The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

This page is where I'll post definitions of things I only just found out or I'm unsure of. I'll update this post a lot more often than other posts.

Also, see my meanings of various foreign words post and my questions and answers post

Arithmetic - seems to be a loose term for basic maths, essentially. Includes:

• Adding (the first basic operation of arithmetic)
• subtracting (opposite of adding)
• multiplying (2nd basic operation of arithmetic)
• dividing (opposite of multiplication).

Arkanhall / Arkansolm - This word was in my head today. Googling it reveals it doesn't have a meaning! So either it's a word I completely made up (if so, good job me, it's a great-sounding word) or there's a similar word out there with a meaning to it. I think it sounds like an asylum. Arkham Asylum from Batman is very similiar...

 

Athero Sounds like a Greek god. Athero looks similar to Aether, the matter that heaven is made of (?). Atherosclerosis is when atheroma (a build-up of cholestrol) builds up inside arteries. And Athero is also a computer hardware company so maybe I saw it there.

Babylon - You know that biblical-sounding song that goes 'By the rivers Babylon, where we sat down, and where we wept, as we remembered Zion'? I just found out, it's almost identical to Psalm 137:1. So it is biblical. Babylon was an city in Mesopotamia - a long, long time ago. 'It was under the rule of king Nebuchadrezzar II (605 BC-562 BC) that Babylon became one of the most splendid cities of the ancient world'. And remember, the hanging gardens of Babylon were there. According to this website Babylon lasted over 2000 years, though it was destroyed and rebuilt a few times. Essentially, Babylon was one of history's 'great cities'.

Bigamy - getting married again whilst already married. In America it's called polygamy and is illegal. Poly = many and gamy = marriage? So 'bigamy' might mean '2 marriages'.

Burns' night -  a Scottish special day. When is it? Who is 'Burns'? Robert Burns is a Scot poet and the night is his birthday, 25th January.

Caveat - a warning, apparently. Looks similar to the word caviar.

Coal - Basically, a naturally occuring thing that makes a lot of heat when on fire. It's quite common too. You can make coal fires to keep warm, or to power steam turbines. It's probably 'more efficient' than wood.

Corporal punishment - punishment by pain. E.g. hitting someone / whacking a ruler across knuckles / 'the cane'. Compare this to capital punishment, which is death.

Escrow - An escrow is when a third party looks after money and pays it when a job is done. E.g. someone hires you to do a job, and when you're finished they won't give you the money. Well an escrow avoids this situation by having a third party handle the money from the beginning, who would pay it to you when the job is done. Also, an escrow is some kind of bank account on the same theme; i don't really understand it. 'Close the escrow account!'.

Fraud - a deliberate deception for someone's gain at someone else's expense

Gargamel - a great word. It's the name of the antagonist in the smurfs.

Huckleberry - This is a word that keeps cropping up. I remember it most from an episode of The Simpsons where a song ends, 'my huckleberry friend'. It's a plant that has berries. Ok, maybe I misheard the lyrics and it was 'my huckleberry finn' instead. I've never read the books he's in, and I'm surprised that they're the same as the ones (the fictional) Tom Saywer is in.

Iceberg theory - A theory in fiction writing, where most of the facts aren't mentioned, or only alluded to.

Isle - another name for an island, usually a small island. E.g. the add-on pack for the game Oblivion, 'Shivering Isles'.

Jal - A word of this brevity is bound to mean a few things. I like it and I'd used it for a name in a sci-fi story.

Kumquat - I think it's a fruit? Yes, it's like an orange but the size of an olive.

Lahore - a genuinely funny word, because it sounds like it's French for 'the whore'. I imagine a enamoured frenchman breathlessly whispering 'la whore...'.

It's the 2nd largest city in Pakistan.

I thought it was the name of Renaissance painter for some reason, but it seems I was wrong.

Marauder - Someone who roams around, and pillages villages. Hey, that part rhymed.

Mesopotamia - An area in Western Asia. Essentially, 'the middle east'. I like to think of it as being inbetween Europe, Africa and Far Asia. Wikipedia says it's the area between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, though I think it can be the area around them them too. Iraq is one of the countries there today.

Minimax & maximin - The minimax is the lowest (minimum) number out of a group of largest (maximum) numbers. E.g. There are 2 groups of numbers: 3, 6, 7 and 1, 2, 9. The 'maximum numbers' in each group are 7 and 9. The mininum number from these is 7 - and this is known as the 'minimax'. Maximin means the opposite. It's the maximum number out of a group of smallest numbers.

misogynist - someone who hates women. Also, there's misandry, the hatred of men.

Overheads - all ongoing costs for a company. E.g. labour, supplies, electricity bills

Why are we still paying so much for sneakers when you got little kid slaves making them - what are your overheads?

pasturisation - heating food for a few seconds to kill off the pathogens. E.g. milk is heated to around 77 celcius for 16 seconds. I would have thought this would have the effect of cooking the food, but I guess not since it's only for a few seconds.

parsec - Sounds like a scifi word - I'm guessing it's a unit of time? I'm wrong, it's like lightyear in that it's a unit of distance. It's 3.26 lightyears, actually. I guess lightyear is the more popular unit.

phthalate - I like this word because I have no idea how to pronounce the beginning of it. Pith, perhaps? Phthalates are used in plastics and have a bad rep because of health concerns (similar to the situation in the past with asbestos?).

Pole position - the front (and best) position at the start of a (driving) race

Protaganist & antagonist - basically, goody and baddy.

Requiem - a musical service for the dead. Brrrr.

Sequoia is a large redwood tree. I like the word, partly because it's hard to spell.

Suliban - the name of an alien race that keeps popping up in my head. They're the antagonists in Star Trek: Enterprise, series 3(?), and they have a cool name.

sycophant - as well as being a nice-sounding word, it means someone who uses (false) flattery to gain favour

tiramisu - An Italian cake. 

treason - committed by traitors. High treason is treason against your own country

Xanadu - I like this word because 1) it begins with an X, 2) it sounds good, and 3) the vowels and constonants are in a pattern.

Xanadu was a Chinese province,  best known for where Kublai Khan (grandson of Genghis) had a nice garden. it was also his 'summer capital' for a while. A summer capital is where the officials (including the King or Prime Minister) go when the weather gets too hot.

Today the ancient city in what used to be Xanadu is nothing more than ruins.

Bibical words

Armageddon - a future biblical event where Jesus will battle the anti-christ (also, see Rapture)

Nimrod - I heard it used on the Sopranos. In America, it means an idiot. In the Bible, he's an evil person. He helped build the tower of babel. Backwards, the word is 'dormin', the antagonist in the memorable game Shadow of the Collosus.

Rapture - a future biblical event where all christians will be sent up to heaven (also, see Armageddon)

Tower of Babel - After Noah's biblical food, his descendents were a united humanity. They spoke the same language and worked together to achieve the same goal - to build a tower to reach the heavens. God didn't like this - he felt humanity was too powerful - so he scattered them across the Earth. This made their languages different, or else God magically made them speak different languages. It's a story explaining the origin of all the different languages. 'Babel' comes from the ancient hebrew 'balal', meaning 'to jumble'. Also, a story of God vs humanity (God always wins).

Yahweh - the jewish god. The christian god is Jehovah, and the muslim god is Allah.