YvonneThis week sees a selection of slightly more quirky words, rather than anything too serious, but all are new to me and therefore caused a ‘double take’ in my reading 🙂
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1. – First up this time, a word I discovered whilst blog hopping with Naida ‘The Bookworm’.
Naida had posted her review of ‘Warm Bodies’ by Isaac Marion and the word was coined by commenter Hila ‘hkatz’.
SQUICKED
“I always wondered if it was possible to write a romance with a zombie – and now you’re giving a good review to one. I’m very curious and will be bookmarking this. I have to admit a part of me is still squicked at the idea of a zombie in a romance (because I’m imagining flesh rotting off and maggots). But this sounds funny and quirky, which I like. Great review.”
SQUICKED –
1. Noun. The physical sense of repulsion upon encountering a concept or situation one finds disgusting.
2. Noun. A situation or concept which engenders this reaction.
3. Verb, transitive. To cause someone to have this reaction.
4. Verb, intransitive. To experience this reaction.
The concept of the “squick” differs from the concept of “disgust” in that “squick” refers purely to the physical sensation of repulsion, and does not imply a moral component.
Stating that something is “disgusting” implies a judgement that it is bad or wrong. Stating that something “squicks you” is merely an observation of your reaction to it, but does not imply a judgement that such a thing is universally wrong.
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2. – This word, I also came across when I was chatting with ‘The Bookworm’. This time Naida was sharing her ‘Top Ten’ quotes from her last few months of reading and this particular word formed part of a quote, once again taken from ‘Warm Bodies’ by Isaac Marion.
ELLIPSES
“I want to change my punctuation. I long for exclamation marks, but I’m drowning in ellipses.”
ELLIPSES –
Ellipsis (plural ellipses; from the Ancient Greek: ἔλλειψις, élleipsis, “omission” or “falling short”) is a series of dots (typically three, such as “…”) that usually indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning.
An ellipsis is a set of three periods ( . . . ) indicating an omission. Each period should have a single space on either side, except when adjacent to a quotation mark, in which case there should be no space.
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3. – Next up, is a word I came across in a recent BBC post, which I found most interesting
DYSMORPHIA
Modern Family’s Reid Ewing speaks about body dysmorphia
DYSMORPHIA –
Deformity or abnormality in the shape or size of a specified part of the body.
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is an anxiety disorder that causes a person to have a distorted view of how they look and to spend a lot of time worrying about their appearance.
For example, they may be convinced that a barely visible scar is a major flaw that everyone is staring at, or that their nose looks abnormal.
Having BDD does not mean the person is vain or self-obsessed.
Almost everyone feels unhappy about the way they look at some point in their life, but these thoughts usually come and go, and can be forgotten.
However, for someone with BDD, the thoughts are very distressing, do not go away and have a significant impact on daily life.
The person believes they are ugly or defective and that other people perceive them in this way, despite reassurances from others about their appearance.
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4. – And finally this time, this one is just for fun, but I thought the word was very inventive and an apt description for any avid reader or blogger 🙂
Whilst chatting with Wendy, over at ‘Musings Of A Bookish Kitty’, I decided to check out her profile page.
FABULAVORE
At the age of five, Literary Feline (aka Wendy) was diagnosed as a fabulavore. Due to the low story content of movies and television, she has required a steady supply of books to provide her sustenance. She currently resides in California with her loving husband, adorable daughter, and two affectionate cats. Literary Feline has broadened her nutritional sources by reviewing books. Please note: Literary Feline is not a bibliovore. She’s not eating the books for goodness’ sake.
FABULAVORE – This is what Wendy has to say 🙂
When I first started my blog, coming up with the description for my profile was the most difficult part. I enlisted the help of my husband and together (although he deserves most of the credit) we came up with the following:
A fabulavore is a completely made up word, but it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? It is derived from the latin “fabula” which means story and “vorare” which is to devour. A fabulavore, therefore, is someone who devours stories: or, in my case, a book lover. But not just books. My love for the story extends to music, art, television and movies as well. Stories can be found in just about any medium. Even in conversation. I love to tell a good story.
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a weekly meme where we share new (to us) words that we have encountered in our reading. It is hosted by Kathy, over at ‘BermudaOnion’s Weblog’.You can either stop by and leave a link to your own ‘mystery’ words of the week, or just browse the eclectic mix of words that others have discovered, there is always a great selection.
Don’t forget that Kathy and the rest of us, all love to read your comments as well, so that we can visit and share your words of the week!
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I am going to adopt squicked. That feeling doesn’t happen to me often, but I need a word to explain it. Squicked is it, even though the automatic word corrector doesn’t seem to like the word.
Hi Margot,
I must admit to thinking that Hila had just made this word up on the spur of the moment, as she does feature an excellent weekly post on her blog, where she describes her week in 7 words, so I assumed this might have been one of those words at some point in time.
But no! Despite the fact that your automatic word corrector doesn’t seem to like squicked, it is there when you ‘Google’ it, where it has a definition listed in both the Urban Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionaries.
A great word and one which is sure to raise a few enquiring eyebrows, when used !
Thanks for stopping by and have a great Thanksgiving 🙂
I love the word squicked! It’s totally new to me and may have to become a regular part of my vocabulary. Fabulavore is quite a clever word, too!
I use ellipses (the actual dots) all the time – and incorrectly, at that! Oh well.
Here’s one I came across 51% into The Villa in Italy by Elizabeth Edmondson.
” ‘Checking for oubliettes?’ said Lucius.”
‘oubliette’ – a secret dungeon with access only through a trapdoor in its ceiling.
I also found the word ‘kine’ jotted on a pad next to my chair with the definition “archaic word to refer to cows collectively”. I’m not sure what I was reading at the time, but I like that word.
Hi Kelly,
Sorry to have taken so long in replying to your comment this time, only as you can imagine, things are getting rather hectic in the run up to Christmas and I have been clocking up quite a few extra volunteering hours!
I trust that you had a lovely Thanksgiving Day and that like any sane person, are avoiding
the Black Friday crush today!
I was always so good at English at school, however I seem to have forgotten much of what was drummed into me by a series of English teachers, one of whom I still keep in touch with today. Ellipses simply trip off my tongue and onto the page, with a mind of their own – and in seemingly all the wrong places 🙂
I look at it like this, when some of the words I see and would usually disregard as simply slang or meaningless drivel, make it into new editions of reputable dictionaries, my small indiscretions with punctuation, really have little consequence. I really do wonder what there is left to teach in English lessons any more, as the Queen’s English seems to count for so little these days!
I know of oubliette, both from school French lessons and the historical fiction I occasionally read. However kine is completely new to me, despite it being a word with English origins. I probably wouldn’t have much cause to use it in conversation, but it’s a good one to have in the kit bag – you never know 🙂
Thanks for sharing.
I’ve never heard of squicked but I sure like the way it sounds. I think I can use it too!
Hi Kathy,
It does roll off the tongue quite nicely, doesn’t it?
It also doesn’t sound quite as fierce as disgusted, so is probably going to cause a bit less offence when used.
Thanks for hosting WWW in the midst of your holiday preparations – have a lovely Thanksgiving day 🙂
Hi Yvonne, thanks for the mention! Squicked isn’t one I had heard of myself so thanks for posting it here. I found author Marion’s writing style to be clever. That ellipses line stood out when I read it.
And what a neat blog profile Wendy has there. I like the word fabulavore and that she says she ” has broadened her nutritional sources by reviewing books”. 🙂
Happy weekend!
Hi Naida,
I like that new words can be found in the most surprising of places, even when I am not looking for them!
I can’t just pass over a word or phrase that I don’t know the definition of, even though I might be able to hazard a good guess at what it might mean – I have to know exactly or it really bugs me.
Even when we are watching TV programmes and someone comes out with a word I don’t understand, I find myself pausing the clip and writing down the sentence which includes the word, so that I can check out the word definition later, then maybe use the sentence in my WWW post.
Even better when the programme is on a mainstream channel, then I can call it back online, which makes life easier. I’m sure hubbie thinks I’m mad, although there have been a couple of occasions where he has commented that a particular word might be suitable for investigation!
The power of words is truly amazing 🙂
I hope that your Thanksgiving day was good 🙂
I think the only one of these wondrous words I’d already heard of was “dysmorphia”. It seems to be in the media a bit these days.
Hi Nikki,
I definitely haven’t come across dysmorphia before, although it does sound like a word used in a science fiction story, or a television programme like Dr. Who!
Putting yourself through all those operations and procedures, in an effort to correct something which only you perceive to be a problem, is almost akin to having Munchausen’s syndrome surely?
Having a severe phobia about anything to do with doctors and hospitals, I can’t ever see dysmorphia being a problem for me, as much as I am disatisfied with the way I look!
Great to hear from you, thanks for stopping by 🙂