It's a grey, cold, blustery, rainy morning here in Valhalla. 
I woke late and was afraid poor Umlaut would be, not just starving for his morning meal, but soaked to the bone. Now, so's ya know, I've got Rocco's old cat house, lined with clean flannel rags and covered in a fat rubber raincoat. He could be warm-ish AND, most def, dry but he doesn't use the damn thing. Why not? Have I not made it appealing with, on top of all else, that little rug scrap just outside the entrance? Cozy, n'est-ce pas?Maybe he's related, somehow, to our old beastie B.O.P. (Big Orange Pumpkin) who absolutely relished nasty-ass weather – the more nor'easter-y the better.
Our boy Umlaut managed to find a non-cat house spot out of the rain. He was OK and got extra salmon feast because....of course he did! Cat doormat here, remember?
I've recently come across a few words which've pricked my 'the hell? reaction. They are:
Pantofle is a noun. A pantofle is a slipper.
I first read that as stripper not slipper which made perfect sense to yurs truly. Ya see, I’d misread the word as pantoful and assumed it was related to the word panto – short for pantomime OR pant as in ”he was so excited that he was actually panting.” Then there’s the suffix -ful meaning full of or characterized by so OF COURSE I got from there to stripper. You’d get there too, wouldn't you? You can see my lexemic peregrination, right? Sure ya do!
The example sentence just reinforced my misapprehension.
“I’ve lost a pantofle!” he whispered desperatelyWhy would you whisper desperately about losing footwear? Would you not be more acutely freaked over losing your stripper? Maybe enough to bomb another country? Of course, that may only happen when/if you’ve lost control of your own urine soaked narrative.
~ Sally Watson, The Outrageous Oriel
Carking is an adjective meaning causing distress or worry.
As in:
fate had not smiled on him … he was beset by carking troubles and anxieties
~Max Beerbohm
We went to the aquarium and the damn dolphins erupted in clamorous carking every time we passed their pool. It’s as though they KNEW my purse was stuffed with mackerel.Truckle is a verb meaning to submit or yield obsequiously or tamely.
At first, I thought the word was somehow related to treacle, the British word for molasses. It really kinda is. Treacle can also mean cloying sentimentality or flattery.
So, spineless, pop tart brained sycophants like Mike Pompeo, Jeff “Keebler Elf” Sessions, Tom Price, Devin Nunes (mega sadly, the list goes on and on), eagerly truckle to this horror show man and pour buckets of treacly praise on him.
Manic Monday– The Bangles
I saw the word "carking" in something I was reading a while back (although it's a rare enough word that my browser has identified it as misspelled).
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, the term in the book was "carking dread." Which I liked so much as a phrase that I've accidentally referred to the show "The Walking Dead" as "The Carking Dread" more than once now.
"Pantofle" was a new one for me. I assumed it was a Shakespeare character.
Yes! Pantofle def sounds like one of Shakespeare's folks. Maybe a comedic minor player.
DeleteThe Carking Dead – LOVE it!
Hope the carking weather isn't getting Umlaut too down!
ReplyDelete😁
DeleteI would have interpreted "pantoful" as a small pan of tofu, but that's just me. As a carking, I hate to see the big semis truckle down the freeway. They take up way too much space.
ReplyDeleteYou can't expect Umlaut to be around all the time. He must keep pretty busy hovering over various letters to indicate a front vowel.
I'm, quite possibly, the only one I know who'll get excited at the idea of small pans of tofu – "oooo, how ya gonna season it? how ya gonna cook it? grilled? LOVE grilled tofu!"
DeleteUmlaut – yes, he's so busy with the vowel hovering. Poor, overworked schöner Löwe. Oops, just made more work for him.