Sorry Les, my internet kept crashing, so I kept posting before I had finished so I didn't lose it! Sorry!!

Exactly. Precisely. Indeed.

Who saw that spoofy movie on Sherlock Holmes and Watson with Michael Caine as Sherlock? What a silly delight!

Hello Les and all!

The gaunlett thrown down is picked up Senor Mexico! Choose your weapon. Next week is mine to use them words in one sentence ... so look out for it on Friday and note you are on. Now I wonder what Jeeves and Man Friday would have had in common?

And I agree with the posts above - keep those words coming! Thrasonical? Barmecidal? Say those with a hot potato in your mouth and I would guess that you would get the job ... ah, English as she is spoke is such fun, but guess that any language offers the same enjoyment to a native speaker or 'mother tongue speaker' as we say here in SA.

Now there is a new RANDOM THOUGHT.

Who reads the dictionary for fun?

And if 'you' learn a new word, do you use it as a matter of course or do you leave it because maybe your friends won't know it and they will just think you are talking posh and acting funny and taking a fancy road for why? And so to the dumbing down of the world to the lowest common denominator.

I remember a sentence that sprang out at me once from the movie I think was called Death in Venice about I think the life and thoughts of Mahler. If I am wrong no matter for the context here. It went something like ... 'at the bottom of the mainstream lies mediocrity.'

Is there safety in being average? Is there comfort when we are sort of the same? Is not rocking the boat the easy way to take? Is it really that difficult being a tall Poppy? Are we not tempted to cut all the tall poppies in our lives down?

'The answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind.'

Cheers to us all I say!

Groan, Bob Dylan will he haunt me forever?!

I would hate to be average, I have spent my life rocking boats and (love this phrase Lestie) have been a tall Poppy (hehe) all of my life.

At times I have had to dumb down my language as the people around me spoke English as a second language, and would have had no idea what 'barmecidal' meant and how would I have explained it, when even illusory would mean nothing to them? Like I said, I had to look one of them there words up!

I always put a dot next to a word I have to look up in a my dictionary. If I look up a word already 'dotted', I give myself a mental slap to remember it next time.

I am looking forward to this word filled sentence.

Hi Lestie, Linda and all,

Linda excellent job on misandry. The only way that I can remember that word is by using a mnemonic (or is that pneumonic?) technique by showing what a cultural highbrow I am and thinking of Beaver Cleaver's teacher, Miss Landers. Of course then, perhaps you will perceive me as being ethnocentric or even jingoistic in presuming that someone from GB or SA or Indonesia knows about that American cultural iconic tv show "Leave it to Beaver."

At any rate, I hate neither men or women- I just hate grade inflation which is the curse of the American school and university system. Banality be thy name!

Lestie since you aspire to be more than just my (wo)Man Friday, go ahead and give me/us your best (no mediocrity accepted in our cyberspaceland) shot, lingustically speaking.
Since I am the antithesis of a polyglot, en ingles por favor.

Ahhh yes, hopefully "the answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind" whether or not that one believes that they are or are not "knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door" or whether or not one feels that we as a planet are or are not "on the eve of destruction" er I mean dystopia.

I have a confession to make. By the 7th grade my classmates were calling me a "walking dictionary" (which in years to come my performance on the SATs would really shoot down that theory) when all that I really wanted out of life was to become the best stickball player in the annals of Devotion playground history.

At any rate, what is your favorite oxymoron? For Linda perhaps it might be an ethical scientist while for Lestie perhaps it might be an honest politician but let's allow everybody to speak for themselves about their favorite without feeling the need to dumb it all down.

I remember very clearly, it was 1979 and as a chef I had the audacity to use the word "affable" when speaking to two waitresses, Nancy and Ellie, who (whom?- I never said that I was good at grammar!) which up to that time I had an excellent working relationship with. Their response was that I was "trying to show us up and put us down." Huh??? and I thought that I was just trying to be pleasant and friendly. Oh well, as Bob Dylan er I mean (even though "Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan's shoes wearing his disguise) my favorite philosopher Ricky Nelson would say, "it's all right now, I learned my lesson well, you see you can't please everyone, you got to please yourself... la da da da..."

Time now for me to ruminate about the meaning of my existence...

Excellent piece of prose Les.

My favorite oxymoron? I was once called a 'genuine imitation of my sister' but my favorite is Hell's Angels! Cheesy smile!

Thanks Linda,

Prose? And I thought that I was just tangentially pontificating in a verboise, nondescript, self-deprecating (or was that self-aggrandizing or thrasonical?) and idiosyncratic sort of way.

Loved your oxymorons. At least you did not say a "decent and caring Republican" as someone that I know very well might be prone to do from a left-sided and polarizing point of view.
Or, oh Lestie, let's not worry about my skating on thin ice as this is afterall the A/A forum and truth guiding "the way" be told, a "freethinking born again Christian."

Les, you just made me burst into some spontaneous laughter! Your favorite philosopher! I am still smiling. Although, I did enjoy that song, and I find that last line both interesting and true. Maybe I'll make that my theme at school this year. Grins. Love your song references.

Connie, just look at the lyrics of "Travelin' Man" and you will know what i mean about RN being a philosopher well beyond Platonian or Kantian thought! Think of the symbolism inherent in the phrase "Honolulu Lulu." It's just mind boggling and mind expanding!
Seriously, I love your proposed school theme as it is much more developmentally responsible than "let's go follow the leader, the leader, the leader..."

Military Intelligence? Terribly kind? Nearly ready? Anonymous friend? Bad luck? Clear indication? Constant change? Even odds? Free gift? Friendly enemy (aka as Frenemy) Inside out? Mild abrasive (as in scouting powder adverts). Pleasant/Friendly chef (as in Shulman). I have a broad grin as I write that last one...my experience of holiday resort chefs in busy kitchens evoke pictures of being chased out by a knife yielding head chef because I was bugging him at the wrong time!! I can't think of any more right now but there must be many many many and more.

And to add some of my favourite portmaneau words (joined to produce new words and connected concepts) Propertunities (Name of an Esate Agent /Realty company)... Shoeligans (name of a childrens' shoe shop in the UK); c'mon guys there are so many of these too.

You are right for sure about honest politician Les (none exists for me) but there is a balance with many - we have Dictatorial Democratic thinking here in SA. Ho Ho. And no, I am not Father Christmas or Mrs Santa or a gobliness. EEK! Maybe I am a gobliness?

BTW Nancy and Ellie are the whom as they are the object of that sentence. To Whom it may concern? Ya know that heading on those anonymous, use all, general style references us old timers used to write? To 'whom' is the Object of the sentence and the 'it' (being the reference) is the Subject. Don't know if your comment requested a direct answer but there it is anyway, so just reject as you see fit.

I love English and grammar constructs, and of course, if a person has ever learnt Latin, then a lot of the structure of the language is easier to explain. I love was it Winston Churchill or Oscar Wilde or Bernard Shaw? - you know one of those who (like Confucius were supposed to have said everything next to Shakespeare), on noting that an English sentence should never end with a prepostion as in "It is not something I would put up with" said "Well it would, if grammar rules were strictly applied read "It is something up with which I would not put." Gotta smile! There are people who still speak like this.

Mnemonics ...
See Miss Hill Eat Oranges for the great lakes of America ... and Bless My Dear Aunt Sally for arithmetical computations. Those are the only two I rememeber that I can quote on this family forum!

Linda, like Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan will haunt us all forever. It is one of his purposes I guess! Grin.

Y'all go well now and cheers

OOPS! Free Gift is Tautology not an oxymoron.

Cheers