just occurred to me that standard IPA pronunciation would show up as a possible word entry). We don't say Don Kwik-sot-ay...but maybe I'm just being persnickety.