Conference thebay::joyoflex

One sees a new portmanteau word (as defined by Humpty Dumpty in "Through
the Looking Glass") every so often. My favorite is "clumbersome."

					Val

I'm fond of the word "Insinuendo."

I make up a lot of my own, informally though.  The one that has been best
received is "dramastic" - meaning fantastic and dramatic.

Paul Harvey of ABC Radio coined the word 'sky-jacker.'

Dave C.

The important thing to keep in mind is that new words that you think are really
ugly, a lot of other people will think are ugly too, and that word will
disappear too. 

Only a few new words survive.  It's a tough life for a new word. 

Pat Sweeney 

Some more...

	. ginormous (gigantic + enormous)
	. guestimate
	. proactive (YUK!...whoever invented this should be boiled in
		     alphabet soup)

Lawrie

Proactive is wonderful and bizzare (wonderzarre?).  People use it to say "If
you disagree, you're being reactive." 

"For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction." 

Why not use "active", therefore, for "proactive". 

"Active" as DEC jargon goes reflects a sort of undirected activity, as opposed
to passive or dormant.  "Is IAS an active product?" 

"Reactive" says in DEC jargon that you didn't anticipate something and now
you're closing the barn door after the horse has fled.  Ah... But "proactive"
says you're doing something about it. 

Nope... I never use the word but I sort of look upon the people who use it with
the tolerance I show to people who make much more money than I do and still
don't know their mother tongue. 

Pat Sweeney 

My beef re proactive is based on the following argument:

Reactive comes from verb act, i.e. Act -> Re-act -> Re-act-ive
And not: Active -> Re-active
Therefore, we should be able to reduce Pro-act-ive -> Pro-act ???
And since I have yet to hear people going around "proacting" (thank god)
then proactive ain't a word. 

I suggest if people MUST use the word then "proreactive" should be used!

But I agree with your last comment viz. the Golden rule, those that have
the gold make the rules...

Lawrie 

So if you are doing something about it before it happens, then you 
must be PRE-REACTING.  Let's be pre-reactive, or pre-active, for short.

Dave C.  :-)

Oh! You must be prepared and anticipating a reply.

You're so precocious or precognitive.

Pat Sweeney

How about 'in-de-window' for innuendo?

As kids, we used to say "smothercate" for smother and suffocate, usually 
while being sat upon by a big brother trying to stuff his dirty sweat 
socks in your face.

beck

sounds like an emurgentcy to me

And who amoung us does not gave a pair of tennisneakers?

- chuck

My father used to like to drink "oranjuice" (maybe that's "oranguice").

Dave C.

Another good one is "automagically." It is used to describe an automatic
function that is pleasingly surprising, like the Automagic Teller Machines
that many banks have.

In "Podkayne of Mars," Robert A. Heinlein introduced the word "snoopervise"
to describe a common parental activity.

Seen in another note file: "periodaticly" (periodically + automatically?)

					Val

My brother hoped to increase his biceps' circumference through "extracise."

Spoonerisms probably don't really qualify, but I like "thud and blunder novels"
so much I thought I'd throw it in.

    I really like "administrivia."

    "Drismal" for a drizzly, dismal day.

    "Ominomlous" 

    Although there seems to be some bias against spoonerisms, there
    are some that work magnificently as new words:
    
    Those people in the Old [or Modern] West whose job it is to keep
    a herd of beef generally from straying all over the landscape:
    cowbunchers.
    
    Describing the quality of a building that is run down and appears
    as if it had been used to house a herd of sheep [or equivalent]:
    Ramshacked.
    
    A dither of feminine confusion: hurley-girly. 
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

My 20-year-old daughter describes a boy friend, who hangs around long after 
he has been gently-but-firmly declared an unfit suitor, a "velcro". Seems 
apt.

    Re: .23
    
    What you are describing are not Spoonerisms, but actually "Sniglets".
    A Spoonerism is the transposition of letters or syllables in a phrase,
    i.e. "Is this Pie occupewed?" (Courtesy of the good Reverend Himself)
    		  ^^^     ^^^
    
    Larry

Yes, interesting use of "velcro".  Perhaps appropriate that other words
that can be made from those letters are "clover", "lover", "role", "cover"
and "vole" !

At a small company I once worked for, we had a CEO who was well
known for his spoonerisms.  The one I remember him for was
when he announced at a stand-up meeting that the Annual Meeting
would be at "Hickey's Ryatt House"...referring to Rickey's Hyatt
House in Palo Alto.

    There was a great snignet on Murder She Wrote just before
    Christmas:  furnadents, meaning the dents furniture legs make
    in carpeting.
    						Ann B.

    WEVO, the Concord, NH public radio station, will experiment with three
    days of on-air time given to fund-raising, reduced from five days last year.
    Their term for this down-sized pledge drive?

    minithon

From a New Yorker cartoon:		"Nuzak" -- all news radio.

From two friends in one weekend:	"DINK" -- double income, no kids.
						  == married yuppies?

    Bureaucrap.

    There's a store in Nashua called Somebody's Superette.  I think
    "Superette" is a neat word - a prefix, a suffix, no root, but it
    conveys a meaning.
                                             
    					andrew

        Regarding new words, it is indeed not easy to establish one.  A friend
and I at college decided to attempt to introduce a new word to the English
language and for many months would use this new word and its many derivatives
at every opportunity.  To our amazement and disgust, it has disappeared without
trace.  The original word was : beft (n.) meaning a hair parting with the
verb 'to beft' also being tried out.  This expanded to various adjectives
including, if I remember correctly, iso-befted (meaning to beft on the opposite
side to normal), macro-befted (a wide parting or perhaps bald (!)) and several
other psuedo-Latin prefixes.  Perhaps it just wasn't exciting enough ...

        However, so the story goes (correct me if I'm wrong, somebody), an
Irish University professor decided he was going to introduce a new word to the
English language, I believe in the early 19th century, and announced to all his
colleagues that he would, taking numerous bets in the process.  He then spent a
large amount of time simply chalking the word on every available wall in Dublin
in very large letters.  He succeeded.  The word ??

Quiz.

    The Irish always did have a way with words.
    
    	Jon

    When I was on vacation in Cornwall, I toured a, uh, ship museum
    in Penzance.  It was shaped like a sailing ship, and was filled
    with memorabilia from various old sailing ships, and had a nice
    selection of objects recovered from the ocean floor.
    
    Some of the recovered objects were covered with a hard, crusty
    detritus, which, the label explained, was called "crud", which
    was an old Cornish word.  How nice to know where that comes from.
    
    Other objects, another label explained, had been cracked apart
    from the inside, because they had become filled with a semi-liquid,
    sticky, unpleasant material, which was called "clib", another old
    Cornish word.
    
    So there you have it.  That dubious, yellow-brown goo in the bottom
    of your refrigerator may be properly referred to as clib.
    
    							Ann B.

    Recently, the International Engineering Consulting Group (IECG)
    held a contest called the "International Coffee Quiz" because it
    consisted mostly of questions concerning the internationalization
    of software, and those who got all the answer correct became eligble
    to win 14 pounds of "international" coffee.
    
    Question 24 asked, "What is a tatwheel?" and gave multiple choices
    relating to diacritical marks, and Arabic characters, as well as
    "None of the above."
    
    Now, I've been to Webster's International dictionary and observed
    that there is no entry whatsoever for "tatwheel." I content that
    this is a made-up word. What sayeth the readers of this conference?
    
    [Hopefully, the contest has ended by now so I'm not violating any
    rules by discussing this.]

Speaking of that internationalization "tatwheel" contest, did you look
carefully at the hebrew on the fold-out pamphlet ?  It's upside down!

Someone in Digital made a booboo.

/Eric

    Lets hope the IECG engineers better 'quality' into Digital products
    that they do to Digital pamphlets.

    ...is a typographical character used to justify ("stretch") Arabic
    words.  It's a horizontal line, and can be as long as you like.
    
    Jeff.

    In Alberta, Canada, after the fall in oil prices, it was decided
    that the scale of projects such as the Tar Sands was too large.
    These mega-projects involved billions of dollars and many years
    of reasonable income to turn a profit. Therefore, the obvious answer
    was to turn to mini-mega-projects!
    
    What can I say?
    
    Tim

    Then there's that little project that should have involved one person
    just a few man-days that was called a mini-project, which just goto
    totally out of hand .. took 20 people a year and cost 20 million
    ..
    
    A mega-mini-project
    

new words, from a mailing list I'm on...
     
Plasterscribble -- The irrational desire to write all sorts of tripe on
                   the cast on someone's broken bone
 
Rockyhorrosis -- The longing to repeatedly go to the same movie and
                 shout at the screen
 
Croquemia -- The generation of pleasure through hitting a ball through a
             small metal gate.
 
Premonstral -- the more accurate, but less widely used name of that 
    		syndrome women get just before their case of the monthlies.
    

Some new words from various sources.

	SKIPWITH - Describes the act of running down the stairs with your 
                   trousers around your ankles to answer the phone when there's
                   nobody in the house and you were in the toilet.

	SKIDDOO  _ You skidoo up the stairs when your assumptions about the 
                   being alone are proved false.

			( Both from the Comic Relief Christmas Book )

 TRILUPOPHOBIA   - The fear of being chased around a large wooden table by 
                   three wolves.

                         ( From a cartoon in some English newspaper )

In Ireland we have a group of people who live like European Gypsies. They 
prefer to live in caravans and travel from place to place. They like to be 
called Traveling People, but they are refered to by many other names, some of
them not very complimentary.

Two of these names are "Itinerants" and "Tinkers". They are not the best 
neighbours as they deal a lot in scrap metal and generally don't avail of 
refuse collections.

But now to the point of the story. In a recent Irish television 'soap', one 
of the principal characters, an interfering busy-body, refused to allow the
local priest to establish a halting site for these people  saying "Them 
ITINKERANTS are thieves and robbers, I'll be damned etc., etc...." 

Its a pretty descriptive word and it sounds great.

Hope the background info. wasn't too boring.

Kevin F.

.43�neighbours as they deal a lot in scrap metal and generally don't avail of 
.43�refuse collections.

    Kevin,
    
    Obviously you've never seen them out at the city rubbish tip on
    the Headford Road!!! ;-)
    
    Did you ever hear the expression 'he's like a tinkers dog, all
    flute and bone'!!!

    - Dave K.

    Two new words heard recently at a seminar.
    
    POSTVENTION this is obvious. The opposite of prevention.
    
    FATABILITY  As best as I can remember this is the possibility of
    something, usually an action, of being fatal. The example was something
    like 'The fatability of jumping off a building is relative to its
    height.'
    
    Roger

    Hmmm. I don't think I like those definitions. Try:
    
    POSTVENTION = what comes after a convention.
    
    FATALABILITY = the possibility of something being fatal.
        =
    
    FATABILITY = the chance of something being chancy.

    Fatability = the ability of a given food to put fat on the hips,
    measured on a scale of 1 (celery) to 10 (jelly donuts with sugar
    coating.)
    
    --bonnie

    re .48
    
    1-10 celery to doughnut  and cheesecake gets an 11 !
    

    I need a word to describe the spray the comes from peeling an orange.
    "Zest" is not right.  

    
    Wince.

    Well if it's a 'Jaffa' hows about 'Djew' :-)
    
    

    Zests are little curlicues of rind, that add flavor and color to
    foods.  How about a "mist" of orange oil?
                                            
    
    					andrew

    
    Dock off - run VAXDocument.  "I was in my office docking off."
    
    Obnox - appall, annoy, offend.  "I'm deeply obnoxed!"
    

I always liked:

	"frivial" - frivolous and trivial

and

	"Reprocrat" - a cross between an `elephant' and a `donkey',
	with overtones of "reprobate" 
	(which is what many of `them' are...)  ;^}

- Steve

    Re .57:
    
    Or the inverse - "trivolous" and "Dublican". [The latter makes me think
    of a pub owner in a large Irish city, which, depending on one's
    neighborhood, may be very close indeed to modelling the local
    politicians...]
    
    And how about "disk_colored", when one's directories begin filling up
    with <foo>color.dat files from all these gee-whiz, whiz-bang, bang-up
    3-D windows applications?
    
    -b

	I always liked:

		"fruitile" - fruitless and futile

	or, alternatively

		futless	

    I don't think I particularly like this, but it is interesting:
    
    	Mink Hole:  A rat hole that feels good
    
    --  Tracy

    
    Staying abreast of new words has been a pleasant challenge! ( or is
    that pheasant? )
    
    The word(change) du jour is "answerer".
    
    In the old days - probably last month - an answerer was called 
    an "answering machine". 
    
    Be warned! They may start calling a calculating machine a calculator!
    :-) 
     
    BTW, this weeks issue of the New York Times "On Language" has a timely
    piece on 'articles' as in "The Ukraine" vs "Ukraine". 
    jc

I don't know whether this is a new word, it is for me certainly.

But does anyone know the meaning and the derivation of the term "Spin Doctor".

It's being bandied around in the coverage of the UK Election like a lot.

Re .62,

A 'spin doctor' is someone who attempts to put a particular slant or
'spin' on a news story or event, in order to benefit a particular
candidate or party.

I'm afraid I can't help with the derivation, though.

Jon

Re  "Spin Doctor"

Ah, you benighted Brits are finally moving into the 20th century.	;<{)

During a political campaign in the United States, most discourse is provided 
by highly controlled candidate appearances staged to provide small, easily
digested media events that fit into the evening television news broadcasts. 
These nearly content-free, non-events are "photo ops" or "sound bites", other
terms which may be moving eastward across the Atlantic one of these decades. 

Occasionaly (not very often) reality intrudes.  Something embarassing or
substantive or real occurs.  This is to be avoided at all costs by the
candidate.  When it does happen, a damage control operation is mounted.  It is
important to avoid any discussion of factual issues, because it needlessly
confuses the voter.  There is an imperative to place the proper interpretation
or "spin" on these disturbing incursions into reality.  A whole class of
professionals, whose job is to convince the public and press that what they
just witnessed didn't happen at all, has appeared.  These are the "Spin
Doctors" of your question.

Spin Doctors rose to prominence during the '80 and '84 presidential campaigns.  
In all but the most controlled of circumstances, the senile Reagan would 
manage to implant his brogan firmly in his mouth.  You could tell, because 
there was always drool on his toes.  Spin doctoring became a fine art.

Larry

    The explanation in the previous reply is the one I'd use.
    
    As for derivation:  If you have access to the New York Times on
    microfilm, look through William Safire's "On Language" columns.  
    I know he's discussed it.
    
    If the microfilms are indexed, then your search might be shortened.
    
    					andrew

    But both plausible replies to this question have used
    quote
    `spin'
    endquote
    to mean `interpretation [put on a real event]'. I've met `angle' in
    this sense, and used `twist'.
    
    Oh what a tangled web we spin
    
    b

    
    I always thought the "spin" part referred to techniques used in certain
    games played with balls.  E.g., an expert player of tennis, ping-pong,
    and billiards uses spin to make certain shots do things they wouldn't
    otherwise.
    
    An American synonym for this sort of spin is "English," as in "he put
    English on the ball." Would that our candidates invested as much in
    English doctors...
    
    JP

    Do the English put "French" on a billiard ball?
    What do the French call it?

    Mr. Moderator, I was criticized in this very newsgroup for saying part
    of what .64 said.  Also I am engaged in correspondence with part of
    Digital's personnel department.  Their contention is that no defamatory
    statement may be made against any person, true or not.  Digital employees
    may go to fight wars against a person, with published support from
    Digital, but may not say in Digital's notes or e-mail what the reason
    was.  And even if a hypothetical politician calls one of his campaign
    promises a lie, we cannot quote him.
    
    Enforcement has not appeared to be consistent, and therefore I am
    continuing correspondence with the personnel department.  However,
    it does seem that the definition of "spin doctor" is supposed to be
    removed from this conference.  I think the question can remain though.
    
    Regrets,
    
    Norman Diamond

    Hmmm.  Is .69 an example of bad spin doctoring, or what?  From where I
    sit it looks like "just visiting this planet," i.e., in USA terms,
    "from out of left field."
    
    I feel like mass� has been applied to my head, let alone spin.
    
    ???!!???
                 Vas gibst denn hier?
    Dan

    Bertie Wooster, speaking of a tricky question he had asked, said
    `That one had a bit of top-spin on it' (or words to that effect).
    I suppose that sort of question is one that comes out of left field
    (or out of a clear blue sky).
    
    b

    Top spin is a technique used in cricket, snooker, billiards and, I
    suppose, pool.
    
    In cricket putting top spin on the ball means that when the ball
    strikes the ground it bounces higher than expected, creating greater
    difficulty for the batsman.
    
    Thus, for Bertie Wooster, a question with top spin is more difficult
    than expected.
    
    Nick
    
    BTW
    I'm not sure what top spin does in billiards etc, but I suspect that it
    makes the cue ball either stop faster on the rebound, or carries
    forward following a lighter ball-ball contact.

    	...  and tennis and ping pong.
    
    I thought top spin made the ball bounce with a smaller angle relative
    to the ground.  Under spin produced with a "cut" or "chop" makes the
    ball bounce with a larger angle relative to the ground.
    
    What is top spin in cricket?  The ball is pitched (bowled?) so that the
    top of the ball is traveling toward the wickets faster than the bottom
    of the ball?  That should make the ball bounce with a smaller angle to
    the ground than if it were not spinning.

    
    There are a few things going on here.  The main purpose of topspin in
    ping-pong and tennis is to cause the ball to curve downward such that
    it lands in-bounds (this is the same air-pressure phenomenon a baseball
    pitcher takes advantage of when throwing a curve).  Because the ball is
    curving downward, it actually strikes the surface at a steeper angle
    which can cause it to bounce higher. When you put topspin on a tennis
    serve it is called the  "American kick" and it really does bounce
    higher, so the effect of the steepened angle clearly overshadows the
    opposite tendency of the ball to bounce away at a shallower angle
    because of the spin itself.
    
    On a topspin forehand, you see the latter effect win -- it bounces at
    a shallower angle than expected.
    
    You see the same effect for a ping-pong "loop" shot, where you give the
    ball an outrageous amount of topspin on a soft lob.  The ball goes over
    in a lazy, high parabola, hits the table, and skates off at a very
    shallow angle.  Deadly...
    
    JP

    Re .70
    
    >Hmmm.  Is .69 an example of bad spin doctoring, or what?
    
    No.  Where .64 uses the word "senile", I had used the word "idiot", in
    this conference.  And I was criticized for it, in this very conference.
    
    The personnel department says that they prohibit any defamatory statement,
    even when true, against any person, in Digital notesfiles, e-mail, and
    business meetings.  The definition of "spin doctor" attributes improper
    motives to some political operators and thereby violates the personnel
    department's asserted policy.  Several of these replies must be deleted.
    
    (However, the question did not make any such attribution, and therefore
    need not be deleted, as far as I understand.)
    
    I have repeated an inquiry to the personnel department several times
    concerning inconsistent enforcement and other apparent contradictions,
    and have received a few responses, but no resolution yet.  However,
    several of the replies in this note clearly violate the asserted policy.
    
    Mr. Moderator, please respond.
    
    Regrets,
    Norman Diamond

    Calling somebody "senile" is not a matter of personal insult; it is
    strictly a matter of medical diagnosis.  If you say that somebody has
    influenza, that isn't an insult either; it's a medical condition.
    Similarly with drool on the toes.  If ex President Reagon happens to
    drool on his toes occasionally, then he is oral-retentively
    challenged,  and it would not be PC to say that constitutes an insult
    anymore than it is an insult to say that somebody with no legs is
    ambulatory challenged.

    Since the PP&P deal only with personal attacks and not with medical
    diagnoses, I see no problem with the note in question.
    
    If it would make you happy, I expect the author of the note would be
    perfectly willing to make appropriate PC substitutions.

    	I appear to still be on the moderator list, even though I no longer
    own the file.
    
    	My opinion is that it is within the scope of this file to define
    words, and give examples where they have been or might be used to help
    in understanding the definition. I can justify this with examples from
    dictionaries even where the word itself is often considered insulting.
    
    	Particularly in this case, where the definition seems to be along
    the lines of a TV presenter who is attempting to defuse an embarassing
    situation, any real example can hardly fail to mention the person who
    might have been embarassed and why. I don't see a need to provide a
    large number of examples, though, and would object to someone who
    seemed to be trying to push some political agenda by doing so.
    
    	Gratuitous insults are not within the scope of this file, and that
    was why I stopped the attempted word play on Saddam Hussein's name when
    I owned this file. That was obviously intended to be insulting because 
    of the attitude (at the time) of many U.S. citizens towards him, and 
    that there was no attempt to start the same game with "Brigitte Bardot" 
    (for example).

 re .77
   
>    If it would make you happy, I expect the author of the note would be
>    perfectly willing to make appropriate PC substitutions.

Sure Tom, here we go:

>Re  "Spin Doctor"

>
>
>
>
>		Lots of Politically Corect, non-defamatory stuff in here
>
>
>
>
>Spin Doctors rose to prominence during the '80 and '84 presidential campaigns. 
>In all but the most controlled of circumstances, the 
>
>
>		****INCREDIBLY WISE, SAGE, AND LUCID****
>
>
>Reagan would manage to implant his brogan firmly in his mouth.  You could 
>tell, because there was always drool on his toes.  Spin doctoring became a 
>fine art.
>
>Larry

Better?

Larry

PS Gee, and I thought you guys were annoyed because I called our UK participants
   "Brits".

    Personnel has confirmed that, even if a hypothetical politician calls
    his own campaign promise a lie, we cannot.
    
    In 1990 I used the word "idiot" where in 1992 someone else has used
    the word "senile."  These are both medical terms, and I was criticized
    in this conference for it.  In 1992, another Digital employee was at
    least warned, or perhaps worse, for posting similar remarks about
    another person, in a newsgroup that was created and named for exactly
    that purpose.
    
    I cannot tell you my opinion of Political Correctness.  My opinion is
    one that would violate Digital's rules if put in notes or e-mail.
      >> If it would make you happy, I expect the author of the note would
      >> be perfectly willing to make appropriate PC substitutions.
    It most certainly would not.  At first I was trying to argue in favor
    of free speech, limited only by laws against libel and the laws of
    some countries against hate based on ethnicity and other accidental
    groupings.  Personnel has rejected this.  At present I am only trying
    to argue for consistency, since I believe that Digital has violated
    its own rules.  Of course I still prefer free speech.
    
    Incidentally, the rulers of most countries are about as popular among
    their own citizens as the two in particular who have been named in this
    discussion and a few others who haven't been named.  I still believe
    that one of those rulers did not need to be singled out for protection.
    But this is a secondary matter, for the time being.
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    Norman:
    
    Life *isn't* fair.  
    
    					andrew

    What does "anal-retentive" mean (other than constipated)?
    
    Mike

    Freud had a theory about human personality development in which 
    the primary center of emotional power moved as people aged.
    
    Newborns were concentrated on oral sensation, toddlers on
    anal control, and adults on genital activity.
    
    If you failed to leave a previous stage, then you would be
    <previous-stage-name>-retentive: you would retain the interests
    and motivations and emotions appropriate to a younger age.
    
    Thus an adult who was anal-retentive would be overly concerned
    with issues of control and cleanliness, and insufficiently
    concerned with issues of love and intimacy with equals.
    
    The term has been misused as a general pejorative and the 
    underlying theory is considered to be a bit of an
    over-simplification.
    
    			-John Bishop

>    If you failed to leave a previous stage, then you would be
>    <previous-stage-name>-retentive: you would retain the interests
>    and motivations and emotions appropriate to a younger age.
    
	Hmmm, how then would you define anal-expulsive?

		-- Cliff

    Thank you for the explanation..
    
    Just one more question; where do systems analysts fit into things?
    
    Mike

    >Just one more question; where do systems analysts fit into things?
    
    When not in Digital notesfiles, e-mail, or business meetings, we
    say what some of those systems really are   :-)

	From "Damia" by Anne Macaffery (sp?).  

	I think it's a neat word. Wish I had thought of it :-)

kbear

re:  Coolth

15 years ago, a friend told me "Cleanth is next to Godth!"

JPB

David Brin uses the words fem and mel to refer to humans in SF novels. These 
terms are used by other species in referring to individual humans. Man is 
used as the species name.

Wook

    Thought you might enjoy a ships log unencumbered by conventional
    language.. Gloucester down east  for 15 days
    
    
                              Lewis Carol's Trip
    
    
    
                            Bob Ericson, logawrite
    
    The "Heart of Gold" and "Sea Wings'" Venture
    From Gloucesterport to Downeastenture
    
    Off the roarshore in the shimershine light.
    Frothed the windships into the moonight.
    The whaleblows puffed and porpabatics
    While Seaeagles soar and chirpachatic.
    
    The sogmist swirled and sodden sesnses
    Blindlight brilled our eyetenses.
    Brillybrine spume swashed and sprayed
    With gustiforce blowies on glimmergline days.
    
    Fisherport landings and touristangle troves
    Quiet kerplankerages in soliquitous coves
    Thus did Sea Wing flightel with the tall sailooners
    And Heart of Gold gambol in the sunshooners.
    
    The canlendercalled its warnword
    So we boatlbobbed on homeward.
    Rigright lines and shipsalone
    Snugsafe in its portalome.
             

    
    Alert! 
    
    When a duplex is condo-ized, the resulting single unit becomes a 
    
    >> condex <<. [ Ed. Note: Sheesh! ]
    
    jc 
    
    

Cover artitle in a special section of "Modern Materials Handling" for May
1996: "2-D bar codes speed eyeglass lens sortation".

___Pete

    What does "Heterosexism" mean?

    Re .93
    
    > What does "Heterosexism" mean?
    
    According to the American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition:
    
    	Discrimination or prejudice against gay or homosexual people by
    	heterosexual people.

  I thought that was homophobe (not sure of spelling).  Which made me think
  if there is a homophobe there must be a heteraphobe.

  	mikeP

    Re .95
    
    Heterosexism is a synonym for homophobia.  Homophobia implies a hatred
    or fear of homosexuals; heterosexism is discrimination or prejudice
    that is not necessarily born of fear or hatred.
    
    An analogy can be drawn with the more usual form of sexism, which is
    discriminatory treatment of women by our society, which is essentially
    male-oriented.  Heterosexism, then, would be discrimination against
    homosexuals based simply on cultural mores or stereotypes.

Since ...

sexism is discrimination on the basis of sex, and ...
racism is discrimination on the basis of "race" and ...
ageism is discrimination on the basis of age, then ...

discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation should be

sexual orientationism. This, of course, doesn't have the same ring to it.
Can the august minds of this conference come up with a more euphonious
alternative? Will they? That's what enquiring minds want to know.

Wook

    G'day,
    
     how's about   'Xessexism'? since it features two orientations of
    'sex'?
    
    
    dj

    A few weeks ago, the English football team was involved in some unseemly
    behaviour on an aeroplane. An apologist from the Football Association
    appeared on the radio to explain why it was really quite reasonable
    that these people, who are idolised by much of English youth, should
    drink themselves senseless and cause various criminal damage to a
    commercial passenger aircraft.
    
    He was very affronted that the media should have "lamblasted" these
    unfortunate fellows.
    
    Perhaps it was just as well that they weren't actually lamblasted -
    that could have left them unfit to put the fine performance they
    managed at Euro '96.
    
    Andy.

    re. racism
    
    Can anybody help me understand the etymology of racism and racialism. 
    I've checked my Chambers 20th Century Dictionary and it gives the one
    as a synonym for the other with no etymological explanation.  
    
    Is there anyody out there with a more august work (OED might be
    favourite) or a better grasp of language who can explain where two such
    similar words, with apparently similar meanings, come from?
    
    Jon

The Concise Oxford gives:

racialism ....  [from racial + ISM]

racism 1. = prec, 2. theory that human abilities etc. are determined
	by race. 3. Hence ~IST   [from race(3) + ISM]

now racial is [from race(3) + IAL]

and race(3) has [French from Italian razza, of unknown origin]

Peter
(still waiting for a dump to finish)