Welcome to Litsy!

Today‘s #weirdword is for the birds. Gorget refers to a piece of armor protecting the throat, but it is also a common word to describe the patch of feathers on hummingbird necks. Having lived on the east coast of the US all my life, I have never seen any hummingbirds apart from the Ruby-throated, but I discovered the Cornell Lab Bird Cams the other day and now I‘m obsessed with watching them zoom and hover in all their iridescent splendor. ⬇️

I picked this book up for a bit of research on a short story I‘m writing and I‘m learning a lot (and becoming a bit more paranoid with each page). One cyber, or information, security term that came up is “zero-days.” These are flaws in software or hardware which make every user around the world vulnerable. They‘re named because the targets of attack have zero days to come up with a defense. These are scary! #weirdwords #weirdwordWednesdays
@CBee

There‘s been a few #weirdwords sprinkled throughout White‘s essays, but a recent one that I never heard before was the phrase “shoe hockeys.” I tried searching the term but it was unproductive. I‘m thinking he‘s either describing skates that you attach to the bottoms of shoes or, as he mentions later in the paragraph, a pair of skates. Anyone else heard this phrase before? Is it a retronym? @dabbe
#weirdwordWednesdays @CBee

I haven‘t been doing as much reading lately. So, for this week‘s #weirdwords, I‘m going to dip into my Greek language class again, since it‘s taking up most of my brain space anyway. The word on my mind is περίπτερο which is the word for kiosk. What‘s interesting is it‘s an architectural word that has been in use since antiquity and can describe the Parthenon, an open building surrounded by columns. #weirdwordWednesdays @CBee

I am not very sports-literate these days. While reading Elliot Page‘s memoir today, this word stopped me in my tracks. I played football (soccer) in elementary school so I should know better…
#weirdwords #weirdwordwednesdays @CBee

Seeing a post earlier from @Bookwomble reminded me about kennings, those metaphorical compound words used in Old English and Norse poetry. Think “earth-stepper” to mean wanderer, etc. As expressed above, “we can only speak of what we do not know in terms of what we know.” I learned about these delightful constructs in a college course on Tolkien- I‘ve been filled with fond memories all day.

#weirdwords @CBee #WeirdWordWednesdays

#weirdwords #weirdwordwednesdays @CBee

My new favorite word has to be interstices! A few months ago I went searching for a word to describe exactly this, not sure one it actually existed, and since then it‘s popped up several times.

I am loving #weirdwordwednesdays. If you are on Instagram, this page is fun to follow. https://instagram.com/stories/the.language.nerds/3149770572638987200?igshid=MTc4...