Col Man are you teasing the colonists?
How about Combe? in the west country it is a common part of place names and means a steep valley, often going down to the sea.
Cwm is the Welsh equivalent.
both pronounced the same way as coom
Word of today:
Ochre.
Oh I love the taste of it.
Vlogger
First we had "web logger", or "blogger" (http://quinion.com?A27V),
for a person who creates Web pages called "blogs", that contain
diary entries detailing their activities, interests or thoughts on
life. The concept was extended by adding photographs (often taken
using the camera functions of mobile phones, so it's often called
"moblogging"), then sound (which some call "audio blogging", though
there doesn't seem to be a common abbreviation for it).
In the past year or so, some bloggers have experimented with video,
taking advantage of cheap digital camcorders to provide a kind of
continuing television news report on personal events. Obviously
enough, this is called "video blogging" or "video weblogging",
"vlogging" for short, with the person creating the "vlog" being the
"vlogger". Many observers feel that it will be slow to catch on,
because the tools are relatively expensive, video demands too much
bandwidth to transmit, and - above all - too few potential vloggers
have the technical skills to make watchable recordings. I've never
heard any of these words, but I assume they're all said with an
initial "v", for example, "vee-logger".
An extension of blogging is to collect, display and store all types
of digital information about one's life in a single place for one's
family and friends to access. Such a collection has been called a
"lifelog", though trendwatching.com recently dubbed it "life
caching". One pundit sourly remarked that it was an excellent way
of proving to everyone how boring one's life really is.
>>> From the Guardian, 7 Aug. 2004: In its most basic form,
vlogging does not require very hi-tech equipment: a digital video
camera, a high-speed connection and a host are all that is needed.
>>> From Time, 19 Apr. 2004: Jeff Jarvis, an early champion of
vlogging and founder of BuzzMachine.com, a blog that deals with
politics and the media, sees great potential in the phenomenon.
"Vlogs are a weird, new kind of way that people can document their
lives," says Jarvis.
World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2004. All rights
reserved. The Words Web site is at <http://www.worldwidewords.org>.
Word for Aug. 30: Spifflicate
To treat roughly or severely; destroy.
The dictionary senses given for this now rather rare word hardly do
justice to a slang term that has had several meanings. Its origins
lie in the eighteenth century in Britain, though where its first
users got it from remains a mystery. The experts hazard a guess
that it was probably a fanciful conflation - suggestions include
"stifle" + "suffocate" and "spill" + "castigate". You can spell it
with one "f" or two, as the fancy takes you, though when it first
appeared it had only one.
Over half a century, it rapidly developed from its initial sense of
"confound, silence or dumbfound", through "handle roughly or treat
severely", to "crush, destroy or kill". T W E Holdsworth borrowed
the last of these in Campaign of the Indus of 1840: "Of the enemy,
about 500 were killed, and more than 1500 made prisoners; and of
the remainder, who made their escape over the walls, the greater
part were cut down by the Dragoons, or spifflicated by the
Lancers." Despite these gory associations, by about 1900 it had
softened in Britain into a jokey term for some unspecified but
vaguely unpleasant punishment with which one might threaten a
naughty child ("I'll spifflicate you if you won't be quiet!").
In America at around the same date, the word took on another sense
still, that of being drunk. An early example is from the sporting
section of the Washington Post of July 1904: "They forced his teeth
open, and, while a couple of them sat on his chest, they poured
about a quart of corn liquor into his system. He was so
spifflicated before they let him up that they had to lift him
bodily and plant him in a seat."
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World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2004. All rights
reserved. The Words Web site is at <http://www.worldwidewords.org>.
Ah, this thread is reviving. Good show, Col!
Casuistry:
Some say this is one of the main concepts lacking in today's Islamic (Shar'ah) Law and is responsible for its medieval "feel". (Stoning women who are unfaithful to their spouses, etc.) Alternatively, Judaic law has traditionally depended heavely upon its employment. Shar'ah is presently considerd "Divine Law" which accounts for its present inflexibilty.
JM
