random vocabulophilia

[freckles_and_doubt]

Words With Which To Confuse An Evil Landlord: graunch. To damage, somewhat wholesalely, as in "Gosh, those death knights are really graunching your cavaliers, aren't they?" Used often by my father in the context of falconry. Apparently of British dialect origin. Anyone else actually familiar with this word? or is it one of the more obscure bits of Britishness inflicting my colonial family?

Expressions Which Have Sadly Fallen Into Disuse: "Aw, nerts!" This is a slightly more British schoolboy version of "Bollocks", with an additional undertone of finger-pointing derision. Suggested contexts for its use: to depress pretension, thusly:
EXTEMP: ... self-consciousness postmodernism genre blah blah ...
ONLOOKER: Aw, nerts!

I am having an Irritating Day, TM. Wish me luck.

Comments

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

Graunch - introduced to me by DH, who uses it of stuff getting badly scarred eg: the chisel slipped & graunched that surface. Also cars.

All the best with your day!

[schedule5.livejournal.com]

While not a word I typically use, it is one I would understand. Also, I'd probably use it when seeing a car wrapped round a pole - as in, "OMG! That's completely graunched."

But then, my family is pretty colonial too :).

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

The word seems best to apply to metal, or else to flesh. It suggests that a solid/unified surface must be unpleasantly assaulted. I couldn't, for example, graunch my knitting. I'd have to shred it.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

p.s. I keep forgetting to tell you - EL and I have variously searched the house, but have unearthed no foreign cream trousers. This may simply mean that Florence has hidden them somewhere arcane, but probably not, she's generally good about cupboards.

[schedule5.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the search. :). Although my mind is really boggled now - how does one lose a pair of trousers - they can't be eaten by the washing machine, like socks.... and I can't think of anywhere else I may have taken them off.

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

A lot of Zimbabweans, particularly of the older generation, seem to use "graunch" - my Dad uses it frequently.

[scroobious (from livejournal.com)]

Rather than luck, I wish you Earl Grey, chocolate, gin (eventually) and kittens. Potent anti-irritants all.

Nice words.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Those are much better things than insomnia, traffic, recalcitrant departments, misbehaving tutors and a headache, which are the particular irritants in question. Chocolate. Actually, idea. May have to wander out and hit a vending machine.

You have achieved yourself an identity recognised by LJ! Congrats!

oh, and have you got your hands on the kid mohair yet? hope you like it.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

identity recognised by LJ - OpenId is a lovely thing, in interactive scenarios anyway.

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Graunch: I know it, but from you rather than family, I think. If Jane Austen didn't use a word, it's possible my mother doesn't know it. Genteel, my mum. My dad was more prone to use odd Scottish words than odd south-of-the-border expressions.

"Aw, nerts" I do not know at all. See above.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

"Aw, nerts" is, I think, 1920s slang, and rather vulgar at that. I'm trying desperately to remember the literary context in which it first charmed me, but no dice. Curse this insomnia, my brain is cheese.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

ooh! but I'm now the sixth hit on Google if you search for the phrase...

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

"graunch" I know. I expected to find it in the hacker's dictionary, but apparently it's not one of those words. So it must come from elsewhere.

"Aw, nerts!" I do dot know. is "nerts" not just an obscure pronunciation of "nuts"?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

You are, indeed, correct, sir. I just prefer the sound of "nerts" - more obscurely rude.

Started Someone Comes To Town yesterday, btw. It's insane. And wonderful.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Yes. I thought about warning you that it wasn't Doctrow's standard cyberpunky stuff, more like contemporary urban fantasy. But then I decided to let you find out for yourself.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

ooh, kitten! Now I've obediently achieved all of scroob's list except the gin. Still irritated, though. Maybe I need repeat applications.

Contemporary urban weird, perhaps. Slipstream. A word which operates in certain circles like a bleeding Tom Cruise tossed to sharks.

[starmadeshadow.livejournal.com]

Have often used graunched. Yesterday, in fact ('After a day of tutoring, dear god I feel graunched').

Good luck with the Irritating Day...

[dragonroost.livejournal.com]

Yup, i find it very accurate when explaining to the car hire people what i did to their very expensive alloy rims =)

[stringgeek.livejournal.com]

Yay for expansion of my vocabulary! And graunch has such a lovely sound to it. No one over here will have any idea what it means, but it's too lovely not to use. :-)

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

It's beautifully onomatopoeic, isn't it? grrrrrraunch. Sounds like rending metal.

I hope your day is improving, btw. Your last couple of posts were unacceptably sad.

[veratiny.livejournal.com]

I am a frequent user... normally in the context of sewing!

My Dad went to Peterhouse.. so I is pretty colonial myself... but that being said I learnt it from my mother who is Saffa through and through being descended from the first English speaking settler in SA (there is a modest statue somewhere and most people don't know his name.. I do however being related and all).

I use it to refer to the moment when the fabric is dragged into the bobbin hole making a massive big ball of cotton, frustration and fabric which I am forced to extract with teeth, tears and scissors.

There is no other word I know to describe that moment...

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

Aaaarrrggh! I well know that feeling. Blooming sewing machines!