Potty Humour

because they are mostly funny

Pwn Your Mistakes

Although Wikipedia offers variations on the pronunciation, I have it on good authority*:

pwned is pronounced owned

like the word it was meant to be in the first place.
Or, if the defeat is particularly impressive: owned with a capital P.

The increasing mainstream usage of pwn and its offshoots would once have been labeled a massive spellcheck fail by every proofreader and their dictionary. But the typo was picked up and repeated, owned in a more traditional sense and then shared, and shared again.

The ironic success of this small mistake is just one of many reasons to own our missteps, consider them out of context, and wonder:

what if?

What if I had fun with this?
What if this could be useful?
What if this is an answer to a different question?


*Yes, Six. And yes, his authority comes from large chunks of time spent gaming.

image source

Name Changer

Something to consider if you ever have the opportunity to name someone or something:

In this clip Mark Forsyth aka The Inky Fool makes a great observation : history changes a word far more than a word can change history.

What or who we name today may not hold true to our association or definition in the days after tomorrows. That's the nature of language. It's what keeps it interesting. 

All the same, I find myself quietly hoping that Katie won't someday be synonymous with the blue rinse and bingo cruise terrain currently ruled by Betty and Edna.

Even if that is what I'll be doing for kicks in my later years because I do rather like the idea of pale blue hair.

Doing What I Can

Do what you can with what you have where you are.
~ Theodore Roosevelt

These are words to live by. I know this, not just because Roosevelt said them (and MacGyver usually swears by them) but because they are printed in Baskerville; the typeface of truth.

 via Instagram

Happy Things

From Lisa Congdon's beautiful project, 365 Days of Hand Lettering.

Delightfully lettered:
Tempting nouns and other inviting words,
 drawn from a thoughtful book.

 So. Much. Goodness.

Have you put the kettle on yet?

source

No Recall

Last week I mentioned  how much I like george as a common noun. Usually once I write down a shiny word we both go our separate merry ways until we meet again. Not this time. Writing it down was not enough.  Nor was starting a small collection of georges. This word just keeps hanging around.

Did I need to see it in a dictionary perhaps?

So I submitted george to the dictionary that publishes almost anything. Unfortunately they do publish almost anything.

When I read Urban Dictionary's other definitions of george, I both vomited a little in my mouth and felt serious misgivings about Six and Anton's george definition in such company. But it's too late; there's no recall button and george won't be the first to spend time in a less than ideal location. At least definition #7 (a US 1 dollar note) will be grateful for the company.

Definition #7

Uncapitalised george can go further though.
And by further I mean: Why not all the way into the hallowed electronic pages of...

The Oxford English Dictionary.

Yes. There's some ground to cover.
I am of a mind to cover that ground. 

P.S.
TRUE or FALSE. Facts from the Urban Dictionary:

a) There are some 3681 males named George
    compensating for something with the vote button.
b) At least 2840 teenagers of both sexes are in 'love'
    with someone named George.
c) A US$1 note is nicknamed a george
d) That is all. True story.

EDIT:
P.P.S So 'almost anything' does not include our george. Submission rejected and I admit to more than a little relief...though I do feel sorry for lonesome definition #7 - it remains the only inoffensive george in the UD.

image source

The George Backstory

When Six was ten years old, his dad moved to Cremorne. This meant Six spent most all of his free days on Cremorne Beach with Anton. Anton, was about the same age, lived two doors away, and he's still one of Six's best mates. Anyways, apart from playing cricket, riding their BMXs, fishing, learning how to swim, surf, and other beachy pastimes, Anton and Six also threw clumps of dry sand at each other.

Four years go by and one day, during an innings of sand clump throwing, one of them looks at the clump in his hand and asks,

What is this actually called?

More than two decades on, all Six recalls is that (i) the question was asked and (ii) a suitable name emerged from the banter that followed it.

What I remember is that, shortly after we started seeing each other, (iii) Six took me camping for a weekend at Stumpys Bay. And while sitting together on the beach, doing our best to ignore the bracing wind, he picked up a small clump of sand and asked,

Did you know that there's a name for these?

Did you?
One name is george; a perfectly quirky fit for the fragile, oddly shaped everyday phenomenon of a dry clump of sand.

All the Georges

I tend to think of Six as more of a numbers man than a word lover. But that's one-eyed because he is kinda wordly.
(Exhibit A) At age 14 he was asking incisive questions of the English language:

like, what's the name for a clump of sand,
y'know like, besides a clump of sand?

(Exhibit B) During that same conversation Six was co-creator of an excellent answer:

a george

plural: georges

Twenty-five years on and george is still a worthy term for the humble sand clump. Sand ball just doesn't quite capture it. So this weekend is looking good for george-spotting. I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

image source 

EDIT 28/07/2012: After recalling and posting about the georges, I asked Six about the name, again. This is a more contextual history of how it came to be.

Qualiaed

Have you ever looked at a mobile from underneath?

Today's Dictionary.com Word introduced me to a noun that was deceptively simple in appearance:

qualia
(kwah-lee-uh)

Nice, right?
It looks promisingly succinct; compact yet elegant, and it sounds poetic to boot. It is the plural of

quale
(kwah-lee) 

and what is a quale? 

1. A quality, as bitterness, regarded as an independent object.
2. A sense-datum or feeling having a distinctive quality.

Right. Kind of.
Actually, no. I wasn't getting it. Such a lovely word and I was unable to use it with confidence in a sentence.
Turning to Wikipedia for clarification, I found Daniel Dennett's winning definition:

qualia ~ the ways things seem to us

Now isn't that a definition far more worthy of the word?

It reminded me of how some things can benefit from more qualia than just our own. 

image source

Glass Beach

I like the Tanzanian proverb poster doing the rounds this week:

Little by little,
a little becomes a lot.

This is true for the good and the bad.
Glass Beach, in California, became a big rubbish tip after a continuous tide of people dumped waste at the coastal site for almost 20 years. Over the following 30 years Nature gradually reclaimed her turf and, with a little help from humans at the shiny end, it is now a sparkling example of upcycling - not to mention a protected area of MacKerricher State Park.

small glass jewels

Zugzwang

Because sometimes we just find ourselves in a zugzwang. And these positions can be the ones we learn the most from:

Although here I still see a makeable move
before it ends in tears -
top middle, no?

zugzwang  (ˈtsuːktsvaŋ)
— n
1.	a position in which one player can move only with loss or severe disadvantage
— vb
2.	( tr ) to manoeuvre (one's opponent) into a zugzwang
[from German, from Zug  a pull, tug + Zwang  force, compulsion]

sources:
via Brain Pickings
image
definition

Overtising

Watching Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows tonight, I appreciated the humour in the dialogue and the truth in these words:

It’s so overt it’s covert ~ Sherlock Holmes (on advertising).

I agree. Too much, too loud, and/or in-my-face advertising of anything works incredibly well - if you want me to ignore your message.

Friends Don't...

Friends don't let friends misspell cologne.

Friends do let friends upcycle art sourced from op shops.

image credit with before & after pics here

Cologne link via fritinancy.

Monster art via Things I Think Are Kinda Cool.

Donuts on Unicorn Horns

via George Takei

That's one seriously appreciative kid. Talk about raising the bar for showing gratitude. Fried dough served from alicorns is pretty hard to compete with. If you're wondering, you can check out the picture he drew here.

The King's Speech

I admit I am easily impressed by a well verbed noun. Although Colin Firth is the main reason I finally got around to seeing The King's Speech, David Seidler's scripting ties for 1st place in the 'Aspects of the Film I Enjoyed Most' stakes.

Duke of York (Colin Firth): I've been trying to see you...
King Edward VIII (Guy Pearce): I've been terribly busy.
Duke of York: Doing what?
King Edward VIII : Kinging.

The royally verbed noun is in such witty company, this warmhearted drama gets 5 out of 5 pocket whip cracks from me - perhaps not quite the cherry on the cakeful of BAFTAs, Oscars, 5 stars and critical acclaim already sitting on its plate.

via

A Jewel Among Men

MW's daily Word of the Day, loquacious (ie the politer version of, and more diplomatic term for, long winded), brings to mind a timely recollection of a man, William Safire - who worked with words as an author, columnist, lexicographer, journalist, and presidential speech writing lover of language - and his memorable compilation of grammatical guidelines; a list of writing rules to pen by; a collected fumblerules of grammar.
Specifically and in particular I refer to #46 on his classic and well loved list:

Don't be redundant;
don't use more words than necessary;
it's highly superfluous.

via

Bravo Sir and Amen to that!

Scrabble Letters

Four Magnetic Elements

 

My first Etsy purchase

arrived today:

Four words as fridge magnets.

For which I have one:

Delightful.

Hello Een

via words & eggs

plus one for the history poster buffs:

via the presurfer

Transmedia Strategy

Everybody should have one. This one is mine:

Incentivising real-world audience behaviours using cloudsourced fiction injection

compliments of  whatthefuckismytransmediastrategy
via boing boing.

Potty mouth aside, I totally rate this strategy generator. What is your transmedia mouthful?