Exegesis

Exegesis is the process or act of interpreting (Biblical) texts. Or, more generally, the art of close reading and thorough researching the original meaning of a text in order to interpret it. We often do this for poetry, but for fiction it works as well to tease out the effect of certain words or phrases, uses of repetition, references to earlier events in the text or hints about what is to come.

Abuelita

The grandfather of a young American blogger whose blog I visited the other day has been taken into hospital with heart problems. There were concerns that her Abuelita would not be able to look after him when he came out of hospital. The blogger is part Mexican and Abuelita is the Spanish word for "grandma" (literally translated as "little grandmother"). The male is Abuelito. I love those names – so much better than boring old Grandma and Grandpa.

Abuelita is also the name of a famous brand of chocolate tablets made by Nestlé and used to make Mexican-style hot chocolate.

In the meantime, learning about words apart, I hope Abuelito improves.

Smeg

smeg - A fun, little, futuristic curse word created by Grant Naylor in ‘Red Dwarf’ that can be used in a variety of colourful ways (usually by Lister – played by Craig Charles in the television series). I love the word.


“Rimmer, you are a smeghead! “
“Because we haven't budged a smegging inch! “
“What the smeg is going on? “
“Oh smeg, not again! “
“Rimmer, smeg off! “

Take down a peg

To 'take down a peg (or two)' is to lower someone's high opinion of themselves. Ever wondered where it comes from?

Various quantities and qualities have been measured by the use of pegs. It has been suggested that the pegs in question here were those used to regulate the amount of drink taken from a barrel, or those that controlled the hoisting of the colours of ships. However, the most logical sounding one to me is the pegs in a tankard.



This 18th century tankard had pegs and the idea was that you drank from one peg to another and then passed the tankard on. If you took more than your fair share you were taking your fellow drinker down a peg or two.

(The reason the tankard had a lid was to stop the press gang drugging your drink and carrying you off to sea.)

Googol

There cannot be many people who use a computer who don’t know what Google is – the largest search engine in the world (and provider of this blog space). But what is a googol?

A googol is the large number ten to the power one hundred or the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros (in decimal representation). The term was coined in 1938 by Milton Sirotta (1929–1980), nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. Kasner popularized the concept in his book “Mathematics and the Imagination” (1940).


You need a lot more lemmings than this to make a googol!

Papilionaceous

papilionaceous (adj.) Having a bilaterally symmetrical corolla somewhat resembling a butterfly, characteristic of most plants of the pea family. (Papilio is a genus in the swallowtail butterfly family, Papilionidae.)

Prosopagnosia

Have you ever seen someone that you're sure you recognise but whose face you just can't seem to place? It's a common enough occurrence, but for some people, problems with recognising faces are a part of their daily lives. They have a condition called prosopagnosia, or face blindness, which makes them incredibly bad at recognising faces, despite their normal eyesight, memory, intelligence, and ability to recognise other objects. For more about prosopagnosia see Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Meme

A meme consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity.

It is becoming quite a commonly used word on blogs to indicate an idea, project, statement or even a question that is posted by one blog and responded to by other blogs.

Pshat

Visiting the glossary of chabad.org to look up the word ‘prat’ I noticed a superb word a little further down the page – “Pshat: the plain meaning of a scriptural passage”.

I can think of all sorts of alternative definitions for Pshat the primary meaning of which should surely be as an interjection meaning “Rubbish! Rot! Drivel!”
 

Bisous

For once I have chosen a foreign word – the lovely French word Bisous. It means kisses.
Le bisou - masculine noun - meaning a kiss.
Faire un bisou à quelqu'un - to give someone a kiss (on the cheek);
faire un petit bisou à quelqu'un - to give someone a (little) peck on the cheek ;
"Bisous" (kisses) is quite a normal way to end a letter between two friends (most commonly when it's a girl writing)
Also "gros bisous, Simon" - "love and kisses, Simon";
"gros bisous de ta mère" - "love and kisses from your mother"