Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

Katya wrote:The anchor whispered that he suspected the minister's daughter was a barley child, not realizing that his lavalier was still live.

I would like Katya to write a short story with this as her prompt. GO.

picaresque - of or relating to an episodic style of fiction dealing with the adventures of a rough and dishonest but appealing hero

Source: A friend's blog post discussing historical fiction, in general.


The hero of the picaresque novel was a roguish fellow, but he eventually settled down and married the heroine, who gave birth to a barley child.

Fachchinesisch
A perjorative term for technical terminology. (lit. discipline-Chinese) Basically a synonym for argot.

"There's nothing like a picaresque story brimming with Fachchinesisch and fighting!" said the tech geek to his humanities writing assignment partner.

vagary - an unexpected and inexplicable change in a situation or in someone's behavior

Our boss had always had a profound disdain for Fachchinesisch, but last month, due to some vagary, he began peppering his presentations with jargon.

Makes me think of the pointy-haired boss

scrivener: scribe, writer

"Vagary! A gravy connoisseur curses onion." notes scrivener on invert recess.

I like anagrams.

peristeronic, adj. - relating to or concerned with pigeons; suggestive of pigeons.

This is the OED word of the day and it's probably the best I've seen. Now I need to find a way to use it in conversation...

haptic - Of or relating to the sense of touch, in particular relating to the perception and manipulation of objects using the senses of touch and proprioception.


The scrivener relied on haptic feedback to properly hold his pen as he copied the volume on peristeronic poetry.

tomography - a technique for displaying a representation of a cross section through a human body or other solid object using X-rays or ultrasound


Using tomography, the sculptor created a model of the human spine, which provided haptic feedback for the blind students.

Euphobia: The fear of hearing good news

After the computerized axial tomography scan, Jon, a lifelong sufferer of euphobia, gripped his chair and just prayed the doctor didn't come in all smiley saying "Everything looks fine!"

ostranenie - the artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or strange way in order to enhance perception of the familiar. (From the Russian word остранение, as used by the Russian Formalists.)


Pasha found that ostranenie was an effective technique in combating her euphobia: by presenting the good news in a strange and twisted way, its paralyzing effects were eliminated.

tohubohu - chaos, confusion

After the ensuing tohubohu of Pasha's adventures in ostranenie, making good news bad, she started unconsciously making bad news good, causing her euphobia to give birth to a complementary heightened fear of bad news.

abstemious - not self-indulgent, especially when eating and drinking


The quiet, abstemious environment of the Zen meditation retreat was a stark contrast to the tohubohu of regular working life.

menhir - a large upright standing stone, also known as a standing stone, orthostat, lith or masseba/matseva

etymology - French, from Middle Breton: maen, "stone" and hir, "long"


The druid spent an abstemious week in preparation for the ceremony at the menhir.

scrim - strong, coarse fabric, chiefly used for heavy-duty lining or upholstery

(I was familiar with this word in the more technical theater sense, but I didn't realize it had a general meaning, as well.)


For his next project, Christo decided to drape a menir with scrim.

landaulet - a small landau (Really helpful. ); a car with a folding hood over the rear seats

source - An article about the history of the popemobile


The bolt of scrim was so large they had to put down the hood of the landaulet to fit it into the car.

Kinsley gaffe: When a politician inadvertently speaks a truth he/she did not intend to admit.

Speaking from his gold-plated landaulet, Trump got a little too comfortable in his speech and let out the Kinsley gaffe "..and of course I wouldn't survive a day in the Hanoi Hilton, let alone five years and passing up a chance to get out earlier, but that's not the point.."

Susurrus: whispering, murmuring, or rustling.
"the susurrus of the stream"

Found it in in an article about Zola and Cézanne. Assumed it was the same as the French, and I was right.

A susurrus went thorugh the audience at Trump's latest baldfaced Kinsley gaffe.

Kevin Spacey joked that when Frank Underwood cuts away to explain his treachery or true feelings, he's speaking to one and only one person, Donald Trump source

quaff

verb tr., intr.: To drink deeply.
noun: An alcoholic drink; also the act of drinking.

Their smooth quaffing was interrupted by a gargling susurrus down the line when the cantina bartender calmly pronounced "Luke, I am your father."