Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

erg - An area of shifting dunes in the Sahara.

(It's also a unit of work, but I was already familiar with that meaning.)

Katya wrote:

C is for wrote:

Katya wrote:hermeneutics - The branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, esp. of the Bible or literary texts.

"Others place primary emphasis on the reasoning of post-apostolic theologians or on biblical hermeneutics and exegesis." - D. Todd Christofferson

(I'm guessing that's not where you found the word?)

Heh, no, I found it in the BYU library catalog when I was looking up Book of Mormon-related subject headings.

I have to look up hermeneutics every time I see it.

Katya wrote:erg - An area of shifting dunes in the Sahara.

I always think of Dune when I see erg used in the desert sense. (Actually, that may be the only time I've seen it used in the desert sense...)

riparian (adj.)
Of, pertaining to, or situated or dwelling on the bank of a river or other body of water: riparian villas.

Found in jurisdictional disputes section of Wikipedia article on Liberty Island.

Yarjka wrote:riparian (adj.)
Of, pertaining to, or situated or dwelling on the bank of a river or other body of water: riparian villas.

Found in jurisdictional disputes section of Wikipedia article on Liberty Island.

Strange that Theodora expressed absolutely no concern over riparian situations in the most recent movie.

The term "SNATIATION" was coined by Judith G. Hall. The term is a backronym created from a portmanteau of the words sneeze and satiation. It stands for Sneezing Non-controllably At a Time of Indulgence of the Appetite—a Trait Inherited and Ordained to be Named.
(source)

hootenanny - An informal gathering with folk music and sometimes dancing.

Sadly, the origin of this word is unknown.

Katya wrote:hootenanny - An informal gathering with folk music and sometimes dancing.

Sadly, the origin of this word is unknown.

My very southern grandmother says this a lot.

Emiliana wrote:

Katya wrote:hootenanny - An informal gathering with folk music and sometimes dancing.

Sadly, the origin of this word is unknown.

My very southern grandmother says this a lot.

It is a word I'd heard before, but I didn't know the exact meaning.

Emiliana wrote:

Katya wrote:hootenanny - An informal gathering with folk music and sometimes dancing.

Sadly, the origin of this word is unknown.

My very southern grandmother says this a lot.

My wife's family has a German pancake recipe that has been used for several generations with the name 'hootenanny'. It's fun to tell people that we will be having a hootenanny with lots of syrup!

Yarjka wrote:My wife's family has a German pancake recipe that has been used for several generations with the name 'hootenanny'. It's fun to tell people that we will be having a hootenanny with lots of syrup!

My mom made us hootenanny growing up, too, though I'm not sure where she got it from.

Snakehead -- someone who smuggles people from China into another country; the Chinese equivalent of a Mexican coyote.

Found in Chen v. Gonzales, 470 F.3d 1131 (5th Cir. 2006).

I learned that from the movie Premium Rush! Good old Mr. Gordon-Levitt, teaching me all the cool words.

Thaumavore: a creature that eats magic.

Mediatisation - The subsumption of one monarchy into another monarchy in such a way that the ruler of the annexed state keeps his sovereign title and, sometimes, a measure of local power.

Dhimmitude is a neologism borrowed from the French language. It is derived by adding the productive suffix -tude to the Arabic noun dhimmi, which refers to a non-Muslim subject of an Islamic state.

Found in a quote in Diana West's recklessly conservative The Death of the Grown-Up.

alembic - an alchemical still consisting of two vessels connected by a tube.

Source: A New Yorker article about absinthe!

oh, I'm actually familiar with that one from a Nabokov novel, but had completely forgotten what it meant.

tendentious - Expressing or intending to promote a particular cause or point of view, esp. a controversial one: "a tendentious reading of history".

Numismatics, from an article about a $2M to $5M 1913 Liberty Head nickel. It means coin collecting.