Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
I’ve used this on Facebook referring to people who claim to blog or have a blog because they use Facebook. Of course, since Facebook is invisible and merely repackages and resells anything I post to it, I decided to coin it on the internet as well:
“I will shoot them with my sword.”
“I shoot them with my sword.”
“I shot them with my sword.”
There, I feel much better.
Definitely a word you should know. Goes hand in hand with “sodomy with a mullet.”
“The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the somtam.”
Bamafutication: Claiming that the commander-in-chief had “nothing to do” with a military operation targeting the most wanted man in the world.
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You’re just angry you missed the Apprentice.
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UPDATE: Out of many, this is the best.
This video of a Korean English teacher explaining choice bits of slang and expletives had me snorting with laughter:
My favorite ESL-related clip of all time, though, is Harold Ramis’s opening scene in Stripes (I can’t believe it’s almost 30 years old – I remember watching it at the drive in with my parents):
n : gastrointestinal symptoms caused by undigested wax esters (Gempylotoxin) of the oilfish or butterfish (that is contained in their natural diet but remain in their muscle tissue) which may include oily orange diarrhea, discharge, or leakage from the rectum that may smell of mineral oil. The discharge can stain clothing and occur without warning 30 minutes to 36 hours after consuming the fish. The oil may pool in the rectum and cause frequent urges for bowel movements due to its lubricant qualities and may be accidentally discharged by the passing of gas. Symptoms may occur over a period of one or more days. Other symptoms may include stomach cramps, loose bowel movements, diarrhea, headaches, nausea, and vomiting.
To minimize the risk of symptoms, strict control of portion size is recommended as well as preparation methods that remove some of the oil (e.g. grilling). Portions should be no greater than 6 ounces.
Compiled from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escolar
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By the way, the Wikipedia article contends that escolar (a kind of snake mackerel) is different than oilfish (also a kind of snake mackerel; more on this later). The Radar article I linked in my first escolar post made it sound as if they were the same. Actually, it turns out that butterfish is sometimes labeled as oilfish although it isn’t any more oilfish than oilfish is Orange Roughy. Is it just me, or does someone at the FDA have to get off their ass and stop allowing every fucking semi-deep water fish (plus a few others) to be called Orange Roughy/Red Snapper/Sea Bass? Especially a fish that, as it turns out, was not only banned in Japan but also in Italy? These are two countries that know a bit about fish, yo…
Anyway here’s the classification breakdown according to Wikipedia:
ESCOLAR (butterfish)
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Gempylidae
Genus: Lepidocybium
(Gill, 1862)
Species: L. flavobrunneum
Binomial name: Lepidocybium flavobrunneum
(Smith, 1843)
OILFISH
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Gempylidae
Genus: Ruvettus
Species: R. pretiosus
Binomial name: Ruvettus pretiosus
(Cocco, 1833)
Sometimes getting a comment on a post I wrote long ago when I was insane really makes my day: Scalpulation
The really puzzling thing is that since I broke my sidebar, there really is no way to get to that post except by stumbling onto it, or perhaps googling for that imaginary word that I made up in a fit of weirdness. That’s really cool.
Almost as cool as applicosinox.
Someone at work asked me what this phrase meant the other day. I just got around to looking it up. It refers to the weather condition when it is sunny but raining. I never knew there was a term for it. I always just thought of it as “Hawaii weather.” Apparently, the following phrases also mean the same thing:
“foxes are on a marriage parade”
“witches are doing their wash”
“a tailor is going to hell”
(source)
To these, I would add another:
“The Big Monkey in the Sky Is Peeing on Us, Violently”
Mine makes a hell of a lot more sense than that foxes’ marriage parade bullshit. Fucking illogical weather arcana!
UPDATE: Duh, I completely forgot the term “sunshowers.”
(Sanskrit) [Also nirvanee, nirvanin] One who enters, or has entered, nirvana.
We still can’t figure out why Beat Takeshi had Iranian factory workers greeting each other with this word in the movie “minna yatteruka.” It bears further inspection.
Today’s New Word is: Applicosinox. Applicosinox made its debut about five years ago in a song recorded by Taro and I in his old juku (cram school). I made it up to fill a particular line in the song and it fit perfectly. Applicosinox is spiced wine made from apples that makes your nose itch and causes sneezing if you drink too much. On the plus side, your eyes start glowing like Dune if you drink more than a cup a day.
A search for this word on Google used to return a lot more hits than it does now. In particular, I remember it being researched on a linguistics department website of some university in Tokushima. Wonder where all that went…
Well I thought of a new pursuit and went ahead with it before it escaped my memory (volatile). Now I should explain: When learning a new language, I often experience meltdown trying to think of the English equivalent of a particular word or phrase. Since I am a product of American public schools (K-12) and Japanese university, I am pretty much the stupidest, laziest, least-inclined-to-use-a-dictionary fool you will ever meet. Hence, my need to create new words, even if they already exist. OK?
FAQ:
Q. Can your New Words be used for free?
A. No. Every spoken usage costs a beer. Every written usage costs a car (scaled to wealth of individual; Bill Gates can afford a lousy Maybach, etc.). Corporate usage is banned unless your company markets trendy fruits such as the pitaya to medium-sized co-op grocery chains in the northwest.
Q. Are volume discounts available?
A. See your monthly statement and perform a quick scalpulation.
Q. I represent so-and-so publishing. May we include your New Words in our dictionary/linguistics journal/”Asshat Central” project listing?
A. Yes, but please include the following tagline: –> k0zBu 0NZ J00!
Q. What if you create a word but it already exists?
A. It becomes mine by default.
Q. Won’t that enable you to claim the entire English language as your own?
A. Heh.
Q. This sounds like complete BS, just how many people do you expect to pay you to use the English language?
A. My Nigerian mentor, Roberl Dungabe, says “plenty.”
The new word for today is “scalpulation.” Scalpulation is an answer or calculation derived by much head-scratching, chin-fondling, and mutterings of the word “Um”.