2.21.2006

New Feature: Lauri and Google Bringing Good Words to the People

Ok, these amuse me too much to keep them from you. From time to time Lauri lets me know what Google's word for the day is. And invariable her little notices make me laugh and/or think differently about the world. They're too good not to share. So, until she breaks down and gets a dog herself, I'm going to post them here.

So, here's the one from last week:

Google word of the day:

spoony: foolishly or sentimentally in love

I think that's nice. My COD informs me that this is a dated word.. Whatever that means, Archaically, this word means foolish or silly, which is interesting, I think.

I'm thinking of first loves here, or at least the first parts of love. The spoony parts. The parts that still make you smile when you think of them. And I'm thinking of spooning. And spoons, and the sound of oooooooon when you draw it out a little bit cow-ishly. All of which make the word "spoony" sort of wonderful.

Don't you think? I like connotations for words I don't know, or didn't know, until I made them up (the connotations, not the words).

And here's the one she sent me today:

titivate: to smarten up; to spruce.

I like it because it sounds like titillate, so when I say "I've got to titivate myself" it sounds a bit dirty; but then I can look on with innocent eyes, thereby making the dirty-minded listener feel kind of bad. And I think that's funny.

I also like the use of the phrase "smarten up" as the definition, because when I think "smarten up," really I'm thinking about getting smarter. As in, "I'm going to class to smarten up." I would really enjoy it if there were a word that sounded like titillate that meant to get smarter.

The other defintion of "to spruce" is also interesting, because it primarily makes me think of trees. In COD (did you know that I have a Concise Oxford Dictionary installed on my computer -- which I bought for $1 at B&N -- that I double-check all google word-of-the-day defintions on?) titivate means: "adjust one's appearance," and "adorn or smarten up" (again, with the smartening!)

So, vaguely, "titivate" makes me think of trees and smartness and arousal, which are all very good things. The tidiness, I do not care so much for:)

Posted by Trista @ 2:58 PM

Read or Post a Comment

"So, until she breaks down and gets a dog herself, I'm going to post them here."

I don't think that Annie would appreciate appreciate this quote. She's insecure enough without her holiday dogsitter thinking that she doesn't exist.

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous @ 3:54 PM #
 

titivate is great!
will try to use it 3 times tonight.
:)

Posted by Blogger Calliope @ 4:10 PM #
 

Ahem. Thank you lawyer Benji for pointing out my obvious typo. What can I say? I've got dog on the brain...

Posted by Blogger Trista @ 4:12 PM #
 

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Posted by Blogger charlotte @ 8:15 PM #
 

The word I LOVE from today is spruce. Makes me think of beautiful, neat, tidy, wonderful smelling greenery. I will now say I need to spruce up instead of clean.

Posted by Blogger charlotte @ 8:16 PM #
 

Since we're playing with words....my grandparents had a spruce tree outside their house. The branches came down low, and far away from the trunk, so I turned it into my "playhouse." As 7-8 year old I could still stand up under those branches. It felt very protected. and it smelled wonderful.
Of course reading this makes it sound like my grandparents lived in some sort of idyllic rural Northwestern paradise. Actually it was Trenton, N.J. Hmm.

Posted by Blogger Lo @ 7:43 AM #
 
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