Quote of the Day: David Foster Wallace

"A usage dictionary is one of the great bathroom books of all time."
--David Foster Wallace

I agree.

Random Sequence: Finical

"A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, fifthly-worsted-stocking knave; a lilly-livered, action-taking, whoreson glass-gazing super serviceable finical rogue, one-trunk-inheriting slave."
--William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 2, Scene 2

finical (adjective) = finicky, fussy

When Shakespeare insults, he really insults, wielding his pen like a scimitar.

Random Sequence: Quiddities and Quillets

"There's another; why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?"
--William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1

quiddities (noun,plural of quiddity) = quibbles, objections
quillets (noun, plural of quillet) = subtle distinctions

Lawyers -- always mincing words. Unlike me, of course....

Quote of the Day: Unusual Usage

"A usage dictionary is one of the great bathroom books of all time. Because it has the appeal of trivia, the entries are for the most part brief, and you end up within 48 hours — due to that weird psychological effect — actually drawing on exactly what you learned in some weird, coincidental way."
—David Foster Wallace

Random Sequence: skimble-skamble

"...sometimes he angers me With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant, Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies, And of a dragon, and a finless fish, A clip-wing’d griffin, and a moulten raven, A couching lion, and a ramping cat, And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff, As puts me from my faith."
--William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, Act 3, Scene 1

skimble-skamble (noun) = nonsense or rambling

I bet you're wondering what a "moldwarp" is and what a "ramping" cat is doing. Maybe later.

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Random Sequence: oppugnancy

"Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe...."
--William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act 1, Scene 3

oppugnancy (noun) = contrariness, opposition, antagonism

Our politics today is full of oppugnancy. But wasn't it always?

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Random Sequence: othergates

"If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me. I think you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. Here comes Sir Toby halting. You shall hear more. But if he had not been in drink, he would have tickled you othergates than he did."
--Twelfth Night, Act 5, Scene 1, William Shakespeare

othergates (adverb) = otherwise or in another manner

I feel strangely drawn to this obsolete word.

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Quote of the Day: Shakespeaere on Gay Marriage

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

--William Shakespeare

paraphrase and analysis

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